Dear Alan

Long time no speak. I notice that you have recently updated your website with the "Howard Vyse Challenge", based on your continued insistence that the Khufu quarry marks are forgeries and that the Great Pyramid is far older than the orthodoxy suggests:

"My challenge to supporters of the orthodox attribution of the Great Pyramid is this. Find the Howard Vyse diaries and show them to me. If I cannot find at least three incriminating statements in those diaries, I will drop my argument that the inscriptions are forged."

When Chris and I were writing G:TT you and I had some fairly lengthy private debate on this issue, as I am sure you will remember. I also recall that you promised to rip my arguments to shreds, or words to that effect, once the book was published. I have been most disappointed that this promised rebuttal has never emerged, even though over a year has passed since G:TT first came out.

I have no idea whether you have actually read G:TT or even have a copy, but for what it is worth my extremely detailed rebuttal of Sitchin's original forgery allegations can be found on pp. 94-108, while my add ional comments on your slightly revised allegations are on pp. 110-13.

One aspect that I think deserves emphasis is contained in the following extract about your work from G:TT:

"...we should point out that wherever he quotes Vyse, his source is Leonard Cottrell’s The Mountains of Pharaoh, published in 1956; and in fact he makes no secret of the fact that, despite championning the anti-Vyse cause and engaging in a sometimes fierce and very public ongoing debate with Stower on the Internet, he has never actually read Vyse’s Operations for himself! Although he defends this omission by suggesting that in order to retain his independent stance as 'Devil’s advocate' he does not want to be indoctrinated by Vyse’s 'propaganda', we can only suggest that this is a highly unusual departure from the standard approach to scholarly research which, at best, shows a premeditated bias towards the available evidence."

Just to clarify this, I am referring to the massively detailed three-volume work Operations Carried out on the Pyramids of Gizeh (James Frazer, London, 1840-2), compiled by Vyse and his highly competent colleague John Perring.

Accordingly, in the best possible spirit of intellectual debate amongst fellow researchers, I would like to issue a counter challenge to you ...

THE ALAN ALFORD "THOROUGH RESEARCH" CHALLENGE

Instead of emphasising to your supporters that there is something frightfully amiss in the fact that the source journals from which Vyse prepared Operations have not yet been traced, why don't you get on a train, travel to London, go to the British Library (I am sure you will be a member) and ask the extremely helpful staff to bring up the aforementioned volumes to your desk. Then sit there for three days solid and make notes on the contents, as I did. And then provide a detailed counter-refutation of the arguments I have put forward in G:TT.

As someone who has travelled extensively all over the world to conduct research, I am sure this short trip will not present you with too many problems. Of course, if you have already followed my advice from some time back and actually read Operations by now, then skip the first bit and go straight to the refutation.

For what it is worth, I think your suggestions that proper photos should be taken of the marks in the Relieving Chambers, especially where they appear to travel round and behind the joins, are eminently sensible, as is the idea of carbon-dating the ochre. This would indeed help to resolve the issue once and for all. Chris and I have tried to procure such photographic evidence ourselves, having had insufficient time to locate the relevant marks amidst the plethora of graffiti when we entered the Relieving Chambers to investigate the rumours of secret tunnelling - incidentally another complete fabrication. Indeed we contacted Mark Lehner about this very issue some time back, but without any success. However we do not put this down to any conspiracy. It is far more likely that the people "on the ground" are extremely busy, and well aware of the profusion of additional (albeit sometimes circumstantial) evidence that continues to mount up to support the orthodox dating of the GP; they therefore probably have more important things to do. Perhaps you should try to raise the funds to get out there and check the chambers for yourself - although I have to say that your continued suggestions of conspiracy on the part of everyone from Vyse and Perring to Hancock and West will not help you to be taken seriously.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say, and of course I will print any reply on my website as I will this email.

Hope you are keeping well

Best, Ian