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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Ferdinand Wackers
Muck, Otto
Otto Heinrich Muck (1892-1956) was born in Vienna and graduated as an engineer at the Munich College of Advanced Technology. Muck had a very productive life that saw him hold patents for around 2000 inventions at the time of his death. During World War I, he was a flying officer and during World War II, he invented the U-boat schnorkel and was also a member of the Peenemunde Rocket Research Team. After the war Muck was a scientific consultant to large industrial concerns. He died in 1956 following an accident.
>Muck was an ardent catastrophist, a view that was at the heart of his Atlantis theory. Unrelated but interesting was his willingness to endorse the idea that pre-Columbian America has been visited by Phoenicians! Unfortunately, according to Atlantisforschung, his belief was based on the disputed ‘inscriptions’ found at Pedra da Gávea in Brazil. The same site has a number of articles concerning the life and work of Muck(f).<
Muck published his worthwhile contribution to the Atlantis mystery, in German, Alles über Atlantis[1468], in 1954. It was translated into English by Fred Bradley and published in Britain in 1978 [098]+. The book was well received and his views continue to have support today.
Muck’s book is now out of print, but English translations of it can now be viewed and downloaded from the Internet(a).
Muck believed that Atlantis had been located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and was destroyed as a consequence of an asteroidal impact. He maintained that the asteroid hit the Atlantic, east of the Caribbean, creating the remarkable Carolina Bays en route with its attendant debris and causing tectonic disturbance of such a magnitude that it led to the sinking of Atlantis. He considered the Azores to be remnants of Atlantis.
Muck attributes many of our flood myths to the ensuing tsunamis. With Teutonic precision, he pinpoints the time and date of this disaster to 8.00 pm on June 5th, 8498 BC, but carelessly omits to tell us whether this is Greenwich Mean Time, Central European Time or some other zone.
Muck’s impact theory would appear to have been ‘inspired’ by the studies of two American geologists, F.A. Melton and W. Schriever in the early 1930s and the later work by W.F. Prouty(a).
However, I must point out that when an aerial survey was carried out in 1931 when the number of ‘bays’ was counted at 3,000. Muck estimated that the bombardment was even greater off the coast, with as many as 7,000 more hits in the ocean. So based on this total of 10,000 Muck proceeded to calculate the mass of the asteroid. Now that we know that the bays on land may number as many as half a million, Muck’s estimations need serious revision.
Muck identified what he considered to be two huge impact craters in the Atlantic east of Puerto Rico as evidence of the catastrophe that led to the destruction of Atlantis. Unfortunately for Muck supporters, improved satellite imagery since the 1970s has shown these ‘craters’ to be chimeras(c).
He further contended that prior to the destruction of Atlantis in the Atlantic the Gulf Stream had been blocked and that after the catastrophe it had pushed northward improving the climate of the British Isles and northwest Europe. In this regard, he was following the views of René Malaise. A German article(b) by Dr Gerhard Kühn, in 2016, has offered some support for Muck’s suggestion that the Gulf Stream had been deflected by a large island in the Atlantic before the end of the last Ice Age. While in the same year, another report(d) proposed that the Gulf Stream had not been interrupted during the last Ice Age!
Understandably, half a century later, advances in various scientific disciplines have demonstrated flaws in his theories. Nevertheless, a number of researchers, such as Wolter Smit, Dale Drinnon, Roland Horn and Prescott Rawlings still support aspects of Muck’s theories. More recently, Andrew Collins adopted Muck’s Atlantic impact theory in his Atlantis in the Caribbean[1197].
However, Muck’s book is still worth reading as a study in theory building. Used copies can (Feb. 2013) be had very cheaply (€0.01) through Amazon.
Over twenty years after his death, another book commenced by Muck was published as Geburt der Kontinente (Birth of the continents)[1100]+, completed by F. Wackers and edited by Mario Muck and Ferdinand Wackers.
[1100]+ Geburt der Kontinente : e Protokoll zum 8. Scho?pfungstag : Muck, Otto Heinrich : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive (to borrow) (German)
(a) https://www.scribd.com/doc/16206238/The-Secret-of-Atlantis-by-Otto-Muck
(b) https://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/2016/06/24/teil-1-was-geschah-vor-10-000-jahren/
(c) https://grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?3,700894,701308#msg-701308
(d) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160219134816.htm
(e) https://www.scientificpsychic.com/etc/carolina-bays/carolina-bays-prouty.html
(f) Otto Muck on Phoenicians in America – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *