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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 »
Hanns Horbiger
Moon, The *
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
(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/
(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) *
(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/
(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
(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
(ap) Ancient humans used the moon as a calendar in the sky (sciencenews.org)
Pauwels, Louis & Bergier, Jacques
Louis Pauwels (1920-1997) & Jacques Bergier (1912-1978) were the authors of the bestselling The Morning of the Magicians[910] and its sequel Impossibilities Possibilities[911]. Pauwels was the founder of the Planéte magazine and Bergier was a nuclear physicist. It is reported that Nostra magazine (20-26, April 1977) carried an article by Bergier (real name, Mik Ezdanitoff) where he discusses the possibility of a Hollow Earth(a).
Atlantisforschung has reprinted an excerpt from their book “Aufbruch ins dritte Jahrtausend – Von der Zukunft der phantastischen Vernunft” (p.356-364) which deals with the idea of a Hollow Earth and its investigation by elements within National Socialism in Germany(b).
Their books rush from subject to subject like a train going from station to station without stopping long enough to pick up passengers. Uncharacteristically, they devoted quite a number of pages to Hörbiger’s strange lunar theories,>particularly the notion that the Earth has had a number of moons, each of which eventually fell to Earth. Fortunately, the current No.4 Moon appears fairly stable(c).<
This in turn led to Tiwanaku that the authors refer to as ‘Atlantis of the Andes’ as having great antiquity, but suggest that there was a second Atlantis in the Atlantic that was destroyed later by “waters from the north”, which inspired the story of the Flood of Noah in the Bible.
(a) http://artivision.fr/BergieretlaTerrecreuse.html#
(c) Jacques Bergier – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *
Pauwels
Bergier
Eissmann, Rafael Videla
Rafael Videla Eissmann is a Chilean historian and lecturer(a). He has published two books (in Spanish) on Atlantis[799][800] based on conversations with the Chilean nazi Miguel Serrano. The theories of
Hanns Hörbiger are investigated and supported. Eissmann has also lectured on Hörbiger and other heroes and supporters of the Third Reich such as Edmund Kiss.
Eissmann’s most important contribution to Atlantean studies was arguably his resurrection[792] of the work of Robert Rengifo(c)* who along with Arthur Posnansky were possibly the first people to suggest Antarctica as the location of Atlantis.
In 2021, Eissmann published a Bibliography in Spanish of the Works of James Churchward.(b)
(a) https://www.obrasrafaelvidelaeissmann.blogspot.com/
Topper, Uwe
Uwe Topper (1940-) was born in Wroclaw, Poland (formerly Breslau, Germany) and currently living in Berlin where he earns a living as an artist. However, he is better known as a researcher and author in the fields of history, ethnography and anthropology. 
Towards the end of the last century, he turned his attention to chronology and developed his own version of New Chronology which incorporates some of the views of Anatoly Fomenko [1823] and Heribert Illig.
‘New Chronology’ is also a term applied to the realignment of the chronologies of the Middle East as expounded by David Rohl and others. An interesting review of the New Chronology and its revisionist antecedents is available online(h).
A paper(b) by Topper on the subject is worth a read as is a critical review(g) of Topper’s work by Jason Colavito.
An English translation of some of Topper’s work relating to his revisionist view of ancient chronology is available(i). In it he explores what he describes as “jolts and gaps in historical chronology”, noting that “dates that were detem1ined centuries ago and documented in classical and prehistoric monuments collide with those re-calculated by modem techniques for those same objects. They diverge quite noticeably, and the more the dates go back in time the bigger the difference between the two, i.e. between real observation of that time and re-calculation based on present observations.” Topper is convinced that chronological misalignments are the consequences of cataclysms(b).
Topper seems to thrive on controversy, because not content to deconstruct our chronology, he has denounced, Beowulf, the cave paintings of Chauvet, and the Lady of Elche as all fakes(a). He has also written an extensive paper(f) on the cart ruts, usually associated with just Malta, but which are found around the Mediterranean and further afield.
Topper has also written about Atlantis, placing its capital on the site of modern Cadiz surrounded by nine other cities between Lisbon and Tarragona(j) (see Richard Cassaro) and has identified possible references to Atlantis in the Qur’an(k) and also speculated that by 11,000 BC Atlantean culture had spread as far as the Americas and Asia! He dealt with these matters in his 1977 book[916], Das Erbe der Giganten. Untergang und Rückkehr der Atlanter (The legacy of the giants, fall and return of the Atlantean)
He has also attempted to revive interest in Hanns Hörbiger’s ‘world-ice theory’(d).
My instincts tell me that Topper’s views should be treated with great caution.
Topper’s son, Ilya, is following in his father’s footsteps with articles on New Chronology as well as papers with provocative titles such as; The Christian Koran and The Sumerians did not exist(c).
