George F. Dodwell was an Australian astronomer who made a study of ancient gnomons and concluded that they deviated from the expected. He concluded that there was consistent evidence that the tilt of the earth’s axis was altered around 2345 BC. This view supported those that have claimed that the poles shifted within the memory of man, possibly as a result of a close encounter or impact with an extraterrestrial body such as a comet. Some have gone further and attribute the destruction of Atlantis to this clash.

Dodwell, a devout Christian, concluded that it was this sudden shift of the earth’s axis that led to the Flood of Noah. It was in this regard that he wrote to Rene Noorbergen in 1960^{[612 p20]}