Catastrophism and the Old Testament, Chapter 1

CURRENT INTEREST AND CONFRONTATION. In America during the last 10 or 15 years, the public has been the spectator to a series of open debates on Earth history between Fiat Creationists¹ and Humanistic Evolutionists.² Frequently, the forum of the debate has been a lecture room on a college or university campus in the evening. Usually the interest has been brisk. Usually there has been confrontation.

On one side has been one or two veteran (and persuasive) creationists. On the other side has been one or two knowledgeable, humanistic faculty members, specialists in perhaps anthropology, biology, geology or astronomy. Interest in the subject of origins has always been popular. The confrontational nature of the event has added excitement and expectation. Knowing this, the media have found such forums to be good copy. Thus, publicity has been relatively easy to achieve.

More recently, in addition to debate forums on college campuses, Fiat Creationists have moved out another step. Litigation concerning school textbooks has been instituted by Fiat Creationists in the courts, usually in a Southern state. The litigation has been on the basis of a need for "equal representation" or "fairness" in classroom curricula and materials, including textbooks.

The decision-makers in education have been hesitant to grant to Fiat Creationism such privileged status. They have had no trouble granting uniformitarian-based views and literatures such status due to the widespread acceptance of uniformitarianism³ over the last 10 or 12 decades. Appeal courts have agreed with the decision-makers in education by denying Fiat Creationists their contentions and aspirations in state education.

The modus operandi of science is experimentation. Duplicating and rerunning similar experiments and comparing the results for verification has been the basic historical system for science. But events in Earth history cannot be put into experiments and rerun. Therefore, an addition to experimental science is needed, and that addition is known as "theoretical science." Theoretical science is only as valid as its assumptions, many of which are conscious assumptions and some of which are subconscious assumptions. Too often, theoretical science is presented in a dogmatic and pretentious way, and sometimes, theoretical scientists claim opinions and consensus as facts which later are reversed or changed.

Fiat Creationists have taken the role of "theoretical theologians" rather than theoretical scientists, and they, too, have tended to render their insights and opinions as the final word both in their writings and in their debate presentations.

Evolutionary Humanists, representing a far different approach to Earth history, have been quick to seize such debate forums to demonstrate their leadership to the academic community on or about campus. In so doing, Evolutionary Humanists affirm their status among academia.

Simultaneously, Fiat Creationists have been quick to seize such debate forums in order to gain exposure and in order to rattle the skeletons in the closets of evolution, loudly and publicly when possible. Thus, they also gain a following from among the American populace, a populace which has a place in its heart for the "underdog." Also, the American populace has not responded well to the idea of "chance," sponsored by the evolutionists. Invariably, a small but significant following has been developed by the Fiat Creationists, and that following has come from a segment of our society with evangelical backgrounds and with Biblical allegiances. Usually, the funding provided for Fiat Creationism has been spent far more on promotion than on trying to do superior science.

The Evolutionary Humanists⁴ already have their funding in place in the form of faculty salaries and tenure. The Fiat Creationists use these forums to develop a support base. The Evolutionary Humanists need such forums (and the Fiat Creationist opponent) in order to make a good showing and in order to candidate for academic promotion and leadership. The Fiat Creationist also needs a good showing in order to gain support. Although each group does not care for the other (at all), yet they need each other for such confrontations. This is what one may term "The Like Needs of Opposites."

In this process of confrontation, some six changes occur within education and within society at large:

Fiat Creationists, regular church-goers and fundamental traditionalists, assume and posture that they understand the Old Testament on the topic of origins. The Evolutionary Humanists, regular non-church goers, mistakenly agree. That Fiat Creationists in fact do not understand the Old Testament with respect to Earth history and origins is precisely a major theme of this book. Their criticisms of evolutionary theory are often valid, however, as are the criticisms by the Evolutionary Humanists of Fiat Creationism. Yet, the "either/or" context of the presentation leaves the audience to conclude that one position or the other must be so. None of these debaters or speakers allows the possibility that they are both mistaken. This is the possibility which must be examined. One has to ask the naughty question, "What if the criticisms of both groups are mostly correct?" And, "What if both groups have flawed premises?" Who then is the real winner? Who then are the real losers?

FOUR WORLD VIEWS INSTEAD OF TWO. Examples could be cited describing what each of the two sides affirms to be the most important. Instead, perhaps the more cogent approach is to cite THE ASSUMPTIONS that each side brings to the forum. Identifying the assumptions will make it easier to ascertain both the inherent strengths and the inherent weaknesses of each side.

But, there aren't just two views. A third view, the "Theistic Evolution View"⁵ needs to be included, because here is another attempt to reconcile theoretical science, Earth history and the Biblical narrative. Fourthly, yet another view should be considered, the "Planetary Catastrophist View."⁶ It is advocated that the Planetary Catastrophist view is better Earth history, is better theoretical science, and offers a more consistent Biblical perspective.

Four issues common in cosmology will be cited for analysis of the assumptions inherent in each approach. To these four will be added a fifth topic, a seldom-if-ever considered issue, yet one of considerable import. These five issues will help identify the radically different assumptions of each world view and their responses to events recorded in ancient literature, a heritage of which the Old Testament is the flagship. Those five cases are as follows.

It is interesting to explore and to observe how each World View responds to these five pivotal issues.

UNIFORMITARIAN VIEW: In the evolutionary system, about 4 or 4.6 billions of years ago, there was an extrusion of a gaseous filament out of our Sun. The hot, extruded materials dispersed and cooled. In cooling, they coalesced and collected or accreted into planets or sometimes into planet satellites, asteroids or even meteor streams. What caused the gaseous extrusion from the Sun is unknown. What is known is that such a theoretical event was not caused by a closely-passing star in our galaxy on a close flyby to the Sun.⁷

Concerning the distribution of the eight largest (and innermost) planets, Pluto excepted, they line up on a single, thin plane of alignment. It is known as the planetary ecliptic plane." This plane is more than 7° deviant from the Sun's equatorial plane. Thus it would seem that such ejecta, if it occurred, was neither ejected from the Sun by centrifugal force nor was it pulled out by a passing star. Once again, this offset alignment is explained "by chance."

Light vs. Heavy Elements. If such an ejecta occurred, the Sun kept such lighter elements as helium (25% of the Sun's mass) and hydrogen (73½%). The Sun ejected or extruded such heavier elements as aluminum, calcium, iron, silicon and uranium in large amounts. This was also by chance.

Distribution of Ejecta. In addition, within the inner 400 million miles of the solar system was extruded only 1 part in 225 of the total extrusion (forming Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Earth, Mars and the asteroids). Out beyond the 400 million mile zone was expelled 99½% of the ejecta, or 224 parts of 225. This thin inventory (½%) of the inner solar system and the heavy inventory (99½%) of the outer solar system makes little sense distributionally.

Spin. The spin rates of Mars and the Earth are 1477 minutes and 1436 minutes respectively, a 97% similarity. (Their tilts are 98% similar also.) The spin rates of Saturn and Jupiter are 615 and 590½ minutes respectively, a 96% similarity. In all four instances there is abundant spin. If ejecta were to cool, to collide, and to stick or accrete, this still would not produce spin. In the uniformitarian cosmology, spin for the planets arose by processes unknown. The similarities of spin rates (Mars with Earth (97%), Neptune with Uranus (98%) and Saturn with Jupiter (96%) ) are also accorded to chance. Better explanations are needed and are possible.

