by Colin Wilson
The thickest ice sheet on Greenland is at 72N/38W, where the ice is almost 2 miles deep. The cross-polar point from Greenland’s thickest ice sheet is 72N/142E. The closest land is the New Siberian Islands (75N/140E). If we were to accept that ice core dating from Greenland was a true indicator of temperature worldwide, then the New Siberian Islands should also be under ice and could never have supported large mammals such as mammoths, lions, rhinos, bison and horse.
There is no logical reason whatsoever to prefer the ice core dating from Greenland over the physical remains of extinct mammals from the New Siberian Islands as the criteria with which to estimate the
The thickest ice on Antarctica is antipodal to the thickest ice on
Greenland. The cross-polar point to the thickest ice on Greenland is on the new Siberian Islands, which were formerly the home of a host of temperate-adapted animals. The antipodal point to the New
Siberian Islands is Lesser Antarctica, which would have enjoyed a temperate climate 12,000 years ago.
world’s temperature during the late Pleistocene. But this is exactly what the ice core experts do. They assume that latitudes can change only very gradually. Sudden changes such as those envisioned with a mantel displacement are beyond their consideration. They say everything must be linked to what they find on Greenland. Russian scientists, however, have seen the remains of horses, bison, etc. in Siberia and they cannot accept that the American scientists’ methodology is sound.
And it isn’t.
What the advocates of ice core dating have been doing is extrapolating data collected on Greenland and Greater Antarctica to the rest of the world. They have replaced investigation with extrapolation. They simply assume what they are logically obliged to prove.
Appendix 7
The Mechanics of Mantle Displacement
Rand Flem-Ath
The science journal Nature ran a cover story on 18 July 1996 called ‘Rotation of the inner core’. Hardly a bestseller, this report nevertheless can explain the most perplexing problem for the earth crust displacement theory.
I first became aware of this problem just after Rose and I had done a publicity tour for the publication of When the Sky Fell. We had accepted an invitation to give a talk at the local bookstore in the small town of Ladysmith, British Columbia, where we live. After the talk and slide show we answered a few questions and then chatted with those still remaining. A man asked, ‘How would your theory explain the hot spot under Hawaii?’
After having answered literally thousands of questions about the theory this was the first time that I came across a question that baffled me. I said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ he replied, ‘my impression was that the Hawaiian islands were formed by a hot spot beneath the crust. As the crust moves gradually over the hot spot the rising magma pushes the crust upwards, forming islands. Since this has taken millions of years to achieve it seems to contradict your idea that the crust as a whole displaces.’ I had to admit that this sounded reasonable and I said that
I would have to investigate the matter in more detail because his question went straight to the heart of the theory. It seemed to be an unfailing arrow.
I did investigate the problem but it wasn’t until 1996 when the Nature article came out that I thought I might have an answer to this vexing question. In 1997, Arthur Logtenberg from Eindhoven, Holland, asked on our website for my ideas on the Nature article, which had said that the heavy solid iron core of the earth was rotating ‘100,000 times faster than the fastest relative motion of the tectonic plates of the lithosphere’. What this meant was that the inner core had its own spin and axis that was only related to but not exactly the same as the spin and axis of the rest of the planet. It seemed to me that everything ‘above’ the inner core was vulnerable to a displacement relative to the inner core. I called this idea a mantle displacement because the mantle is the thickest part of the earth above the inner core.
This notion of a deeper level displacement offered a solution to the hot spot problem. If the displacements were that much deeper, then it didn’t matter if there was a ‘hot spot’ beneath Hawaii, because it would move along with the rest of the mass of the earth that was displacing over the inner core.
