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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 »
Richard Firestone
Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis
The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) is based on the claim that around 12,800 years ago the Earth had an encounter with a very large asteroid or comet that broke up in an airburst over North America and of which some fragments possibly hit the ground directly(a).
Many effects have been linked with this event with varying levels of enthusiasm including a suggested association with the demise of Atlantis. Elsewhere, megafaunal extinctions, cataclysmic floods, the disappearance of the Clovis people and the creation of the Carolina Bays(g), have all been proposed as consequences of this episode.
In 2006, Richard Firestone, Allen West & Simon Warwick-Smith published the foundations of the YDIH in The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes [110]. A year later the hypothesis had a more public airing at the American Geophysical Union Press Conference, Acapulco, Mexico, on May 23(d). This was followed the same year by the publication of a formal paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America(f).
Since then volumes have been written on the subject, both pro and con(c).
A 2014 paper(h) entitled Nanodiamond-Rich Layer Across Three Continents Consistent with Major Cosmic Impact at 12,800 Cal BP by Charles R. Kinzie et al., has developed further the idea of this event being associated with the Younger Dryas. In a similar vein is an article(f) from Megan Gannon.
December 2014 saw Graham Hancock raising the issue of a cometary cause for the Younger Dryas and its possible association with ancient Egypt(e).
Martin Sweatman brought further evidence to bear on this debate in an article(i) on the Graham Hancock website. This focuses on the investigations at Hall’s Cave in Texas described in a paper by Sun et al, where the team concluded that the trace elements found there could indicate a volcanic rather than an impact as the cause of the Younger Dryas cooling! Sweatman disagrees with their conclusions claiming that there seems to be an element of selectivity in choosing data, leading to a wrong conclusion.
2019 also gave us a paper that included an extensive bibliography and overview of the YDIH debate(k).
In 2020, the eminent geologist James Lawrence Powell published Deadly Voyager [1911], which offered further support to the YDIH. This book was instrumental in changing the negative stance of a number of ardent sceptics including Michael Shermer(j).
In 2022 Powell concluded a paper reviewing the YDIH debates with the following
“Finally, we can now assess Sweatman’s suggestion that the YDIH may be ready for promotion from hypothesis to the status of theory. If we combine the definitions of “theory” from the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, it would read something like this:
‘A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence. One of the most useful properties of scientific theories is that they can be used to make predictions about natural events or phenomena that have not yet been observed.’
Those who have read this article and Sweatman’s have the information to decide whether the YDIH meets this definition. In this author’s opinion, there is a strong case that it does. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that no other single theory can explain the YD and its associated effects.”(l)
I note that Robert Schoch claims that there is no evidence to support the Younger Dryas impact theory, instead, he believes that “it was most likely due to reduced solar activity at that time, a solar shut-down.”(n) Schoch’s wide-ranging critique has been refuted by the Comet Research Group.(o)
In 2012, Jennifer Marlon et al published a paper, now made available by Marlon on the Academia website, in which they present “arguments and evidence against the hypothesis that a large impact or airburst caused a significant abrupt climate change, extinction event, and termination of the Clovis culture at 12.9 ka. It should be noted that there is not one single Younger Dryas (YD) impact hypothesis but several that conflict with one another regarding many significant details.”(m)
Scienceopen.com is a website offering “A peer-reviewed open-access journal collection covering all aspects of airbursts and impacts on Earth by comets and asteroids”. October 2023 brought the publication of five papers on the subject(p).
In March 2024 The New York Times Magazine published an updated overview of the history and current status of the YDIH(q). The sceptical tone of the article includes an interesting look at the psychological drivers behind the popularity of the hypothesis with the general public. It concludes by noting that
In a sense, what West and his collaborators think now hardly matters. The hypothesis has already penetrated deeply, and perhaps indelibly, into the public imagination, seemingly on its way to becoming less a matter of truth than a matter of personal and group identity. Nobody I spoke with seemed to think it would go away soon, if ever. West, though, took a measured view. “All we can say is this is a hypothesis,” he said. “It’s still a debate. We may be wrong; we may be right. But only time will tell.”
>>In April 2024, geoarchaeologist Marc Young published a lengthy article(r) on Graham Hancock’s website, rebutting arguments put forward by YDIH sceptics.<<
(a) https://humanoriginproject.com/evidence-younger-dryas-impact-hypothesis/
(b) YDIH: Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis | Thongchai Thailand (archive.org)
(c) https://cometresearchgroup.org/publications/
(d) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1GCgOI3B1o
(e) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/HancockG13.php
(f) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1994902/
(g) https://cosmictusk.com/carolina-bays-in-the-midwest
(j) In praise of intellectual honesty – The Cosmic Tusk
(k) YDIH: Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis | Thongchai Thailand (tambonthongchai.com)
(l) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00368504211064272
(m) (99+) Arguments and Evidence Against a Younger Dryas Impact Event | Jennifer Marlon – Academia.edu
(n) https://www.robertschoch.com/plasma_iceage.html
(o) https://cosmictusk.com/comet-research-group-responds-to-robert-schoch/
(p) https://blog.scienceopen.com/2023/10/introducing-comet-research-group-on-scienceopen/
(q) The Comet Strike Theory That Just Won’t Die – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
(r) The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis: A Guide For The Perplexed – Graham Hancock Official Website *
Casey, Kevin A. & Patrick J.
Kevin A. & Patrick J. Casey are the American authors of a series of papers currently available on the academia.edu website(a), which are concerned with a globally catastrophic event that occurred 13,000 years ago. providing them with a title of ’13K Theory’. 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 claim that this event wiped out the megafauna, altered the Earth’s axis and created our mountains, the Earth being generally flat before the dramatic episode! 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.
Their final paper is entitled Atlantis Revisited(b), in which they nominate Rockall as being ‘by far’ the most likely location of Atlantis. They also claim that the war between the Atlanteans and the Greeks took place before the 13K Event! Enjoy.
(a) (99+) (PDF) 13k Theory, Children of the Book | Kevin A Casey – Academia.edu * (six parts)
(b) https://www.academia.edu/38380799/13k_Theory_Atlantis_Revisited.pdf
Carlson, Randall
Randall Carlson is an architect, geomythologist and catastrophist. He is the 
founder of Sacred Geometry International(a). Carlson also features in Graham Hancock‘s book, The Magicians of the Gods[1119]. Hancock’s book focuses on the cometary impact in the 11th millennium BC, proposed by Richard Firestone et al. nearly a decade ago. Hancock returns to the subject again in his latest offering, America Before [1680].
Carlson considers the destruction of Atlantis coincident with the ending of the Last Ice Age and the onset of the Younger Dryas Period(b).
On his GeoCosmicRex website(c) he outlines the early 20th century ideas of J Harlen Bretz and others who sought to explain the American Scablands as the result of the frequent catastrophic bursting of ice dams, with as many as 80 such events.
Since then, new data and new thinking has led many to a dramatic revision of conclusions and a more coherent theory to explain the creation of the Scablands and the sudden return to Ice Age conditions during the Younger Dryas Period. This is a consequence of the Firestone cometary impact theory, which has continued to gather support.
According to the Atlantisforschung.de website, Carlson is sympathetic to the traditional location of Atlantis in the Atlantic, with the Azores as its remnants(d).
>Carlson continues to support this theory in a number of videos presenting his case in a highly plausible but flawed(f) manner. He suggests that Plato’s text is ‘pure’ and should be taken at face value. For example, he quotes where Plato tells us that the Atlanteans came out of the Atlantic Ocean. This is incorrect, as the original Greek says ‘Atlantic SEA. To the Greeks, ‘ocean’ and ‘sea’ had different meanings. I have demonstrated elsewhere that the term ‘Pillars of Herakles’ has been applied to a variety of locations as a metaphor for the limit of Greek maritime knowledge at any given time as the trading and colonisation slowly moved westward. However, the greatest argument against an Azorean Atlantis is the inability of its proponents to explain why and how would such a civilisation attack Athens located 3,500 km away?<
It’s difficult to tell if that is the full story, particularly when you hear a brief (2023) exchange between Carlson and Jesse Michels(e).
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) https://sacredgeometryinternational.com/
(b) See Archive 2720
(c) http://geocosmicrex.com/holocene-mystery/
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
Holocene Impact Working Group
The Holocene Impact Working Group (HIWG)(a) was created by researchers into different aspects of geosciences, who believe that cometary impacts were more frequent during the recent past than generally accepted. It is concerned with the growing number of impact craters being discovered and the evidence of consequent mega-tsunamis. Its membership includes Mike Baillie, Richard Firestone and Bruce Masse(b).>>The Burckle Crater in the Indian Ocean is considered by some to be one such impact crater.<<
I note that the idea of such a Holocene impact is denied by some, such as Jennifer Marion who presents in a 2012 paper “arguments and evidence against the hypothesis that a large impact or airburst caused a significant abrupt climate change, extinction event, and termination of the Clovis culture at 12.9 ka. “(d)
The New York Times reviewed the work of the HIWG in 2006(c).
(a) https://planetarydefense.blogspot.com/2009/02/holocene-impact-working-group-hiwg.html
(b) https://archaeology.about.com/od/climatechange/a/masse_king.htm
(c) https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/science/14WAVE.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
(d) (99+) Arguments and Evidence Against a Younger Dryas Impact Event | Jennifer Marlon – Academia.edu
Younger Dryas *
Younger Dryas is also known as Dryas III was a mini Ice Age that lasted from around 10,700 BC until around 9600 BC. It is named after a wildflower called Dryas octopetala that flourished during this relatively short period. In Ireland, the period is known as the Nahanagan Stadial and in Britain as the Loch Lomond Stadial. For about thirteen hundred years the glaciers had been slowly retreating until within a short timespan temperature dropped and they began to advance again. The cause of this cooling is not entirely clear. One view is that a sudden release into the North Atlantic of vast quantities of freshwater that had been contained by huge ice dams is assumed to have closed down the Gulf Stream, resulting in a twelve-hundred-year lowering of global temperatures. There is evidence that the change only took one or two decades. The same threat is said to exist today with the possibility of the melting of the Greenland ice cap. It also seems that this YD cooling ended with the same rapidity.
In 2011 a paper by Nicholas Pinter et al offered a critical review of the evidence available at that time which, from their perspective, did not fully support the YDIH(z).
A recent application of archaeoastronomy by Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis led them to conclude that the carved symbols at Göbekli Tepe recorded an encounter involving the explosion or impact of part of Encke’s Comet around 13,000 years ago, which triggered the Younger Dryas Event that provided the impetus for the Neolithic Revolution. Sweatman later expanded their work in his book Prehistory Decoded [1621] and an article on the Ancient Origins website(k). In June 2021, Sweatman had a paper entitled ‘The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: a review of the impact evidence’ published in the journal ‘Earth Science Review’ of the University of Edinburgh(u).
Kevin A. & Patrick J. Casey maintain that a globally catastrophic event occurred 13,000 years ago(j). 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.
A completely different view is expressed in Rod (Carl) Martin’s latest book [1623], where he proposes that the Younger Dryas ended as a result of a catastrophic event. Is it possible that there were two cataclysmic episodes? John Ackerman, a keen follower of Immanuel Velikovsky claims that there were two such events related to “the capture of the Moon into its current orbit,” marking the beginning and the end of the Younger Dryas period(q).
A somewhat technical paper, published in July 2020, challenges the comet impact theory because of geochemical anomalies, Instead, they argue that the YD event was a consequence of volcanic activity(s), rather than an impact! Martin Sweatman refutes this in a paper on Graham Hancock’s website(i).
In 2015, a paper constraining the impact date to within 100 years using Bayesian statistical analyses, now proposed as 12,835 -12,735 years ago(h).
Coincidentally, Emilio Spedicato independently concluded that it was a cometary impact in the North Atlantic that was responsible for the Younger Dryas. Subsequently, when temperatures rose again it resulted in the flooding of vast areas of low-lying landmasses that in Spedicato’s opinion included Atlantis, which he locates in Hispaniola.
Conflicting evidence regarding the possibility of the Younger Dryas being caused by such an impact is impartially outlined on the internet(a).
The November 2013 issue of the BBC Focus magazine (p.30) had a brief article on the impact theory, noting that the northern hemisphere saw a drop of as much as 15°C around 11,000BC. In the absence of a suitable impact crater of the right age, there is still much scientific scepticism(b).
However, in early 2017, further possible evidence of an impact at the start of the Younger Dryas was offered by a team led by Christopher Moore of the University of South Carolina, when they identified a distinct layer of platinum in the soil that coincided with the start of YD. Commenting on this anomaly Moore noted that “Platinum is very rare in the Earth’s crust, but it is common in asteroids and comets.”(e) In 2019, Moore published further data(m) supporting the extraterrestrial impact theory, based on studies carried out on sediments, which date back 20,000 years, from White Pond Lake, situated in southern Kershaw County, South Carolina. “Other examples of excessive platinum grains have been found across Europe, western Asia, Chile, South Africa(r) and North America.” (n)
In early 2018, two papers were published online(i), reinforcing the YD impact theory and adding evidence that the event resulted in a conflagration that “may have consumed ~10 million km2, or ~9% of Earth’s terrestrial biomass.” Related to this is a paper by Andrew Collins that draws attention to the ‘Usselo horizon’, a charcoal-rich layer of between 1 and 8 inches, found on all continents, indicating widespread fires, now dated to 12,900 years ago(l). An additional paper by Hans Kloosterman offers additional background information on the charcoal-rich layer(ab).
Ice cores from Greenland indicate a further cooling period circa 6200 BC that may be related to the abandonment of many Neolithic settlements during this period. Other periods of abrupt climate change have been identified from 3800 BC to 3500 BC and 2800 BC to 2000 BC.
The fact that Plato’s apparent date for the demise of Atlantis, circa 9600 BC, roughly corresponds with the current, best estimate for the date of the Younger Dryas is interesting but unfortunately not conclusive proof of any direct connection. In the absence of any supportive archaeological evidence, a linkage between Atlantis and the Younger Dryas will have to remain a matter of faith rather than fact. Interesting but inconclusive.
In 2017, Graham Hancock reviewed the Younger Dryas debate over the previous decade in a lengthy essay(v). This was prior to the publication of America Before. He finished with the following comment. “Perhaps the lost civilization that I have spent the last quarter of a century trying to track down had its most significant outpost, possibly even its heartland, in North America in the period BEFORE the Younger Dryas cataclysms of 12,800 to 11,600 years ago?” Hancock is inferring here that there was a single global civilisation, a hyperdiffusionist stance that I consider indefensible.
A short paper by John Patrick Hill offers a theory that requires more than faith to accept it; he wrote “Just over 12 thousand years ago, the world was struck by an immense meteor group. It destroyed all of North America and much of Europe and went weIl beyond……… I found proof to support that the creators of the Giza Three and Stonehenge used the Barringer Crater in Arizona as part of the geometry for their massive structures.” Later he reveals that at “Giza, when one takes the distance between the outside corners of the three large pyramids there, that distance is equal to 0.72 miles, the exact distance (diameter) at Barringer.” An expanded version of his paper is available online(t).
In another paper Hill(aa) says that “the Younger Dryas Meteor Event struck 12.8 thousand years ago and it was so large, it is wrote down not only in geologic records but also in holy books, as Noah’s Flood.”
Recent discoveries in northern Sudan of dozens of skeletons, the majority of whom were killed by flint-tipped arrows, have led to the suggestion(c) they were the result of food shortages resulting from the Younger Dryas that in turn led to warfare over diminished food availability.
I note that Robert Schoch claims that there is no evidence to support the Younger Dryas impact theory, instead, he believes that “it was most likely due to reduced solar activity at that time, a solar shut-down.”(o) Schoch’s wide-ranging critique has been refuted by the Comet Research Group.(p)
In 2020, James Lawrence Powell (1936- ), a noted geologist, author, former college president and museum director entered the Younger Dryas debate with the publication of Deadly Voyager [1911]. In it, Powell offers wholehearted support to the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH), understandably generating a favourable review from Graham Hancock(w).
In 2020, Tony Petrangelo argued that the Younger Dryas event did not destroy Atlantis, but that it was more compatible with the story of Phaeton(ac).
Even more important, is that Powell’s book induced a number of heavy-duty critics of YDIH, including Michael Shermer to change their opinion(x).
Powell offered a further review of the YD debates in a 2022 paper(y).
(b) https://www.livescience.com/39362-younger-dryas-meteor-quebec.html
(f) https://www.space.com/17676-comet-crash-ice-age.html
(h) https://cosmictusk.com/new-paper-younger-dryas-boundary-impact-date-constrained-within-100-years/
(i) https://www.dailygrail.com/2018/02/a-comet-impact-13000-years-ago-set-fire-to-10-of-the-planet/
(j) https://www.academia.edu/38380799/13k_Theory_Atlantis_Revisited.pdf
(k) https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-important-events/younger-dryas-0012216
(l) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Lommel.htm
(n) https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/29/world/ice-age-extraterrestrial-impact-scn/index.html
(o) https://www.robertschoch.com/plasma_iceage.html
(p) https://cosmictusk.com/comet-research-group-responds-to-robert-schoch/
(q) Firmament and Chaos (archive.org)
*(s) https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/31/eaax8587
(t) Archive 6555 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(u) The_Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis_MBS.pdf (ed.ac.uk)
(v) The Younger Dryas Impact research since 2007 – The Cosmic Tusk
(w) https://grahamhancock.com/deadly-voyager/
(x) In praise of intellectual honesty – The Cosmic Tusk
(y) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00368504211064272
(z) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825211000262
(aa) Migration & Diffusion (migration-diffusion.info)
(ac) https://atlantis.fyi/blog/atlantis-and-the-younger-dryas-impact-hypothesis
Leonard, R. Cedric
R. Cedric Leonard (1934-2022) was from Oklahoma and has worked as an electronic technician, initially in the U.S. Navy and later in private industry, from which he retired in 1990. He studied Comparative Religion, Sanskrit and Classical Greek and has a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma. He is also self-taught in Egyptian, Canaanite and Phoenician inscriptions. He has also speculated on the possibility of the Phoenician alphabet having its origins in Atlantis and the possibility of a connection with the Glozel Tablets(c).
His Sanskrit studies led him to investigate stories of the Vimanas or ancient Hindu flying machines. He has produced several books[130][131]and scientific papers on the subject of Atlantis and ancient India. He has also written on the existence of UFOs in ancient Egypt(d), Mesopotamia(h) and the Bible[132], particularly the Book of Ezekiel(e). He has also produced a paper(f) about archaeological mysteries in general.
However, in his 1979 book, Quest for Atlantis[0130], Leonard has suggested that the Kings of Atlantis were human-alien hybrids and that humans are the result of alien genetic experiments!!
He maintained a very interesting Atlantis website(a), which covered a range of subjects including connections between Cro-Magnon Man and ancient Egypt with Atlantis.
He located Atlantis along The Mid-Atlantic Ridge and offered geological, mythological, linguistic as well as paleontological evidence to support this idea and for its destruction following worldwide catastrophes around 10,000 BC. He also wrote a paper(g) on the asteroid/comet impact around the same time, which created the Carolina Bays and its possible connection with the destruction of Atlantis. This encounter was brought to the notice of a wider audience by Richard Firestone and his colleagues in their book, The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes[0110].
Before retirement, Leonard supported Posnansky‘s early date for Tiwanaku citing a number of astronomers who endorsed his chronology. “Between 1927 and 1930 Prof. Posnansky’s conclusions were studied intensively by a number of authorities. Dr. Hans Ludendorff (Director of the Astronomical Observatory of Potsdam), Friedrich Becker of the Specula Vaticana, Prof. Arnold Kohlschutter (astronomer at Bonn University), and Rolf Müller (astronomer of the Institute of Astrophysics at Potsdam) verified the accuracy of Posnansky’s calculations and vouched for the reliability of his conclusions.
The conventional practice of dating Tiahuanacu as beginning c. 200 A.D. and collapsing c. 1000 A.D. started with Wendell Bennett’s excavations, which turned up numerous examples of pottery, small statues and other artifacts. Since it is common for later arrivals to be awed by massive ruins (sometimes attributing their origin to supernatural beings, thus replicating the “sacred” images on their own pottery and textiles), I think it is a mistake to fuse the two cultures into one, implying that the later arrivals were the same people who built the original ruins. I believe Bennett and his successors are all guilty of such an error” (i).
Leonard recognised that his belief in prehistoric flying machines may lead some readers to dismiss his carefully thought-out theory on Atlantis, but he is adamant that both existed. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that Leonard is one of the few writers on the subject who has produced original material to support the idea of Atlantis’ existence.
Some of Leonard’s work can be found plagiarised on the Internet, most blatantly by the artist, Charles Alexander Moffat(b).
I have only just discovered that Leonard died on Jan 17, 2022.
>A number of his articles are now available at a new address(j).<
(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20161212202011/https://www.atlantisquest.com/index.html
b)Atlantis Forgotten – The Search for Atlantis and Eden – The Religion eZine (archive.org)
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20201001074421/http://s8int.com/articles/260/19/sophis26.html
(d) See related site: The Arrival of the Sky Gods: Ancient Egyptian Papyrus details mass UFO sighting | Ancient Code (archive.org)
(f) https://nexusilluminati.blogspot.ie/2011/06/prehistoric-mysteries-perspective-on.html
(g) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20170113112302/https://www.atlantisquest.com/Asteroid.html
(h) See: Archive 2881
Firestone, Richard *
Richard Firestone together with his co-authors Allen West and Simon Warwick-Smith has written one of the most impressive accounts[110] of a cosmic collision that led to the extinction in North America of large mammals such as the mammoth and sabre-toothed tiger and the concurrent disappearance of the Clovis people at the end of the last Ice Age.
Before what has become known as the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) was formulated, Firestone and William Topping speculated that North America was impacted by intense cosmic rays from a supernova in a 2001 paper entitled Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times(l).
The YDIH also offers a credible explanation for the Carolina Bays. However, they propose that this collision had catastrophic global consequences. The three scientists are prepared to consider the possibility that Plato’s Atlantis story, however garbled, is related to the same episode[0110.328].
Since the publication of their book, some evidence(a)(k) has emerged that would appear to conflict with their core thesis. This criticism appears to be gaining support according to a May 2011 report(b)(d). However, in September 2012 it was reported that further intensive investigation has revealed flaws in the evidence gathering of Firestone’s critics(f). The interdisciplinary team of scientists from seven U.S. institutions concluded that “a disregard of three critical protocols, including sorting samples by size, explains why a group challenging the theory of a North American meteor-impact event some 12,900 years ago failed to find iron- and silica-rich magnetic particles in the sites they investigated.”
Strong resistance to the Firestone claims continued into 2013 when the Royal Holloway and the Sandia National Laboratories along with 13 other universities across the United States and Europe mounted further challenges(g).
The waters were muddied further when it was revealed that Allen West formerly known as Allen Whitt, who was convicted in California of posing as a state-licensed geologist(b) and fined $4,500! He legally changed his name in 2006. His respected co-authors were apparently unaware of his history and as a consequence of West’s central role in the data gathering, the hypothesis is considered by some to be tainted. This may be a case of shooting the messenger instead of the message, a view discussed at length on the Internet(e). A spirited defence of both West in particular and the theory of the team, in general, has also been written(c) and should be read in order to get a more balanced view of this particular controversy.
The core debate has rumbled on ever since. In July 2015 the University of California, Santa Barbara, released the results(h) of research, led by James Kennett, which again supported the impact theory and “has narrowed the date to a 100-year range, sometime between 12,835 and 12,735 years ago.”
The battle has continued, apparently inconclusively, with more papers being published by all sides. July 2018 saw an update of the controversy published on the Science News website(i), with no sign of the war ending.
Nevertheless, in late 2019, further evidence emerged that appears supportive of Firestone’s theory. Where previously nanodiamonds were an important feature in the presentation of his ideas the latest studies focus on platinum as an important marker(j).
2019 also gave us a paper that included an extensive bibliography and overview of the YDIH debate(m).
Inspiration resulting from an interview with Firestone led Kevin Curran to a study that ended with the publication of Fall of a Thousand Suns[1113], in which he investigates the effect of extraterrestrial encounters on the development of early religious beliefs.
(a) The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis – Scientific American Blog Network (archive.org)
(b) Comet Theory Comes Crashing to Earth – Pacific Standard (archive.org)
(c) https://www.sott.net/article/229835-Real-Science-Under-Attack-The-Dirty-Tricks-of-Rex-Dalton
(d) Wayback Machine (archive.org)
(e) https://www.sott.net/articles/show/229835-Real-Science-Under-Attack-The-Dirty-Tricks-of-Rex-Dalton
(g) Prehistoric humans not wiped out by comet, say researchers — ScienceDaily (archive.org)
(h) https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/015778/cataclysmic-event-certain-age
(i) https://www.sciencenews.org/article/younger-dryas-comet-impact-cold-snap
(k) Comet impact theory disproved | EurekAlert! (archive.org) *
(l) https://www.osti.gov/biblio/776650-terrestrial-evidence-nuclear-catastrophe-paleoindian-times
(m) YDIH: Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis | Thongchai Thailand (tambonthongchai.com)
Destruction of Athenian Army
The Destruction of the Athenian Army, together with that of Atlantis, as related by Plato, (Timaeus 25d) makes no sense if the whole story is allegedly offered as a morality tale, where the wicked and corrupt Atlanteans are destroyed because of their evil ways. Normally, such a story would show the allegedly morally superior Athenians prospering and triumphant over their opponents. The very fact that both military protagonists were destroyed, though not necessarily at the same time, would seem to be at odds with the idea of it being a morality tale and instead adds to the credibility of Plato’s narrative as containing some historical truth. Bernard Suzanne offers a totally different interpretation based on the background and motives of Critias(a). Serbian Atlantis sceptic[1511], Slobodan Dušanic (1939-2012), has noted(b) that “while the Atlantis myth has been recognised, with good reason, by the majority of modern Platonists as a parable, no consensus has been reached on the parable’s character or precise purpose.” I’m not sure if this is a criticism of Plato or of modern scholarship!
>Commenting on the suggestion that the story of Atlantis was intended as a morality tale Eberhard Zangger noted that “the description of the natural disasters also contradicts the occasional speculative conjecture that Plato did not mean to illustrate the ideal state with Atlantis, but with archaic Greece. After all, he says Atlantis was punished for its gradual moral decline by being destroyed (Vidal-Naquet, 1964). But if the story is supposed to be a moral parable, why is the “good” Greek side first punished with natural disasters? And why does Plato mainly describe the “barbaric” enemies instead of the old Hellenic civilisation? The traditional attempts at interpretation offer no answers to these questions.”(f)<
Plato’s description of the demise of Atlantis and the obliteration of Athens has prompted many writers to link these occurrences with more global events. The association of Atlantis with catastrophism has persisted for over a century, ever since Ignatius Donnelly published his landmark book Atlantis and his contribution to catastrophist literature Raganorak. However, the idea of Atlantis as a victim of a global or at least a very widespread catastrophe was articulated as early as 1788 by Giovanni Rinaldo Carli who claimed[087] that a close encounter with a comet caused worldwide devastation that included the permanent inundation of Atlantis.
In more recent times, commentators such as Stuart L. Harris have specified the cause of Atlantis’ destruction as an encounter with Nibiru (Marduk) in 9577 BC, in a number of papers (c)(d)(e) on the Academia.edu website. If the demise of the Athenian army was concurrent with that of the Atlanteans, 9577 BC is far too early, as Athens does not emerge as a structured society many thousands of years later. However, Harris’ early date is close to the that of the Younger Dryas and the extraterrestrial encounter that bombarded North America, which has been highlighted by Richard Firestone and others.
