A SHIPLEY man and amateur scientist claims he has deciphered an ancient stone found on Baildon Moor showing the oldest record of a supernova in the world.

Gordon Holmes has been studying the ancient carvings for many decades. His latest theory relates to the Heygate Stone dating back around 5,000 years and donated to Bradford Council’s Museums, Galleries and Heritage Service for safe-keeping after being found by a local landowner in 2001. It went on permanent public view at Brackehall, Shipley Glen, in 2006.

“For nearly fifty years I have tried to interpret the many stone carving examples found across West Yorkshire’s Moors,” said Mr Holmes.It is not some sort of highly advance, academic thing, rather it is more about reading the mind of a Bronze Age artist.

“The startling common factor about the Baildon carved patterns is those examined C&R stones represent astronomical objects and their relative movements. In other words, these rocks are star maps.

“It was 2017 when I deciphered my 6th Baildon carving that turned out to be a selfie of the ancient astronomical artist. So just a few days ago I thought I should try to decipher the Heygate Stone. Of the many constellations existing in the Northern Hemisphere, only three of them closely resembled the Heygate Stone, these are: Auriga, Cepheus and Ophuchus. Supernovae have occurred near or within all three constellations over the centuries but, the Ophuchus one is far too old at 90,000 years. The Cepheus supernova is too recent (less than 1,000 years). The constellation that not only closely resembles the actual cup and ring stone is Auriga. The Supernova HBH9 is dated between 4,000 to 7,000 years old], based on my previous research, 4,220 years old (or 2,220BC) is my calculated date.

“Just to complicate the issue, there is another candidate within the constellation Auriga (named the Flaming Star Nebula) a diffused nebula C31. In the past, the area surrounding Auriga has been very active with straying stars and even cosmic material thrown out from the Orion constellation over millions of years before.

“According to human records, the earliest known supernova could be by an unknown Indian observer in 4500 years +/-1000 BC. In 185AD, Chinese astronomers observed and recorded a Supernova (bright star) that took eight months to fade.”