Gary Gilligan

Gilligan, Gary*

Published June 22, 2022

Gary Gilligan (1957- ) is a British author who has “studied Egyptology, Astronomy and Geology with an almost obsessive passion. When he first came across the theory of catastrophism, he was intrigued by the possibility that the Solar System had undergone recent upheavals due to cosmic chaos.”

Gilligan is arguably the most radical of the catastrophists and ancient chronology revisionists publishing today. Some of his ideas make those of Velikovsky as well as James and Rohl seem somewhat tame.

Among his many extreme claims are (1) Our Moon was only captured in the first millennium BC^(a), (2) The Saharan sands, he claims are extraterrestrial in origin ^[1365], (3) The ancient year had only 360 days ^[1385.61]and (4) The ancient Egyptian climate was milder than today as indicated by a red sun, rather than today’s yellow disk!^(c)

In a short 2012 paper now republished in October 2022 on the Thunderbolts website Gilligan proposes that the Amazon rainforest is only a few thousand years old. He argues that the Amazon region is today dependent on the 54,000 tons of fine dust received daily from the Sahara and since the Sahara did not exist 6,000 years ago neither did the Amazon rainforest which he says is claimed to be 55 million years old!^(d) However, an article from Scientific American (July 7, 2014) also offers an even more recent date for the development of the rainforest, suggesting that “the people of the Amazon from2,500 to 500 years ago were farmers.”^(e)

^(a) http://www.gks.uk.com/moon-origin-egyptian/

^(b) http://www.everythingselectric.com/forum/index.php?topic=347.0 (link broken) *

^(c) https://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/download/pdf_can_we_have_our_red_sun_back_please_by_gary_gilligan.pdf

^(d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest

^(e)https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amazon-rainforest-is-much-younger-than-commonly-believed/

Tagged Amazon, David Rohl, Gary Gilligan, Immanuel Velikovsky, moon, Peter James, Sahara, Scientific American

Moon, The *

Published August 7, 2016

The Moon and its origin have been the subject of speculation for centuries, examples of which are reviewed below. Professor Robert M. Hazen of George Mason University tells us in The Origin and Evolution of the Earth^(ad)that “three competing theories—the fission theory, the capture theory, and the co-accretion theory—were all in contention prior to 1969, but the treasure trove of Apollo Moon rocks provided the answer: None of the pre-1969 theories worked……….The Moon is now thought to have formed as the result of an epic impact with a Mars-sized planet that was competing for the same solar system real estate as Earth. Earth was bigger and won, but the Moon was formed from the debris of the impact.”

The impact theory received a boost from the results of a study carried out at Durham University involving the use of a supercomputer for modelling^(ag).

Irrespective of the controversies surrounding the formation of the Moon, what is less contentious is that for prehistoric man, the moon was a readymade calendar. An article^(ap) by Rebecca Boyle has the following introductory paragraph.

“The sun’s rhythm may have set the pace of each day, but when early humans needed a way to keep time beyond a single day and night, they looked to a second light in the sky. The moon was one of humankind’s first timepieces long before the first written language, before the earliest organized cities and well before structured religions. The moon’s face changes nightly and with the regularity of the seasons, making it a reliable marker of time.”

The Moon has little connection with Plato’s Atlantis story apart from the more extreme speculations of some writers. One of the wildest is that the Atlanteans had established a research facility on the Moon^(a), an idea rivalled by that of Alan Butler & Christopher Knight in their book, Who Built the Moon^[0937], in which they propose that the Moon was ‘constructed’! This idea has now been revived by Rob Shelsky^[¹⁵⁸⁴^]. In 1965, the Umland brothers^[⁸³³^] proposed that the Moon was a communications relay station for the Maya to make contact with their home planet!

In his recent book, Dead Men’s Secrets [1910.299], Jonathon Gray suggested that ancient texts support the idea that man has visited the Moon in the distant past! This is available as a pdf file^(ac).

In 1970, Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, of what was then the Soviet Academy of Sciences, advanced a hypothesis that the Moon is a spaceship created by unknown beings^(k). These ideas inspired the title of Don Wilson’s 1976 book, Our Mysterious Spaceship Moon ^[^1704].

In 2018 and in a number of previous editions of Ancient Aliens, David Hatcher Childress endorsed the daft idea that our Moon is hollow and artificial. Jason Colavito noted that this idea has “been going around for the past half-century, based on a piece of Russian propaganda from the 1960s aimed at Western audiences. Childress alleged that aliens created the moon by inflating an asteroid. Yes, really. “Like a glass blower blows glass, you go out into the asteroid belt, get yourself an asteroid, and with your alien technology you superheat that asteroid. Then you blow into it to make a giant space station,” he said. That seems like rather a lot of work to avoid showing yourself to the humans^(ao).“

In 2023, Shane Leach tried to resuscitate this daft idea. He also recycled the suggestion that the Martian satellite, Phobos, was an alien construction. However, neither he nor Butler & Knight can claim originality as the idea of artificial moons was floated decades ago by the Russian I. S. Shklovskii^(g) among others mentioned above.

Some years later Arnold L. Lieber published The Lunar Effect ^[1888] in which he put forward his theory of ‘biological tides’ that proposes that the Moon affects human behaviour. This seemed to reinforce the popular belief that aggression and even suicides were affected by the phases of the Moon. Commenting on Lieber’s theory at the time, astronomer Dr Nicholas Sanduleak debunked his claims^(aa).

