According to fringe researchers and alleged military whistleblowers, global conflicts in the Middle East may harbor a deeply classified, esoteric motive. In 2011, alternative historian Stephen Quayle claimed on the radio program Coast to Coast AM that United States military scientists had discovered an ancient, fully intact flying machine trapped inside a cave in Afghanistan. Referred to as a Vimana, the attempted extraction of this ancient craft allegedly resulted in the mysterious disappearance of at least eight American soldiers. Quayle asserts that global superpowers are currently engaged in a covert technological race to acquire and reverse-engineer this suppressed aerospace machinery. The Vimanas of the Sanskrit Epics The concept of the Vimana does not originate from modern science fiction, but rather from some of the oldest recorded literature on Earth. In ancient Sanskrit epics like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, dating back thousands of years, Vimanas are explicitl...