(a) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/topperen.htm
(b) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/kataursacheen.htm
(c) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/ilyaen.htm
(d) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/glacialen.htm
(f) http://www.ilya.it/chrono/pages/gleisedt.htm (german)
(g) https://web.archive.org/web/20200227140310/http://jcolavito.tripod.com/lostcivilizations/id13.html
(i) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=544
(j) Die Chronik von Atlantis – Atlantisforschung.de (German) *
(k) Der Koran als Quelle der Atlantisforschung – Atlantisforschung.de (German) *
Tyre
Tyre was located in what is modern Lebanon and is considered to have been originally a colony of Sidon. According to 
Egyptian records they ruled it during the middle of the second millennium BC, but lost control when their influence in the area declined. Independence brought commercial success that saw Tyre surpass Sidon in wealth and influence and eventually establish its own colonies across the Mediterranean. One of these was Carthage in North Africa, which in time became independent and eventually rivalled the Roman Empire in the west. It also had colonies in Greece and frequently fought with Egypt.
The location of Tyre, on an island with a superb natural harbour and which had great wealth and was supported by its many colonies, has been seen as a mirror of Atlantis. The Old Testament prophecies of Ezekiel, writing around 600 BC, described (26:19, 27: 27-28) the destruction of Tyre in terms that have prompted some to link it with Plato’s description of Atlantis’ demise, written two hundred years later.*The earliest claim that Ezekiel’s Tyrus was a reference to Atlantis was made by Madame Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine [1495] in 1888.
However, although both J.D. Brady and David Hershiser promote the idea of a linkage between Ezekiel’s Tyrus and Atlantis, they are certain that Tyrus is not the Phoenician city of Tyre. Beyond that, Brady identifies Tyrus/Atlantis with Troy, while Hershiser has placed his Tyrus/Atlantis in the Atlantic just beyond the Strait of Gibraltar(b).
Early in the 20th century Hanns Hörbiger also cited Ezekiel as justification for identifying Tyre as Atlantis.*
Recently, a sunken city has been discovered between Tyre and Sidon and according to its discoverer, Mohammed Sargi, is the 4,000 year old City of Yarmuta referred to in the Tell al-Amarna letters.
Carl Fredrich Baer, the imaginative 18th century writer, proposed a linkage between Tyre and Tyrrhenia. This idea has been 
revived recently by the claims of Jaime Manuschevich[468] that the Tyrrhenians were Phoenicians from Tyre. Other supporters of a Tyrrhenian linkage with Tyre are J.D.Brady, Thérêse Ghembaza and most recently Dhani Irwanto. J.S. Gordon also claims[339.241] that Tyre was so named by the Tyrrhenians.
In Greek mythology it is said that Cadmus, son of the Phoenician king Agenor, brought the alphabet to Greece, suggesting a closer connection than generally thought.
J.P. Rambling places the Pillars of Heracles on Insula Herculis, now a sunken island, immediately south of Tyre(a).
(a) https://redefiningatlantis.blogspot.ie/search/label/Heracles
*(b) See: Archive 3395*
Kiss, Edmund
Edmund Kiss (1886-1960) was a German architectural student with an interest in archaeology. After the First World War, he wrote a number of adventure novels. In the 1920’s he began his foray into the world of ‘alternative archaeology. Later in that decade, he made his first visit to Tiahuanaco.
The only known official photo of Kiss
During this period Kiss worked with Arthur Posnansky and advanced the idea that Tiahuanaco had been built by Nordic refugees from Atlantis (Thule) more than 17,000 years ago. Their work included a search for evidence to support the theories of Hanns Hörbiger.
Matthew Gildner, a professor of Latin American history has written an interesting essay on the background to Kiss’ theories and work in Bolivia(b).
During the Third Reich Kiss was requested by Heinrich Himmler to take a team of researchers from the Ahnenerbe to continue his studies at Tiahuanaco but the expedition was called off. Following that he briefly joined the Waffen SS. After the war he continued his interest in Atlantis, writing a book on Plato’s Critias and contributing to Egerton Sykes’ Atlantean Research newsletter in the 1950s.
Rafael Videla Eissmann is a historian at the Catholic University of Chile and has written a number of articles in Spanish(a) regarding Kiss, as well as a wide range of other historical subjects.
>Dr. Graham Horton has written about the pseudo-science of Kiss and Posnansky in the early 20th century relating to their work at Tiwanaku(d).<
As late as 1953, Kiss was still defending Hörbiger’s idea of an ice-covered Moon>as was Egerton Sykes(c). Further related articles were available on the now defunct geocities website(e).<
(a) https://charlasylecturas.blogspot.com/
(b) https://theappendix.net/issues/2013/4/andean-atlantis-race-science-and-the-nazi-occult-in-bolivia
(c) Atlantis, Volume 6, No.1, May 1953
(e) titicaca (archive.org) *
Kamienski, Professor Michal *
Professor Michal Kamienski (1879-1973) was a Polish astronomer at the University of Cracow who claimed that astronomical research could be used to reveal a more exact date for various landmark events in ancient history. As a result of his investigations, in 1957, he proposed(a) that a part of Halley’s Comet fell into the Gulf of Mexico in 9546 BC or 9540 BC and was responsible for the destruction of Atlantis [420].
In 1950, he wrote a paper in support of the moon capture theories of Hoerbiger and the Swedish phyiscist Hannes Alfvén (1908-1995).(b)
In 1971, Comet Wolf was renamed Comet Wolf-Kamienski in his honour.
(a) 1956 cont (archive.org) *
(b) Atlantean Research, Vol.2 No.6 Feb/March, 1950
Joseph, Frank *
Frank Joseph (1944- ) or more correctly Francis Joseph Collin, was born in Chicago. His father was Max Simon Cohen, who is said to have spent time in Dachau concentration camp. Incredibly, in the late seventies, Frank Joseph was the leader of the American Nazi Party. In 1981, Joseph was arrested and convicted of molesting young boys. He was released after serving three of a seven-year sentence (a)(b).
Since his release, he has established himself as an author, writing a 
number of books on Atlantis and Diffusionism[102–108]. In them, he has emphasised at length the enormous quantities of copper mined in ancient times in North America that he maintains were brought to Europe to feed the demand there, for bronze making. He maintains that this is clear evidence of trading contacts between the Old and New Worlds in prehistoric times. Among his more unusual claims are that Noah was an Atlantean and that the Trojan War was just part of the conflict with the Sea Peoples.
One of Joseph’s early books, Edgar Cayce’s Atlantis and Lemuria[106], was heavily criticised in some quarters(e) including an accusation of including in the book a ‘heavily retouched’ photo of the underwater Yonaguni site.
In Joseph’s The Destruction of Atlantis, he dates that event to 1198 BC(o) quoting such sources as the Ipuwer Papyrus and temple inscriptions at Medinet Habu.
He then claims that eight years later the Atlanteans re-emerged as the Meshwesh, one of the Sea Peoples, attacked Egypt and were defeated by Ramses III [1535]. The authoritative D’Amato & Salimbeti have identified the Meshwesh as possibly being a tribe related to the Libyans [1152.8].
The author concurs with others that the catastrophe was triggered by an impact from a comet/asteroid in the region of the Mid Atlantic Ridge. Joseph supports an Atlantis located in the Atlantic of which the Canary Islands and Azores(g) are among its remnants. He draws attention to the fact that The Laws by Plato also refers to the ‘Great Deluge’. In the same book, Joseph returns to his hobbyhorse of the huge amounts of copper that were mined in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in prehistoric times. He is convinced that Atlanteans carried out this massive extraction and transported it to the east to feed the emerging Bronze Age. This book is useful for someone coming to the subject for the first time but it contains little that new and is really just a reworking of existing material.
His next offering, The Atlantis Encyclopedia, was promoted as an encyclopaedia of Atlantis-related references, yet it omits any mention of many of the leading theories and their promoters, which is not what you would expect from such a reference work on the subject. It also suffers from an overabundance of references to Native American mythologies, which at best have only the shakiest connection with Plato’s Atlantis.
Although The Atlantis Encyclopedia was published in 2005, it was only recently (July 2022) that Thorwald C. Franke, in his newsletter #197(r), applied his very sharp scalpel to the contents of the book. Franke points out a number of errors, but reserves his most detailed criticism for Joseph’s entry relating to the ‘Third Reich’. Franke’s conclusion is that Joseph has produced ‘a really bad book’. When Franke’s comments are combined with the many errors that I have listed below, it is obvious that Frank Joseph is a most unreliable source of information regarding Atlantis.
He followed this with Survivors of Atlantis, a sequel to The Destruction of Atlantis, which focuses on four global catastrophes linked to the cyclical return of a comet, that led to the destruction of Atlantis and the subsequent dispersal of its survivors and their influence on the cultures of their adopted homelands. As usual, he returns to the mystery of the Michigan copper mines but covers a wide range of global prehistory speculating on possible links with Atlantis. Unlike its prequel, ‘Survivors’ does not include an index.
For a number of years, Joseph was editor-in-chief of Ancient American magazine(c), owned by Wayne May, a Mormon, whose church has a vested interest in demonstrating the existence of early, advanced pre-Columbian peoples in America. A one-hour lecture given by Joseph in 1997 is available on YouTube(h), in which he outlines a number of very early pre-Columbian contacts between West Africa, particularly Mali and the Americas that led to the giant stone heads being carved by the Olmecs.
In 2008, Joseph published Unearthing Ancient America in which he revisits the pre-Columbian remains of North America. As usual, he denounces orthodox archaeologists as a means to bolster his own extreme ideas. For example “Louisiana’s Poverty Point, the ‘oldest city in North America’, is a dead-ringer for Plato’s description of Atlantis…[108.178]”
With his book The Opening of the Ark of the Covenant[670] Joseph moved into slightly different territory, linking the Ark with Atlantis and the Templars. Joseph co-authored this book with Laura Beaudoin who claims to be a descendant of the founder of the Knights Templar in Jerusalem.
Not one to miss an opportunity, the prolific Mr Joseph then jumped on the 2012 bandwagon with the publication of Atlantis and 2012[694]. As the world did not end, Joseph revised this book and republished it as Atlantis and the Coming Ice Age[1074] in 2015. An excerpt is available online(i).
April 2012 saw Joseph as editor of Lost Worlds of Ancient America[824] which is an anthology of articles describing various pre-Columbian visitors from both east and west. It also includes a suggestion that the Bahamas had a landmass to match Plato’s description of Atlantis. Jason Colavito, a well-known sceptic, has written an extensive and highly critical review(f) of this collection of articles culled from the Ancient American magazine. While the book has little to do with Atlantis, Colavito’s comments cast doubts on Joseph’s credibility as well as that of the other contributors.
Before Atlantis[1459] was published by Joseph in 2013, in it he focuses on the ‘aquatic ape theory’(k) and the existence of ‘pre-human cultures’ going back 20 million years. Atlantis plays a minor part in this offering and it is probable that it is only in the title to assist sales! In May 2017, we have a report(l) of pre-human remains dated 7.2 million years ago being discovered in the Balkans. How Joseph can apply the term ‘culture’ to such primitive creatures is hard to understand.
In 2016, Joseph published Our Dolphin Ancestors [1871] in which he reveals that we and dolphins are both descended from the aquatic ape! For good measure, he “explores the ‘connections’ between dolphins and Atlantis and Lemuria.”
Joseph frequently touches on the subject of Lemuria and in 2006 published The Lost Civilisation of Lemuria [107] which was devoted to it. Leaving aside that Joseph equates Lemuria with Mu and that both names are inventions from Philip Sclater and Brasseur de Bourbourg respectively, the advertising blurb for his book tells us that “Joseph painstakingly re-creates a picture of this civilization in which people lived in rare harmony and possessed a sophisticated technology that allowed them to harness the weather, defy gravity, and conduct genetic investigations far beyond what is possible today.” This is reminiscent of some of the b.s.produced by Blavatsky and Cayce, among others.
Joseph then followed ‘Lost Worlds’ with Lost Colonies of Ancient America in 2014[1124], receiving rave reviews on Amazon, while Bradley T. Lepper(j) cites Larry Zimmermann(n), an archaeologist from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, who offered a different view in the July/Oct 2015 edition of American Antiquity.
In 2014, Joseph republished Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds[636] as a paperback and a Kindle book. which is just a recycling of some of his earlier material and adds nothing of value. His reliance on speculation rather than evidence has not diminished. While his conjecture is bad enough, his misquoting of Plato is unforgivable. One example is his claim that Atlantis had 14,400 naval personnel, for 1,200 ships, which would mean that each ship had only a crew of 12! The only ships mentioned by Plato were triremes, which had a crew of 200(m). What Plato actually said (Critias 119a-b) was that in time of war each of the managers of the 60,000 allotments on the plain of Atlantis, had to supply four men for naval duty, which amounts to a total of 240,000 and matches the number of men required for 1200 triremes. This is just one of a number of similar errors in that passage. However, the same book also sets a record for the number of mistakes that Joseph managed to squeeze into a single sentence. At this point, I decided to look back at all my references to Joseph’s work and was shocked to find that he has been consistently guilty of at least sloppy research, if not dishonesty, and for me, must therefore be considered unreliable.
I was recently perusing the Kindle version of Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds and discovered a number of obvious inaccuracies. For example, Joseph refers to G.R.Corli as a French astronomer, whereas in fact his name was Carli and he was born in Capodistria, formerly Italian, but now part of Slovenia (loc.2511). Joseph claims that Carli believed that a fragment of a comet had hit the Earth, when, in fact, he had only postulated that a close encounter with a comet had occurred.
He added a ‘d’ to Edgerton Sykes name (loc. 2543, 3573) and removed the ‘e’ from that of Arthur C. Clarke (loc.2783). In an article in Atlantis Rising magazine #35(p), he retained the ‘d’ in Sykes’ name and described Hanns Hörbiger as a physicist when he was a mining engineer by profession. He also recycled his errors relating to Giovanni Rinaldo Carli mentioned above. Still, on the first page of the article, he claimed that meteorites were not recognised by the scientific establishment when Ignatius Donnelly wrote Ragnarok in 1884, when, according to Smithsonian magazine, meteorites were discussed much earlier, in 1803(q).
His section on the Atlantean Army and population(loc.312) is full of numerical errors. He has the whole population of Atlantis at over one million, whereas Plato tells us that on their own, the Atlantean armed forces totalled around a million, including 480,000 foot -soldiers, 120,000 horsemen, 160,000 manning the 10,000 heavy chariots and 60,000 light chariots, and 240,000 sailors. From this, Otto Muck extrapolated a total population of between 20 and 40 million for Atlantis. Joseph proposes that the 1,200 Atlantean ships were serviced and manned by 14,400 men (just twelve each). However, the triremes referred to by Plato, each required a crew of 140 rowers!
Joseph ends the book with a Bibliography, but heads it Biography!
This book was clearly not proofread and its research was slipshod. Unfortunately, this does not appear to have been an isolated example. I therefore decided to review all Atlantipedia entries that referred to Frank Joseph.
Amber is not exclusive to the Baltic and can be found in the Americas, Lebanon, Siberia, Australia and Japan. A highly prized blue amber is to be found in the Dominican Republic. Frank Joseph in an effort to support his speculations regarding mythical Electra claims[0636.109] that the Atlantic islands of the Azores, Madeira and the Canaries are one of the two major sources of amber. This is blatantly untrue, as revealed in a comprehensive website(a) by Susie Ward Aber, a mineralogist at Emporia State University, Kansas. Amber sources worldwide are listed, but nothing in the Atlantic. Mr Joseph has, once again, some explaining to do.
However, there is also another trend becoming more obvious, which is that there are an increasing number of instances, particularly on the internet, of the Ark of the Covenant being linked to Atlantis. There is, of course, no evidence ever offered to support such speculation. One of the most recent of these is Opening the Ark of the Covenant, co-authored by the inventive Frank Joseph, where he traces the Ark back to Atlantis. There are probably few people that don’t accept that the Ark had been a real artefact, while many doubt the reality of Atlantis. It is possible that by linking the two, the authors hope to achieve credibility transference from one to the other!
In his Atlantis Encyclopedia, Frank Joseph has suggested[104.33] that Atalya or Atalia was, through time, transformed into Italy, adding that Atalia means ‘Land of Atlas’. This entry has been copied on a number of websites. However, the etymology of ‘Italy’ is not clear, but the most common proposal is that “Latin Italia may derive from Oscan víteliú, meaning “[land] of young cattle” (from Latin vitulus “calf”, Umbrian vitlu), via Greek transmission (evidenced in the loss of initial digamma). The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes”. In passing, I should mention that Plato tells us that the Atlanteans who controlled southern Italy as far as Tyrrhenia also had a bull cult.
The following excerpt from a paper entitled Atlantis and the Great Pyramid from the July/August 2006 edition of Atlantis Rising magazine. “They (the Egyptians) somehow foresaw some inevitable celestial catastrophe with a potential for extraordinary destructiveness. As the object’s orbit began to noticeably decay, ground observers concluded that an impact with our planet was unavoidable, and began to prepare for the event by constructing a device that would bolster earth’s ionosphere, thereby deflecting the course of the falling object. The pyramid builders erected their geo-transducer because they understood that the earth was periodically endangered by recurring cycles of celestial bombardments. The Great Pyramid was built to guard against future collisions from outer space.”
The Balearic Islands of the Western Mediterranean were not occupied until around 2200 BC. Although the two larger islands of Majorca and Minorca have many megalithic monuments, principally taulas and talayots, they have not, so far, been part of any Atlantis location theory. The only mention that I can find is the unsubstantiated claim by Frank Joseph[0104.66] that the early settlers were invaders from Atlantis.
Frank Joseph erroneously claims[0108.117] that the only known ‘Cerne’ was Cerne Abbas in England, the site of the famous naked giant carved into the chalk. There is certainly no suggestion of any Amazon invasion there and the physique of the giant was certainly never matched by even the most butch Amazon. There is also the island of Cerne off the west coast of Africa and mentioned in the voyage of Hanno. Furthermore, Cerne is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus (iii.54) and is considered by some to be the Tunisian island of Kerkennah. Clearly, there was more than one Cerne known in our ancient past and so, not for the first time, Joseph is blatantly wrong.
Joseph also proposed that copper was the foundation for the wealth of Atlantis. He is convinced that there is evidence of extensive copper mining activities in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula around 1000 BC. He refers to these miners as Atlanteans[0102] and maintains that the extracted copper was brought to the Mediterranean, as he claims that there is no trace of it in North America. Joseph offers no real evidence.
Frank Joseph incorrectly claimed in the July/August 2011 issue of Atlantis Rising magazine that DeCamp “formerly a staunch disbeliever in Atlantis, was later convinced it did indeed exist in south-coastal Iberia.” No evidence was offered for this wild claim.
Frank Joseph echoed others with the idea that “the Etruscans were themselves nothing more than the late Atlanteans who colonised western Italy, so their surviving material culture offers us a glimpse of Atlantis at is cultural height.”[0636.21] This is an odd claim as Plato twice, unambiguously, placed Tuscany (Tyrhennia) beyond Atlantean control (Tim.25b & Crit.114c).
Evaemon (Euaemon) is the name of one of the fourth pair (with Ampheres) of twins who became the first kings of Atlantis. Frank Joseph[0104] identifies Euaemon with the ‘pre-Celtic’ king of Ireland, Eremon! This is somewhat incorrect as the Milesians are generally accepted as having been Celtic, with Eremon being one of eight Milesian brothers who invaded Ireland from Spain and defeated the Tuatha dé Danaan.
I found more of Joseph’s entries relating to Ireland that were, for me, particularly annoying. The first was his entry in his Encyclopedia for ‘crannóg’ where he attempts to link it with a sunken city. Crannógs are small artificial islands built in lakes for defensive purposes. When abandoned they usually became covered in small trees. The word is derived from the Irish word crann which means a tree, while óg means young or small. There are many such crannógs to be found among the numerous lakes of County Leitrim where I live. My second gripe is the entry ‘Tir-nan-Og’, which should in fact be ‘Tir na nÓg’ which means Land of Youth, implying land of perpetual youth. There is no connection with Og or Ogygia. I respectfully suggest that Frank Joseph and anyone else should tread more warily when trying to link similar-sounding words from different languages.
Frank Joseph has related speculative ideas claiming that “the early date for New Grange, its circular construction, sophisticated solar orientation and mythic tradition all point to Atlantean origins.” [0636.70] A nonsensical conclusion based on nothing but his fertile imagination
Frank Joseph erroneously claims that Plato could not have been influenced by the Helike disaster, because according to Joseph the Atlantis dialogues were written 25 years before the obliteration of Helike[1074.14], when in fact Plato wrote his last dialogues about 25 years after the demise of Helike.
Lemmings are small rodents that primarily live in northern regions. Early zoologists and the more gullible readers assumed that the creatures have been seen committing mass suicide in an attempt to find their ancient homeland, Atlantis. Unfortunately, Frank Joseph[0102.51], among others, has chosen to perpetuate this canard. It should be obvious that if Atlantis had been destroyed 12,000 years ago, as Joseph claims, the lemmings should have all died out millennia ago due to their alleged destructive homing instinct.
Frank Joseph links the destruction of ‘Lemuria’ with the Plagues of Egypt [0106][0107]!
Frank Joseph contends[0636.42] that the Phaistos Disk was ‘a sophisticated astrological chart’ and ‘is an example of Atlantean Bronze Age technology’.
Frank Joseph contends that conflict between the Egyptians and the Sea Peoples was part of the Trojan War[0108.11] and has identified the Meshwesh, one of the Sea Peoples, as Atlantean [1535].
Christopher Volpe records that in 1906, Alexander Strath-Gordon founded the Atlantean Research Society, in East Orange, New Jersey. This date conflicts with the foundation date of 1928 proposed by Frank Joseph. A book published by Strath-Gordon in 1934 confirms the 1906 date on its cover and records him as the founder and life president of the Atlantean Research Society.
In view of all of the above, it is more than reasonable to classify Frank Joseph as unreliable.
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20190127004837/https://www.flavinscorner.com/collin.htm
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20100612064814/https://www.robertghostwolf.com/kimball.htm
(c) Ancient American Magazine (archive.org) *
(e) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/atlantida_mu/esp_lemuria_4.htm
(f) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2012/05/the-los-angeles-monolith-frank-josephs-archaeology-by-hearsay.html (and subsequent blogs)
(g) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgEgzGsc9DOpnLlIP5Q8DAQ
(h) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7n7kPnuZUY
(i) Archive 2627
(j) https://web.archive.org/web/20161204161137/http:/www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2015/09/20/01-book-about-americas-discovery-gets-it-all-wrong.html or See: Archive 2694
(k) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis
(m) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme#Crew
(o) https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/eternal-atlantis
(p) Atlantis Rising magazine #35 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(r) Review of: Frank Joseph, The Atlantis Encyclopedia – Atlantis-Scout
Hörbiger, Hanns
Hanns Hörbiger (1860-1931) was an Austrian mining engineer by profession and in his spare time was an amateur astronomer. Today, he is probably better known as the father of the actors Paul and Attila Hörbiger. Another son, Hans Robert Hörbiger (1885-1955), followed in his father’s misguided cosmological footsteps, eventually working for Heinrich Himmler’s Ahnenerbe(ac).
By gazing at the moon Hanns, Snr. became convinced that he was looking at a bright outer layer of ice. Hörbiger published his “Doctrine of Eternal Ice” around 1913 in a book[389] co-authored with a schoolteacher named Philip Fauth. Hörbiger proposed an early form of catastrophism that saw the Earth capture several moons in succession. Periodically, each of these moons disintegrated as they spiralled to earth producing enormous ‘ice showers’ followed by meteors of iron. He saw the effects of these impacts as the source of Flood myths and claimed that when our current Moon was captured around 9500 BC it triggered earthquakes that led to the destruction of Atlantis. His theories were hailed in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s and were officially backed by the Nazis (see Ahnenerbe). Heather Pringle notes[0032.180] Hitler’s personal support for Hörbiger’s theories.
In 1966, Egerton Sykes wrote that “in addition, Hitler requiring a Teutonic cosmology as well as a Germanic Europe, adopted Hoerbiger’s hypothesis, probably one of the few sensible acts that the Nazis ever made”(w).
It seems that the adoption of World Ice Theory by National Socialism was intended to present a German alternative to ‘Jewish science’, specifically, to the theory of relativity, developed by Albert Einstein(x).
There was a Viennese Hörbiger Institute for World Ice Science founded in 1932(p). Their publication Mitteilungen had two volumes published from 1941 to 1944 and a third volume 1971-1976(o).
An interesting 1949 report by Manfred Reiffenstein describes the problems that the Hörbiger Institute had encountered with the Nazis from 1938 onwards. While efforts were made to close the Institute down and transfer its archives to Himmler’s Ahnenerbe organisation, this was prevented by the efforts of Hörbiger’s sons(s), which might be considered an example of postwar revisionism.
A recent paper by Graham Holton explicitly accuses Hörbiger of ‘archaeological racism’, along with Edmund Kiss, Posnansky and others in the Ahnenerbe(t). Holton also noted that Hörbiger also subscribed to Blavatsky‘s daft idea of Root Races.
His ideas were adopted and developed further by Hans Bellamy in a number of his books[092][096][097]. During the first half of the 20th century, many beyond the Nazi realm frequently referred to Hörbiger’s moon theory as authoritative.
Hörbiger refused to accept the evidence that his ‘icy’ moon had a daytime temperature of 100°C. Followers of Hörbiger existed in Germany, Britain and France after the war, until an actual landing on the Moon demonstrated that it was composed of neither ice nor cheese.
Of course, the moon landing is denounced by some as faked and according to one 2019 blogger, it must be so because it contradicts Hörbiger’s theories!!! The same blogger lists his religion as ‘Hitlerism’(y).
A bizarre consequence of Hörbiger’s status with the Nazi leadership is recounted by Pauwels and Bergier [910.170] who tell us that: “The German engineers, whose work was fundamental to the construction of those rockets that sent the first artificial satellites up into the sky, were prevented by the leaders of the NSDAP themselves from using the V2 for it to be completed at the scheduled time.
Work on the V2 in Peenemünde had to be interrupted several times because Hitler and the apologists of the Hörbiger doctrine feared that rocket launches could result in a world catastrophe.
General Walter Dornberger led the tests in Peenemünde, where the guided missiles were created. These experiments were stopped in order to submit the general’s reports to the apostles of Hörbiger’s cosmology. Above all, one wanted to know how the “eternal ice” would react in space and whether this violation of the stratosphere would not result in some kind of catastrophe in the world.
In his book “V2 – The shot into the universe” General Dornberger tells that shortly afterwards his work had to be interrupted again for two months. The guide had dreamed that the V2 would not work, or rather that heaven would take its revenge. This dream was to carry more weight for the leading men of the Third Reich than the view of the technicians. Behind the Germany of science and organization, the spirit of ancient magic was still alive.“(z)
Several other writers developed theories that were variations on Hörbiger’s ideas. 1954 saw the publication of The Moon Puzzle[786] by the Swedish engineer, N.O. Bergquist, in which he suggested that Earth had a close encounter with a planetoid which caused the ejection of a large amount of matter, which became our Moon leaving a huge scar we call the Pacific. Although many details of Berquist’s theory differ greatly from Hörbiger’s, he never refers to the then widely supported views of Hörbiger.
In 1955, G. Demortier published a theory of cosmic catastrophe that was somewhat similar to Hörbiger’s. However, a couple of years earlier, doubts were beginning to emerge regarding aspects of Hörbiger’s theories as our cosmological knowledge advanced(u), nevertheless, in the same magazine Edmund Kiss attempted to justify Hörbiger’s idea of an ice-covered Moon!
It is even more astounding that as late as 1964, Egerton Sykes, the leading British atlantologist of the day, was still clinging to the concept of an ice-covered lunar surface. In fact, after re-reading the old editions of Sykes’ Atlantis newsletter, I am amazed at the number of contributors that offered so many articles based on Hörbiger’s flawed ideas. My personal view is that having read Sykes’ newsletters, he can only be considered a gullible British gentleman.
Egerton Sykes founded and promoted an English post-war Hoerbiger Institute through his Atlantis magazine(q). In March 1948 Bellamy contributed a short article (Hoerbiger Monograph No. 1. 2nd Edition)(n) to the newsletter, reiterating his support for the idea that the capture of our moon led to the destruction of Atlantis.
Commander E.H. Nutter, a Royal Navy engineer, who contributed many articles to Sykes’ Atlantis magazine was considered “the leading technical authority on the Hoerbiger Theory in England” in the 1950s(v).
Although Hörbiger wrote extensively about the origins of our satellite, when Immanuel Velikovsky wrote a short paper in 1973 entitled Earth without a Moon(v) he made no reference to the theories of Hörbiger.
Henry M. Eichner was also drawn to Hörbiger’s Moon theory as a mechanism to explain the worldwide Deluge myths. However, as the first Moon landing took place just two years before his death, Eichner was forced to admit that Hörbiger got his claim of an icy Moon wrong, but still believed that some of Hörbiger’s ideas had merit [287.57].
Uwe Topper, the controversial German researcher has continued to support much of Hörbiger’s ideas. Additionally, in 2003, Gary Gilligan, a prominent catastrophist, first proposed that our Moon had been captured around 2000 BC, which he has now revised to 1200 BC(I)!
The August 2010 edition of the BBC’s Focus magazine (p.81), informed us that the Moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of 3.8cm per year, destroying the foundation of Hörbiger’s basic theory. The 9th Nov. 2011 issue of New Scientist published further evidence supporting this view(h), with further claims that this recession will reverse in the very distant future as the Earth’s rotation slows(r).