In the summer of 1997 the question of the Hawaiian hot spot came up again. Rick Monteverde of Honolulu asked, ‘Could it be that the entire globe simply shifted, interior as well as crust?’ I replied: ‘The Hawaiian island chain was produced by a “hot spot” beneath the surface of the crust. This poses a more serious problem for the earth crust displacement theory since a movement of the crust should result in the hot spot showing up somewhere else beneath the earth’s crust. It is because of this problem that I have considered the movement of the entire mantle as a solution. A displacement of the earth’s mantle (something Hapgood was considering when he wrote his last letter to me in October 1982 just weeks before he died in an automobile accident) is a much more satisfying explanation for the rapid changes and at the same time can account for the movement of the Hawaiian “hot spot” (it simply shifts along with the mantle).’
But there was still the problem of what forces might have caused the mantle displacement. In August 1997, Robert K. Morgan of San Diego asked, ‘What forces would combine to break the earth’s crust free of the underlying mantle?’ I replied, ‘In When the Sky Fell (Chapter 4, “Why the Sky Fell”), we review Hapgood’s adoption of the idea that the weight of the ice caps positioned lop-sided to the earth’s axis was one possible force. We also put forward two astronomical factors as additional contributing forces to the displacement of 9,600 BC. The earth’s orbit was much more elliptical than it is today and thus the gravitational influence of the sun would “pull” with greater force at the immense (antipodal) ice sheets. But perhaps most importantly, the angle of the earth’s tilt was at its extreme of 24.4 degrees (it goes through a 41,000-year cycle ranging from 22.8 degrees to 24.4 degrees – today we are at around 23.5 and declining - in other words it’s getting safer). This meant that the entire earth’s mass was tilted to a greater degree. This would add momentum to the centrifugal thrust of the antipodal ice sheets.’
An Extraterrestrial Solution
During the rest of 1997, while I was busy trying to unravel the Atlantis blueprint, I had temporarily to leave the question of the causes of the mantle displacement. Then in the spring of 1998 I received a letter from Donald Tim Seitz Sr, who had written a scientific paper for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada entitled ‘A Probable Cause of Crustal Shifts of the Earth: A Comet approaching the centre of mass of the Earth–Moon Gravitational System’. This appeared in Regulus, the journal of the society, in April 1998.
Donald had put his finger on a solution and though I was now convinced that it was a mantle rather than a crustal displacement, his theory worked perfectly. What he argued was that we tend to forget that our moon is quite large and has its own gravitational pull. If a comet or asteroid or any other extraterrestrial object is on a collision course with the earth then the force of the object is not necessarily directed to the centre of the earth, as we would normally think. The position of the moon at the point of impact upon the earth is a very important factor because its gravitational field will redirect the main thrust of the impact towards the mantle rather than the inner core of the planet.
Let’s consider three cases.
If the moon is directly behind the earth when the comet collides then the force of the comet will be directed straight through the earth to the centre of the inner core. In effect, the moon doesn’t matter in this case.
If the moon is between the earth and the comet then the moon will take the impact, saving the earth.
Let us imagine, however, that, as the comet is approaching, the moon is off to one side of the earth. Under these conditions the force of the comet is directed towards the upper mantle, which is the centre of gravity of the earth–moon gravitational system. This could very well dislodge the entire mantle. Donald Seitz’s theory
seems to be the missing piece in the puzzle of why the displacements occur.
There are a multitude of forces at work to cause a mantle displacement. The antipodal weight of the asymmetrical ice caps is one factor. The shape of the earth’s orbit is another, because it brings the planet closer to the biggest gravitational force in our area of space, namely the sun. The tilt of the earth is another factor, which like the ice sheets and the shape of the orbit is an entirely predictable phenomenon.
These factors all appeared in When the Sky Fell but they really only set the stage for a potential displacement that must, after all, have been a mantle displacement. These astronomical preconditions are insufficient on their own to account for all the facts. When we learn, however, that the inner core has its own rotation and its own axis then the possibility for solving the hot spot problem is at hand. The discontinuity between the inner core and the rest of the mass of the planet allows us to postulate a mantle displacement, and Donald Seitz’s breakthrough that the earth and the moon form a kind of ‘gravity well’ seems to be the final piece in the puzzle. What remains a mystery is where the comet or comets came from, where they hit the earth, how big they were, and whether others will follow in the future.
