Table of Contents
The Why Files follows Alexander Thom, who measured stone circles and kept finding the same length, about 2.72 feet (0.83 meters), which he called the megalithic yard. Sites far apart, built across long stretches of time, are said to share that unit, right triangles from before Pythagoras, and alignments to sun and moon. The narration treats pure coincidence as weak and floats a lost source culture with mathematics and cosmic cycles, a culture it compares with Atlantis. The same number is set next to an Egyptian measure, to the repeating figure 432, and to Euler’s constant. Some circles are said to sit over faults and underground water, and to shape sound. Critics get a hearing. One archaeologist called the pattern selection bias, no marked rod has been found, and a single yard accurate to millimeters is probably not proved. Even so, the remaining puzzle is how farmers without writing raised huge stones on sky lines, and why that building stopped.
Key points
- Thom’s surveys are said to recover one length, about 2.72 feet (0.83 meters), at circles separated by great distances.
- The film treats shared geometry and sky alignment as knowledge Stone Age groups were not expected to have.
- A lost source culture, compared with Atlantis, is offered as one way the unit could have spread.
- The yard is also set beside Euler’s constant, and some circles are tied to faults, water, and sound.
- Clive Ruggles’s charge of selection bias, and the lack of a marked measuring rod, are both included.
- The narrator still asks how the stones were raised on precise sky lines, and why that work stopped.
Short quotes
Evidence of Pythagorean triangles, thousands of years before Pythagoras was born.
The Why Files, Thom's megalithic yard
Right triangles in the circles are dated long before the Greek theorem. Watch at 3:43
Yet, they all used the same 2.72 feet (0.83 meters), the same megalithic yard, with the same geometric and astronomical sophistication.
The Why Files, Thom's megalithic yard
Distant sites are said to share one length and the same sky geometry. Watch at 6:37
A civilization like Atlantis seemed like a ridiculous explanation, but Alexander Thom was just following the evidence.
The Why Files, Thom's megalithic yard
Atlantis is framed as an uncomfortable label for the pattern Thom measured. Watch at 9:51
Scientists at Edinburgh University found that stone circles often sit above underground streams and geological fault lines.
The Why Files, Thom's megalithic yard
Some circles are placed over water and faults, not only on open ground. Watch at 15:18
But, despite decades of searching, no one has found a Neolithic rod clearly marked with a measurement of a megalithic yard.
The Why Files, Thom's megalithic yard
The missing marked rod is the concrete objection the film leaves standing. Watch at 22:31
Video by The Why Files. Watch on YouTube.