The Solar Orbit. In uniformitarianism, time (like chance) assumes a major role. The Sun is known to have an orbit around the Milky Way galaxy, and that orbit is known to require about 180 million years. In the evolutionary system, in 4.6 billions of years, the Sun has necessarily made 25+ such orbits around the galaxy.

However, the Sun's nearest stellar neighbors, such as Alpha Centauri and its partners, Barnard's Star and its partner, and Sirius each have different trajectories and different velocities. Yet, somehow, by chance and despite 4 billions of years of time, these several stars (after 25 trips around the galaxy) remain in a spiral arm structure along with others of the Sun's nearer stars. Our spiral arm happens to be considered the second outermost of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. That such a spiral arm, The Orion Arm, would have retained its structure after 25 long 180-million-year orbits is a remarkable dogma indeed.

FIAT CREATIONIST VIEW: In contrast, somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years before the present, God formed the Earth, the Moon, the other 8 planets, their satellite systems, their craters, their volcanoes, their spin rates and spin axis tilts, the icy rings of Saturn, the asteroids, comets and meteor streams along with the Milky Way galaxy and any number of other galaxies.

If some of those galaxies happen to appear to have a distance of 30,000 or 40,000 light years (well beyond the 10,000-year limitation), they were created with their light already en route at the instant of creation. All of these planets, comets, satellites, stars and asteroids were created (suddenly) by the Word of God, which is energy. So creation has occurred according to this theological attempt at theoretical science.

THEISTIC EVOLUTION VIEW: This view is much like the uniformitarian view, known popularly as the "Nebular Hypothesis" for the origin of the solar system, with the exception that such was directed throughout the ages by God, more or less as He is revealed in the Old Testament. Although the solar system may be (and is) a product of much time, it is not a product of chance. The basic problems inherent in the nebular hypothesis, some of which were suggested in previous pages, remain without any additional insights.

PLANETARY CATASTROPHIST VIEW: Recently, between 100,000 and 500,000 years ago (that is, roughly 250,000 years ago), the Sun in its galactic travels (about 12 miles per second) travelled about 1 light year per 600 Earth years. In those travels, it bumped into" or overran a collection of relatively small planets revolving around each other in a complex "binary" system.

As the Sun draws a comet in, so the Sun attracted and drew in this complex system of at least 30 mutually revolving planets and satellites, some with pre-existing spin rates. The entire collection (or binary) came in on one single plane, now called the "ecliptic plane of the planets." The Sun's immense gravity began to pierce and to break the gravitational bonds of these planets as they revolved around each other.

Neptune was sorted out among the earliest of the planets, at 3 billion miles from the Sun. Some 15 or 20 years later (as the binary approached like a comet), Uranus was dislodged (or severed) from its gravitational bonds, at about 2 billion miles. Thirdly, Saturn was sorted out and divorced (astronomically) from its binary partner, probably Jupiter. This occurred in the range of 0.9 billion miles from the Sun. Finally, Jupiter was shorn of its binary partners. Jupiter's orbit was stabilized at about ½ billion miles from the Sun, and significantly, in an orbital resonance with Saturn's orbit, a 5:2 resonance. This procedure involved the cluster of planets crossing 22 billion miles of space, like a comet's path. This planetary divorce could have occurred in a time period of 25 to 40 years, the time required for a comet to cross 2½ billion miles of space (like Halley's Comet).

In this theory, Jupiter and Saturn both had a passel of inner satellites which they retained. Perhaps each planet had a passel of more distant satellites also, which they lost as the Sun's gravity pierced those gravitational bonds, and broke the primordial linkage. It was an astronomical divorce of complex dimensions. Perhaps the outer satellites, like older children in a divorce, were sent on their own independent way. These included Mercury, Venus, the Earth-Moon system, Mars, and Astra, a small planet we understand once existed. In time, Astra approached too close to Mars, and fragmented, leaving one side of Mars badly cratered where these fragments hit. Other fragments which missed Mars became asteroids, except a relative handful, which formed an ancient ring orbiting Mars. Evidence supporting such an event will be considered in a future chapter.

By contrast, in the Nebular Hypothesis, Jupiter (owing to its giant gravity) is considered to have been the distributive force, or perhaps an "anti-creative" force. Jupiter prevented asteroid material between Mars and Jove from gathering or coalescing into a planet which "ought to have been formed there." However, in the Planetary Catastrophism hypothesis, Mars (not Jupiter) is the planet, along with its gravitational field, which fathered the asteroids. These views are very different. One in scope is solar and the other is galactic. One is heliocentric while the other considers the greater regions of the galaxy as the place of origin of the Sun's planets. Also the concepts of their arrivals (the timing) are very different, that is, 0.15 million years versus 4.6 billion years.

In the Planetary Catastrophe theory, the ancient break up of the 30-member binary provided the Sun, for the first time, with a planetary family, only 150,000 years ago. The Sun travels about ¼° in its orbit around the Milky Way in 125,000 years. Planetary Catastrophism underlines "recentness."

A Dark Star. With a new family of planets, suddenly the Sun began to experience tides. If the Sun were a cold, crusty body, those tides would be inconsequential. But the Sun is massive, hot and its materials are volatile. The planet-induced tides began to create sunspots, and 11-year (average) sunspot cycles, cycles involving magnetic storms and intense frictions in the volatile solar mass. A frightening degree of turbulence developed. In short, the Sun had an ignition experience. It was something akin to: "And the Lord said, let there be light, and there was light." Before the capture of its family of planets, the Sun we propose was a less radiant star, and possibly was a dark star.

Since its ignition experience, the Sun has been losing energy steadily, by radiation to space and by solar wind blowoff. During the same time, the Sun has been cooling, and hence it has been shrinking, or contracting in size. The Sun has been shrinking in our century at a rate of about 4 miles in radius per year, or 60 feet per day.⁸ This works out to a half diameter of shrinkage every l15,000 years. (n 250,000 years, the Sun's diameter theoretically would have been halved twice and a little more.) All of the action involving capture of a family of planets has occurred while the Sun progressed only ½° in its orbit around the Milky Way, and conceivably only ¼°.

UNIFORMITARIAN VIEW: Noah's Flood is a myth with very little if any factual basis. Noah and the Ark rank along with Santa Claus and his reindeer, and with Little Red Riding Hood and the big, bad wolf, as fanciful literary heritages. For rain to float such a large barge as the Ark is thought to have been patently improbable. The best guide to the past is the uniformitarian motto, "the present is the key to the past."

Moreover, if the Ark were floated, it could not have been floated upward into a mountainous basin. Downhill is the only direction water flows.

FIAT CREATIONIST VIEW: The details of this catastrophe are not given in the Bible; therefore they are not necessary for man to know. The timing can be reconstructed, about 2500 B.C. Also one can surmise that there was a very heavy and lengthy rain throughout the Middle East, coinciding with God opening a vast cache of new and fresh or juvenile water from somewhere under the Earth's crust. Such theoretical juvenile subcrustal waters were suddenly extruded, and the rain waters added to them. Together, the waters covered the continents for 40 days, and perhaps for up to a year.

At the end of The Flood, the waters receded back into the secret, subterranean cache, which was resealed by God. This cache of subterranean, subcrustal water has not been discovered yet by modern geology but nevertheless is there. Such is the attempt of Fiat Creationists at theoretical science, a theological attempt.

