Humans have long been obsessed with the possibility of alternate universes, and a way to instantaneously travel between this one and the next. This concept was popularized by the science-fiction TV show Stargate, and as recently as 2015, NASA admitted to having spent at least a decade researching access points to places outside our world, our universe, even beyond space and time as we know it.
The term Stargate means just that: an otherworldly door or portal to outside realms, hidden within Earth’s and space’s magnetic fields, waiting to transport the enlightened traveler to a place beyond current time limitations. While space seems to be the most likely location for these doorways to other universes, many places on planet Earth have also been attributed with special transportive capabilities, as well as noticeable shifts in energy, different frequencies, and unexplained lights or sounds.
Sri Lanka’s sacred city of Anuradhapura is an unlikely place to be enmeshed in a fantastic tale of UFOs and otherworldly happenings. Locally known as Rajarata (Land of Kings), the Unesco World Heritage Site was the first established kingdom on the island (in 377 BC) and is at the heart of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist culture. Today, it’s one of the nation’s most visited places, attracting devoted pilgrims from around the country to its ancient Buddhist temples and giant dome-shaped stupas.
But this holy city is also home to something far more curious. Here, in Ranmasu Uyana (Golden Fish Park), a 40-acre ancient urban park surrounded by three Buddhist temples, is a chart that’s alleged to be a map to unlock the secrets of the Universe.
Measuring around 1.8m in diameter, Sakwala Chakraya (which translates to “Universe Cycle” in Sinhalese) is shallowly carved onto a low rock face among the protected park ruins. Its front facade can only be seen from ground level. In fact, four seats have been sculpted into a flat rock surface opposite that provide the ideal viewing area. Both the map and seats, which are also of mysterious origin, have puzzled historians, archaeologists and academics for more than a century.
When compared to other carvings from the same period such as the Sandakada Pahana, which depicts vines, swans and a lotus, all typical of Buddhist iconography, the chart is without religious context, leaving it without an obvious explanation as to why it is here.
Conspiracy theorists noted that the stargate of Anuradhapura had near-identical shapes and symbols to those found at Abu Ghurab in Egypt and La Puerta de Hayu Marka in Peru. The most striking similarity, it was said, as speculation around Sri Lanka’s stargate reached its peak, is its proximity to water. The nearby Tissa Weva reservoir, built in 300 BC, has been thrown around as conclusive evidence, since both Abu Ghurab and La Puerta de Hayu Marka were also built near water, which, according to the stargate theory, allowed extra-terrestrial beings to process gold from Earth’s water.
This otherworldly theory has been further fuelled by the chart’s proximity to Danigala mountain, also known as Alien Mountain, in the nearby sacred city of Polonnaruwa. Danigala, which lies deep in the jungle and is popular with hikers, has a unique circular shape and entirely flat top. This led internet sleuths to conclude that it must have, at one time, been used for UFO landings. Strangely, according to Sri Abeywickrama, a local tour guide, “villagers in the area do believe that Alien Mountain attracts more shooting stars and thunder and lightning above it than anywhere else.”
However, according to Somadeva, “There is little archaeologically to suggest that it’s a stargate.” Instead, Somadeva believes a more sensible conclusion is that the chart is an early map of the world, as suggested by Bell, because that explanation has religious and cosmological context that is logical, given the period and place in time.
According to Somadeva, “At least since 250 BCE, Sri Lankans had a clear idea of objects in the sky and outer space. In early Brahmi inscriptions, found in Sri Lanka, there are a number of names that refer to specific stars and concepts related to astronomy. One of the inscriptions in Kirinda, a religious and historic site on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, contains the phrase ‘aparimita loka datuya‘ meaning ‘the infinite universe’. What it suggests is that the person who engraved it had a very good understanding of the nature of the universe they lived in.”