By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Holes in the cliffside along the old Pali Highway
are a mystery.

Pali hole story a bit of
a blast for military

A couple of weeks ago we wondered what a series of holes were drilled in the excavated cliffside that frames the old Pali Highway.

Now the truth can be told. They were mooring points for captured alien flying saucers in 1947. The Air Force was keeping the saucers hidden in the clouds above Nuuanu so they could drop top-secret dummies on Roswell, N.M.

OK, not really. But we do have two solid leads, either of which might be correct:

Gerard Fryer of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology posits that the holes are core samples drilled two decades ago by University geophysicists. Why? When the original lava cools, the ferric materials in it align with the magnetic pole. Igneous rocks, unlike other rocks that get pushed around or squeezed, are still pretty much where they were laid down. This means that any variation between the current magnetic pole and the "preserved" magnetic pole in the rock are an important clue to how often the pole shifts.

So, "these rock termites have left their mark on lava flows from Hawai'i to Mauritius, from Iceland to Patagonia," notes Fryer.

Military historian William Dorrance thinks the holes are the remnants of Oahu defensive preparations following the Pearl Harbor attack. He cites Alexander N. Kahapea's book "Alika the Hawaiian," who describes how the holes were drilled and filled with dynamite, and every evening detonators were wired to the explosives. Every morning, the beaches were checked for invading Japanese, and if none were found, the dynamite was defused. If they had invaded, the Pali would have been made impassable.

After the Battle of Midway, the explosives were permanently removed. "All that remains of this episode are these holes in the Pali and the memories of a dwindling number of veterans. It's all history now," said Dorrance.

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Burl Burlingame, Star-Bulletin