Wednesday afternoon, BuzzFeed unearthed footage of a 1998 commencement speech delivered by Ben Carson at Andrews University in which the Republican hopeful claimed that scientists believe the pyramids were built by aliens, but that he believes they were built by the biblical Joseph in order to store grain.
"When you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons," he said.
"And various of the scientists have said, ‘Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how,’ you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you."
However, he continued, "my own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. Now all the archaeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves."
"But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it -- and I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain."
When the retired neurosurgeon was asked about his comments last night by CBS News, he confirmed that he still, in fact, believes that the pyramids were grain silos. "It's still my belief, yes," he said, before referring the network to the account of the "years of plenty" in the Book of Genesis.
"The pyramids were made in a way that they had hermetically sealed compartments," he said. "You would need that if you were trying to preserve grain for a long period of time."
Watch the entire 1998 commencement speech below via YouTube.
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