Nadija Nukic is the name of the geologist who, at a time, was "coordinator of the Committee for Geology" (en) in Mr. Osmanagic’s Foundation. She is the author of the reports on the probe holes and drillings made in 2005 at Semir Osmanagic’s request, and she stayed in the Foundation as the team’s chief geologist during the first half of 2006. Then she mysteriously disappeared from the Foundation news at the end of the summer 2006, at about the same time that Senad Hodovic, director of the Visoko Museum, also left the team. Since that time she was not heard of, till her recent come-back to the "pyramids" scene when she gave an interview, published on the 30th of November 2007 in the Bosnian magazine BHDani (bs) (the BHDani archives are not open, but a copy of the interview can be seen on Stultitia’s blog (bs)). Let’s note, by the way, that BHDani is the only one, among the Bosnian newspapers - that are content with pasting the Foundation press releases without any criticism - , which regularly published critical articles, interviews with real archaeologists like Anthony Harding and Zilka Kujundzic-Vejzagic, and made a real investigating work about some of the most disputable features of the pyramids affair, for instance about the links between Mr. Osmanagic and his Foundation and some New Age and cultist groups.
Ms. Nukic’s interview, given to the journalist and historian Vuk Bacanovic, contains some interesting informations about the ways and means of the Osmanagic team; not many real eye-openers in fact, but the confirmation of some facts that have already been pointed by the project opponents.
Unpublished reports
One of these facts is that the Foundation never published some of the scientific reports it ordered. Ms. Nukic mentions two such reports; one was written by Dr. Enes Ramovic, geodetic engineer and director of a company named GEO ETA. He is said to have made for the Foundation a report on the Pljesevica -the "pyramid of the Moon"- probe holes ; according to Ms. Nukic, this report was sent back to him by Mr. Osmanagic in order that he could "correct" it and make some modifications, and was however never published.
The other "missing" report is actually Ms. Nukic’s one, made in the beginning of autumn in 2005 at the time the first geologic drillings were made. Ms. Nukic is confirming in this interview the fact - that I had already supposed last year - that she made two reports, one about the three superficial probe holes, the other about the six deep drill-holes. If the first one was actually published (bs) on the Foundation website and translated (en) in English [1], the second one, according to Ms. Nukic was never published, neither on the Foundation site nor elsewhere. She is also confirming that her colleagues in Tuzla University have had this report, and that they correctly pointed in their own report (bs) the way Mr. Osmanagic, in his book "The Bosnian pyramid of the Sun" (bs), misused this report (by creating geological "anomalies" where Ms. Nukic saw nothing but normal). What is more, she says that the Egyptian geologist Barakat has not been able to read this report, the English translation having also mysteriously "disappeared".
As an answer to the publication of this interview, the Foundation published a denial (bs) on the 3rd of December, claiming that Ms. Nukic’s report has been published and translated on the website, and re-publishing (bs) in the news page this report which has always been present in the scientific reports page. However, the report presented as proof that Ms. Nukic is lying is not the missing report, but rather the first one, on the superficial probe-holes, which Ms. Nukic never claimed to have disappeared. The second report was not and is not published on the Foundation website, and the "denial" written by Mr. Osmanagic is just trying to sow confusion between the two reports. On the other hand, the disappearance of Dr. Ramovic’s report is totally "forgotten" in this denial. And a new article (bs) (pasted (bs) on Stultitia’s blog), published on the 7th of December in BHDani next issue, mentions at least two other non-published reports, one by the archaeologist Silvana Cobanov, and one by the geologist Stjepan Coric. One may suppose that if these various reports had confirmed Mr. Osmanagic’s hypothesis, they would have been published, with lots of exclamation marks, on the Foundation website...
Skeletons and proto-alphabet
Ms. Nukic also mentions in this interview a few other "disappearances": first, the skeleton found in a probe-hole in 2005, which was apparently sent to London for analysis. Ms. Nukic never obtained the results of this supposed analysis, and seems to believe that the reason is that the age of the skeleton was not suiting to Mr. Osmanagic. On the other hand, Mr. Osmanagic claims, in his "denial", that he himself never obtained the results, but that, as the skeleton was found near the surface, it is totally uninteresting, not being related with the "pyramid" builders...
Ms. Nukic mentions another interesting probe hole on Visocica, where were found, two or three meters deep, "burnt stones and organic material" along with a crinoid fossil old 300 millions years; and she explains that Mr. Osmanagic decided, against the opinion of his scientific team, to close this probe hole, and that the necessary analyses of the organic material were never made. On the whole, she says, the probe holes were opened by Mr. Osmanagic totally haphazardly, "as soon as a stone emerged on the surface", and without consulting the few scientists in the team; the presence of these scientists, Ms. Nukic seems to have understood it, was only used by Mr. Osmanagic to give the impression that some "serious work" was happening.
Something that seems to be actually unserious is Mr. Osmanagic Senior’s great discovery, the discovery of "Visoko proto-alphabet"; indeed, according to Ms. Nukic, the "symbols" engraved on a "megalith" in Ravne tunnel (an arrow, a "E" and a "M"), upon which Muris Osmanagic constructed his theory of "the world oldest alphabet", were carved... in 2006!
Ms. Nukic claims that some photographs exist, showing this same megalith without any symbol; that she saw these symbols during one of her first visits in the tunnel, and that they were evidently freshly carved [2]; and last that a Foundation worker acknowledged having carved these symbols (being the firs letters of his children’s name) for fun.
Mr. Osmanagic immediately denied (bs) these informations, claiming that the symbols were discovered by the Egyptian geologist Barakat along with Bosnian miners, and that numerous other symbols were found afterwards, all of them being described in a "scientific report" visible on the Foundation website in the part called "Iz mog ugla" (this "scientific report" being in fact a quite delirious text by Mr. Osmanagic Senior, analyzed here). However, BHDani magazine, in its last issue, not only maintains this story of symbols carved by a Foundation worker, but also gives the name of this worker, Ensad Husic, who wrote to the magazine to confirm that he actually "carved the signs in the sandstone" in Ravne tunnel "for fun" (see the post scriptum).
Excavator and money
Ms. Nukic mentions in her interview a few other events in her participation in the Foundation work. For instance, about the use of a mechanical excavator in the "excavations" on Pljesevica: "I heard of an excavator working on Pljesevica, and I immediately contacted Semir on the phone. He first told me that he knew nothing about it, when he himself was in fact behind that. When I arrived on Pljesevica and saw the 3 meters deep hole, I had a real shock. Semir just laughed and said ’what’s the matter?’" She explains that she left the project because of this kind of anti-scientific work, and after having been removed from the Management Committee for having asked for the financial report.
This interview confirms the total lack of scientific methodology in the Foundation work, and the fact that the few scientists participating in the project were used as alibi by Mr. Osmanagic. It also shows that - even if she seems to forget that she participated in the project for several months, and supported Mr. Osmanagic’s hypothesis in numerous interviews given in the 2006 spring - Ms. Nukic appears today not to be convinced at all of the existence of "pyramids" in Visoko. She describes for instance Pljesevica as a geological wonder, and explains that the sandstone "pavement" ornated with ripple-marks created by the waves could become a major tourist attraction. One could of course blame Ms. Nukic for having waited so long to tell her tale, and for having, by her silence, allowed the incontrolled expansion of pseudo-science in Bosnia. However, she is the first, among the scientists who worked for Mr. Osmanagic then left the project, to openly express her opinion in a Bosnian media, and her example could be followed by others, judging from a mail sent to BHDani by Dr. Amer Smailbegovic, of which extracts are published in the last issue (bs), and in which he clearly dissociates himself from Mr. Osmanagic’s Foundation [3].
Mr. Osmanagic’s reaction to the publication of this interview was, as one could have guessed, quite fierce. He first published on the Foundation website a denial (bs), in the form of a letter answering the questions from one of his sycophants. In this letter he gives numerous details about the financial arrangements between Ms. Nukic and the Foundation (her pay, and payments for the reports she made), he accuses her of having "used" the Foundation project for her own profit, and pretends to see in this interview only a kind of revenge from someone who hoped to get more money than she did from the Foundation. However, as shown above, this denial fails to address Ms. Nukic’s main accusations.
On the other hand, the Foundation announced, the same day Mr. Osmanagic published his denial, that they were intending to bring an action against BHDani (bs). The magazine is accused of lies and defamation, and of "having presented the research project of the valley of the Bosnian pyramids in a non-objective way". However, it is difficult to take this threat very seriously: the Foundation makes on its website an appeal for "volunteer advocates" who would accept to counsel and represent it (should we understand, by that, that they do not intend to pay their lawyers more than the "volunteers" employed in the excavations?), and gives a contact email; and they announce they are gathering all the necessary documentation [4], among which "press-clippings"... Does Mr. Osmanagic actually think he will convince a court that his project is not the pseudo-project described by BHDani, using the clippings from bad popular newspapers collected on the Foundation website? This one (bs), for instance, which describes the "green negative radiations" emitted by the "pyramid of the Sun" and its pseudo-medical properties (an Austrian visitor is said to have been cured from cancer after a walk on Visocica...)?
Well, I do not think that BHDani director ought to worry much about this possible trial. However, I would personally have loved to see Mr. Osmanagic trying to prove to the court that his project is serious by way of crystal skulls, revolutionnary gadgets, drawings of giant "radiators" or "oscillators" (bs), and other pseudo-artifacts...