In the 17th century Johannes Kepler demonstrated that when an object’s orbital velocity increases, its orbital radius will expand; thus, the Moon slowly recedes from Earth(d). This idea was discussed further in a BBC documentary broadcast on Feb.1st, 2011(b).
The 9th Nov. 2011 issue of New Scientist published further evidence supporting this view(h), with further claims that this recession will reverse in the very distant future as the Earth’s rotation slows(r).
The Live Science website in April 2023 offered more information on the future of the Earth-Moon relationship(ab). “In about 50 billion years, Earth’s slowing rotation would make it tidally lock with the moon so that Earth would permanently show just one side to the moon, Jean Creighton, director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told Live Science. At this point, the moon and Earth would stop moving away from each other, Eric Klumpe, a professor of astronomy at Middle Tennessee State University, told Live Science.
However, about 5 billion years from now, as the sun begins to die, it will swell to become a red giant star, “at which point the Earth-moon system will almost certainly be disrupted and destroyed,” David Trilling, chair of the Astronomy and Planetary Science Department at Northern Arizona University, told Live Science.”
Nevertheless, updated Moon capture theories have been developed since Hörbiger. Emilio Spedicato has published a brief overview of recent contributions on the subject as well as his version(c), dating it to around 9450 BC, triggering the end of the Ice Age and the destruction of Atlantis!
It was long-accepted wisdom that a moonless earth would have made the development of complex life more difficult because of greater climatic fluctuations. However, a new study challenges this, calculating that Jupiter together with other factors would minimise the effect of not having our satellite(g)
The story of lunar history took an unexpected turn in 2011 when the journal Nature published a paper by planetary scientists Erik Asphaug of the University of Santa Cruz and Martin Jutzi of the University of Berne who proposed that originally the Earth had two moons that later collided and formed our present satellite(e). At the end of 2011, two NASA lunar probes were launched(j) which may resolve this particular question.
In America, the WEL-Institute is dedicated to investigating Hörbiger’s ‘World Ice Theory’(k). I note that the U.S. is also home to associations concerned with both a Hollow Earth(l) and a Flat Earth(m)!
(b) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12311119
(c) Wayback Machine (archive.org)
(d) Ive heard that the Moon is moving away from Earth by about an inch 25 cm each year Why is this happening – Astronomy Magazine (archive.org)
(e) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20160320161310/https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390413,00.asp
(h) https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21147-how-the-cold-dead-moon-stayed-magnetic.html
(I) https://www.gks.uk.com/moon-origin-egyptian/
(j) GRAIL and the Mystery of the Missing Moon | Science Mission Directorate (archive.org)
(k) https://welinstitute.wordpress.com/about/
(l) https://www.ourhollowearth.com/
(m) https://theflatearthsociety.org/home/
(o) See: https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-3042/
(p) See: Archive 3043
(q) https://www.amazon.ca/Atlantis-Organ-Hoerbiger-Institute-1965-1974/dp/B00MOKVR2Y (Link broken Sept. 2020)
(r) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4199400/Earth-moon-COLLIDE-65-billion-years.html
(s) Atlantean Research, Volume 1, Number 5, January/February 1949
(u) Atlantis Vol.6, No.1 & 2, May & July 1953
(v) Atlantis, Vol. 9, No. 2, January 1956, p.39
(w) Atlantis, Vol.19, No.5, September/ October 1966
(y) https://forums.skadi.net/threads/183985-Moon-Landing-was-FAKE/page8 (Link broken) See: Archive 6966
(aa) https://www.lewrockwell.com/2011/12/immanuel-velikovsky/the-earth-without-the-moon/
Revelation, The Book of
The Book of Revelation is invoked[102.121-125] by Frank Joseph, in attempts to link descriptions in it to the destruction of Atlantis. The proposed connection is rather tenuous and seems to be an attempt to expand on an idea of John Michell, who sees parallels between the destruction of Babylon and that of Atlantis.
Allan & Delair, in their book[014] on prehistoric catastrophes have suggested that the Book of Revelation is not wholly prophetic but in fact, contains references to the effect of a near miss by a large extraterrestrial body.
>In 1935, Kurt Bilau published Die Offenbarungen des Johannis – Ein Mondniederbruch vor 11 400 Jahren” entnommen (The Revelations of St. John – A Moon Collapse 11,400 years Ago p. 57-61). In it, Bilau endeavoured to support Hörbiger’s theories with his interpretation of biblical texts specifically from the Revelations of St John and the Book of Daniel(b)(c).<
H.S. Bellamy‘s book, The Book of Revelation is History [097] was published during WWII in which he linked this piece of apocalyptic literature with the ‘moon capture theory’ of Hanns Hörbiger.
Others see this final book of the Bible as foreshadowing the end of the world, comparable with the Ragnarok of Norse mythology(a).
(a) https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/story-ragnarok-and-apocalypse-001352
(c) The Revelations of John – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *