Saturnian Cosmology - Appendix H - Other Cosmologies

8/13/2019 Saturnian Cosmology - Appendix H - Other Cosmologies

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A [Table of Contents] of all the chapters in HTML here.

A [Table of Contents] of all the chapters as PDF here.

Recovering the Lost World,

A Saturnian Cosmology -- Jno Cook

Appendix H: Other Cosmologies.

$Revision: 30.25 $

Contents of this Section: [Sitchin] [Planet X] [Ancient Astronauts] [Bible Aliens] [God’s Math]

[Supernova] [Orion’s Belt] [Mayan Cycle and AD 2012] [Clube and Napier]

[De Grazia’s Binary Star] [Patten’s Mars Wars] [Ackerman’s Firmament]

[Gilligan’s God-King Scenario]

Speculative Cosmologies

Following are some alternative cosmologies which do not explain or do not hold together, even

though many are well researched. I have added my comments only as needed. Most are not so much

complete cosmologies as they are explications of catastrophic events in the era from 10,000 BC to the

7th century BC. Most take for granted the current state of the Solar System and the handed-down

narratives of its genesis. That will do, although, as described on these pages, it is seldom correct. But

first a note from Phil Burns, who has commented on some of these:

"My personal feeling is that any historical content that might underlie myths of cosmic

catastrophes is difficult to extract and remains subject to multiple interpretations. Interpreting

such myths literally is likely to lead to untenable hypotheses involving large scale disruptions of

the Earth and solar system that cannot be sustained from physical evidence."

I agree, but I think that "large scale disruptions of the Earth and solar system" can be sustained,

certainly and unquestionably, from physical evidence. Burns should get off his couch and fly across

the Western United States in a Piper Cub. Burns goes on:

"Myths tell us how the ancients perceived the universe, not necessarily how the universe really

worked. Trying to rewrite physics and astronomy based upon mythological interpretation is a

fundamentally incorrect procedure."



-- [http://www.pibburns.com/catastro/myths.htm]

I don’t think there are many attempts at rewriting physics. Even a complete mythological fantasy

would retain the physics of the universe. What we see instead are question of how, within the physics

we know, some events could have happened. There are more absolutely insane attempts at suggesting

new and unimagined physics among legitimate astrophysicists than there are attempts at rewrites

among the alternative cosmologists and neo-catastrophists. The astronomer Hilton Ratcliffe, in The

Virtue of Heresy (2007), notes in reference to String Theory and Dark Matter, that:

[For String Theory]... nothing of any measurable or useable consequence at all has rewarded

decades of efforts by brilliant but misdirected minds. The hunt for Dark Matter, being on mature

evaluation nothing more than the pursuit of black magic, really brought some highly speculative

theories out of the secret minds of tadpoles."

As remarked by Kurt Godël, "Concepts indifferent to the details of their formulation are absolute."

There are broad concepts among the various catastrophic cosmologies which are inured to the details

of different retellings, which fare much better on a scale of "intuitive speculation" (as Tom VanFlandern calls it) than String Theory or Dark Matter. One of these cosmologies, or some of these, or

various parts of some of these, are absolute and will represent the true history of the past.

And who would want to rewrite physics and astronomy? I think the real question is, Why are we

afraid to enter the imagination of the ancients? Certainly we should be able to make sense of what

lies behind "How the ancients perceived the universe." Could we not exercise our imagination to find

possibilities without rewriting physics?

The following is a sampling of the work of others who believe this to be true, ranging from bizarre to

sublime. I started to understand "fringe" as a border of loose threads, rather than "outer edge,"

although I respect the work that went into these. Some are followed by comments. Others require

none.

If I have misrepresented anyone, it is an oversight. I will gladly correct the capsule descriptions

below, although my evaluations will (probably) remain the same. I have excluded the the works by

Immanuel Velikovsky, David Talbott, Wallace Thornhill, Tom Van Flandern, and a number of

others. See the [books] and [links] pages for more.

-=-= Sitchin =-=-

From an article in Atlantis Rising Magazine describing the work of Zecharia Sitchin, The 12th Planet

(1976) and additional books, The Stairway to Heaven (1980), The Wars of Gods and Men (1985), The

Lost Realms (1990), When Time Began (1993). The official website is at [http://www.sitchin.com/]

but less lucid.

"... According to Sitchin, mankind owes most of its ancient legacy to visiting extraterrestrials.

The Russian-born Israeli resident and ancient language expert has indeed come up with some

very intriguing, if not compelling, data. Indeed, few can match Sitchin’s scholarly credentials.

One of a handful of linguists who can read Sumerian cuneiform text, he is also a recognized

authority in ancient Hebrew as well as Egyptian hieroglyphics."

http://www.pibburns.com/catastro/myths.htm

http://www.sitchin.com/

http://www.sitchin.com/

http://www.pibburns.com/catastro/myths.htm



"Not a little controversy, though, surrounds his unusual method of interpreting the ancient texts.

Sitchin insists they should be read, not as myths, but quite literally, essentially as journalism."

A single mention of "extraterrestrials" is enough to turn me away entirely. Such insanity can only be

sustained by someone who has not the slightest concept of the dimensions of space and who lacks an

appreciation of the span of time it has taken for life to achieve the complexity we experience.

[Sitchin has presented] "extensive 6,000-year-old evidence that there is one more planet in the

solar system, from which astronauts, the biblical giants (nephilim), came to Earth in antiquity.

Laid out in the series is an elaborate tale of space travelers from the theoretical 10th planet

(12th if the Sun and Moon are included) in the solar system, called Nibiru, or Marduk in

Babylonian."

"This planet, claims Sitchin, has a very eccentric orbit traveling from far beyond Pluto, cutting

across the orbits of the rest of the planets, and then half-circling the Sun between Mars and

Jupiter, taking 3,600 Earth years in the process."

"On its closest orbital approach, about 450,000 years ago, a band of Nibiruans known as the

Anunnaki, landed on Earth in Southern Mesopotamia and proceeded to mine gold, evidently

needed for their planet’s survival. Early efforts in the Persian Gulf proved inadequate, so

underground mining in South Africa was begun."

-- [http://atlantisrising.com/issue5/ar5visitors.html].

Nothing, of course, has ever been sighted of a 10th planet. Notice that Sitchin lacks the imagination

to extend the wonders of the past beyond the objects, desires, and thinking of his own milieu. I was

also going to note, "Well, damn, what would you expect to find in the Persian Gulf, except mud?"

-=-= Planet X =-=-Planet X, or alternately "Nemeses" or "Nibiru" after Sitchin, or some such interloper, is the topic at

Andy Lloyd’s website, to be followed by a book titled The Dark Star. Following is a brief quote from

the opening page of the website.

"... the potential for a small brown dwarf to be found orbiting the Sun is not only scientifically

plausible, but would enable us to tie up a great number of loose ends in ancient religion and

mythology."

"The recent discovery of the minor planet Sedna lends credence to this claim on a number of

levels. I have now updated this theory substantially, moving closer to Zecharia Sitchin’s own

previous work but also incorporating a swath of new scientific findings into an elegant newhypothesis."

-- [http://www.darkstar1.co.uk]

http://atlantisrising.com/issue5/ar5visitors.html

http://www.darkstar1.co.uk/

http://www.darkstar1.co.uk/

http://atlantisrising.com/issue5/ar5visitors.html



As I have pointed out, the small brown dwarf was Saturn. Sedna is a very small rock which will

hardly answer to the requirements.

-=-= Ancient Astronauts =-=-

Eric von Däniken’s book Chariots of the Gods (1968) is alive at this site, where the "Archaeology,

Astronautics & SETI Research Association" publishes the quarterly Legendary Times on the web. To

quote from their opening page:

"The A.A.S.R.A. is determined to prove whether or not Extraterrestrials visited Earth in the

remote past. In his ground breaking book Chariots of the Gods, Erich von Däniken brought forth

a revolutionary theory: Extraterrestrials visited Earth thousands of years ago."

"They left clues behind in the form of mysterious, enigmatic monuments, curious artifacts,

misunderstood technologies, and especially stunning descriptions of flying machines and other

curiosities in ancient texts, holy scriptures and tales of mythology. What really happened in the

past?"

What really did happen in the past? Conceive of humans being as clever and industrious as we are

today, and no extraterrestrials are needed.

