Latest News
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 »
Phaeton
Typhon *
Typhon in Greek mythology is described as a winged serpentine monster who fought Zeus for control of the cosmos and lost. He first appeared in Greek literature in the writings of Homer and Hesiod(b). Many castastrophists have identified the story of Typhon as a description of a close encounter and/or possible impact by a comet. Some atlantologists have endeavoured to link Typhon with Plato’s Atlantis.
Emilio Spedicato has described the Typhon explosion as ‘a Tunguska type event’, which led to the collapse of great civilisations such as Egypt and Indus at the end of the third millennium BC(c).
Jürgen Spanuth [15.178] and Walter Baucum [183.36], among others, identified Typhon with Phaëton, while decades later Axel Famiglini proposed that Typhon had destroyed Atlantis located in the Atlantic.
Others have identified Typhon as the comet of Exodus(a), just one of the many speculative suggestions that the myth has generated. However, it is hard not to think that there may have been some real historical event behind the evolution of the story.
Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs, a cosmologist, has gathered together all the principal classical references to Typhon in ‘a Typhon Reader’(d). However, he offers a lengthy discussion regarding the comet Typhon in two parts on the academia.edu(e) and researchgate(f) websites.
(a) A Dangerous Comet. a Dangerous Sky. | Thomas Schoenberger (archive.org) *
(b) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhon
(c) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=498
(d) https://mythopedia.info/typhon-reader.htm (no longer available)
(e) https://www.academia.edu/43823074/Trials_on_the_Trails_of_Typhon_and_the_Exodus_Part_1
Clube & Napier *
Victor Clube (1934- ) & Bill Napier (1940- ) are two British Astronomers, who published The Cosmic Serpent [291]. in 1982, which was later revised as The Cosmic Winter [290], which was also the title of a lecture given by Clube(b).
They have promoted what became known as ‘Coherent Catastrophism’, which envisions encounters between our Earth and large comets, events that are recorded in ancient history and mythology. They claim, for example, that the biblical Exodus story contains an early reference to Halley’s Comet! Among other encounters, they date the story of Phaëton, mentioned by Plato, to 1369 BC and also discuss catastrophic close encounters with Encke’s Comet or a proto-Encke.
Although Clube & Napier do not refer to Atlantis, from time to time, some commentators have claimed some connection between the demise of Atlantis and encounters with comets named and unnamed.
Philip R. “Pib” Burns has an extensive overview(a) of Clube and Napier’s work on his excellent website. He argues that Clube & Napier should have given greater recognition to the theories of Immanuel Velikovsky(c).
However, The Velikovsky Encyclopedia is happy to quote a number of passages from Clube & Napier’s The Cosmic Serpent including “No authors can justifiably make reference to proposals of this kind without mention also of the investigations by Velikovsky. In a quite remarkable piece of historical analysis some thirty years ago, this author not only drew attention to the parallels between the events described in Exodus and the Ipuwer Chronicle, but also to their implications so far as a catastrophic extra-terrestrial missile and ancient chronology were concerned.” (d)
(a) Clube and Napier: Coherent Catastrophism (archive.org) *
(b) https://www.sott.net/article/148708-Cosmic-Winter-A-Lecture-by-Victor-Clube
(c) https://www.saturniancosmology.org/files/velikovsky/vel-pib.txt
Marduk & Tiamat
Marduk & Tiamat were two of the leading gods of the Babylonian pantheon (a). The controversial writer Zecharia Sitchin, in The Twelfth Planet [1599], identifies Marduk and Tiamat as planetary bodies that were involved in a re-ordering of the solar system through catastrophic collisions some millions of years ago (b). However, his proposed Sumerian cosmology includes another planet in our solar system, ‘Nibiru’ with an orbital period of 3,600 years, whose inhabitants visited Earth during their previous close encounters and genetically manipulated the development of humans!
Now, Stuart L. Harris has published a paper(c) naming a body, Marduk/Nibiru, that had a number of close encounters with Earth causing global catastrophes, which included the destruction of Atlantis in 9577 BC, which he believes had been situated in the North Atlantic near Rockall. He proposes that this event generated a tsunami 1,500 metres high that swept across Europe. Harris also credits Marduk with the destruction of the planet Tiamat, which led to the creation of the asteroid belt.
The Babylonian Marduk is frequently associated with the Greek Phaëton.
(a) https://www.ancient.eu/Marduk/
(b) https://www.tokenrock.com/explain-tiamat-planetary-theory-144.html
Rogers, Charles A.
Charles A. Rogers is the author of a fully illustrated paper(a) in which he locates the city of Atlantis on the Tunisian River Triton, which led from Chott el Jerid (formerly Lake Tritonis?) to the Gulf of Gabes. He dates the demise of Atlantis to 1404 BC based on a possible connection with a close encounter with Phäeton, which in turn he identifies as what was later to be known as Halley’s Comet. He also combines all this with the eruption of Thera that generated a tsunami, which ran across the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Gabes and destroyed the city of Atlantis and in Egypt wiped out the Pharoah and his men during the biblical Exodus. There seems to be too many coincidences required here.