Atlantis is recorded by Plato as being destroyed in ‘a day and a night’, which led George H. Cooper to made the point that the knowledge of the speed of its demise could only have come from ‘survivors or passing mariners’ and should have been incorporated into the traditions of many nations [236.283].
What is clear, is that Plato identifies an earthquake as the primary cause of Atlantis’ destruction. If that earthquake was triggered by a very close encounter with the likes of Carli’s comet, it would needed to have come near enough to the Earth and been so highly visible as to demand its inclusion in the destruction narrative!
The bottom line is that the date of the destruction of Atlantis and its army is not known, although it has been assumed by commentators to have occurred shortly after the war with Atlantis. All that Plato says is that it happened “at a later time’ Similarly, However, Plato records the destruction of the two armies in the same passage (Tim.25d-e) in a manner that might suggest a common cause, a view that I’m inclined to accept.
(a) https://plato-dialogues.org/email/980808_1.htm
(b) https://www.persee.fr/doc/antiq_0770-2817_1982_num_51_1_2060
(f) https://www.moneymuseum.com/pdf/yesterday/03_Antiquity/Atlantis%20en.pdf *
Catastrophism
Catastrophism today is the name given to a school of thought that supports the idea that the history of the Earth has been punctuated by natural events such as floods, fires and asteroid strikes that have caused widespread if not global devastation and that some of these events occurred within the memory of man and are recorded in worldwide mythologies.
“Gradualists explained geological features as the result of slowly acting processes such as erosion, while catastrophists argued that Earth had been shaped mainly by a series of violent events or catastrophes, whether over a relatively short time (6,000 to 10,000 years) or over many millions of years. In the early nineteenth century, gradualism seemed to win out completely over catastrophism, but in the late twentieth century scientists discovered that catastrophic events have also played a major role in Earth’s history.” (p)
Britannica defines catastrophism, as a “doctrine that explains the differences in fossil forms encountered in successive stratigraphic levels as being the product of repeated cataclysmic occurrences and repeated new creations. This doctrine generally is associated with the great French naturalist Baron Georges Cuvier (1769–1832). One 20th-century expansion on Cuvier’s views, in effect, a neocatastrophic school, attempts to explain geologic history as a sequence of rhythms or pulsations of mountain building, transgression and regression of the seas, and evolution and extinction of living organisms.”(q)
Worryingly, it is now more generally accepted that further catastrophes will occur as a result of future cometary/asteroidal strikes. Nigel Cawthorne has decided to cheer us up with his book, Doomsday [1800], which lists 50 possible global catastrophes on the future horizon!
One such close encounter, around 2800 BC, was considered by the Christian catastrophist, Donald W. Patten, to have generated the Deluge of Noah(j) and was the source of the flood legends found around the world! Patten nominates Mars as the intruder(l), an idea also advocated by Elsar Orkan, who, however, proposes a date of around 8000 BC for this encounter[1442].
Some readers may think that the subject has no direct connection with Plato’s Atlantis, however, his text refers to a number of catastrophic events that clearly brought devastation to Athens, Atlantis and beyond. The Flood of Deucalion and earlier inundations, Phaeton and other cosmic encounters, plus conflagrations and earthquakes all point to periods of great instability in the early prehistory of the Aegean region and quite probably much further afield.
Jürgen Spanuth devoted chapter 4 of his Atlantis of the North [0015] to an examination of “the natural catastrophes of the 13th century BC” that deals with Phaeton and the blizzard of floods, earthquakes and eruptions that beset the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Some of these matters have been recently expanded upon by Nur & Cline(f)(g) and endorsed by Stavros Papamarinopoulos [0750.73].
August 2013 saw studies published(h) that pointed the finger at climate change as the cause of the widespread political instability in that region during the second millennium BC.
Claude Schaeffer, a celebrated French archaeologist, declared in 1948[0806] that on at least five occasions during the Bronze Age the Middle East had been subjected to widespread catastrophic destruction as a result of natural events rather than human activity.
Immanuel Velikovsky is arguably the best known of the 20th-century catastrophists, who published two books[0037][0038] in the 1950’s that provoked widespread controversy that continues today. There is an interesting albeit sceptical review of catastrophism in the last century by Patrick Moore & Bob Forrest in Chapter 14 of More Things in Heaven and Earth(k).
Paul Dunbavin, the author of Towers of Atlantis [1627], has published a paper(n), highly critical of Velikovsky’s work. Dunbavin has researched the evidence for a number of pole shifts that are not dependent on what he describes as the “naïve astronomy” of Velikovsky.
René Gallant
In 1964, the Belgian mathematician René Gallant (1908-1985)(image left) published Bombarded Earth[0748] which dealt in great detail with the consequences of meteorite impacts on the earth. Gallant, perhaps because of his amateur status as a geologist, never received the attention he deserved.
More recently Allan & Delair produced another book[0014] that identified 9500 BC as the date of a global catastrophe following an encounter with a comet. Their conclusions are at variance with Velikovsky’s, particularly regarding dates. Professor Mike Baillie of Queens University, Belfast is a well-known dendrochronologist who has recently entered the debate with his book, Exodus to Arthur[0111] which adds evidence from his discipline to support the theory of cometary or asteroidal impacts with the Earth. Unfortunately, his work is confined to the last 4,500 years and so casts no further light on the 9,500 BC date apart from offering support for the possibility of extraterrestrial impacts.
However, Richard Firestone and his co-authors have researched[0110] an impact ‘Event’ that occurred 13,000 years ago and caused devastation in North America including the creation of the hundreds of thousands of Carolina Bays and some of the outbursts of Lake Missoula. Like Baillie, they claim that a memory of this event has been preserved in the folktales of many North-American Indians. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the latest developments in catastrophist research.
>>John Patrick Hill has managed to combine catastrophism with Roman Catholicism.(r)<<
The destruction of Atlantis has been linked to a number of possible catastrophic events including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and asteroid strikes. Plato’s account cites a flood as the immediate cause of the disappearance of Atlantis. In the 18th century, Giovanni Carli was probably the first to link a cometary encounter with the Earth as the cause of Atlantis’ demise. This idea has been supported by numerous writers ever since, with Emilio Spedicato being one of its leading exponents today.
>>It is clear that in recent years it has become more widely thought that Atlantis was destroyed as a result of encounters with extraterrestrial objects such as an asteroids or comets. Graham Hancock is a leading exponent of this idea, giving it widespread publicity in his bestselling Fingerprints of the Gods [275]. He contends that about 12,000 years ago a series of comet strikes obliterated an ancient civilisation to such an extent that little evidence of its existence remained.
Michael Shermer, a leading Atlantis sceptic, commented(s), “No matter how devastating an extraterrestrial impact might be, are we to believe that, after centuries of flourishing, every last tool, potshard, article of clothing, and, presumably from an advanced civilization, the writing, metallurgy, and other technologies — not to mention their trash, homes, and bones — were erased? Not likely.” Shermer’s point is well-made and I would like to add to it that it is even more improbable that all tangible evidence would have been erased globally and not just from the impact regions.<<
There are numerous sites on the Internet relating to catastrophism of which one(a) can be recommended as a good starting point for further study. Andy Blackard has listed(b) events connected with global upheavals around 3200 and 2000 BC. An Australian archaeologist, Peter Jupp, is the creator of the Ancient Destructions website(e) which deals with a number of historical mysteries including, Baalbek and Antarctica.
A more recent book by Robert Argod[0065] postulates that many of these historical catastrophes were caused by an irregular series of accelerated tectonic movements, although he does not offer a credible mechanism to explain the triggering of such upheavals. Is it possible that the strikes by or near misses with extraterrestrial objects, proposed by so many, generated the tectonic shifts proposed by Argod?
Professor Trevor Palmer has written a comprehensive history of catastrophes and catastrophism from the earliest times and its relevance today. His Perilous Planet Earth[0888] includes a couple of chapters in which he reviews Atlantis theories in the context of catastrophism.
Dr Michel-Alain Combes has a PhD in astronomy from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI). He has an extensive website(i) dealing with catastrophism, which translates quite well.
2012 was been promoted as the date of the next worldwide catastrophe based on a highly questionable interpretation of the Mayan calendar. New Age gurus were promising a change in global consciousness, whatever that means. If interested. you can read more of this nonsense online(c) or consider a more balanced view(d).
A huge catastrophist bibliography (2010) is available online(m) with a 2020 update now available(o).
(a) Catastrophism (archive.org)
(b) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/BlackardA1.php
(c) 2012 Doomsday Prediction and Prophecy – A closer look – with links and resources (archive.org)
(d) https://www.skepdic.com/maya.html
(e)Ancient Destructions investigations, videos, articles on Earths catastrophes (archive.org)
(f) https://academia.edu/355163/2001_Nur_and_Cline_Archaeology_Odyssey_Earthquake_Storms_article
(g) https://academia.edu/355162/2000_Nur_and_Cline_JAS_Poseidons_Horses_article
(i) http://www.astrosurf.com/macombes/index.html (French)
(j) https://www.creationism.org/patten/PattenBiblFlood/index.htm
(k) https://www.cantab.net/users/michael.behrend/ebooks/MoreThings/pages/Chapter_14.html
(l) https://www.creationism.org/patten/PattenMarsEarthWars/
(m) https://www.creationism.org/english/BibliographyCelestialCatastrophism2010_en.htm
(n) https://www.third-millennium.co.uk/home-2
(p) https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/science-magazines/earth-science-gradualism-and-catastrophism
(q) https://www.britannica.com/science/catastrophism-geology