"Questions pertaining to humanity’s origins and our uniqueness concern each and everyone of

us over and over again. Secrets of this world hold the answers. The world is full of mysteries:

the pyramids at Giza, Egypt, Stonehenge in England, or the lines of Nazca, Peru."

"... these mysteries become some of the greatest uninvestigated areas which remain unsolved for

our youth and coming generations." -- [http://www.legendarytimes.com/]

I do not buy any of this, and fail to see the "message behind those mysteries." The "mysteries" are allthe same stuff anyway. Writers: Erich von Däniken, David Childress, Peter Fiebag, Robert Bauval,

Ulrich Dopatka, Luc Bürgin, Giorgio Tsoukalos.

-=-= Bible Aliens =-=-

Add Bible Aliens and "UFOs," to the above, and perhaps add "Crop Circles" and "Cryptozoology."

What is "Cryptozoology," anyway? [http://www.alienpress.com]

-=-= God’s Math =-=-

To just quote from the website:

"The mathematics demonstrates that the major (planetary) orbits of the Solar System are

precisely ordered, and conform to an artificial mathematical equation to within 0.2%. I refer to

the equation as The Creation Equation."

http://www.legendarytimes.com/

http://www.alienpress.com/

http://www.alienpress.com/

http://www.legendarytimes.com/



"The mathematics proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the scientific account of the origin

of the Solar System is not correct." -- [http://www.geocities.com/godisreal_uk/mathintro.htm]

-=-= Supernova =-=-

D. S. Allan and J. B. Delair Cataclysm: Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500

BC (1997). Quotes from the website follow.

[The book is about] "... how this Golden Age of peaceful conditions and equable climates

ended traumatically in a tremendous catastrophe about 11,500 years ago. This was part of

a cataclysm which disturbed the whole solar system, destroyed at least one sizable planet

and its satellite, and also severely devastated Mars and Earth."

It was all too cold 11,500 years ago (9500 BC) for an "equable climate," although the ice had

started melting 2000 years earlier. But then it got cold and dark, and Earth didn’t warm up until

after 9000 BC. No planets were destroyed. The asteroid belt dates from long before humans. But

there is more.

"Among the fundamental geophysical effects experienced by Earth were a massive

fracturing of the crust, a realignment of Earth’s axis, elevation of new mountains, and

widespread rearrangement of land and sea."

"These changes were accompanied by an appalling global conflagration, a gigantic flood,

and what has been described as ’collapsed sky’ conditions. A bombardment by debris from

the disintegrated satellite of the destroyed planet added to the worldwide chaos."

"Much of Earth’s animal and plant life was annihilated by these frightful events. Some

havens and refuges did exist, offering shelter to various faunal and floral species from

flood or fire -- then to have to endure the appalling conditions which followed... ."

"The possible origins of this terrible calamity are considered in some detail, the authors

concluding that, after dismissing comets, asteroids and giant meteors, the most likely

candidate is a supernova explosion which, on the astronomical scale of things, occurred

uncomfortably close to our solar system relatively recently." --

[http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/earth/]

I’m glad to see someone "dismissing comets, asteroids and giant meteors." The problem here as

with most other theories is that it assumed that all the geological upheavals happened over a

short time period. The authors thus select another ephemeral cause. A supernova in current

parlance is a bombardment by high-energy protons. It is not going to split the Earth’s crust and

raise mountains. They will not even penetrate rocks. I also find the geological information atodds both with accepted dogma and with common sense. But there is much more and the

collected information is interesting. They start the "Ice Age" in 9,500 BC and end in 5,500 BC.

The previous Ice Ages extended much further into the past, and were probably the result of a

larger orbit than we currently experience.

http://www.geocities.com/godisreal_uk/mathintro.htm

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/earth/

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/earth/

http://www.geocities.com/godisreal_uk/mathintro.htm



Interestingly, most of the conditions mentioned above are dealt with in the paper by RichardFirestone, William Topping, and 23 additional authors, "Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling," in 2007. This is

described in the chapter "Event of the Younger Dryas."

-=-= Orion’s belt =-=-

Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert The Orion Mystery; Unlocking the Secrets of the Pyramids

(1994).

"Since 1979 when he first became interested in the Star Religion of the Egyptians, Robert

Bauval has been researching the secrets of the pyramids. Almost by accident he stumbled

upon the central mystery of the Egyptian religion, their preoccupation with the

constellation of Orion as their hoped-for afterlife destiny."

"At first tentatively and then with growing conviction he presented his findings to a mostly

hostile establishment that the major pyramids of the IVth Dynasty were built to represent the stars of this afterworld."

"This, at first sight bizarre, theory he was able to back up with ancient texts, ceiling

paintings, star-maps and other data that when taken together makes up an extraordinarily

convincing case. The question then becomes not whether what he had discovered is true but

rather why had no one noticed these things before?" --

[http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/orion/index.htm]

The following is additional comment from Adrian Gilbert’s site:

"The important role of the Great Pyramid of Khufu in this stellar religion of the pharaohs

was more than hinted at by the discovery in 1966 by the astronomer Virginia Trimble that ashaft from the "Kings Chamber" was angled in such a way that it aligned perfectly with the

culmination, that is to say the point exactly on the north-south meridian that, at the time the

pyramids were built was daily crossed by the Belt of Orion."

"As it was already known that a similar shaft on the northern side of the Kings Chamber

aligned with the then North Star: Thuban in Draco, such alignments seemed to be a

deliberate piece of astro-architectural engineering." --

[http://www.adriangilbert.co.uk/docus/books/orion.html]

Others have noted that Orion is not mentioned once in Egyptian antiquity. I have already

commented on how the contemporary confusion of Osiris and Orion continues to be widely

accepted, even though it has no basis. The book additionally misidentifies Sothis with the starSirius when it is as likely to represent Venus, that is, Isis. The Greek text of the Canopus Decree

of 239 BC makes this very clear. The Canopus Decree is discussed elsewhere on this website.

Other comments contra the "Orion" book are found in an endnote to the chapter "Noah’s Flood."

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/orion/index.htm

http://www.adriangilbert.co.uk/docus/books/orion.html

http://www.adriangilbert.co.uk/docus/books/orion.html

http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/orion/index.htm



To base a whole book on the alignment of a single ventilation shaft is insane speculation. These"alignments" are additionally not correct, since the sky has changed since 2600 BC. As I have pointed out,

any retrocalculation before 685 BC will be incorrect. But more importantly, the Egyptians had almost no

interest at all in the stars (the circumpolar stars excepted), as others have noted. And last, the stars in the

belt of Orion do not match the plan-view of the Giza pyramids.

-=-= Mayan cycle and 2012 =-=-

Adrian Gilbert and Maurice Cotterell The Mayan Prophecies (1995).

"In this book the authors demonstrate how the Mayan Super Number 1,366,560 days,

recorded in the Dresden Codex, indicates ancient knowledge of sunspot cycles and their

effect on the human race. They explore the popular myth of Quetzalcoatl and its origins in

Mayan ideas concerning the sun cycle."

"They also show the links between the pre-Columbian civilizations of Central America and

the Old World, in particular Egypt. Examining the archaeological record, they find further evidence for linking the origins of Mayan civilization with the mythical lost continent of

Atlantis, which according to Plato was destroyed in a series of catastrophes."

"The book reaches its climax when they reveal that the Mayan calendar prophesies the end

of our own "Age of the Jaguar", the fifth and final "sun" in 2012 AD. This, according to

Cotterell’s sun-spot theories, could be brought about by a sudden reversal in the earth’s

magnetic field." -- [http://www.adriangilbert.co.uk/docus/books/mayan.html]

Atlantis, Egypt, sunspots, and the Mayan capacity for prediction. The Maya could not even

predict their own demise. There are closer parallels to the Shang dynasty. This is only one of the

clutch of AD 2012 websites (now in the hundreds), all of which predict the end of the world (or

the beginning of a new era of peace and prosperity) on December 23, 2012.

-=-= Clube and Napier’s Serpent =-=-

"The ingenuity of such nonsense is breathtaking."

-- Wal Thornhill, http://www.holoscience.com (2004)

The Cosmic Serpent (1982) by Victor Clube and Bill Napier is a slipshod and unconvincing

book which attempts to suggest a basis for ancient catastrophes in supposed meteors (or comet)

strikes. Clube and Napier are astronomers, but show an incredible ineptitude when it comes to

antiquity, mythology, and perhaps especially when it comes to astronomy. The Cosmic Serpent

deserves extensive comments, because it is held in high regard by many people, perhaps becauseit "looks so scientific." I will start with a short description by Bob Kobres, from his website

(which promotes the cause of explaining all of the past in terms of meteor impacts).

"Clube and Napier suggest that Jupiter and Saturn occasionally divert giant comets into

the inner solar system into short-period orbits. Debris from the resultant disintegration of

these giant comets can adversely affect the environment of the Earth. Dusting can block

sunlight, resulting in globally cooler conditions."

http://www.adriangilbert.co.uk/docus/books/mayan.html

http://www.adriangilbert.co.uk/docus/books/mayan.html



-- http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/

As has been pointed out by others, we have traveled through the tails of comets in modern times,

with no harm or notice of the effect. On the other hand, a few lobbed atomic bombs would

probably reduce sunlight for decades -- due to persistent nanometer-sized dust in the

stratosphere. But raging wildfires would have the same results. There has been both

"mythological" as well as climatological (archaeological) evidence for extensive fires in the

remote past. Kobres goes on:

"Impact events in the Super-Tunguska class may result in not only heavy localized

destruction but also the occasional ’impact winter’ or dust veil with global climatological

effects. Clube and Napier identify the progenitor of the Taurid complex as such a giant

comet whose injection into a short-period (about 3.3 year) orbit occurred sometime in the

last twenty thousand years."

"The effects of the disintegration of this object in an Earth-crossing orbit should appear in

the geological and climatological record as well as in protohistorical and historicalrecords."

"Clube and Napier ... also seek evidence of catastrophic events in ancient mythology. Their

contention is that the great Taurid progenitor was the basis for much of the mythology

associated with ’sky gods’ and themes of generational conflict along gods."

It seems rather highly amazing if ephemeral phenomena like meteors or even repeating meteor

showers formed the cast of the theater of "sky gods" of antiquity, most of which have unique

identities and many of which persisted for 3000 years. To go on with Korbes:

"Clube and Napier note that many of the themes Velikovsky ascribed to ’comet Venus’

rightfully belong to the Taurid progenitor, and at least some of those ascribed to Mars by

Velikovsky rightfully belong to Halley’s Comet."

-- Bob Kobres

The authors Clube and Napier, in fact, completely dismiss Velikovsky’s work as "wildly

improbable" and "absurd speculations," except when a single observation by Velikovsky fits

their thesis.

Alfred de Grazia wrote, in Cosmic Heretics (1984),..

"Like many others working on catastrophism, the two Edinburgh astronomers find

themselves isolated, both because of the extremity of their ideas and because they need

much material from fields like mythology and linguistics that they cannot grasp themselves

nor command expert consultants to provide for them."

They do not need "expert consultants." Anyone with a brain and some study time can acquaint

themselves of the facts. But I think "cannot grasp" is a well-placed critique. It is probably

precisely because of the overall ineptitude and cluelessness that this book has stood as a

monument to overactive imagination. Nothing much can precisely be negated because nothing

much is asserted with anything backing it up except a sort of spongy foundation.



The persistence of this counter-myth is amazing. However, the specificity of the infrequentelectrical contacts with Venus and the coincidence of dates in the Eastern Mediterranean region with

records in Mesoamerica cannot be explained by Taurids or Halley.

Meteors do not cause Earth shocks, or send the Earth to a new orbit, or turn the sky blood-redfor days, shoot arrows upward into the sky, suddenly show up the Pleiades, send tsunamis across thePacific, boil up oceans of water, scar the land with traveling arcs, dump yards of incinerated trees and soil

on hilltops, or cause a thousand years of constant earthquakes. In fact, they cause none of these.

I do not doubt that meteor swarms have been recorded since 34,000 years ago (as I have pointedout). But I seriously doubt if meteors have ever had any significant impact on mythology, or, for that

matter, even on the weather.

The book of Clube and Napier is held in high repute (by some) because of the qualifications of the authors (they are, after all, Edinburgh astronomers), but more so because the subject matter is totally

inarguable. Comets are ephemeral, and just about anything can be said of them, especially in the past

tense. The Yucatan Chicxulub "impact crater" has lent its reputation to the tales of comets.

I have to add this note about meteors and comets or bolides in general from a previous chapter:

"Yet, all recent meteor falls have been recovered. And some are not small. The iron

Willamette Meteorite, although both ancient and not found in situ, weighs 32,000 pounds --

as much as the semi which hauled it away. The September 15, 2007, impact in Carancas,

Peru, resulting in a 45-foot diameter crater, was caused by a chondrite (stony) meteorite 10

feet in diameter. In theory, it should have delivered as much energy as an atomic bomb

with an explosive energy of 15-kiloton equivalent of TNT -- enough to destroy New York

City -- but there was only smoke and steaming groundwater. People walked over from

nearby to have a look.



That is not to say that there could not be some overwhelming impacts, since the kineticenergy increases linearly with the mass of the bolide. But calculating backward from craters where no

meteorite was found and then assuming it vaporized, will only lead to seeding parameters of formulaswhich have no claim to reality. These calculations will determine the energy needed to turn a rock into a

gas.

What rock?

"This just isn’t what we expected," Schultz said. "It was to the point that many thought this

was fake. It was completely inconsistent with our understanding how stony meteorites act."

He is talking about Carancas. But who is Schultz?

Peter Schultz, professor of geological sciences at Brown University and an expert in

extraterrestrial impacts, went to Peru to learn more and he presented the findings from his

travels at the 39th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in League City, Texas.

[March 11, 2008]

So wrote the news staff at www.science20.com.

Walt Thornhill at his website, [holoscience.com], makes note of the ease with which writers of

catastrophism tracts, and even, as we see here, professional astronomers, imagine a "fanciful"

past that never happened. He writes:

http://www.holoscience.com/

http://www.holoscience.com/



"...[there is a] crucial distinction between the planetary catastrophism of the Electric

Universe and that of neo-catastrophists who attempt to explain the evidence for

planetary encounters in terms of cometary phenomena. Modern comets simply do not

fit the descriptions from the past. Nor can they account for abundant evidence of fresh

looking planetary cratering and scarring. Besides, in an Electric Universe comets arenot the apocalyptic threat to the Earth imaginatively portrayed by artists. Such

pictures are entirely fanciful because a comet would be disrupted electrically by a

cosmic thunderbolt before it hit the Earth. The only visible evidence remaining would

be an electric arc crater."

Note that Kobres touts the contents of the book as "evidence," but evidence it is not. All of it,

end to end, is speculation dressed up with tables and graphs; the primary subject is one of pure

avoidance. The books represent the absolute cluelessness of mainstream astronomy: Comets are

snowballs; stars and galaxies are generated from clouds of dust; dust in turn results from

exploding stars; sothic dating is held as real; the invariant length of the year is fact; the dark ages

of Greece are affirmed.

A new chronology for antiquity is introduced, based on selecting a few elements from a single

"study" while the remainder is rejected. Then every notion in mythic antiquity, questionable

dates, and unrevealing graphics is paraded out to account for the complete pantheon of Egypt,

Babylon, and Greece as comets, plus Typhon and Phaethon, and, of course, the celestial snake

Apep.

... comets are snowballs

[p 23] "We must seek to avoid total commitment to a particular scenario."

You would expect this cautionary note near the beginning of the book to set the tone for all that

follows. But it does not. It is only said with respect to the generation and description of galaxies,

where the authors know for certain they are not treading on solid grounds. But galactic matters,

however speculative, have to be set in place, because, just as galaxies are made of dust, so are

stars and planets, and so too must be the comets, so they claim.

From this point the book proceeds entirely by suggestions and innuendoes. Often the diverse

current views (but none too radical) are given on an astronomical topic, yet when an opinion

("study") of a single individual is found which confirms some implications of the book, it is

offered as fact. It is absolutely amazing how the authors segue from one topic to the next, as if a

syllogism was being constructed, whereas only a loose collection of contiguous statements is

used to insinuate a set of causal connections in a theory of cometary catastrophism.

[p 35] "Comets are conglomerates of ice and dust, perhaps with large boulders."

The source of the comets are here placed in the spiral arms of galaxies, composed of

planetesimals, a word (I presume) for "rocks." Then an opinion is offered on the makeup of

comets, based on the initial suggestions from Whipple, the originator of the "dirty snowball"

theory of comets.



[p 43ff] "Evidence has accumulated, however, in favour of the dirty snowball model

developed by the American astronomer Whipple, in which the nucleus is seen as a lightly

packed ball of ices including ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide but about 50 percent

water ice. Imbedded in the ice are solid particles about 0.01 percent of a millimeter in

diameter, that is, about the size of interstellar grains."

No evidence has been accumulated at all. All of the above information is shear conjecture. The

nucleus of comets, in fact, look and act like solid rocks. "Interstellar grains" have never been

seen or measured.

... stars are generated from clouds of dust

[p 35] "The traditional view has been that stars are made by the collapse of huge, relatively

hot masses of gas under their own weight. ... individual regions of the cloud are able to

collapse separately, until they themselves fragment and so on, down to the point where the

gas is so dense and opaque that further contraction initiates nuclear fusion, and stars are

born."

LaPlace is mentioned in passing, and his nebular hypothesis, a notion which has never been

affirmed and has frequently been disproven.

[p 58] "... solar nebula, a disk-shaped region the extent of the planetary system, from which

not only the comets but also the asteroids, planets and Sun condensed ...."

... dust in turn result from exploding stars

[p 47] "Inevitably, then, with this picture, the interstellar medium is steadily enriched by

heavy elements produced in supernova explosions."

The knowledge of supernovas has, of course, changed radically over the last decades. Although

not yet admitted by astrophysicists, these are electrical in nature, or we would otherwise not be

seeing repeating novas of the same star. Heavy elements are spat out continuously by the Solar

Wind. This is sufficient to account for all except a few of the elements.

... and now for the comets

The authors also offer an unsupported opinion on asteroids:

[p 65] "There are strong grounds for considering that most of these [asteroids] are

degassed comets."

Things have changed since 1983, and especially in the last 5 years. Comets are rocks, asteroids

are rocks, and the interactions we see are electrical. The hydroxyl (OH) molecules detected in

the tails of comets are not from sublimed water, but from solar wind protons (H+) and cometary

Oxygen (O-) ions released from silicates. The silicate (rock) source has not been recognized yet

by NASA, but the fact that the "water" in the cometary tails is due to other sources than



subliming ice, has been noted. NASA still produces a lot of "ice" talk, perhaps because the pressreleases of NASA and other organizations are still written by PR crews who received their education 30 or

40 years ago.

[p 67] "The essential point is that the asteroid system ought to look like the rings of Saturn

rather than a doughnut. It [the asteroid belt] has too much internal energy, and ad hoc

mechanisms have to be added to the conventional picture to puff the system up. One such

proposed mechanisms is the gravitational stirring of asteroids by massive planetesimals

which were once scattered into the belt, but have since vanished." [numerical examples are

given]

This is a typical case of Clube and Napier connecting disparate dots in the data to graph their

way through a series of statements and reach a "conclusion" favorable to their thesis.

Amazingly, here we see the suggestion of bad ad-hoc emendations (admitted by the authors) to

faulty theories (also admitted by the authors), but then the authors accept these as fact. Anyone

in their right mind would suggest that the bad theories which have to be patched ought to be

dropped.

... meteors are launched into the inner planetary space

[p 88] [about meteorite dates] "Most of the ages cluster around 4.5 billion years"

Where did they get this? The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition, which has the same

publication date as this book, disagrees completely. The statement might be slightly correct in

that some meteorites are quite old, but only the iron meteorites, which are a distinct minority of

one percent, have been dated to 4.4 and 4.6 billion years. Most are quite recent in comparison --

to under 700 million years, with some under 100 million years. "Clustering" presumes an equal

portion with ages greater than 4.5 billion year, suggesting that some are as old as the accepted

age of the Universe. Most are 3.5 million (note: not billion) years old, with a spread to 40

million years. A far stretch to 4.5 billion.

[p 146] "The significant feature [of comets]is not collision with comets themselves but with

their debris. For comets spread dust and rocks along their orbits; and as we have seen

already, they are often observed to split and sometimes disintegrate."

As I have pointed out earlier, the idea of "collisions" leaves a lot to be desired, considering that

comets and all the parts of comets are traveling at the same speed. Reducing the non-colliding

objects to dust is just absurd.

... Sothic dating is held as realBut first, dates offered by 16th-century researchers are dismissed.

[p 220] "Rockenback’s sources are lost and the merging of Exodus and Typhon might still

be apocryphal...."



Rockenback is actually fairly specific in differentiating between his historic sources. Some of

the church fathers came to the same conclusion: Typhon appeared at the time of Moses.

[p 227] "So the Sothic calendar stands today virtually unchallenged, and with all the

authority that its successful use for nearly eighty years can provide."

Let me point out the Sothic dating is entirely bogus, and, although the notion is endlessly

repeated in textbooks, it has today been abandoned. Peter James (among others) notes, at

[http://www.centuries.co.uk]:

"The Sothic theory depends on a number of assumptions which do not stand up to

close scrutiny. Since our first published criticisms (James et al. 1987, 71-74) there has

been a sea-change in opinion as to the reliability of this astronomical dating."

"As there are no longer any reliable astronomical fixes, Egyptologists have, by and

large, abandoned their reliance on Sothic dating -- although they have been rather

slow in admitting it in public."

To continue with Clube and Napier:

[p 228] "Thus, although archaeologists have come to depend totally on the validity of the

[sothic] cycle, it remains to this day a very disturbing fact that there is no known reference

to the Sothic cycle in Egyptian texts."

No kidding! There are Egyptian sources, but these refer to Sothis (female ending) as Venus,

rather than Sothis (male ending) as Sirius. Both mean "bright." Clube and Napier next proceed

to revise the dating of antiquity to meet their particular needs.

... the invariant length of the year is factClube and Napier next [p 226] take selections from R. A. Parker, "The calendars of Ancient

Egypt," in "Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations # 26" (1950), which suggests an intricate

system for an Egyptian lunar calendar, based on the current length of the year, sothic dating, and

a 30-day month (although I cannot follow this at all), to come up with a date of 1369 BC for the

year of the Exodus (and thus for the appearance of Typhon). (Here they neglect that they had

dismissed Rockenback’s "apocryphal" identification of Typhon with Exodus.)

This analysis includes repeated calendaric corrections instituted by various pharaohs (Parker).

Clube and Napier accept some of Parker’s analysis, and out of hand reject other portions. The

Giza Pyramid construction phase is dated to 2196- 1687 BC, rather than 2590 to 2500 BC [p

236]. I could not believe I read this!

The revised chronology which has been devised by Clube and Napier is then justified in

reference to the access shaft of the Great Pyramid at Giza, as follows:

http://www.centuries.co.uk/




[p 237] "... the Descending Passage, which slopes steeply downward for over 100 metres

into the Great Pyramid, was aligned precisely on the then Pole Star, Alpha Draconis

[Thuban] , about 2160 BC before it precessed away from this position. This and other

arguments led Piazzi Smyth [in 1867] to favor 2170 BC [for the construction]. Such dates

agree very closely with that of the Great Pyramid construction on the revised chronology[by the authors] but have no relevance to the date of 2600 BC implied by the standard

chronology."

I can’t believe I am reading this: "aligned precisely." My precise alignment (using todays

notions of the precession of the equinox) has Alpha Draconis at the pole in circa 2800 BC, not

2160 BC or 2170 BC. Obviously we are using different measures for the shift in the location of

the equinox (which has varied considerably since 400 BC).

And this is written by astronomers! It has become the hallmark of scientists, and perhaps

astronomers especially, that as the greater part of a discipline is established entirely in the

imagination, so it increases the absolute certitude with which imagined theories are held.

Forgive them for the absurd dates, but ask, Have they ever looked at the sky? Let me note that a

retrocalculation based on the current measure of the precession of the polar axis, in the winter of

2170 BC, Thuban was not the pole star, but turned in a circle about the north celestial pole. As

Thuban passed the north meridian (at 7 pm at the winter solstice) it dropped down to an

elevation of 26.4 degrees above the horizon. It passed through the elevation of 26.4 degrees

nightly for hundreds of years. This is not a "precise alignment" at all.

At no time was it ever at the required 30 degrees above the horizon. At the latitude of Giza, the

center of the sky, the location of the polar axis, is at 30 degrees above the horizon, not 26.4

degrees. Thuban was never a pole star.

The downward-sloping shaft of Khufu’s pyramid, reaching an unexcavated chamber belowbedrock, is at an angle of 26.5 degrees, a nice coincidence with the lowest point of Thuban’s

rotation in the sky.

The access shaft angle of 26.5 degrees is found from a slope of 2:1. This angle has nothing to do

with the elevation of the polar axis above the horizon, which is 30 degrees at the latitude of

Giza. It is a convenient sighting measure for boring an extended passage. All pyramids since

Seneferu used this angle, or a measure close to it, despite their diverse geographic locations.

The other pyramids differ from 26.5 degrees, even though built at the same time and at the same

latitude. Khafre’s is at 25.9 degrees; Menkaure’s is at 21.6 degrees. Pyramids for the next

thousand years, in fact, all have access shafts which vary from 22 to 28 degrees. Let me note that

a half degree is equal to the diameter of the Moon in the sky. The access shafts of the three Gizapyramids pointed to locations in the north sky differing by 8 diameters of the Moon.

And what is the point of this? Perhaps I have missed something in my close reading of "The

Cosmic Serpent." The justification of a new dating system perhaps? Maybe it is to show that

they also are researchers on par with Velikovsky, who also identified a similar (but later)

400-year gap. I see absolutely no other reason for this diversion. If, however, they were out to

demonstrate their abilities as astronomers, they missed the boat.



This diversion has the flavor of Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert’s book The Orion Mystery

(1994). But they use an air shaft instead, and as a result place the construction date in 2600 BC.

... a new date of 1369 BC for the Exodus

Of course, since the date of the Exodus is still in dispute today, even the very event, Clube andNapier are free to make yet another suggestion. What enters the equation is, however, about as hokey as

can be imagined. We start with the following assertion:

[p 237] [1369 BC is justified on the basis of Greenland ice core data] "Many historical

[volcanic] eruptions have recently been dated from Greenland ice cores, one of them being

the Thera eruption in the Aegean Sea which some have associated with the end of the

Minoan civilization [at 1388 BC]."

I should point out that the 1369 BC eruption of Thera has been shown to be incorrect by Peter

James in "Centuries of Darkness" (1991). See his website, [http://www.centuries.co.uk]. Clube

and Napier continue:

"Several layers of volcanic tephra from cores taken from the Eastern Mediterranean sea

bed have also been examined recently. These can be dated, and for the Minoan ash a date

of 1390 BC has been found. These absolute dates differ greatly from the radioactive carbon

dates of the Thera event adjusted to the standard scale, the latter being assumed to be in

agreement with conventional Egyptian chronology. On this scale, the date is 1720 +/- 50

BC and there is an implied discrepancy of 330 +/- 100 years in adjusted carbon dates of

this epoch."

"These independent lines of evidence seem then to lead to the same conclusion: there is a

major error in the standard chronology...."

The "absolute dates," "radio carbon dates," "standard scale," "conventional chronology," and

"implied discrepancy" of the "volcanic tephra" and "Minoan ash," in the above paragraph make

absolutely no sense.

But what is the point of all this? The point is that this claim will allow Clube and Napier to

furnish a new chronology for the past and date the Exodus to 1369 BC, rather than the

well-established dates from 16th-century chronographers -- 1492, 1493, 1495 BC -- and even

Josephus in AD 100. And the point of the new chronology will be to fit the dates

numerologically to other dates and periods that they have discovered. Numerology is everything

here; it has a certain charm, like reading an electric meter.

[p 255] "It is only speculation at the moment but the near-coincidence in time between theThera eruption, the decline of Minoan civilization and our proposed date of Exodus [1369

BC]suggests that these events may have been interrelated."

The speculation remains, although over the next pages this embarrassing admission is forgotten.





... megalithic missionaries

Clube and Napier next take time to discuss barrows and henges.

[p 259] "In France, Ireland, and Britain, the building of graves and cairns was a relativelysmall and local scale until about 2400 b.c."

And they warn that..

"in this section, we use uncorrected carbon dates"

I don’t think so. A look at the dates of the constructions at Carnac -- the mounds, barrows, the

Grand Menhir, the five causeways, and the now sunken henges -- will show that most of the

construction started one thousand to three thousands years earlier than 2400 BC (from 5800

BC). It was so long ago that the melting glaciers have raised the ocean to inundate some of the

works near Carnac.

They quote one author [E. Mackie "The Megalith Builders" (1977)] who refers to the activity in

"2400 through 2000 b.c." as:

[p 259] "...an astronomy-practicing theocracy, exactly paralleling, it seems, the main phase

of pyramid construction in Egypt [although the authors date the Giza pyramids to 2196 --

1687 BC]. Accurate surveys of many stone circles in Britain by Thom[Alexander Thom, not

referenced, who published in 1951 to 1967] and others have been interpreted to show that

a proportion [portion?]of them could have been used as solar and lunar observatories."

"Could have been" leaves a lot to be desired. The "others" which might have suggested

astronomical alignments is Gerald Hawkins, who found so many astronomical alignments for

Stonehenge that it became a joke. I should also point out that the date range "2400 BC through2000 BC" is not valid. Most of the megalithic activity came to a sudden 300-year halt worldwide

after 2400 BC. After that date only single inhumation barrows are constructed.

The authors have more to say about henges, some of it inaccurately rendered, including a

misreading [p 260-261] of William Stukeley who wrote about henges 250 years ago, in AD

1740.

[p 261] "... it is now known that their constructed shapes [of henges] were evolving from

purely circular amongst the earliest to elliptical and egg-shaped configurations among the

latest. The reason for this development of patterns are not yet understood."

The phrase "not yet understood" is typical in the sciences for "we do not know" -- as if they willsooner or later figure it out. The evolution of circular to elliptical (noted by Alexander Thom,

"Megalithic Sites in Britain" 1967) has no bearing on anything that follows, except perhaps to

suggest that the people of these regions became more stupid over time, and thus proposing that

perhaps they would have need for outsiders to set them straight. In fact, the earliest circular

shapes of placed stones, at the ends of the rows of standing stone causeways at Carnac, are

elliptical, not circular. But these date from 5000 to 4000 BC. Many of the henges date from

before 3000 BC. All the later henges are circular.



[p 260] "The plan layout of the early earthworks at Stonehenge, for example, was a circle

out of which led an avenue toward the eastern horizon."

Like the elliptical henges, this is another data point which connects to nowhere. What is the

point of mentioning this? The avenue, in fact, leaves the henge in the northeasterly direction (not

"the eastern horizon"), then turns east, and after a while turns southeast to meet the river Avon.

[p 265] "The advance of the civilization prior to 2400 BC shows much more the signs of a

steady infiltration of a new culture into a previously existing primitive society. MacKie [sic,

E. Mackie is meant] leaves the sources of this culture quite open, but suggestively deplores

the lack of solid evidence for any infiltration or diffusion from the east."

"The Phoenicians seem perhaps the most likely candidates, but the evidence unequivocally

focuses attention on the Atlantic front."

What does "focuses attention on the Atlantic front" mean? The Phoenicians migrated to the

Western Mediterranean in circa 800 BC, not in 2400 BC.

"We will not speculate further but leave the reader with the inevitable thought: that around

2400 BC, the time of the Flood if our analysis is correct, saw the arrival of what seems to

have been a stream of more sophisticated immigrants very conscious of what caused the

calamity they survived and who rapidly took over the administration of the Atlantic

border."

I have broken the original paragraph up into three parts, so that the reader can have a feel for

how two professional astronomers blather like drunken sailors with wild tales, and otherwise

make little sense.

The notion of invaders, called the "Beaker People" (and the "Battle Axe People") two centuries

ago, has been removed from archaeological theory in the last century. This is "analysis?" Next,

of course, there will be reference to Plato and Solon, and maybe to Atlantis?

Having suggested that the intruders were Phoenicians.... But wait, this was a favorite cause

célèbre early in the 20th century: Phoenicians as missionaries from the east who proselytize the

Western European coastal tribes to a religion of large stones and beer. I have already discussed

this elsewhere.

Now the two are tied together.