With regard to the location of Atlantis, the satellite imagery used by Rogers is, in my view, not very convincing and although I am sympathetic to the existence of Atlantis in that region, I think only investigation on the ground will offer real evidence.
(a) https://www.academia.edu/36855091/Atlantis_Once_Lost_Now_Found
Kalweit, Holger
Holger Kalweit is a German psychotherapist and ethnologist and something of a conspiracy theorist. In his Irrstern über Atlantis[1024] (Inferno over Atlantis) he follows Spanuth in identifying Heligoland as a remnant of Atlantis, which he claims was destroyed in 1222 BC by the comet Phaëton.
He sees Atlantis as the home of the white Nordic people. After the catastrophe he believes that the survivors fled en masse south to the Mediterranean, where they settled in what was later known as the Levant and Greece. According to Kalweit they were responsible for the Hellenic culture, whose influence is still felt today.
At this point most people would think that his ideas were questionable enough, but unfortunately there was worse to come. He goes on to claim that the Nordic gods were also brought to Greece, “but, unfortunately, their gods were not human beings, but reptiloid aliens.” Anyone for therapy?
Combes, Michel-Alain
Dr Michel-Alain Combes (1942- ) is a French amateur astronomer with a PhD in astronomy from the
Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI). For forty years he has studied impact catastrophism and published his views in his book, La Terre Bombardée (The Bombarded Earth). His extensive website(a) endeavours to combine history, myth and science and includes a reference to Atlantis, as well as a kind mention of this site. His book can also be read on his site (French).
Combes further claims that although the legends of Phaeton and Typhon are usually treated as referring to different events that they are records of the same encounter with a comet in the late 13th century BC(c). He further suggested that “Surt, Sekhmet, Typhon, Phaeton, Wormwood, Anat and others are the various names of the comet, seen under different skies, at a time when many civilizations were already well established and thriving.”
Combes delivered a paper in English(b) to a 2008 Conference in Paris entitled; The Apocalypse of the Year 10,000 BC – Myth or Reality? It has been proposed that this event may have created the Carolina Bays and destroyed Atlantis as proposed by Otto Muck.
Furthermore, it has also been linked to the onset of the mini ice age known as the Younger Dryas as described by Firestone, West and Warwick-Smith in their book The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes[0110].
In 1992, Asteroid ‘3446 ombes’ was named in his honour.
(a) http://www.astrosurf.com/macombes/index.html (French) *
(b) https://www.2008-paris-conference.org/mapage9/macombes-younger-dryas-event-1-xx.html.pdf
Stender, Walter
Walter Stender (1905-2000) was a Latvian aero engineer who lived and worked most of his life in Germany. He had a variety of interests that included Atlantis. He was attracted to Spanuth’s theories and wrote a widely regarded article on Phaeton and its place in the Atlantis story 1n 1997. This is freely available online(a) and although in German, it translates reasonably well into English with the Google translator. A more extensive biography is available on the Atlantisforschung.de website(b).
(b) https://atlantisforschung.de/index.php?title=Walter_Stender
Cygnus Constellation, The
The Cygnus Constellation was the location of a supernova that inspired the story of Phaeton, as related to Solon by the priests at Sais, according to Michael A. Cahill in his two-volume Paradise Rediscovered [818/9].
Andrew Collins has also written[075] on the place of the constellation Cygnus in prehistoric consciousness. Arising from this study, it appears that the position of the Cygnus stars correlates more accurately with the Giza pyramids than those of Orion, which was proposed some years ago by Robert Bauval. Collins continues with the Cygnus-Giza connection in a subsequent offering, Beneath the Pyramids[0631]. Derek Cunningham has echoed(a) some of Collins’ work suggesting that there existed in ancient times a World Map based on the Cygnus constellation!
Collins has also suggested that a suspected Black Hole in Cygnus Constellation is thought to be the source of cosmic rays that changed evolution and kick-started religion(d)!
Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore have also written(b) about the Cygnus Constellation and a possible link with Ireland’s Newgrange[1441].>This idea was echoed in a recent episode of Ancient Aliens (S18E17)(f).<Paul Dunbavin also touched on the possible connection between swans in Irish mythology and astronomical events(e).
Freddy Silva has endeavoured to link Cygnus with the Osirion in Abydos in a 2019 article(c) in which he dated the structure to 10,500 BC.
(a) https://www.midnightsciencejournal.com/?s=Cygnus
(b) Mythical Ireland | Astronomy | The Cygnus Enigma (archive.org) *
(c) https://invisibletemple.com/extra/osirion-link-to-cygnus-10,500BC.html
(e) https://www.third-millennium.co.uk/irishgodkings
(f) Review of Ancient Aliens S18E17: “The Shining Ones” – JASON COLAVITO *
Cahill, Michael A.
Michael A. Cahill (1961- ) is an Australian Lecturer in Biochemistry & Cell Biology, author of multiple patents, and scientific cofounder of the biotechnology company ProteoSys AG. He is also the author of an extensively researched two-volume work(b)(c), published in 2012, entitled Paradise Rediscovered: The Roots of Civilisation[818/9]. This offering of over 1100 pages is, by the author’s own admission, controversial. In it he puts forward the radical idea that “the long forgotten high society of Atlantis existed in the pre-Diluvian Stone Age at the mouth of the Black Sea [the location of present day Istanbul] and that its legends have come down to us in Indo-European and Middle Eastern mythologies (including the biblical Genesis account)”(d).
However Atlantis is only a tangent to main theme of this book, which opens with Solon in the Temple of Neith at Sais from Plato. Cahill recognised that the myth of Phaeton related by the old Egyptian priest actually referred to a supernova in the constellation of Cygnus. This was confirmation that the 
Atlantis account referred to the transmission of actual historical information by Plato, rather than fictional imagination, inspired further investigation.
For Cahill the inundation of Atlantis would have corresponded to the biblical Deluge, which Ryan and Pitman’s Noah’s Flood equated with the Black Sea Flood, dated at 6400 BC(e) after the breaching of the Bosporus. This date is around 1,200 years earlier than that suggested by Christian & Siegfried Schoppe, while Cahill’s proposed location for Atlantis, namely in the vicinity of modern Istanbul, is south of the Schoppe’s proposed Snake Island in the Black Sea. This location has, understandably, some local support from Adrian Bucurescu(g) and more recently from George K. Weller (h).
Linguistics analysis had suggested the origin of the Indo-European languages in Anatolia (i.e. next to the Black Sea) around 6400 BC. Cahill looked for and found otherwise unlikely traces of Indo-European words in flood accounts, such as Genesis, The Book of Enoch, and The Epic of Gilgamesh. He has published a summary of the arguments in a poster presented at the 2011 Atlantis Conference in Santorini, Greece. Based upon the society reconstructed from the written flood accounts, from Indo-European comparative mythology, and from a host of other sources, the book concludes that this society was dominated by god-kings who commanded secret scientific Neolithic knowledge, possibly including an elixir which extended the life-span of the elite(f).From the Stonehenge-like circular Atlantis complex at the Bosporus the “gods” exerted a monopoly on power until 200 of them defected, revealing secret knowledge to “the daughters of man” to start a new farming culture that spread across Europe with its Indo-European languages. Paradise Rediscovered certainly poses challenging questions for many established social and archaeological paradigms. Whether or not this shadowy reconstruction is correct, and even Cahill does not insist that it is(d), it is well researched and its elaborate arguments are surprisingly plausible. (The above synopsis was written by Cahill at my request. TO’C)
Cahill has had problems with selling his books through Amazon and offers an alternative source for purchasers(h).
(b) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15753858-paradise-rediscovered
(c) https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6082558.Michael_A_Cahill
(d) https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Rediscovered-Roots-Civilisation-ebook/dp/B0089C9OSU/
(e) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265937032_Status_of_the_Black_Sea_flood_hypothesis
(f) https://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au/story/129886/lecturers-search-for-longer-life/
(g) https://sfinxredivivus.wordpress.com/tag/etnograful-adrian-bucurescu/
(h) https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/3147587-amazon-paperback-policy
Schaeffer, Claude Frédérick-Armand
Claude Frédérick-Armand Schaeffer (1898-1982) was a French archaeologist who is probably best known for his work at the Ras Shamra site in 
Syria which he identified as the ancient port city of Ugarit. He worked on and wrote about the site from 1929 until his death.
Schaeffer enter the arena of catastrophism in 1948 when he declared[806] that during the Bronze Age on at least five occasions, widespread catastrophic destructions has taken place throughout the Middle East.
Some chapters from his book, Stratigraphie Comparée et Chronologie de l’Asie Occidentale (III et II. Millénaires), have now been translated and available online(c).
He attributed these events to seismic activity, which was perhaps related to the ‘seismic storm’ referred to by Stavros Papamarinopoulos in his paper, Plato and the seismic catastrophe in the 12th century BC Athens(b).
It was left to others such as Velikovsky and René Gallant[0748] to add the possibility of extraterrestrial bombardments.
Plato recorded how the priests of Sais told Solon of a succession of catastrophes that befell the region, including earthquakes, inundations such as the Flood of Deucalion and the fall of Phaeton adding historical support for the theories of Schaeffer, Velikovsky and Gallant inter alia.
Schaeffer and Velikovsky exchanged correspondence(a).
(a) Claude Schaeffer – Professor Claude F.A. Schaeffer of the College de France (archive.org) *
(c) https://www.q-mag.org/reading-from-claude-schaeffers-stratigraphie-comparee.html