The idea that the Moon was to some extent hollow was given impetus in the 1970s when a study of moonquakes revealed that the Moon ‘rang like a bell’ ⁽ⁱ⁾. Now, nearly half a century later, Wallace Thornhill, a leading Electric Universe proponent, has endorsed the hollow Moon idea and seems sympathetic to the idea of a hollow Earth. This was expressed at a recent EU conference and be viewed at the 40-minute mark of a YouTube video.^(j)

Neal Adams, a respected graphic artist^(s), is probably best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Batman and Green Arrow. He is a vocal supporter of the Expanding Earth Hypothesis^(t), but, he has gone further and also proposed a growing Moon as well^(u)^(r). Not content with that, he has extended his expansion investigations to other bodies in our Solar System, such as Mars, Ganymede & Europa^(v). Adams considers the term “Expanding Earth” a misnomer and has named his proposed expansion process ‘pair production’!

The origins of the Moon have also been the subject of extensive controversy with one side claiming that it had been ‘captured’ by the earth, while the other extreme argues that it had been ‘expelled’ from our planet. The expulsion theory posits^(b) that a collision with another celestial body tore material from the Earth, which in time became our Moon^(h). Nils Olof Bergquist writing in the 1940s supported the expulsion scenario and had his original Swedish book on the subject translated into English as The Moon Puzzle^[0786].

Aloys Eiling (1952- ) is a German researcher who has offered a variation on the Moon capture theory, suggesting that it took place when our planet was already populated – somewhere between 40,000 and 13,000 BC. He notes^(ab) that “the capture of the Moon caused worse than a flood; it changed the geography of the world. Earth’s surface was devastated, millions died, and life in total was brought to the brink of extinction. In the collective memory of mankind, the event indelibly remained in the myths about a Deluge.”

The most radical of the captured moon school was Hanns Hörbiger, who proposed that there had been a series of Moon captures. Many of his ideas were adopted by H.S. Bellamy, who added that the capture of our current satellite had destroyed Atlantis. Kurt Bilau has also proposed a moon capture theory that incorporates two near encounters before finally becoming our current satellite^(ah)(ai).

Georg Hinzpeter was influenced by the Moon-capture ideas of Hanns Hörbiger, with whom he had personal contact. However, when he suggested some modifications he fell foul of the Nazis and was informed “that his work was no longer going to be supported by the regime because it deviated from Hörbiger’s original theory.” ^(an)

After the war, he contributed to Sykes Atlantis magazine, where, like Bellamy, he theorised that the destruction of Atlantis coincided with the capture of our present satellite, an event that he claimed to have taken place around 11,500 years ago^(am).

Nikolay Bonev, the astronomer, caused a stir in 1961 when he expressed the view that our Moon had once been an independent planet^(d) that had experienced violent volcanic eruptions that were powerful enough to have produced a ‘recoil’ effect, which nudged it towards our Earth’s orbit and was eventually captured as our satellite.

In 1948, an amateur astronomer, L.C. Suggars, endorsed the idea of the Moon as a captured planet, based on its diameter/density ratio, which was consistent with that of the other minor planets (Mercury, Mars, Venus & Earth).^(w)

More recently Emilio Spedicato expressed similar ideas^(c) and in another paper^(aj)he wrote “we consider the Sumerian tradition of a planet, called Nibiru, claimed to approach Earth every 3600 years. We argue that the real period was 20 years and that a close passage of that body near Earth around 9500 BC ended the last Ice Age and the Atlantis civilization. Moreover, Earth a satellite of Nibiru became our Moon, in addition to the previous satellite, that was Mars. We discuss ancient statements that the Moon originally looked bigger and brighter than now and that the period of about 2400 years when there were two satellites explains the myth of Isis and Osiris. We argue that Nibiru around 6900 BC disappeared in a giant impact on Jupiter.“

Stuart L. Harris has proposed^(m) that the planet Nibiru had a close encounter with our Earth in 9577 BC that destroyed Atlantis, followed by another visit in 9417 BC during which it lost one of its satellites, which became our Moon!

Immanuel Velikovsky wrote a short paper^(af) reviewing the three most popular theories regarding the origins of our satellite and concluded that “Since mankind on both sides of the Atlantic preserved the memory of a time when the Earth was without the Moon, the first hypothesis, namely, of the Moon originating simultaneously with the Earth and in its vicinity, is to be excluded, leaving the other two hypotheses to compete between themselves.” I think it noteworthy that Velikovsky makes no reference to the theories of Hörbiger in this paper. In 2020, Velikovsky’s unfinished book, In the Beginning ^[1956], promoted as a prequel to Worlds in Collision, was finally published, where he returns to the matter of the Earth without its Moon.

John Ackerman, a keen follower of Immanuel Velikovsky claimed that there were two catastrophic events related to “the capture of the Moon into its current orbit,” marking both the beginning and the end of the Younger Dryas period^(p). Although Ackerman was an admirer of Velikovsky’s work, he was also critical of some of his conclusions^(x).