[p 265] "If short-period comets were indeed sky-gods, and the comet which we are now

calling the Cosmic Serpent came spectacularly close to the Earth at intervals, then the

desirability of predicting the returns would be clear: astronomy would grow out of

theology. Obviously no extreme or exclusion claims can be made for the role of comets, as

agricultural and navigational requirements provide their own impetus for observing the

heavens. Nevertheless...."



Give me a break! Astronomy and agriculture? Nevertheless, the argument is not sustained. The

suggestion that Phoenician missionaries, who were traders and merchants and interested in little

else, induced the coastal French, British, and Irish tribes to build huge "observatories" when a

few sticks in the ground would have done the same, is just plain nonsense. Why did 20-ton rocks

have to be set up in circles, again and again and again, to look at the incomprehensible stars?What would possibly signal a return of the flood? Having experienced one flood, why, indeed,

was there even the suggestion that a flood would ever return again? How dumb is it to believe

that?

... calendars are conformed to their needs

Next the Maya Tzolkin is disassembled to their use:

[p 266] "It happens that twice 260 days [the Tzolkin cycle] is the mean interval between

oppositions (i.e. the synodic period) of any object in a direct orbit whose orbital period is

3.35 years. This is remarkably close to the orbital period of comet Encke." [which is 3.30

years]

Not all that "close." I get, expressed in days:

Twice 260 days is 2*260 = 520 days;

Fake synodic: (3.35*365.24)/(3.35-1) = 520.66 days;

Encke synodic: (3.3*365.24)/(3.3-1) = 524.0 days.

[p 267] "Now 73 periods of 260 days equals 52 years almost exactly [51.96 years, 13 days

difference]: no smaller number of these periods gives a whole number of years so closely."

Wrong. The fractional days demonstrate that the astronomers are entirely ignorant of the

relationship between the Tzolkin and the Haab calendar in Mesoamerica. There is an absolute

coincidence -- exactly to the day -- between 73 Tzolkin cycles and 52 Haab cycles. A Haab

cycle is a 365-day year. Clube and Napier seem to have missed this entirely. I suspect they know

nothing about this subject except what they may have read in National Geographic Magazine

about a 260-day calendar in Mexico.

[p 267] "European and Asiatic calendars were unquestionably lunar and solar and tied to

agricultural needs."

They were certainly lunar after 1492 BC, but only some were solar. None of them, though, were

"tied to agricultural needs." Farmers do not need a calendar to plan farming. They need to take

note of the weather. Farmers would be poorly assisted by calendars. The calendars of antiquity

were primarily, emphatically, and universally religious.

By Classical Greek times the calendars were given over to tax collection, initially also a

religious function. They became fiscal administrative calendars. Which is why there were

dozens of differing calendars in use among the Greek city-states. This happened to Rome by

Republican times also. There was no coincidence with seasonal agricultural tasks. Julius Caesar

was lauded in 40 BC for rationalizing the calendar which had been altered repeatedly by the

Senate, and which had become completely out of sync with the seasons. Egypt by Ptolemaic



times uses two (or more) calendars, one religious and administrative, another that was seasonal,

and thus agricultural.

[p 267] [early Roman calendars quoted as:] "... twelve months plus extra days to make up a

year of 354 days" , and "a year of ten months and 304 days, which makes no sense in terms

of agriculture or planetary movements. As is happens, four such years amount to 3.33 solar

years."

The authors are desperately reaching. I am not sure where these Roman calendars came from,

unless mandated during late Republican times for tax collection purposes -- in which case they

are temporary fiscal calendars. The authors then suggest that four of "these" make up a 3.33-year

period, even though the Encke period has previously been declared as 3.30 years. The paragraph

continues:

"The number four seems arbitrary but ... the Greeks ... [later] set up a twelve-month year,

they also chose to celebrate a major event [not mentioned, but it is the Olympic games] ,

whose primary symbol was the torch of Olympus on a four-year cycle. Speculative thoughthis is, the numerology is sufficiently striking to suggest that a deeper investigation of these

early calendars might be rewarding."

I think not. I will consistently claim that calendars can be justified in terms of the number of

days in the year (which was not invariant), plus a large measure of conservatism. All the

calendars of antiquity can be rationalized on this basis, not on numerological notions.

The authors, by the way, hold "Olympus" to be the name of a comet, and "Zeus" too.

"Speculative though this is," it is even more striking to suggest that readers of this book never

finished grade school and take all this drivel in without question as if it were an "educational"

TV show.

A look at what we have at hand as a calendar since 747 BC will indicate that there were no

"extra days to make up a year" for Rome, but it requires knowing that the Earth’s orbit, and thus

the year, was different in the past. The calendars of antiquity then assume an even more "striking

numerology."

... the dark ages of Greece are affirmed

[p 181ff] "The Greeks themselves [this is about Homer] also systematized a mass of local

and particular mythology ... to form the mythological prehistory leading up to the

large-scale Dorian invasion and settlement of the Peloponnese around 1000 BC, the time

also of the return of the Heraclids to Mycenae."

Not to be picky, but there is no evidence of a "Dorian invasion" and the Heraclids are the sons of

Hercules, Mars. They were seen in the sky, not on Earth, and are properly placed in the 8th and

7th century BC, not in a "Dorian invasion" time of 1000 BC. The third generation returned in

761 BC to destroy much of the Peloponnesus. (It is the third time Mars showed up since 806

BC.) There is, in effect, no history in Greece before this time. The chronology of Greece, in

being matched to a faulty Egyptian chronology, has a gap from 1200 BC to about 800 BC during



which time nothing happened, and civilization stood still for 400 years. Homer wrote his fictionafter 650 BC, but not perhaps as a "systematized mass of local and particular mythology." Does Homer

even concern himself with a Dorian Invasion, when all of the "Iliad" takes place in 56 days?

But what is really amazing is that these Edinburgh astronomers missed an Encke moment, forthe Heraclids who invade Greece are indeed the meteor swarm which Clube and Napier have been

meaning to identify. So, of course, are the cattle stolen by Apollo, and the horse herds driven off by

Hercules.

... the flood of Noah based on 19th-century data

[p 209] "Not far below the level of the first royal tombs at Ur, probably constructed around

2500 BC, archaeologists have discovered material evidence for a vast flood. It has been

confirmed that there exists throughout the extent of the Tigris-Euphrates valley, a clay

deposit several meters thick."

This is simply not true. The "vast flood," at first thought to be the "flood of Noah," was an early20th-century notion (based on the excavation at Ur by Leonard Woolley), which was soon

entirely disproven from the fact that it was very local and mostly absent elsewhere. Some British

archaeologists still adhere to this, though, as do some Edinburgh astronomers.

... the pantheon of Egypt, Babylon, and Greece

[p 180] "... the Egyptian mythology placed him[Horus] on the prow of the solar barque,

watching for the other great enemy of Ra, the Sun-god, namely Apepi [Apep] , the god of

darkness. Apepi was not apparently of Nut’s family but was pictured independently as a

snake or dragon, one of its roles being to eclipse the Sun. However he did this, he does not

seem to have been related to the Moon-god, Thoth."

That Apep was "not apparently of Nut’s family" is entirely correct. Apep [Apophis] was the last

remaining red-colored ring after the Absu fell, seen in the sky since 2349 BC. This is clear from

how it made the star Sirius look red in antiquity. There are Mesoamerican references to this

equatorial river in the sky also, still recalled in the 19th century. Clube and Napier perhaps also

did not notice that there are few references to Apep in Egyptian mythology or iconography until

Ptolemaic times because Apep never did anything. Spells to prevent Apap from attacking the

Sun (the real Sun, btw) only occurs in one very late papyrus. Apep is not the snake Typhon. Ra,

when Horus rides in his bark, is Jupiter, the "night sun." Thoth is Mercury, not the Moon.

[p 256] "The aspect of Velikovsky’s thesis that seems to have generated the most steam is

his identification of the planet Venus as a gigantic comet that swept past the Earth beforemoving into its present orbit. Wildly improbable though this is for dynamical as many other

reasons, there is no doubt that Venus did eventually assume a particular significant place

in many early astronomies. If undue reliance is placed on the mythological rather than the

scientific evidence, the absurd speculations about Venus [by Velikovsky] can at least be

understood if not forgiven. How the confusion of blame between Typhon and Venus arose

in some myths, assuming indeed it did, is obscure."



I have discussed the "wildly improbable" dynamics earlier. Could Clube and Napier get this any

more wrong? I do not think Venus came closer than 9,000,000 miles. It never left its orbit.

Planets do not leave their orbits, although orbits change and reshape. The cometary tail it still

has today. Velikovsky may not always have been completely correct, but his main thesis stands

unimpeded by particulars. It is, in fact, a "concept indifferent to the details of its formulation."The mythological evidence is solid and overwhelming, and hardly absurd. Of course Clube and

Napier use exactly the same mythological evidence to buttress their speculation, but selectively

dismissing what they cannot use or comprehend.

... the windup

After an earlier wholesale dismissal of Velikovsky, he is suddenly given credit for one item. One

item only, even though Velikovsky in this case has the agent wrong, and waffled on the exact

date, as I have pointed out, and the effect, an Earth shock, which did not change the orbit of

Earth.

[p 269] "... if one takes a dispassionate look at the mythological evidence assembled by

Velikovsky for example, setting aside his singular astronomy, one may conclude that there

was a widespread anticipation of an encounter of the Earth with a comet or its debris in

687 or 686 BC."

"This event could have been, as he suggests, a significant turning point in the history of

civilization, releasing new visions of the nature of the gods, perhaps finally weaning man

away from sacred calendars and the view of life in which the world progressed through

catastrophe, fire and flood from one ’great year’ to the next."

The year 687 or 686 BC for an uncertain electrical contact due to Mars (actually with Mercury)

was also the only date that Velikovsky was uncertain of. The last part of the quoted text ("the

great year") should be attributed to vd Waerden rather than Velikovsky. Velikovsky never made

note of a "great year." The authors here have reference to "sacred calendars," something

neglected earlier (when they were used for astronomical and agricultural services). In the

following text (waiting for the next catastrophe in AD 0), however, the information is used to

segue a "684 year period" into the derived date of 1369 BC.

But first, returning to more mundane claims of meteor impacts:

[p 270] "Among the early [?] ’planetary’ periodicities that emerged from the Babylonian

observations was one significantly related to eclipses of the Sun and Moon for which van

der Waerden has been unable to find any really satisfactory explanation. It was a period of

684 years. .. the figure occurs several times in astrological texts, yet there is no

combination of known lunar periods capable of explaining it."

The authors now suggest that Velikovsky’s uncertain catastrophe of 687 or 686 BC is 684 years

after their derived date for Exodus of 1369 BC; 686 BC - 684 = 1370 BC. Similarly, 686 BC +

684 = 2 BC, a date in the era when apparently another catastrophe was expected in the Eastern

Mediterranean region. The authors add to this some loose facts, for example, that a prograde

motion of Mars repeats every 171 years, one fourth of 684 years, and that nine returns of Halley



take 684 years. So what.

There was no "widespread anticipation of an encounter" in 687 or 686 BC. Instead, there was thedelivery to the Sun of an absolutely stupendous plasmoid thunderbolt in 685 BC, which concluded 121

years of destruction in Persia, Anatolia, Greece, Italy, Europe north of the Alps, Central and Northern

Mexico, and the southern portion of North America.

And there was no catastrophe in AD 0 or AD 2. The reasoning presented here -- the 684-yearperiod -- might have served as a suggestion for a time interval, and could be used as an introduction to the

"Sibylline Star Wars" texts of the first century AD.

There is no need to move the date of the Exodus up by 100 years. The time span of 684 years iseasily derived from the accepted 1492 BC date of the Exodus and 806 BC, the first year that Mars blasted

Persia, Anatolia, Greece, and Italy with lightning strikes (686 years). The periodic destructions lasted 121

years and came to an end when the "thunderbolt of Zeus" toppled Phaethon from his chariot in 685 BC.

On what was thought to be the first day of spring of the following year (it had actually changed by 15days) a conjunction of seven planets was seen -- what in antiquity was called the start of a "great year,"

even though these happen quite frequently. Nice coincidence: the world, recreated, started over. You willfind the same notion in Vedic texts.

None of these various dates have anything to do with the Taurids, and the return of comet Encki.But without the single data point from Velikovsky, which the authors understand as the "widespreadanticipation of an encounter of the Earth with a comet" in 687 or 686 BC, they would be unable to explain

the supposed cycle of 684 years, even though in AD 2, at the completion of a second cycle, nothing

happened.

I find this extremely selective use of data bothersome. As annoying is the constant juxtapositionof unrelated facts and suppositions, as if these go to prove some extended theory. There is no extendedtheory. The authors are entirely out of their field when it comes to calendars, archaeology, and mythology.

They are reading school texts from the 1950s, and accepting these as the bearers of fact.

As a final note: What about Clube and Napier? people will ask. An interesting book of nosubstance. It is doubtful if meteors ever posed a serious threat in antiquity, or today -- the Tunguska event

notwithstanding. I would bet almost all the "meteor craters" which have been found are the "impact sites"of electrical arcs, and not due to bolides falling from space. It is also amazing how few "craters" have been

identified on the surface of the Earth. Most date, in fact, to millions of years ago, not to the time of the

Exodus.

On the other hand, meteor clusters are not to be neglected. As I have shown, the early EuropeanCro-Magnon were absolutely obsessed with passing comets for some 20,000 years. They appear stillduring the 300-year period after 3067 BC when Mars cruised close to Earth, accompanied with a retinueof warriors (or cattle) to be recorded on the Palermo stone, and depicted on palettes and knife handles, and

then again for a 120-year period in the 8th and 7th century BC. Most of the famed battles fought by the

Egyptians in the intervening time span are meteoric troops seen in the sky. For 3000 years the Pharaoh

consistently won every battle, until the very real Assyrians showed up after 750 BC, after which they

consistently lost every battle.



There are still six asteroids closely following Mars. There are still dozens of comet streamswhich regularly intersect Earth’s orbit today, sometimes with spectacular displays -- but all of it from the

electrical flashing of dust -- dust, not rocks, not ice cubes either.

-=-= Binary star =-=-Alfred de Grazia and Earl R. Milton Solaria Binaria (1984), in the "Quantavolution" series of

papers and books (Internet).

"An astronomer and astro-physicist join to perfect an elegantly coherent and logical

theory, backed by physical, psychological, and mythological studies, of the origins and

history of the solar system with Jupiter as the remnant of the Uranian binary partner of

Sol." -- [http://quantavolution.org/]

The theory is based on the concept of our Solar System being the remnant of a binary star

system. Thus a plasma connection between the Sun and Jupiter is responsible for the creation of

the inner planets. The theory suffers from an unwillingness to allow for the absolutely enormoustime scale required for the energy transfer under plasma conditions, and then flips planet axes,

changes rotational momentum, and initiates orbits at will. It might work, given another few

billion years, but not with a foreshortened time scale as required by de Grazia.

De Grazia, however, is a prolific writer and his site is well worth looking at because it includes a

dozen other books on topics closer to what has been established or held as true by other authors

on catastrophism.

-=-= Mars Wars =-=-

Donald W. Patten and Samuel R. Windsor The Mars-Earth Wars (1996). The authors arephysical scientist and engineers, making their theories a little more solid. The authors are

sincerely enamored of the "dirty snowball" theory of comets, however:

"The surface of Mars and its two satellites provides ample evidence supporting recent

catastrophism in the Solar System. For example, the energy and momentum exchanges for

the transition of the orbit of Mars from the catastrophic era to the modern era are provided

in this volume. Back tracking the orbits of Venus, the Moon and Mars to the catastrophic

year 701 B.C.E. all calculate well, which is a confirmation of this model of catastrophism."

"This new model of cosmology accepts the evidence of planetary catastrophes surrounding

us. It is a model of recent orbit changes among Venus, the Earth and Mars. While not an

’original thought,’ the claim is that a reorganization occurred within the cultural memoryof numerous groups of the Earth’s inhabitants, who recorded their experiences." --

[http://www.creationism.org/patten/PattenMarsEarthWars/index.htm]

Don’t let the domain name scare you, this is a reasonably well-written piece about the

intersection of the orbit of Earth and Mars up to the beginning of the 8th century. But the

backtracking through well-mannered calculations does not constitute a confirmation. It offers a

single and what I think is a rather simple solution, much too rigid and invariant in its mechanics,

http://quantavolution.org/

http://www.creationism.org/patten/PattenMarsEarthWars/index.htm

http://www.creationism.org/patten/PattenMarsEarthWars/index.htm

http://quantavolution.org/



of the near-contacts with Mars during this time period, extending back to Mars being hit bysome (watery) asteroid. It fails to give an account of any previous celestial history, or suggest a closure.

A magnetic field is required for Mars (which does not exist), which alternately topples the axisof Earth (and Mars) to assume a "least interactive position" near 22.5 degrees with respect to their plane of

rotation about the Sun. But, as I have pointed out in the chapter "The Hour of Phaethon" the Earth’s23.5-degree inclination was not achieved until 685 BC, and at a time when Mars was about as far from

Earth as it could possibly be.

Although momentum and energy equations are carried out to many decimal places, thedifference in orbital inclination to the equator of the Sun in not taken into account. (Patten and Windsor

state at one point that the orbits of Earth and Mars were coplanar. They are not.) Some of the momentum

seems to be transferred to the outer planets without any plausible mechanical connection over very long

distances, and without explaining how gravitational interaction would furnish the connection.

I disagree also with their selection of 701 BC as the date for the terminal event of Mars, whichenlarged the Earth’s orbit. There is just too much evidence that this happened in 747 BC, from calendar

considerations -- such as the start of the Era of Nabonasser and the start of the Olmec Long Count.

A major objection is that Patten and Windsor have Mars pass between Earth and the Moon inorder to increase the orbit of Earth and reduce the orbit of the Moon -- both by gravitational attraction. It

also forces them to have Mars pass significantly closer to Earth, the evidence of Hesiod’s The

Shield of Hercules is used in partial support of this. The possibility of a "shove" instead of a"tug" is not considered, probably because much of the plasma theory was still undeveloped at the time of

their authorship. Mars could have "shoved" the Earth with an electrical field thrust -- a repulsive force --

from much greater distances. Even though Mars would not have had a large plasmasphere, it still would

have had a tail, an electrical shadow, on the side away from the Sun. The intersection of this with the

plasmasphere of the Earth would have sufficed to provide the shock.

Despite my reservations, I found The Mars-Earth Wars to be interesting and I have used it as aresource in my own analysis. Patten and Windsor agree that there was no precession of the equinox before

701 BC, but for different reasons from mine (and I use 747 BC), but failed to recognize the 15-day offset

in the calendar in 685 BC. They agree on periodic flybys of Mars, but use a different interval from myselection (which had followed a suggestion by Velikovsky, and was verified from Mesoamerican sources).

Lastly, I adopted Patten and Windsor’s value for the synodic period of Mars, and managed to verify it

from calendar measures and through rather arcane Mesoamerican sources.

-=-= Firmament =-=-

John Ackerman ("angiras") Firmament: Recent Catastrophic History of the Earth (1996) and

Chaos: A New Solar System Paradigm (2000) establishes the repeated meetings of Earth and

Mars (and Venus) primarily from Vedic sources. Ackerman is a physicist, says he, who talks plasma

without a single concepts of what it really is.

"Prior to 4000 B.C. there existed only two terrestrial planets, what I call priori-Mars and

the Earth. That is, Mercury and proto-Venus were not present in the solar system.

Priori-Mars, the more ancient of the two by some 800 million years, was in an orbit similar

to that of Venus today. It had a thick atmosphere, lots of surface water, rain, and a myriad



of life forms similar to those found on Earth. The entire planet was covered with

vegetation."

My estimate of the age of Mars and Earth is exactly the reverse, as I have pointed out in the

appendix "Notes on Chronology." If Mars had been subjected to 30,000 years of an electrical arc

from Saturn impinging on its northern hemisphere, all life forms (if there were any) would have

been burned to a crisp and obliterated. But that’s just my opinion.

"One of the most profound ideas suggested by the Velikovsky/Ackerman (V/A) scenario is

an understanding of how a higher power may have only recently regenerated the Earth to

enable its population by billions of human beings. ... The V/A scenario makes it possible for

us to understand how major changes in a solar system were activated by small physical

actions leveraged by a level of intelligence far beyond our own."

The tip-offs are "a higher power" and the "level of intelligence far beyond our own." I do not see

the need for any of this. Ackerman eventually proposes that Earth is populated by Martian life.

His third book reveals him as a dyed-in-the-wool uniformitarian and Christion fundamentalistwith Rapture leanings. He also largely follows Sitchin, combining it with ideas from

Velikovsky.

"The Velikovsky/Ackerman scenario, derived from ancient myth, involved two periods. The

first was very short, lasting some fifty years, but was the one in which most fauna on Earth

were destroyed. These were the proto-Venus encounters."

"It passed close to the Earth on two occasions, the first when it was still an earth-sized ball

of flame. It scorched North Africa and the Middle East, forming the Sahara desert, and left

a path of destruction that can still be seen today in satellite images. These two encounters

overturned the lithosphere of the Earth causing tidal waves to sweep across entire

continents killing most animals and beings."

"The second part of the Vedic period involved the interactions of what I call priori-Mars

with the Earth. These were not transient in nature, but involved the capture of the more

diminutive planet in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth for fifteen years and then its

release into a solar orbit for another fifteen."

"This process was repeated one hundred times over 3,000 years, and the associated events

on both planets are detailed in Firmament." -- [http://www.firmament-chaos.com]

Ackerman has Mars stand over the Himalayas for 15 years at a time, thus raising them to great

heights. It requires a magnetic field for Mars and an iron core which leaks out of the giant crack

the Valles Marineris, bundles up, and starts revolving about the Sun independently, eventually toenter Mars again at the end of the 15-year period. At the very last instance of this repeating cycle

it fails to return, and now circles the Sun as the planet Mercury -- magnetic, dense, and smaller

than Mars. Another feature are long tubes of lava that extend from Mars towards Earth. During

these many visits all the Martian oceans and vegetation leak out and are cast onto Earth.

http://www.firmament-chaos.com/

http://www.firmament-chaos.com/



What is amazing is that the detailed information, presented over three books, forms a close fit towhat I think is a completely unjustified cosmology. It should be a warning for any other neo-catastrophist

who attempts to put all of mythology together into a singular cohesive system: It can be done, but means

no more than filling in a crossword puzzle with random words.

Ackerman, like everyone else who has looked at the physical nature of Mars, including anynumber of mythologists and creators of alternative cosmologies, holds the large bulges on the northernhemisphere to be volcanoes. A few of the Saturnians have properly identified these as fulgamite lightning

blisters. As volcanoes they are hundreds of times the volume of anything similar on Earth and even three

times higher than the Earth’s Himalayas mountains. None show any evidence of lava flow. Very strange

volcanoes for a planet of only 1/10th the mass of Earth.

I should also note that Ackerman might very well be correct in pinpointing the "face on Mars"(as a Griffin or as Horus) as well as other elements of Egyptian funeral ceremonies -- from the earliest

sightings of Mars, rather than its destructive close passes in the 8th and 7th centuries BC.

-=-= God King Scenario =-=-The site God King Scenario, at [http://www.gks.uk.com], promotes the book An Ancient World

in Chaos (2008) by Gary Gilligan with a dozen synoptic pages from its contents. It takes on ananalysis of Egyptian iconography, refreshingly direct and unpretentious, which assigns the Gods of Egypt

to the known planets but Hathor to an equatorial ring system. Gilligan shows much more sensibility thanmost investigators, especially with respect to the basic fabric of religious philosophy. His evidence for the

fact that most battles were held in the skies, not on land, is worth the price of the book alone.

I would disagree with almost all the mechanics involved in his analysis, with some of thechronology, almost all of the identity of the Gods, and certainly would not assign the appearance of

Mercury during the New Kingdom to an expulsion of the core of Mars, a la Ackerman, [above].

I think the strongest point of this book is that it makes sense of Egyptian religious beliefs in terms of theobservable Universe. Amazing.

Calculations are in Unix bc notation, where ^ denotes exponentiation; the functions

(a)rctangent, (s)ine, and (c)osine use radians; angle conversions to radians or degrees by the divisors

rad=.017+ and deg=57.2+; other functions are shown as f( ); tan( )=s( )/c( )

units: million == 1,000,000; billion == 1,000,000,000;

AU == 93,000,000 miles.

Table of Contents for the [PDF] files here.

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Saturnian Cosmology - Appendix H - Other Cosmologies