15 year-old schoolboy pulls an Indy: Discovers ancient Mayan city by studying star charts from bedro
(Photo:Canadian Space Agency/Facebook)
Discover Ancient Civilization Before Prom? Check Ay.
What can you do with internet-pulled constellation charts and Google Maps? A precocious 15-year-old schoolboy wowed more than just his pee-wee hockey teammates when he literally traced stars and moved mountains from his cozy Quebec bedroom. William Gadoury is more than just your everyday hormonal teenager that gets anxious over his dreamy lab-partner while ordering acne-cream by the gallon on Amazon. Fascinated by the ancient Mayan civilization and their (totally badass but completely wrong) 2012 doomsday prophesies, William spent hours of his free time studying the extensive online databases on known Mayan cities and their intricate diagrams of constellations. For fun.
At the tender age of 13(WTF?!!) William first noticed a correlation between the location of Mayan relics and constellations, realizing that “the most brilliant stars matched the largest Mayan cities”. This realization was a link that no archaeologist or university professor – not even Indiana Jones – had made in the centuries-old history of Mayan studies. William proceeded to study 22 sets of constellation systems known to the ancient American civilization and discerned that they matched the location of some 117 Mayan cities that span across Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
On an observation of a 23rd constellation, he found that a star was missing a corresponding city. Unlike the rest of us mortals that use Google Maps and Google Earth to find a new pizza joint or giggle over whether we can spot Area 51 via satellite imaging, William used these inconspicuous tools to project the possible location of an undiscovered Mayan city hidden within the lush jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula. William’s theories thoroughly impressed the Canadian Space Agency. Instead of shipping him off straight to their gift-shop, they agreed to adjust their satellite telescopes based on William’s projected location. NASA and the Japanese Space Agency also followed suit. The pictures revealed linear features distinctive enough to suggest the existence of one of the largest Mayan cities ever to be discovered.
The perks of being an explorer is that you get to name whatever it is you discover. William named his city like a Diablo expansion pack; ‘K’aak Chi’, meaning 'Mouth of Fire'. What remains is the ground verification, which proves difficult given that K’aak Chi is located in one of the most remote and densely vegetated areas of Mexico. Translation? Uber-expensive. William sounds like a Nobel laureate as he told the Journal de Montreal that “he did not understand why the Maya built the cities away from rivers, on marginal lands and in the mountains [so this finding] would be the culmination of my three years of work and the dream of my life”.
My personal hopes are that young William will personally lead the excavation to K’aak Chi. Just have Harrison Ford tag along to slay the occasional six-armed Demon of Wrath or reanimated alien corpses(face-palm to Spielberg). William on the other hand, is a true winner indeed.