The Moon controversies continue with the recent suggestion by Erik Asphaug, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who claims that originally the Earth had two moons that coalesced into a single satellite ⁽ⁿ⁾! A few years earlier, Dr Martin Jutzi from the University of Bern, Switzerland put forward a similar theory involving a smaller second moon that had a slow-motion collision with the larger satellite. He proposed that this event explains “why the near side of the Moon – the one visible from Earth – is flat and cratered while the rarely-seen far side is heavily cratered and has mountain ranges higher than 3,000m.”^(z) Jutzi thought that samples from the far side of the Moon might confirm the theory.

Gary Gilligan, a catastrophist, also supports the concept of moon capture but dated this event to as recent as 2000 BC^(f) and then later advanced it to 1200 BC^(g). He claims that he can “show that the moon could not have existed during prehistory as evidenced by the absence of the moon in Neolithic artwork and artefacts.” A comment that ignores the maxim ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’

Researcher, Mark Andrew commenting on Gilligan’s claims wrote that “Although Gilligan promises more evidence to come, his theory has to contend with the varied evidence of an earlier Moon, including the earliest known written myth of the Moon’s death and rebirth, the epic poem Descent of Inanna (dating from 1750 BC), and also the oldest known map of the moon (dating from 2800 BC).”^(l)

Ticleanu, Constantin & Nicolescu in their paper delivered to the 2008 Atlantis Conference very briefly touched on the origin of the Moon. They claim that our Moon, a former planet, was captured by our Earth sometime within the last 40,000 years ^[750.368].

Two American commentators, Kevin A. & Patrick J. Casey maintain that a globally catastrophic event occurred 13,000 years ago^(ae). The kernel of their theory is that originally the Earth had two moons that at some later point collided, producing our current Moon, while the remnant of the second one eventually exploded over North America kick-starting what we refer to as the cooler Younger Dryas period. They are adamant that it was not a comet or asteroid that caused the devastation, and so clash with the conclusions of Richard Firestone and his colleagues. They refer to this as the 13K Event, which is also known as the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH).

The moon could have formed immediately after a cataclysmic impact that tore off a chunk of Earth and hurled it into space, a new study has suggested. Since the mid-1970s, astronomers have thought that the moon could have been made by a collision between Earth and an ancient Mars-size protoplanet called Theia; the colossal impact would have created an enormous debris field from which our lunar companion slowly formed over thousands of years.

But a new hypothesis, based on supercomputer simulations made at a higher resolution than ever before, suggests that the moon’s formation might not have been a slow and gradual process after all, but one that instead took place within just a few hours. The scientists published their findings on October 4, 2022, in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters^(al).

Unexpectedly, the orbital speed of the Moon appears to vary on its trip around the Earth^(e).

Some of the ideas above regarding the origin of the Moon are extremist and are far more radical than a recent theory regarding the Sun proposed by Ev Cochrane, a comparative mythologist, in a YouTube clip^(o), where he offers evidence that the Sun as observed in ancient times seemed quite different to how we see it today. This is borne out by the related mythologies and petroglyphs from our ancient past and shows a global consistency that cannot be explained by imagination.

Professor Neil F. Comins of the University of Maine challenged his students with the question ‘what if the Moon didn’t exist?’ The responses were interesting (no eclipses) and amusing (a new word for ‘lunatic would be required), but not always correct (no tides). One important consequence would be an eight-hour day^(q).

Even more challenging are recent comments from Randall Carlson in an exchange between Carlson and Jesse Michels^(ak).

JM “Do you believe that there are survivors of ancient Atlantis among us, perhaps with underwater bases or bases on the Moon and advanced technology!”

RC “Now there’s a loaded question, Jesse.” [pause] “I would say, a very provisional – Yes!”

Unfortunately, Michels did not pursue the matter in the clip available.

^(a) See: Archive 3334

^(b) https://www.q-mag.org/moon-mars-impacts-and-collisions.html

^(c) https://aisberg.unibg.it/retrieve/handle/10446/316/1369/WPMateRi05%282008%29SpedicatoPetruzzi.pdf

^(d) https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2229&dat=19611112&id=VQIzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7QAGAAAAIBAJ&pg=4738,1928190&hl=en

^(e)The Clockwork Moon | MalagaBay (archive.org)

^(f) https://grahamhancock.com/earth-capture-the-moon-gilligan/

^(g) https://www.gks.uk.com/moon-origin-egyptian/

^(h) https://www.q-mag.org/moon-mars-impacts-and-collisions.html

⁽ⁱ⁾ Wayback Machine (archive.org)

^(j) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gouqy4OghyY

^(k) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon

^(l)https://web.archive.org/web/20160710150837/https://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/article/late-arrival/

^(m) https://www.academia.edu/37216933/Sinking_of_Atlantis_by_Nibiru_in_9577_BC_Part_3_Nibiru_sinks_Atlantis

⁽ⁿ⁾When the Earth Had Two Moons – Issue 74: Networks – Nautilus (archive.org)

^(o) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eAwUiadZHY

^(p)Firmament and Chaos (archive.org) *

^(q) https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/what-if-the-moon-didnt-exist-the-fun-of-counterfactuals-in-science/

^(r) Neal Adams: 01 – The Growing Earth | MalagaBay (archive.org)

^(s) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Adams

^(t) https://www.naturalphilosophy.org/site/dehilster/2014/09/22/is-the-earth-expanding-and-even-growing/