A Terrestrial Alternative
Another possibility for the cause of the mantle displacement could be the discrepancy that grows between the axis of the inner core and the axis of the rest of the planet. Today there is a 10-degree difference between the two and it is possible that at 9,600 BC, when the earth’s whole axis was angled at its maximum of 24.4 degrees, the difference between it and the inner core’s axis was dangerously pronounced. The earth’s axis is governed by the pull of the sun, moon and other planets and follows a regular 41,000-year cycle. The peak of that cycle was reached at 9,600 BC, at which time the planet’s whole axis began to decline after increasing for thousands of years.
The classic work on this subject was published in Science in 1976: ‘Variations in the Earth’s Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages’ by J. D. Hays, J. Imbrie and N. J. Schackleton.3 They showed that geological/climatic patterns coincide with the periods when the earth’s tilt reaches its maximum of 24.4 degrees. The last time this occurred was around 9,600 BC, exactly the time period when Plato’s ‘legend’ of Atlantis places the flood. When we combine this theory with the recent revelations about the inner core having its own axis, we have a much simpler idea than an extraterrestrial impact theory.
After reaching its peak angle of tilt at 24.4 degrees, in a sense the axis heads back to where it had been. The inner core is very dense and thus has more mass than the rest of the planet. Perhaps when the rest of the planet’s mass starts moving towards the axis of the inner core it creates an overwhelming attraction and the mantle displaces abruptly. The axis of the inner core and the axis of the rest of the mass of the earth are reunited abruptly and catastrophically This, no doubt, would begin slowly, but would build momentum, resulting, in the final stages, in a rapid displacement. There would be plenty of warnings, observable by any scientifically advanced civilisation experiencing it.
The arguments in favour of the ‘terrestrial’ force compared to ‘extraterrestrial’ are considerable.
The ‘extraterrestrial’ impact theory of a mantle displacement is unnecessarily complex. So many factors have to coincide that one can’t help doubt that this idea is ad hoc and prone to constant revision and exceptions. How big must a comet or asteroid be to displace the mantle? Why would these extraterrestrial objects collide with earth on a regular basis? Where is the moon relative to the incoming object? More importantly, an impact theory of displacement really doesn’t dovetail with the discoveries that the earth’s geological and climatic upheavals coincide with the earth’s axis tilt.
I feel certain Charles Hapgood would agree that the terrestrial model is the better theory. It explains the placement of the ice sheets and coincides with the timing developed by Hays, Imbrie and Schackleton. Hapgood seemed to be heading in this direction when he wrote to me: ‘I have recently concluded that a “drag effect” would operate whereby the movement of the rigid crust would set in motion movements of the deeper layers, which would continue long after the movement of the crust stops, producing long-continued turbulence at the surface.’ This indicates that Hapgood was constantly reappraising his theory and making modifications in light of new evidence. The fact that the inner core has its own axis and rotates faster than the rest of the earth’s mass would surely have been factors that he would have wanted to incorporate into his theory.
For these reasons I conclude that the force that caused the mantle displacement is tied to the dynamics of the inner core of the planet coupled with the gradual oscillations of the planet’s tilt cycle. Both factors can potentially reunite when the tilt of the outer earth reverses its gradual drift away from the inner core and results in a catastrophic reunion whereby both axes are brought together. The axis of the inner core and the rest of the planet are temporarily reunited and may even contribute to a regeneration of the earth’s magnetic field. At this point, the pull of the sun, the moon and the rest of the planets in our solar web once again begins to gradually separate the mantle’s axis from the inner core’s axis and the whole cycle begins again. If this theory is correct, we can be assured that we have thousands of years (about 29,400) before another mantle displacement occurs.
Notes
Preface
1. Pennick, Sacred Geometry, 1980, p. 43.
2. Cathie, The Harmonic Conquest of Space.
3. Michell, City of Revelation, p. xiii.
4. Knight and Lomas, Uriel’s Machine, pp. 363–4.
5. Flem-Ath, Rose, Field of Thunder, Stoddart, Toronto, 1997.
Chapter 1: Hapgood’s Secret Quest for Atlantis
1. This account of Hapgood’s death is based upon a letter to Rand from Charles’s cousin Beth Hapgood (2 April 1998).
2. Hapgood, Earth’s Shifting Crust, Pantheon, New York, 1958.
3. ‘Plate tectonics and earth crust displacement both share the assumption of a mobile crust. The ideas are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary. Plate tectonics explains long-term, slow changes like mountain building, volcanic activity, and local earthquakes. Earth crust displacement accepts that these processes are gradual but posits a much more dramatic and abrupt movement of the crust that can explain different problems such as mass extinctions, glaciation patterns, and the sudden rise of agriculture. In stark contrast to plate tectonics’ slow motion of individual plates, an “earth crust displacement,” as postulated by Hapgood, abruptly shifts all the plates as a single unit. During this motion the core (the heavy bull’s eye of the planet) doesn’t change, leaving the earth’s axis unaltered.’ Flem-Ath, Rand and Rose, When the Sky Fell, p. 3.
4. Hapgood, Charles H., Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Ages, Chilton Books, Philadelphia/New York, 1966.
5. Hapgood, Charles H., The Path of the Pole, Chilton Book Company, Philadelphia/New York/London, 1970 (a revised edition of Earth’s Shifting Crust, 1958).
6. Charles H. Hapgood Archives, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
7. Churchward, James, The Lost Continent of Mu: The Motherland of Man, William Edwin Rudge, New York, 1926.
8. Settegast, Mary, Plato Prehistorian, Lindisfarne Press, New York, 1990.
9. Donnelly, Ignatius, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1882.
10. Donnelly, Ignatius, Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1883.
11. Furneaux, p. 316.
12. Wegener, Alfred, The Origin of the Continents and Oceans, 1915, reissued in 1966 by Dover, New York.
13. Albert Einstein Archives, Department of Manuscripts and Archives, The Jewish National and University Library (Hapgood Correspondence, 24 November 1952).
14. Albert Einstein Archives, Department of Manuscripts and Archives, The Jewish National and Universit
y Library (Hapgood Correspondence, 8 May 1953).
15. Einstein, ‘Confidential Report on Candidate for Fellowship’.
16. Ma, Ting Ying H., Research on the Past Climate, published by the author, Taipei, Taiwan, May 1952.
17. Reprinted in full in White, Pole Shift.
18. Mallery, pp.40–6.
19. Tompkins, Secrets of the Great Pyramid, p. 201.
20. Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China (three volumes), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1959.
21. Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, p. 193.
22. Pauwels, Louis, and Jacques Bergier, The Morning of the Magicians, Stein and Day, New York, 1964.
23. Shklovskii, Joseph, and Carl Sagan, Intelligent Life in the Universe, Holden Day, San Francisco, 1966.
24. In the map on pp. 32–3 of Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, Hapgood numbers this 93.
25. Berlitz, Charles, Atlantis: The Eighth Continent, Putnam, New York, 1984.
26. See Appendix 2.
Chapter 2: The Blueprint
1. US Naval Support Force, Introduction to Antarctica, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1969, centrepiece.
2. Plato, Laws, Vol. I, Book III.
3. Flem-Ath, Rand, ‘A Global Model for the Origins of Agriculture’.
4. Flem-Ath, Rand and Rose, ‘The Earth Science Revolution and Pre-History’.
5. Hapgood, Charles, letter to the Flem-Aths, 3 August 1977.
6. Watkins, N. D., and J. D. Kennett, ‘Antarctic Bottom Water: Major Change in Velocity during the Late Cenozoic between Australia and Antarctica’, Science, Vol. 173, 27 August 1971, pp. 813–18; Ledbetter, M. T., and D. A. Johnson, ‘Increased Transport of Antarctic Bottom Water in the Vema Channel during the last Ice Age’, Science, Vol. 194, 19 November 1976, pp. 837–9.