^(u) Neal Adams: 02 – The Growing Moon | MalagaBay (archive.org)

^(v) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy3_sWF7tv4

^(w) Atlantean Research, Vol.1, No.2, September/October 1948

^(x) Velikovsky’s Mistakes | Acksblog (cycliccatastrophism.org)

^(z) Earth may once have had two moons – BBC News

^(aa) SCIENCE WATCH – The Moon and Lunacy – NYTimes.com (archive.org)

^(ab)https://grahamhancock.com/eilinga2/

^(ac) Dead men’s secrets : tantalising hints of a lost super race : Gray, Jonathan, 1933- author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

^(ad)The Origin and Evolution of Earth: From the Big Bang to the Future of Human Existence (archive.org)

^(ae) https://www.academia.edu/38380799/13k_Theory_Atlantis_Revisited.pdf

^(af) The Earth Without the Moon (varchive.org)

^(ag) How did the moon form? A supercomputer may have just found the answer | Live Science

^(ah) The moon capture report according to Daniel and Johannes – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)

^(ai) The Revelations of John – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)

^(aj) (99+) Nibiru-tiamat rel 6 June 13 | Emilio Spedicato – Academia.edu

^(ak) Graham Hancock: Aliens, Atlantis & the Apocalypse – YouTube

^(al) How did the moon form? A supercomputer may have just found the answer | Live Science

^(am) Atlantis, Vol.4, No,4, November 1951

^(an) https://www.academia.edu/16833657/Hitlers_Supernatural_Sciences

^(ao) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/david-childress-aliens-living-in-the-hollow-moon-created-bigfoot-to-serve-as-missing-link-between-humans-and-apes

^(ap)Ancient humans used the moon as a calendar in the sky (sciencenews.org)

Tagged 2008 Atlantis Conference, Alan Butler & Christopher Knight, Alexander Shcherbakov, Aloys Eiling, Arnold L. Lieber, Atlantis, David Hatcher Childress, Electric Universe, Emilio Spedicato, Eric & Craig Umland, Erik Asphaug, Ev Cochrane, Expanding Earth Hypothesis, Gary Gilligan, Georg Hinzpeter, H.S. Bellamy, Hanns Horbiger, Hollow Earth, Hollow Moon, I.S. Shklovskii, Immanuel Velikovsky, Jason Colavito, John Ackerman, Jonathon Gray, Kurt Bilau, L. C. Suggars, Mark Andrew, Martin Jutzi, Michael Vasin, NASA, Neal Adams, Neil F.Comins, Nibiru, Nicholas Sanduleak, Nikolay Bonev, Nils Olof Bergquist, Phobos, Randall Carlson, Rebecca Boyle, Rob Shelsky, Robert M. Hazen, Shane Leach, Stuart L. Harris, Sun, The Deluge, The Moon, Ticleanu & Constantin & Nicolescu, Wallace Thornhill, Younger Dryas

Sahara Desert

Published June 10, 2010

The Sahara Desert and in particular its northern regions have attracted its share of attention from Atlantis investigators. However unlikely it may appear as a possible location for Atlantis it must be kept in mind that the Sahara of prehistory was very different from what we see today. Not only was it wetter at various periods in the past, but also there is clear evidence for the existence of a large inland sea extending across the borders of modern Algeria and Tunisia. This evidence is in the form of the chotts or salt flats in both countries. This proposed sea is considered by some to have been the Lake Tritonis referred to by classical writers. It is suggested that some form of tectonic/seismic activity, common in the region, was responsible for isolating this body of seawater from the Mediterranean and eventually turning it into the salt flats we see today.

An even more extensive inland sea, further south, was proposed by Ali Bey el Abbassi and based on his theory a map was published in 1802 which can be viewed online^(c).

More recently, Riaan Booysen has published an illustrated paper on the ancient inland Saharan seas as indicated on the 16th-century maps of Mercator and Ortelius⁽ⁱ⁾. King’s College London runs The Sahara Megalakes Project which studies the Megalakes and the Saharan Palaeoclimate record^(m).>>The largest of these was possibly Lake Chad which at its most extensive is estimated to have been greater than the combined Great Lakes of North America.<<

A 2013 report in New Scientist magazine^(d) revealed that 100,000 years ago the Sahara had been home to three large rivers that flowed northward, which probably provided migration routes for our ancestors. Depending on how long the African Humid Period lasted, this article may be read in conjunction with George Sarantitis‘ theory regarding the Voyage of Hanno that he claims took place in the interior of Africa.

Other studies^(h)have shown the previous existence of a huge river system in the Western Sahara, which flowed into the Atlantic on the Mauritanian coast.

An article in the Sept. 2008 edition of National Geographic pointed out that the Saharan climate has been similar for the past 70,000 years except for a period beginning 12,000 years ago when a number of factors combined to alter this fact. A northerly shift by seasonal monsoons brought additional rain to an area the size of the contiguous USA. This period of a greener Sahara lasted until around 4,500 years ago.

More recent studies claim that “there’s geologic evidence from ocean sediments that these orbitally-paced Green Sahara events occur as far back as the Miocene epoch (23 million to 5 million years ago), including during periods when atmospheric carbon dioxide was similar to and possibly higher than today’s levels. So, a future Green Sahara event is still highly likely in the distant future.” ^(p)

>>However, in the Sept. 2024 edition of National Geographic an article Peter Gwin notes that “the Sahara hasn’t always been a desert. In fact, it transforms from desert to lush savanna about every 21,000 years. A quirk in Earth’s planetary mechanics periodically causes its axis to tilt slightly, increasing the amount of radiation directed to the Northern Hemisphere, which in turns pulls Africa’s seasonal rains northward.”<<

Henri Lhote contributed an article to Reader’s Digest‘s, The World’s Last Mysteries ^[¹⁰⁸³^], regarding the ‘green’ Sahara that existed prior to 2500 BC. Two German climatologists Rudolph Kuper and Stefan Kröpelin have estimated that this last greening of the Sahara began around 8500 BC and ended sometime between 3500 BC and 1500 BC^(r)(u).

A team from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research led by Professor Martin Claussen published a number of papers in the late 1990s following their production of a successful computer simulation of prehistorical North Africa^(v). According to a report on the climateark website (now offline), one of their conclusions was “that the change to desert climate in the Sahara was triggered by changes in the Earth’s orbit and the tilt of Earth’s axis.”

Some, such as Kröpelin, have suggested a connection between the latest aridification of the Sahara and the migration of settlers to the Nile Valley^(w), where, coincidentally, the ancient Egypt we know about was founded around 3100 BC.

Others have endeavoured to link the last drying of the Sahara with the destruction of Atlantis!

More recently, human activity has been blamed as a major contributory factor for the desertification of the Sahara region less than 10,000 years ago.⁽ⁿ⁾

Related to the above is a recent study of sediments off the west coast of Africa, which resulted in the discovery of what was “primarily a new “beat,” in which the Sahara vacillated between wet and dry climates every 20,000 years, in sync with the region’s monsoon activity and the periodic tilting of the Earth.” ^(o)

In Mauritania, a huge natural feature known as the Richat Structure has been claimed as the remnant of Atlantis by George Sarantitis ^[¹⁴⁷⁰^]as well as by Alexander & Rosen and others. >>However, Ulf Richter has pointed out that it is too wide (35km), too elevated (400metres) and too far from the sea (500km) to be seriously considered as the location of Atlantis. Apart from which, a scientific study of the Structure reveals it to be a natural feature^(x).<<

In 1868, it was proposed by D.A. Godron, the French botanist, that the Sahara was the location of Atlantis. In 2003, the non-existent archaeologist Dr.Carla Sage announced that she was hoping to lead an international expedition to the Sahara in search of Atlantis. Her contention was that “Atlantis was the capital of a vast North African empire with ports on the Gulf of Sidra”. This report is now confirmed to have been a hoax! I am indebted to Stel Pavlou for uncovering the origin of this story^(e).

The idea of an African Atlantis was highlighted in 2021 with the publication of Atletenu ^[1821], in which the author, Diego Ratti, identified the Hyksos as Atlanteans with their capital at Avaris in the eastern Nile Delta. At the other end of North Africa, the chotts of Tunisia and Algeria were nominated by Holden Zhang as the location of Atlantis in a YouTube clip^(q).

Gary Gilligan, the well-known catastrophist, wrote a thought-provoking article^(k) on the origin of the Saharan sands, which he claims are extraterrestrial in origin and expands on the idea in his 2016 book Extraterrestrial Sands ^[1365]. A March 2024 report^(t). on the BBC website has revealed that a particular type of sand dune has now been dated. They are known as ‘star’ or ‘pyramid’ dunes – “are named after their distinctive shapes and reach hundreds of metres in height.” They are found in Africa, Asia and North America, as well as on Mars – but experts had never before been able to put a date on when they were formed. Now scientists have discovered that a dune called Lala Lallia in Morocco formed 13,000 years ago.”

David Mattingly, an archaeologist at Leicester University has found that an ancient people known as the Garamantes had an extensive civilisation in the Sahara^(l). He has evidence of at least three cities and twenty other settlements. The Garamantes reached their peak around 100 BC and then gradually diminished in influence as fossil water supplies reduced until in the 7^th century AD they were subjected to Islamic domination. Some researchers such as Frank Joseph have identified the Garamantes as being linked with the Sea Peoples. Bob Idjennaden has published short but informative Kindle books about both the Garamantes ^[1194] and the Sea Peoples ^[1195], without a suggestion of any connection between the two.

A 2017 article on the Popular Archaeology website told us that “New research investigating the transition of the Sahara from a lush, green landscape 10,000 years ago to the arid conditions found today, suggests that humans may have played an active role in its desertification.” ⁽ⁿ⁾.

The discovery of megalithic structures discovered at Nabta Playa (Nabta Lake) in the Egyptian Sahara has provided evidence for the existence of a sophisticated society in that area around 5000 BC. In the same region, near the Dakhleh Oasis, archaeologists have produced data that supports the idea that pre-Pharaonic Egypt had Desert Origins rather than being an importation from Mesopotamia or elsewhere⁽^a⁾.

Nabta Playa is not unique, in fact, the largest megalithic ellipse in the world is to be found at Mzorah, 27 km from Lixus in Morocco^(b). It appears that the construction methods employed at both Mezorah and Nabta Playa are both similar to that used in the British Isles. An even more impressive site is Adam’s Calendar in South Africa which has been claimed as 75,000-250,000 years old.

West of Cairo near the border with Libya is the Siwa Oasis, where it has now been demonstrated that “it is in fact home to one of Ancient Egypt’s astounding solar-calendar technologies– the solar equinox alignment between the Timasirayn Temple and the Temple of Amun Oracle in Aghurmi.”^(j).

I think we can expect further exciting discoveries in the Sahara leading to a clearer picture of the prehistoric cultures of the region and what connections there are, if any, with Plato’s Atlantis. In the meanwhile in the Eastern Egyptian Desert, Douglas Brewer, a professor of archaeology at the University of Illinois, has discovered over 1,000 examples of rock art, including numerous depictions of boats although the sites, so far undisclosed, are remote from water.

Even more remarkable is the report^(e) of March 2015 that a survey of the Messak Settafet escarpment in the central Sahara revealed that there were enough discarded stone tools in the region “to build more than one Great Pyramid for every square kilometre of land on the continent”! Coincidentally, around the same time, it was reported that over a thousand stone tools had been found in the Northern Utah Desert^(g). What the Utah discovery lacked in quantity was made up for in quality with the finding of the largest known Haskett point spearhead, measuring around nine inches in length.

⁽^a⁾ Saudi Aramco World (2006, Vol. 57, No.5 p.2-11)

^(b) https://www.ancientpages.com/2015/09/05/was-megalithic-stone-circle-of-mzoura-the-tomb-of-giant-antaeus/

^(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20201019061756/http://catalog.afriterra.org/zoomMap.cmd?number=1036

^(d) NewScientist.com, 16 September 2013, https://tinyurl.com/mg9vcoz

& https://zeenews.india.com/news/science/lost-river-helped-lead-early-ancestors-out-of-africa_877125.html

^(e)https://books.google.com/books?id=GvMDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA46&dq=dr.+carla+sage+archaeologist&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GSENVKiaO9W0yASJgoIY&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=dr.%20carla%20sage%20archaeologist&f=false

^(f) https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/saharan-carpet-of-tools-is-the-earliest-known-man-made-landscape

^(g) Over 1,000 Ancient Stone Tools, Left by Great Basin Hunters, Found in Utah Desert – Western Digs (archive.org)

^(h) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/nov/10/ancient-river-network-discoverd-buried-under-saharan-sand

⁽ⁱ⁾ 7. The lakes in the middle of the Sahara desert – Page 8 (archive.org)

^(j) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/astronomically-aligned-temple-siwa-oasis-ancient-calendar-device-006852?nopaging=1

^(k) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170614023816/https://www.godkingscenario.com/articles/origin-sahara-desert

^(l) See: Archive 3268

^(m) https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGHP_enIE665IE665&q=the+sahara+megalakes+project&gs_l=hp..0.41l52.0.0.0.2769………..0.&gws_rd=ssl

^(o) https://phys.org/news/2019-01-sahara-swung-lush-conditions-years.html#jCp

^(p) https://www.livescience.com/will-sahara-desert-turn-green.html

^(q) Revive Eden 3 Convincing Atlantis – YouTube

^(r)https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/uncovering-secrets-of-the-sphinx-5053442/

^(s) https://las.illinois.edu/news/2006-09-01/oasis-art-egyptian-desert

^(t) Star dune: Scientists solve mystery behind Earth’s largest desert sands – BBC News

^(u) Shift From Savannah to Sahara Was Gradual, Research Suggests – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

^(v) (PDF) Simulation of an abrupt change in Saharan vegetation in the Mid-Holocene | Martin Claussen – Academia.edu

^(w) https://longnow.org/seminars/02014/jun/10/civilizations-mysterious-desert-cradle-rediscovering-deep-sahara/

^(x) Eye Of The Sahara or Richat Structure » Geology Science *

Tagged Adam's Calendar, Alexander & Rosen, Algeria, Ali Bey el Abbassi, Avaris, Bob Idjennaden, Carla Sage, chotts, D. A. Godron, David Mattingly, Diego Ratti, Douglas Brewer, Frank Joseph, Garamantes, Gary Gilligan, George Sarantitis, Gulf of Sidra, Hanno, Haskett point, Henri Lhote, Hyksos, Lake Chad, Lake Tritonis, Lala Lallia, Lixus, Martin Claussen, Mauritania, Mercator, Messak Settafet, Mzora Stone Circle, Nabta Playa, National Geographic, New Scientist, Nile Delta, Nile Valley, northern Utah, Ortelius, Peter Gwin, Riaan Booysen, Richat Structure, Rudolph Kuper, Sahara, Sea Peoples, Siwa Oasis, Star Dunes, Stefan Kröpelin, Stelios Pavlou, Tunisia, Ulf Richter

Velikovsky, Immanuel

Published May 22, 2010

Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) was born in what is now Belarus. He was by profession a doctor of medicine, specialising in psychiatry. However, his fame is based on being arguably the most controversial catastrophist of the 20^th century. He daringly proposed that the Earth had several close encounters with other planetary bodies that resulted in catastrophic consequences, including interference with the rotation of our planet. He speculated that Atlantis was probably destroyed during one of these cataclysmic events.^[⁰³⁷^][⁰³⁸^]

John Kettler is an American writer on alternative science and was a frequent contributor to Atlantis Rising magazine. In issue #30^(z) of that publication, he reviewed the disgusting manner in which members of the scientific community endeavoured to prevent the publication of Velikovsky’s books. In order to give you the full flavour of the nastiness of their methods, I add three paragraphs here.

“The scientific and academic reaction to the book (Worlds in Collision) was generally presaged by the extortion practised prior to and after publication against the Macmillan Company. As the book began to garner public and in some circles, even scientific interest and acclaim, all pretence of genteel discussion went by the boards. Out came the mailed fists, the naked threats and oceans of mud and offal. The attacks targeted three main groups: the public, the scientific and academic community, and Immanuel Velikovsky himself. Nor were such niceties as actually reading the book before denouncing it and its author employed.

Even before the Macmillan Company published the book, renowned astronomer Harlow Shapley arranged multiple intellectual well poisonings by an astronomer, a geologist, and an archaeologist, not one of whom had read the book, in a learned journal. This was a pattern used over and over again.

Shapley and his minions also engineered the sacking of the veteran senior editor (25 years at the Macmillan Company) who accepted Worlds in Collision for publication and got the director of the famous Hayden Planetarium fired for the high crime of proposing to mount a display there, on Velikovsky’s unique cosmological theory. Meanwhile, Velikovsky was systematically attacked in the scientific journals, via distortion, lies, misrepresentation, incompetence and ad hominem attacks, while there never seemed to be space in which he could reply, in order to defend himself.” J. Douglas Kenyon included Kettler’s revealing essay in Forbidden History ^[802.53].

Some have seen the influence of Ignatius Donnelly’s Ragnarok, written seventy years earlier, in Velikovsky’s cosmic collision theories. Some commentators have noted how Velikovsky seemed reluctant to credit earlier writers, such as W. C. Beaumont and Johann Radlof (1775-1846)^(b)[^1438], with their contributions to the development of the theory of planetary catastrophism. Rens Van Der Sluijs has written an interesting two-part paper^(d)(e) listing the catastrophists who preceded Velikovsky demonstrating a certain lack of originality on his part! Others take a more critical view of his ideas^(g). In 1950, he responded to this criticism with a defensive piece⁽ⁿ⁾, but I consider it inadequate as he continued to ignore the work of Radlof and Beaumont. Some years ago Ev Cochrane and Phil ‘Pib’ Burns also discussed Velikovsky’s reluctance to credit earlier writers for ideas used by him, compared with the recognition given by Clube & Napier to the work of Velikovsky^(x).

Van Der Sluijs has written a two-part^(k)(l) article on Velikovsky’s radical views regarding Venus as a comet-like body and how Aztec sources support some of his contentions.

Carl Sagan (1934-1996), was a well-known American astronomer, author and lecturer. He is considered a leading debunker of Velikovsky’s theories. He devoted much of his Broca’s Brain ^[¹⁶⁶²^] to this end^(ad). Charles Ginenthal (1934-2017) produced an extensive rebuttal of Sagan’s criticisms in Carl Sagan & Immanuel Velikovsky ^[¹⁴⁸⁵^]. However, criticism of Velikovsky continues with varying degrees of ferocity, such as that of Leroy Ellenberger, a former supporter of Velikovsky, who contends that the data from the Greenland ice cores fail to support Velikovsky^(s).

Velikovsky and Einstein were acquaintances and as Nathaniel Lloyd wrote in his three-part blog on chronological revisionism^(y) that when Velikovsky “asked Einstein to read his work and give an opinion. Einstein suggested that Velikovsky might have a hard time finding a publisher, specifically because “every sensible physicist” would realize that the catastrophes Velikovsky described would have completely destroyed the Earth’s crust. Nevertheless, Einstein was kind about his criticism, and Velikovsky was undeterred. But years later, in Einstein’s very last interview, his opinion was less delicate: ‘It really isn’t a bad book,’ he said, laughing. ‘The only trouble with it is, it is crazy’.”

More recently, Paul Dunbavin, author of Towers of Atlantis ^[¹⁶²⁷^], has published a paper^(r), entitled Catastrophism without Velikovsky, which is highly critical of Velikovsky’s work.

Velikovsky was initially inclined to link the disappearance of Atlantis with the eruption of Thera but later came to support a location between the Azores and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge⁽ⁱ⁾. He was an early questioner of Plato’s figure of 9,000 years for the age of Atlantis, suggesting that it was exaggerated by a factor of ten^[0037.152]. ”Whatever the source of the error, the most probable date of the sinking of Atlantis would be in the middle of the second millennium, 900 years before Solon when the earth twice suffered great catastrophes as a result of ‘the shifting of the heavenly bodies.’ These words of Plato received the least attention, though they deserved the greatest.”

Velikovsky offered intriguing evidence that on at least one occasion the early Egyptians experienced the sun rising in the west and set in the east^(q⁾!

His other major contribution was in his questioning of the accepted Bronze Age chronologies of the eastern Mediterranean^[⁰³⁹^]. Later writers, such as David Rohl and Peter James have built on his chronology work, while Gary Gilligan has added support for Velikovsky’s planetary theories^[1385] as well. Others have accused Velikovsky of being over-dependent on his belief in the inerrancy of biblical chronology.

In a recent (2023) paper^(ac). on the Academia.edu website, Donald Keith Mills was highly critical of Velikovsky’s research on the Hyksos and Amalakites in Ages in Chaos. Mills had earlier written critically of Velikovsky’s Worlds in Collision^(ab).

“In Ages in Chaos, Velikovsky made numerous detailed claims which he supported by footnote references to his sources. Those sources were of two kinds: those that would be easily available to most of his readers, such as the Bible and the works of Josephus; and those that would be difficult or impossible for most readers to access, including technical journals and the works of medieval Arabian, Persian, and Egyptian writers.

“Access to such materials began to change in the late 20th Century, and I have been able to download almost all of Velikovsky’s “Arabic” sources from the Internet Archive Digital Library (https://archive.org/ ), together with some he didn’t explicitly use. Those original sources, in the same editions as he cited, revealed that his uses of allusions, references, and quotations often failed to agree with what the sources actually said.”

“Repeatedly, when faced with conflicting accounts of pre-Islamic (and essentially prehistoric) events, Velikovsky selected only those that met his purposes. The damaging aspect of this criticism is the fact that, almost without exception, he did so without discussing the alternatives, without providing reasons for rejecting them, and without even acknowledging their existence.“

One website⁽^a⁾provides us with a considerable amount of Velikovsky’s unpublished work, while another offers an encyclopedia of his work⁽^c⁾. A more general German site^(f), in English, is also worth a visit.

The three of Velikovsky’s most popular books as well as some of his lesser-known papers are available as pdf files^(j)(m).

Jan Sammer was an assistant to Velikovsky (1976-1978) and an archivist and editor for the Velikovsky Estate (1980-1983). He advises us that he was involved in the completion of Velikovsky’s unpublished book, In the Beginning^(h), which was eventually published in 2020 ^[^1956]. The book’s contents were originally intended to be part of Worlds in Collision. In it, you will find more details of Velikovsky’s claim that within the memory of man, there was a time when we had no Moon, which he claimed was subsequently ‘captured’ by the Earth. He wrote a short paper in 1973 entitled Earth without a Moon and published by the editors of Pensée in Velikovsky Reconsidered ^[^1877.86], but without any reference to Hanns Hörbiger.

According to Velikovsky, Venus was a relatively recent newcomer to our Solar System and the orbit of Mars had been disturbed, which would suggest that before the arrival of Venus, Bode’s Law would have been invalidated! C.J. Ransom tackled this head-on in The Age of Velikovsky ^[1880.90]. However, his defence of Bode and Velikovsky was rejected by Dr M. M. Nieto^(t⁾.

In 2012, Laird Scranton, published The Velikovsky Heresies^[1642], in which he reviews Velikovsky’s controversial theories in the light of scientific discoveries since his death. Not unexpectedly, Scranton does find evidence that supports some of Velikovsky’s contentions.

Ralph E. Juergens, an American engineer, supported Velikovsky with the idea that electromagnetic and electrostatic forces and not conventional celestial mechanics alone were responsible for the cosmic encounters witnessed and recorded by our ancestors^(u⁾.

In the late 1990s Sean Mewhinney (1944-2016), a Canadian researcher published a series of papers^(w)that was highly critical of Velikovsky’s theories. Much of his criticism was focused on ice-core data. Once again, Charles Ginenthal took up the challenge, responding with an extensive paper^(af) entitled Minds in Denial, later the title of an ebook ^[^1897] that include the original paper. Ginenthal also published a book on the Electro-Gravitic Theory of Celestial Motion and Cosmology and its possible application to Velikovsky’s theories^(v⁾.

In 2021, Bob Forrest⁽^aa⁾, a British retired mathematics teacher had re-published a book of over 700 pages entitled Velikovsky’s Sources, which deals with Worlds in Collision. It had been originally issued as a series of seven booklets between 1981 and 1985. These have now been combined in one volume and edited by Donald Keith Mills and available on the Academia.edu website⁽^ab⁾. The content is a critique of Velikovsky’s work and now forty years later Forrest still believes “that Velikovsky was spectacularly wrong.”

Some readers may wish to see a video by Wallace Thornhill, of Electric Universe fame, in which he discusses Velikovsky’s Astrophysics^(o). There are several related papers and books, including some Velikovskian material, freely available online^(p).

We are also fortunate to have a biography of Velikovsky’s eventful life published in 2010 by his daughter, Ruth Velikovsky Sharon ^[2048].>>However, a rather critical review of the book was published by Leroy Elenberger⁽^ae⁾.<<

⁽^a⁾ https://www.varchive.org/

⁽^b⁾https://www.mythopedia.info/radlof.htm

^(c)https://www.velikovsky.info/Main_Page

^(d)On the Shoulders of Suppressed Giants Part One – The Thunderbolts Project™ (archive.org) *

^(e)On the Shoulders of Suppressed Giants Part Two – The Thunderbolts Project™ *

^(f) http://www.velikovsky.de/en/velikovsky.html

^(g) https://web.archive.org/web/20180305142157/https://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velidelu.html

^(h) https://www.varchive.org/itb/tnote.htm

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://www.varchive.org/ce/baalbek/atlantis.htm

^(j) https://www.pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/Ve

^(k) https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2016/12/19/smoke-without-fire-part-one/

^(l) https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2016/12/21/smoke-without-fire-part-two/