THEISTIC EVOLUTIONIST VIEW: God caused an intense, extended hurricane (or typhoon) in the Middle East. Perhaps it came in along a northerly direction from the Indian Ocean. This typhoon resulted in 40 days and nights of intense downpour, floating the Ark. The reports that the Ark floated upward (rather than downhill) and landed in the mountainous heart of inner Eurasia only seems to be in conflict with the idea that rainwater always runs downhill and toward the oceans. This rainy event and the floating of the Ark were not mythological. Moreover, why the Ark was floated into the mountains is of little concern. Noah was a historic person, and this event occurred somewhere between the third and the seventh millennium B.C.

PLANETARY CATASTROPHIST VIEW: The Planetary Catastrophist View is in agreement with the Theistic Evolutionary View that Noah (and his family) survived the Deluge by floating through it on the Ark. But it was not 5 to 7 millenniums ago; it was in October of the year 2484 B.C. The Planetary Catastrophist View also is in agreement with the Fiat Creation View that the waters upwelling in The Flood floated the Ark into the highlands of Armenia, the "Mountains of Ararat," at elevations in the range of 7,000 to 9,000 feet above sea level. But the waters which achieved this were from the Indian Ocean in the form of massive tides; the waters were not from a secret subcrustal cache which God unzipped, so he could release the waters and then call them back again into the secret subcrustal cache.

Furthermore the Planetary Catastrophist view is in some limited agreement with the Evolutionary Uniformitarian View that indeed there has been some "Santa Claus stuff" distributed into our society, but that "stuff" is uniformitarianism itself.

The Noachian Flood, as understood through the Planetary Catastrophist model, differs both in kind and in detail from each of the other three World Views. As an actual event of great significance, its ramifications reach into the fields of astronomy, geology, geomagnetism, glaciology, oceanography and ancient history. Our analysis is, in part, illustrated by Figure 1. Concerning timing, it occurred as a Mars flyby, the closest of them all, during the daytime (Middle East time) of October 24, 2484 B.c. This was the closest of some 170 flybys in all, flybys which commenced about 9900 B.C. and ended in the year 701 B.C. The catastrophic orbit of Mars is sketched in Figure 1. The catastrophic orbit of the Earth in that era was featured by a 92.1 million mile orbital radius and a 360-day year. This is in slight contrast to the contemporary 93 million mile orbit and the 365¼ day year. The reasons for later orbital changes of both Mars and the Earth will be presented in Chapter VII.

Concerning the astronomical scene, during the year of The Flood, we have discovered that Jupiter was in the zone of the zodiac known as Cancer, where it was elongating (and narrowing) the orbit of Mars. The position of Saturn was 180° opposite that of Jupiter, in Capricorn, where it was also influencing or warping the orbit of Mars, also influencing an elongation at the end regions (the aphelion and the perihelion) and a narrowing at the central portion. The catastrophic orbits of the two planets, as are the contemporary orbits, were coplanar. The closeness of the flyby we consider to be 15,000 miles (core to core) between Mars and the Earth, extremely close. It was in fact so close that, another 4,000 miles closer, and Mars would have fragmented due to the sudden, immense arising of subcrustal tides. That distance of fragmentation for a smaller planet approaching the Earth is known as Roche's Limit and is 10,500 to 11,000 miles for our planet.

In the case of the Noachian flyby, as in the case of other flybys, there is an indication that some of the ancients understood the cyclicism of the catastrophes. One illustration of this will be from the story of the flood from Assyrian clay tablets, The Epic of Gilgamesh, in Chapter III. We will cite that it says "the fixed time arrived." On another occasion of a catastrophic scene, the writer of II Samuel uses a similar phrase, "even to the time appointed." (II Samuel 24:15.) As Figure 1 indicates, the flybys were orbital and hence cyclic. Our theory is that for October catastrophes, that cyclicismn was once every 108 years. We propose that Noah understood something of that cyclicism and in so understanding had the Ark ready when "the fixed time arrived."

The extremely close flyby of Mars caused a variety of gigantic changes on the Earth. Mars, one-tenth the mass of the Earth, passed over only 15,000 miles distant from the Earth's core and perhaps even less. At that close distance, subcrustal tides would be over 10,000 feet high. The last great cycle of mountain-building does exhibit a swath-like, or a flyby-like pattern. It is the great Alpine-Himalayan cycle, some 12,500 miles long. It spans New Guinea, Indonesia, Southern Asia, Southern Europe and North Africa. The force uplifting this mountain cycle was vertical (Mars overhead). The work said to require 200,000,000 years (by essentially horizontal forces) in uniformitarianism was in reality achieved in six or seven hours in the Planetary Catastrophist theory.

Similar tides from the oceans swept Eurasia, from the Arctic Ocean, from the Pacific Ocean and especially from the Indian Ocean, an ocean containing 75 million cubic miles of water. A significant percent of these waters, around 5%, were pulled up and northward, across India, Iran and the region of Ararat. They floated the Ark and deposited it, like a piece of driftwood left at high tide, in a mountainous "hedge."⁹

Other effects of the flyby include (1) a spin axis precession (2) a crustal skid, (3) an electrical recharge to the Earth's geomagnetic field, and (4) a paleomagnetic polarity reversal. We can be so specific as to claim that this flyby left the Earth's North Magnetic Pole on the edge of Antarctica, and its South Magnetic Pole in Northern Canada. This is the opposite of the current situation.

A second feature of this flyby scene was the fragmentation of an ancient satellite of Mars, an ice ball.¹⁰ At some time in the past, an ice ball had come too close to Saturn and fragmented. So it was on this particular flyby, the closest of them all. Mars must have had an icy satellite (Glacis) which pierced the Earth's Roche Limit, at 11,000 miles, and fragmented. The composition of the ice ball seems to have included traces of the rare element, iridium. This ice ball fragmented, spraying both planets. Figure 2 illustrates. Those fragments which entered the Earth's atmosphere, like meteors, vaporized, recondensed and fell as a sudden, hot rain. Those fragments which sprayed the surface of Mars, a planet without an atmosphere, hit the surface directly, at which time their kinetic energies converted instantly to heat. The icy fragments melted, vaporized and recondensed in huge volumes, The resultant waters created rivers. Some of the rivers were huge, one was half as wide as the Amazon River, an outflow channel. Others had tributaries or distributaries. Their velocities seem to have been in the range of 20 m.p.h and 30 m.p.h. on a planet with one-third of the gravitational pull as at the surface of the Earth. Everything about these dry river beds indicates a suddenness and a once-only occasion of flow.

Other ice particles and fragments were trapped by the Earth's gravitational field, something like Saturn's rings. The icy fragments gradually turned to icy powder due to the effect of the solar radiation and began to flow in space along field force lines of the geomagnetic field. As extremely cold icy powder, they began to sift down over the two magnetic polar regions, at temperatures around -300° Fahrenheit. Their volume was 12 to 14 million cubic miles of ice. This ice gradually melted and flowed into the oceans. There, the temperatures of the oceans dropped considerably, and the ability of the Earth's oceans to absorb carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere increased substantially. The oceans became carbon dioxide rich and the atmosphere became carbon dioxide poor in the aftermath of the Noachian Flood. Figure 2 illustrates the fragmentation of an ice ball on the Earths Roche Limit, spraying both planets simultaneously. Thus, in the Planetary Catastrophist View, two planets each experienced a massive flood on the same day. (The Moon received a skiff also.)

In Chapter IV, a series of figures will be presented modeling The Long Day of Joshua, a flyby which we have calculated at about 28,000 miles, twice as far away as was the Noachian Flood. In tidal analysis, tides vary as the inverse of the cube of the distance. Thus, a tide at 14,000 miles will be eight times as intense as a tide caused by the same planet twice as far away. So it is with contemporary tides generated by the Moon and Sun. In Chapter IV, the case will be made that if one can understand that lesser event, he will be prepared to envision another one 8 times, or perhaps even 10 times as intense. There was no fragmenting ice ball with the Long Day of Joshua or any other flyby except for Noah's Flood in our theory.

Mars made an inside or a sunward side flyby on the first 169 flybys, including Noah's Flood. Mars moved with respect to the Earth (as viewed from the Pole Star) in a clockwise direction. Simultaneously, the Earth was rotating, or spinning in the opposite direction, counter-clockwise. This is important to realize for reasons to appear in Chapter IV. With respect to the Earth, the point directly under Mars (called the subpoint) was moving. Its motion was roughly 1000 m.p.h. due to the motion ofMars and an additional 700 m.p.h. due to the rotation of the Earth. It was advancing thus about 1700 m.p.h. in an east-to-west direction, across Southern Eurasia on the morning of October 24, 2484 B.C. The menagerie had already been loaded the day before, along with the provisions. It was unfortunate that so few persons were aboard on that morning, but there wasn't much time for persuasion. This seems clear from the clay tablet record of The Flood found in Assuribanipal's library, which shall be examined in Chapter III.

On the day of the Noachian Flood, Mars could not have come much closer and survived as a planet. It might have come another two or three thousand miles closer, but no more. The Earth experienced the maximum in the way of a global cataclysm. Perhaps it can be best understood (except for the ice ball fragmentation aspect) by gaining an understanding of a long series of flybys, catastrophes of lesser intensity but every bit as cyclic as was Noah's Flood. Twelve such catastrophes in addition to the Noachian Event are to be discussed in Chapters III thru VII. Perhaps, in gaining insights through the lesser flybys, one will realize what a key person Noah was in the history of the human race. If so, the day that he began to build the Ark will take on a special significance. Usually, the subject of Noah's Flood is considered from the commentary given in the 6th and 7th chapters of Genesis. In our Chapter III, our prime source for commentary will be the clay tablets from Assyria, The Epic of Gilgamesh, with the Genesis account playing a supporting role.

The account of this event is found in the 10th chapter of the Book of Joshua and also in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, Book V, pp. 17. It is reported as occurring during the second year of the Israelite conquest of Canaan in the 15th century B.C.

UNIFORMITARIAN VIEW: This historical event during the Hebrew conquest was a normal 24-hour day, except there was a group mirage which was experienced by Joshua and his army. As everyone knows, a sudden stoppage of the Earth's rotation is (and was) impossible. The lengthened day was a matter of perception but was not real. Scant attention need be paid to the associated falling of thunderbolts from the sky or from celestial regions, which were also reported on that day as being lethal to major sections of the Canaanite army.

FIAT CREATIONIST VIEW: This event demonstrates the power of God, who put out his hand and stopped the Earth's rotation. Then, after a period of non-rotation of about 24 hours, He restarted it once again, same spin rate, same axial tilt and same spin axis polar locations. Such may be impossible for most secular scientists to envision, but such was not difficult for an all-powerful God to accomplish. Again, scant attention need be paid to the electrical nature of the simultaneous "hail stones," or "thunderbolts" hurtling in from the celestial regions upon the Canaanite divisions. This event occurred sometime between 1400 B.C. and 1500 B.C.

THEISTIC EVOLUTION VIEW: The adherents of this view, with a relatively high respect for Scripture, including the Book of Joshua, tend to be rather uncertain. However, their consensus is that it was probably much like the analysis of the uniformitarians, a group mirage, and again, scant attention need be paid to the celestial thunderbolts which occurred simultaneously. This event occurred somewhere between the 12th and 14th centuries B.C. according to certain leading archaeologists. Its timing correlates well with the time of the collapse of the walls of Jericho.

PLANETARY CATASTROPHIST VIEW: This catastrophe was also caused by a close flyby of Mars, perhaps between 25,000 and 30,000 miles distant. It was a sunward side flyby, during the morning (Jerusalem time). It occurred during the morning of October 24th, 1404 B.c. It was on the 1080th anniversary of the Flood of Noah. It also occurred on the 540th anniversary of the Tower of Babel Discharge.

As it had been years before during Noah's Flood, so it was once again, a Mars flyby while Jupiter was located in the zone of Cancer (the Crab). The line of apsides (and the aphelion) of the orbit of Mars pointed toward Cancer. And also, as it had been years before during Noah's flood, so it was once again, a Mars flyby while Saturn was located 180° opposite Jupiter, in Capricorn. The perihelion of Mars, like its ancient line of apsides, also pointed toward Capricorn. This astronomical geometry repeated once every 540 years, and it had also occurred during the Tower of Babel Crisis. As previously mentioned, when Jupiter and Saturn were in these positions, they were each lengthening and narrowing the orbit of Mars, and their separate influences added.

During this particularly close flyby, the Earth behaved like a gyroscope experiencing precession. A gyroscope is a rotating sphere. A precession is a wobble. Mars in its close flyby was putting a gravitational torque on the Earth's spin axis. To some extent the Earth's spin axis went into a temporary, brief barrel roll.

In addition to spin axis precessions and torques, there was also to a significant extent some crustal skidding. The Earth's crust as a whole skidded on what may be a small gaseous layer forming the boundary between the crust and the mantle. To what extent the Earth's crust skidded is not understood, but a more detailed discussion will occur in Chapter IV and in our sequel.

Thirdly, Mars was raked slightly as it skimmed by the Earth's magneto-head region of its geomagnetic field. A couple of hours later, the surface of the Eastern Hemisphere was raked by the magneto-tail of Mars and the electricity involved therein. The concentration of iron in Palestine, represented by Canaanite armor, was very attractive to the loop of celestial electricity, a flux tube of ions and charged particles, flowing between Mars and the Earth at immense voltages, amperages and wattages. The celestial lightning was attracted to the Canaanite iron, the battlefield armor.

Timing. It has already been mentioned that Joshua's Long Day was the 1080th anniversary of Noah's Flood; also it was the 540th anniversary of the Tower of Babel Discharge. That is looking backward. Looking to later events, this day would become the 108th anniversary of the Celestial Blitzkrieg of Sisera. This day would become the 324th anniversary of the Philistine Phalanx Catastrophe. This long day would become the 432nd anniversary of the Davidic Catastrophe of 972 B.C., amply described in the Scriptures.

In addition, this day would become the 540th anniversary of the occasion when Elijah faced the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, expecting fire to fall from heaven on his altar. (It did.) And finally, this October 24, 1404 B.C. would become the 648th anniversary (to the day) of the catastrophe or flyby of 756 B.C. This was the day when Jonah expected God to zap the wicked city of Nineveh. This was the day when Joel described earthquakes, fire falling from heaven, and general cosmic chaos befalling Judah. This was the day in 756 B.C. that Josephus described when he said the First Temple suffered extensive earthquake damage.

The timing of this series of catastrophes was October 24th on our modern calendar. However on the ancient Hebrew calendar, it was the 17th day of Marchesvan. Marchesvan was the month of autumn flybys, even as Nisan (March to the Romans) was the month of spring passovers, or flybys. The Hebrew word for Mars seems to have at least two forms, Ma Ayish and Ma'or. "Ma" in Hebrew is an adjective meaning "the great" as does magna in Latin.

By all reports, Josephus, the Talmud, the Book of Joshua and other scattered references, the celestial lightning which struck central Palestine was attracted to the concentration of iron much as weather lightning will prefer a lightning rod or a promontory. By Hebrew reports, this lightning, accompanied by vaporization at the strike spot and an ensuing lethal shock wave, struck the heart of the Canaanite formations, resulting in more casualties than those from Hebrew arms. The temperature at the strike spot may have been for a ten-thousandth of a second in the million degree range. This flyby occasion shall be discussed in its total picture (not just its lengthened day) in Chapter IV, since obviously this discussion is only an introduction to a rather important flyby.

In our present era, the Earth-Moon system is located almost 93 million miles (average) from the Sun. The Earth's orbit is sandwiched in between that of Venus at 67 million miles and that of Mars which averages 142 million miles.

VENUS: Venus is a planet that is almost the twin to the Earth in size and in mass. It has a deep atmosphere resulting in an atmospheric pressure 90 times the Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level. Carbon dioxide comprises 97% of this atmosphere. It is like a furnace except that there isn't any fire and its temperature exceeds 800° Fahrenheit.

MARS: Mars on the outer side has very little atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars is about 1/100th of what it is at sea level on the Earth. Crustal and atmospheric temperatures adjacent the crust vary from between +50° Fahrenheit (in the summer in the tropics) to -240° Fahrenheit. The average temperature of that thin atmosphere at crustal locations or elevations is about -120° Fahrenheit.

EARTH: The Earth's orbit is located about one-third of the way between Venus and Mars, closer to Venus. It is believed that if the Earth's orbit were located at 80 million miles, rather than 93 million miles, the Earth's atmosphere, too, would be very deep as the oceans of the Earth would vaporize and produce an immense pressure gradient on the surface. Here, too, temperatures would exceed those of a steam boiler at 212° and could conceivably exceed the surface temperatures of Venus.

On the other hand, if the Earth's orbit were halfway out to Mars, at 115 million miles from the Sun, the surface of the Earth would be largely frozen. Its tropical oceans would resemble the Arctic Ocean, and its continents would resemble Antarctica in climate. The Earth's orbit, thus, would seem to be located advantageously between the zones of perpetual steam and constant ice. Why is this remarkable position possessed by the Earth-Moon system?

UNIFORMITARIAN VIEW: The Earth's ancient orbit was identical with its present orbit, some 93 million miles from the Sun. The Earth has escaped the steam boiler environment of Venus and the deep subzero freezer environment of Mars by chance. The Hand of God has never been detected in the positioning or in the repositioning of the orbit of our planet or of any planet.

FIAT CREATION VIEW: By God's design, the Earths orbit was like people see it today, at 93 million miles from the Sun. God brought such to be, in this view, sometime between 4000 B.C. and 8000 B.C., or possibly a little earlier. During this era of some 10,000 years, the Earth's orbit has been unchanged. However its geomagnetic field has steadily weakened from one of a strength of about 9.6 Gauss in 5000 B.C. Its geomagnetic half-life is 1400 years. Today that strength is .307 Gauss. The Earth has always had an orbit of 365¼ days and any indications in ancient literature otherwise can be easily ignored.

THEISTIC EVOLUTION VIEW: The Earth's happy location between the steam boiler and the deep freeze is due to the design of God and is not due to chance. Furthermore, God achieved this some 4.0 to 4.6 billions of years ago. The Earth has always had a 365¼ day year. Moreover, the ancient 360° circle has nothing to do with the ancient day count per year. The geomagnetic field, if it is declining in our century, has been averaging its present strength and has been oscillating up and down over several billions of years. The 20th century could just happen to be in a down oscillation.

PLANETARY CATASTROPHIST VIEW: In the period of time of 701 B.C. to 699 B.C., the Earth's orbit expanded from a former 92.1 million miles to the current 93 million miles. This is an expansion of the radius by about 1%. The day count per year has increased from the ancient 360 to the observed 365¼. This is due to the larger perimeter of the Earth's orbit and also to the fact that the Earth's velocity is slightly slower.

The day count of the lunar month also changed at the end of the 8th century B.C. and the beginning of the 7th, circa 701 B.C. The day count of the lunar month decreased from 30 days to 29½ days by synodical measurement. This is a reduction of about 1.79% in day count. The Moon's orbit also contracted or shrunk from about 242,000 miles to 238,900 miles. We now have 12.4 months per year. This is partly because the year is 5¼ days longer (or 1½%). But it is also partly because the Moon (like the Earth) at 93 million miles has a slightly slower velocity.

The day count for the orbit of Mars has shifted from the ancient 720 days (Earth days, not Mars days) down to the current 687 days, a diminishing of 33 days, or 4%. The orbit of Mars did two things. First, its average radius contracted from 1462 million miles down to the present 141 million miles. Secondly, its orbit rounded out from an ancient, catastrophic eccentricity of about .49 to the present eccentricity which is .093.

The Moon lost a bit of energy. The Earth lost a good deal of energy. Mars gained a lot of energy. In the catastrophic era, the Moon was in 24:1 resonance with the orbit of Mars. The orbit of the Earth was in 2:1 resonance. Jupiter's orbit was in 1:6 resonance and Saturn's orbit was in 1:15 resonance.

Today, Jupiter has an orbit of 4332.6 Earth days. In the catastrophic system, Jupiter is believed to have had an orbit of 4320 "ancient Earth days" or the length of Earth day in the catastrophic era. For the Earth, twelve 360-day years would equal 4320 days, one Jupiter year. This means that Jupiter would have been in the same zone of the zodiac precisely for a one-year period during every twelfth year.

If ancient catastrophes had a cyclicism of 108 years, that is especially interesting in light of the 12:1 resonance which has been ascertained. The number 108 is divisible evenly by twelve, 9 times. This means that if there were catastrophes, like clockwork, every 108 years, those catastrophes would correlate with Jupiter's 9th orbit, and they would correlate with one particular zone in the zodiac for the consistent catastrophic location of Jupiter. This chapter is introductory. Much more discussion shall be devoted to this matter in subsequent chapters.

At this point in the early part of this book, we will merely state that it can be calculated where Jupiter was in 701 B.., and in 8644 B.C., 1404 B.C., 1944 B.C. and 2484 B.C. for instance. In the even dates listed above, Jupiter was in Cancer, and Saturn was in Capricorn. In the odd date of 701 B.C., Jupiter and Saturn have been discovered to have exchanged positions, and such positioning is noteworthy during the year of the final flyby. Perhaps this advance bit of information will cultivate additional interest.

In the united consensus of the three world views, the Uniformitarian, the Fiat Creationist and the Theistic Evolutionist, the orbit of Mars has always been as it is now. Also, presumably, its 24° tilt has always been as it is now for its spin axis. This consensus is not unanimous due to the Planetary Catastrophist View. This view holds that there were three ancient orbits of Mars. Each was distinctive. Those orbits were as follows:

Some 15 times, Moses described the land of his ancestors, Palestine (now Israel), as a land of milk and honey. This is a term of agricultural abundance. Today, Palestine in general and especially the southern part is arid. Cows, grass and most flowers do not do well in arid climates. Why would Moses use Such an agrarian term of abundance to describe Palestine? Jerusalem was 250 miles from Moses and the Sinai Peninsula. There is no indication Moses ever visited Palestine.

Adherents of these three world views hold in unison that Jerusalem in that era had a latitude of 32° just like it has today. And the North Pole remains unchanged. To suggest that Jerusalem's latitude has shifted, along with the location of the North Pole is an unthinkable thought.

PLANETARY CATASTROPHIST VIEW: The Exodus passover was a Mars flyby of the mid-March variety. It was a sunward flyby which happened during the midnight hour, Egypt time. In that era, Jerusalem's latitude was somewhere around 42° N., some 10° farther north and some 700 miles closer to the North Pole than is the case in our era.

In the era following the Exodus Catastrophe, between 1447 B.C., and 750 B.C., there were seven October flybys and six mid-March flybys. In the Biblical record, the mid-March flybys of this era are hardly mentioned until that of 701 B.C. But the October catastrophes are vividly described, all except for the one in 1188 B.C. It might be that generally, October catastrophes were more severe (or closer) than were mid-March catastrophes.

The Bible records a series of October catastrophes on occasions we can date as 1404 B.C., 1296 B.C., 1080 B.C., 972 B.C., 864 B.C. and 756 B.C. Of these six, five occurred during the midday. The geometry of a midday flyby dictates that the North Pole, if it relocates, would relocate in a direction moving toward Alaska and away from Europe and the Middle East. It is proposed that such a relocation in the direction of Alaska occurred repeatedly in 50-mile, 100-mile, 150-mile and perhaps 250-mile increments. There was some relocation in the opposite direction (during March flybys) also, as in 809 B.C. and 701 B.C. The net change, it is held, was about 700 miles, which is 10° or 11° of latitude.

At a latitude of 42° N. or even 44° N., Jerusalem and Palestine would have been well within the path of the cool, moist, rain-bearing westerly winds system. A comparable latitude change from 42° N. to 32° N. today would be from Eureka, California, to San Diego and as it would be from Oporto, Portugal to Safi, in Southern Morocco.

In the Planetary Catastrophist View, Palestine was between 40°N. and 44°N. Lebanon was even farther north. The renowned cedars of Lebanon were the ancient counterpart to the California redwood groves and the Douglas fir stands of Southern Oregon. This is because of the similarity of today's Oregon-California border and the latitude of Palestine in the time of Moses.

With an abundance of winter regime rains, flowers and grass will proliferate, especially when under cultivation. With ample flowers and grass, bees and cows proliferate, particularly more than do camels and goats, which are dry climate animals. With a substantial population of bees and cows, milk and honey were at that time in agricultural abundance. Today, Jerusalem's latitude is similar to that of San Diego, and its climate, if adjusted to sea level, is also semi-arid.

Another example of agricultural abundance in that era in Palestine was the burden to two of the twelve spies sent out by Moses to reconnoiter Palestine. Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, returned by walking some 250 miles across the Negev with a cluster of grapes so large than one man could hardly carry it. It was evidence of the good farming. Other cases of agricultural abundance could be cited. Today Southern Judea is arid, and the Negev, like the Sinai, is parched.

Yet a third example of North Pole relocation is the archaeological location of the First Temple, whose foundation was laid in 967 B.c. That date is about midway between 1450 B.C. and 702 B.C. If one assumes that it was built with a true north-south and east-west orientation, like the Second Temple, then the uniformitarian would expect the First Temple foundation to be in a true directional alignment. It is not, in the amount of 6°. This topic will be discussed in some detail in Chapter V.

Common ground is often sought to reconcile opposing views. Note the common ground between the Humanistic Evolutionist and the Theistic Evolutionist. This is their shared belief in the Nebular Hypothesis and its billions of years timing. Note the common ground between the Fiat Creationist and the Theistic Evolutionist, both adherents to the Bible. The common ground is that God (not chance) guided the unfolding events of Earth history. Note the common ground between the Humanistic Evolutionist and the Fiat Creationist, who areusually at loggerheads. Their common ground happens to be their passion that there are two, and only two, mutually exclusive options in choosing one's world view ... one of their particular two views.

The Planetary Catastrophist also seeks for common ground. With the Humanistic Evolutionist, he shares the mutual desire to understand the origin and development of Earth history and of solar system history within the scope of applied Newtonian mechanics, except the Planetary Catastrophist wants to apply those mechanics more rigorously.

On the other hand, with the Fiat Creationist, the Planetary Catastrophist agrees that biological life has appeared on this Earth during the catastrophic era, which is the only era that the Earth has had a protective shield, the geomagnetic sheath. He is told by physicists that without a geomagnetic sheath, exposure to direct alpha particles from the Sun would in time destroy all biota. He senses that there was no significant geomagnetic sheath during the era of Uniformitarianism I. Thus the sudden appearance of life on this planet is an area of common agreement. A second area of agreement is that the biota seems to be a product of amazing engineering, God's design and engineering. Chance does not suffice, and extended time spans are invalidated by the cyclicism of catastrophism.

On yet a third front, the Planetary Catastrophist shares with the Theistic Evolutionist a desire to occupy higher ground in the desultory, unending creation vs. evolution controversy. But where is higher ground to be found? The Theistic Evolutionist is essentially a parliamentarian. He seeks common ground (improperly) by merely retaking a poll of Uniformitarians and of Fiat Creationists, weighted in favor of the more numerous group. He is likely to decide to add Planetary Catastrophists as voters in his poll-taking. In this way, he attempts to arrive at a conclusion.

But the laws of nature are at issue. Also what is of concern is the history of our planet. Parliamentary voting has not, can not, and never will revoke or amend any of the laws of nature. Furthermore, in the 400-year history of science, majorities have a record of being frequently mistaken.

HIGHER GROUND is to be reached by a re-examination of the basic assumptions for Earth history in the light of the abundance of evidence which has been photographed by Viking, Mariner, Voyager and other space missions to various planets. Higher ground is also to be reached by a reexamination of the prominent and sometimes shrill concerns of imminent catastrophism voiced in ancient literatures by the Assyrians, Greeks, Hebrews, Persians, Romans, Chinese, Indo-Aryans and others in literatures predating 700 B.C.

HIGHER GROUND, furthermore, is to be reached by a combination of a rigorous application of celestial mechanics, a perspective of cyclic catastrophism in ancient literatures, and a perceptive analysis of how catastrophic orbits behave. Many evidences for catastrophism have been seen but not recognized by astronomers, by geologists, by ancient historians, and by geographers.

Using this approach, uniformitarianism is seen in its true light. Uniformitarianism for the Earth is valid for two eras in our planet's solar system history, while Catastrophism is valid for only one era. Those three eras are as follows:

The great majority of the time accrues to the two uniformitarian eras, some 141,000 years. This is 94% of the time. HOWEVER, the great majority of the work done in reshaping the Earth's crust, such as oceanic tides creating successive layers of strata, or subcrustal tides creating zones of crustal deformation, or the development of a geomagnetic sheath, or a sudden cosmic ice dump causing an ice age, or crustal skidding (not continental drift), or spin axis shifts, or the triggering of paleomagnetic polarity reversals, was all achieved during the brief, 9200-year catastrophic era. This was only 6% of the time that the Earth has revolved around the Sun, but it represents 99% of the work in crustal deformation and reformation and in the creating of new land forms, new atmospheric mixes, new polar locations and new geomagnetic strength levels.

The concept, now the dogma of geological uniformitarianism, was first popularized in the 1830's by a certain Englishman, Charles Lyell. Lyell, one of the pioneer geologists, maintained that the Earth's development came about by slow and gradual processes and not by sudden catastrophes. Lyell seems to have coined the catch phrase for Earth history "the present is the key to the past," although Huxley first popularized it. This describes an approach devoid of global upheavals and devoid of planetary catastrophism.

Lyell's conclusions were in sharp contrast to those of his predecessors and to many of his colleagues. The early pioneers of geology in Germany, in France and in England (Werner, Cuvier, Paley) were all catastrophists. In contrast to these, two themes dominated Lyell's approach to geology, These were an acceptance of gradualism in astronomy (from Kant's nebular hypothesis) and a hostility to the Bible, both Testaments.

Lyell's hostility to the Old Testament in general and to Christianity in particular is illustrated in the following. excerpt from Hallam's Great Geological Controversies. Hallam cites Lyell, in correspondence with Scrope, the editor of the Quarterly Review and the reviewer of Lyell's Principles of Geology in 1833. Lyell, the author of uniformitarianism, wrote:

Lyell's acceptance of gradualism in geology was encouraged by the influence of James Hutton, a Scottish geologist of the previous generation. Hutton's acceptance of gradualism in astronomy was due to his acceptance of Immanuel Kant, an 18th century German geographer turned philosopher and cosmologist. Lyell was indebted to Hutton, who in turn was indebted to Kant for introducing billions of years of serenity into both astronomical and geological history.

Kant published his work, General History of Nature andTheory of the Heavens, in 1755 in Germany. In this work, Kant theorized that some 4 billions of years ago, the Sun had ejected a tail, or a filament, or a gauze of material. That theoretical material cooled and collected (rather than dispersed). It formed rocks in space which in turn formed larger rocks which in turn formed planets. It could be added that those rocks, if they collided, did so at velocities of tens of thousands of miles per hour, and in so doing, one would think, would fragment or ricochet. But they didn't in his theory; they accreted into ever larger clumps until planet-sized or satellite-sized clumps formed.

At that time, there were six planets that were known, plus the Moon, four satellites of Jupiter and five of Saturn. The discovery of more planets and of more satellites was expected. Except for a few craters due to meteorite hits, Kant saw nothing or perceived nothing particularly catastrophic in evidence in our solar system. Lyell, Hutton and Kant were each hostile to Christianity and were each sympathetic to masonic sects of that era such as the Illuminati and the Jacobins. This is a coincidence that bears noting.

Kant is generally credited as the originator of the Nebular Hypothesis, but he wasn't. The originator of the Nebular Hypothesis was another Emanuel, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). With respect to cosmology, Swedenborg was Kant's mentor. Swedenborg wrote his treatise on cosmology in 1734 in Sweden, in the Latin language. It was entitled Prodromus Philosophiae Retiocinantis de lnfinito et Cause Creationis, a rather lengthy title by modern standards.

Some 21 years before Kant's publication, Swedenborg proposed that the planets were the result of condensations of a gauze, or a filament, or a "cometary type" tail ejected from out of the Sun. Swedenborg was a mining engineer and was interested in a wide range of scientific findings. In addition to his scientific interests, he engaged in psychic activities and claimed to have psychic powers. Historians and biographers of Swedenborg are reluctant to dismiss Swedenborg's psychic career. On a number of public occasions, his psychic powers seemed irrefutable to his fellow Swedes of Stockholm. Four of those occasions are cited herein.¹²

On July 19, 1759, when Swedenborg was visiting Goteborg, a coastal town some 250 miles from his home in Stockholm, he suddenly went into a trance, one Sunday afternoon. In his trance Swedenborg gasped as he saw Stockholm ablaze. Urban fires were dreaded events in that era. In Swedenborg's vision, fire devastated block after block in the city but was stopped just three houses from his own. Three days later, news arrived from Stockholm, confirming the vision Swedenborg saw in his trance, including the survival of his home on the edge of the incineration.

Three years later, while conducting a public seance, Swedenborg had a vision of the Russian nobleman, Emperor Peter II, grandson of Peter the Great. He was being strangled in his prison cell. He was strangled just before he was to be released from prison, and he had been betrothed to be married shortly. News arrived in Sweden about two weeks later confirming the event (the strangling), the person (Peter II), the location (the jail cell) and the date, which was the same day as Swedenborg's vision.

A third "confirmation" of Swedenborg's psychic powers occurred a year after the death of the Dutch ambassador to Stockholm, de Marteville by name. A goldsmith presented the ambassador's widow, Mm. de Marteville, with a bill for over 25,000 guilders for a silver service which the goldsmith claimed was bought by her late husband but no payment had been made. The widow de Marteville questioned the integrity of the goldsmith and went to Swedenborg for help. Swedenborg told her that her late husband appeared to him in a dream telling him that a receipt of payment for the silver service was in a secret drawer of the late husband's English bureau. In the presence of guests, Mm. de Marteville found the hidden compartment in the bureau with the receipt in it.

A fourth occurrence may confirm his psychic powers, or it might indicate the power of suggestion. Swedenborg's renowned psychic powers were a topic of humor in some circles, and a topic of widespread curiosity. This was well known. One evening, as Swedenborg was sharing with friends his views of the world of spirits and psychic powers, one of the group (perhaps a doubter) challenged Swedenborg to reveal who among them would be the next to die. "Olofsohn will die tomorrow morning at forty-five minutes past four;" replied Sweden- borg, creating pandemonium. It is not recorded how 0lafsohn felt about this.

The next morning when one of the group went to Olafsohn's home to inquire of his health, a servant reported that Olofsohn had died of a stroke at forty-five minutes past four that morning. Also, coincidently, at the very same time Olofsohn's clock had mysteriously stopped, and the servant reported this also. (Perhaps this is the origin of the song about the grandfather's clock which stopped the moment the old man died.) The survivors of the group were thunderstruck. The event has been amply recorded. Perhaps the curious questioner of the previous night did not dare to ask another question.

Not all of Swedenborg's psychic visions were limited to Swedish or to Russian locations. He claimed confirmation of his nebular hypothesis from seances with men on Jupiter, Saturn and places more distant. When Kant republished Swedenborg's planetary theory under his own name, he (Kant) left out the seance materials, and he called the rest science.

But the search for the origin of the nebular hypothesis doesn't begin with Swedenborg in Sweden. Some 20 years earlier, in 1712, when Swedenborg was but 24 years old, he took one of his several trips abroad, to England on this occasion. There, he visited with the famous Edmund Halley at Cambridge. Halley was 58 at the time and was famous for having catalogued over 300 stars of the Southern Hemisphere during an 18-month stint on St Helena in 1687. Halley also was known for assisting in editing and helping to finance the publication of Isaac Newton's epochal Principia, wherein gravity was described mathematically for the first time.

Halley also had made a study of the reports of various medieval comets, their orbital trajectories, their dates (some of which he found cyclic), and the various descriptions of their tails. Using Newton's celestial mechanics, in 1682 Halley had declared that one particular comet (reported in 1456, 1531, 1607 and 1682) was cyclic and had a period of 75 to 76 years, a prominent comet of medieval times. Halley predicted its return around 1758, and he asked that when it did return, it be named after an Englishman. It was. (We know it as Halley's Comet.) Halley was a significant person of science, and such significant persons were the kind with which young Swedenborg wanted to interact.

Halley described to the youthful Swedenborg the various kinds of tails of the medieval comets. Comets have a variety of tails or gauzes or filaments because their orbits vary, their masses vary, and their velocities vary. Comets have tails because there is an evaporation of ices of the comet's head during close approaches to the Sun. The mass of the comet is miniscule, and the evaporated vapors form a flashy spectacle in the nocturnal skies, especially when there is no city light at night to dim the spectacle.

All comets lose mass by evaporation. All satellites also lose any atmosphere they might produce, because the specific gravity of the gaseous molecules exceeds the gravitational bonds of the satellite. The gases slowly float off into space. Not only do all satellites lack a significant atmosphere. So also do three planets, Mercury (1/20th the mass of the Earth), Mars (1/10th the mass of the Earth), and Pluto, which is 2% more massive than Mars.

At the surface of Mars, gravitational attraction is one-third that of the Earth. If other things were equal, an Earthling track star who could high-jump 6 feet could high-jump 18 feet on Mars. On Mars, the inferior gravity is able to retain only certain heavier gases such as argon or carbon dioxide. Mars cannot retain oxygen, nitrogen or water vapor.

Thus, as discussed earlier in our theory, Mars was sprayed with about 1 million cubic miles of icy fragments during the Noachian Flood flyby, as was the Earth, which received 12 million cubic miles of ice. About the ice fragments that hit Mars, their energies converted to heat instantly. The ices melted or evaporated and, in part, recondensed. Rivers flowed, 20 m.p.h and faster on a planet with an inferior gravity. The flowing waters formed lakes, which shortly froze over. Ice once was abundant on the surface of Mars. Figure 2 illustrates how an icy satellite of Mars could have fragmented during a close flyby, spraying both planets simultaneously. In this theory, for 1000 to 1500 years after Noah's Flood, the ices of Mars periodically melted and vaporized into a cometary wake when Mars approached its 75 million mile perihelion. Mars, for some 1500 years after the Flood, in short, was the most spectacular comet in our solar system, with a glistening tail that may have been 100 million miles long.

One can see indications of this in ancient literature. One case is in the Book of Exodus. The Exodus flyby was devastating to Egypt with earthquakes, but the flyby was at night. The Western Hemisphere suffered from the direct wrath of Mars. After the flyby (or passover), the Hebrews viewed the western sky, the celestial regions. They saw a "cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night." Mars was belching gases from its massive volcanoes. Mars was also leaving a 50 to 100 million mile train of evaporated ice, a cometary tail. While the Hebrews described it as a pillar, it was compared to an Egyptian pillar, which was an obelisk or a sun dial, shaped similar to the Washington monument. A typical obelisk is a very long, narrow pyramid, perhaps 100 feet in height and 20 or 22 feet at the base. At the top it comes to a long, narrow point. That "pillar" or cometary tail could not compete during daytime with the Sun, but at night its appearance was long, luminous and resplendent.

As mentioned previously, space missions have discovered and photographed many dry river beds on Mars. There are dry river beds of differing types of rivers. One outflow channel in the Capri Chasma region appears to have been a dammed up river, 40 miles wide. That dam broke, spilling thousands of cubic miles of water in a down hill direction. This is one of dozens of rivers, some of which are 300 and 400 miles long on so small a planet. This is on a planet that has no significant atmosphere and has insufficient gravitational force to retain water vapor, among other lighter gases including oxygen and nitrogen. Average temperatures on Mars are in the region of -150° Fahrenheit. Daytime temperatures may rise to +50° if it is summer and if the temperature is measured in tropical latitudes. At night time, the temperature falls 120° F. All of these rivers must have frozen over, but where is the ice? Obviously in the Planetary Catastrophe Theory, the ice evaporated when Mars made orbit after orbit through its perihelion, in the catastrophic era at 75 million miles, almost as close to the Sun as was Venus for a week or two. That evaporating water vapor must have been, next to the Sun and the Moon, the most splendid show Earth dwellers could watch, except during the dreaded flyby years. Thus, it is proposed that Mars in its catastrophic orbit was the greatest comet of the solar system, one with a two year period. Cometary tails indeed were seen and described by the ancients.

Comets thus seem to have been a topic for Moses. Comet tails were also a topic for discussion for Job and his friends, two centuries earlier. In God's speech to Job, one finds the following:

As we visualize, comets were also an important topic of discussion during those breakfasts and dinners in 1712 at Edmund Halley's home, where he described to young Swedenborg the different orbits of various medieval comets and the different shapes and lengths of their tails. During this time or shortly thereafter, we propose, the idea occurred to the young Swedenborg that if comets had dramatic, sweeping, extensive tails tens of millions of miles long, the Sun might also have had a tail, a gauze-like tail comprised of materials which, when cool, condensed and accreted into planetesimals and then into larger planets, if given enough time.

Comets are tiny by Earth standards. As noted earlier. Mars at one-tenth the mass of the Earth cannot retain lighter gases although it can retain heavier gases such as carbon dioxide and argon. On the other hand, Venus (at 80% of the mass of the Earth) retains a very thick atmosphere and retains it very effectively despite the high temperatures and the nearness of the Sun. The Sun is about 330,000 times as massive as the Earth, and it is about 3.1 million times as massive as Mars. The Sun has massive ejections all of the time. Huge prominences are ejected as far as 500,000 miles from the Sun's surface, but the Sun's massive gravity calls back all such ejecta. Thus, the solar tail theories of the two Emmanuels (Kant and Swedenborg) are simply not possible. Another way of stating the same principle is to say that their Nebular Hypothesis is not scientific, even though it is often presented as if it were.

As people have family trees, so do ideas. The Nebular Hypothesis is the idea that some 4 to 42 billion years ago, there began a gradual evolution in a climate of astronomical quiescence for the solar system. This idea has a seven-generation family tree.

After 1860, we are in the modern era of refinements and expansions of the hypothesis of the two Emmanuels. In our 20th century, virtually all approaches assume this system of thought unwittingly.

One can summarize the major fallacies of the Swedenborgian-Kantian system of thought. Eight reasonable reservations to the system of the two Emmanuels are as follows. ¹³ ¹⁴

RESERVATION-1: Extruded Ejecta. The Sun did and will continue to call back any extruded ejecta such as filaments and prominences through its immense surface gravity.

RESERVATION-2: The Shrinking Sun. As discussed previously, the Sun is shrinking at the rate of 5 feet per hour, or 125 feet per day, 8 miles per year and 860 miles per century. In 125,000 years, the Sun should have a diameter of 430,000 miles which is one half of its present diameter. It is losing mass by radiation and by solar wind blowoff. It has been shrinking, but not for millions of years. More likely, it was "cable-jumped" or ignited when it captured its family of planets, and began to experience massive and deep tides (and friction).

RESERVATION-3: Accretion Illogic. Were rocks to collide at velocities of many tens of thousands of m.p.h., those rocks would ricochet and would not accrete or stick together. Magical anti-logical theories may be spun but should not be under the endorsement of science. In science fiction, such a theory is entirely acceptable.

RESERVATION-4: Spin of the Planets. The massive Jupiter rotates in 591 minutes and the massive Saturn in 615, a 96% similarity. The smaller Earth rotates in 1436 minutes and Mars in a rather comparable 1477 minutes, again a 97% similarity. Under Nebular Hypothesis conditions, no spin rate would be generated even if accretion did occur. Neptune and Uranus have twin spins 98% similar. In Aeon we shall discuss the mechanism for these three sets of twin spins. ¹⁵ ¹⁶

RESERVATION-5: The Distribution of Planetary Mass. Today, the Sun throws out ejecta all of the time up to ½ million miles and draws it back. In the Nebular Hypothesis, the Sun allegedly threw out only 0.5% of its ejecta within the nearest 400 million miles. This 0.5% formed Mercury, Venus, the Earth-Moon system, Mars and Astra, all small planets. Between 400 and 500 million miles was ejected 71% of its ejecta (into Jupiter and satellites). At 900 million miles was gathered another 21% of its ejecta (Saturn and satellites). Even farther, at distances of 2 and 3 billions of miles was distributed another 7% (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and satellites). Distributionally speaking, it should have been the other way around. The regions beyond 1 billion miles should have received 0.5%. The regions between ½ and 1 billion miles should have received 7%. And the regions within ½ billion miles should have received 92%.

RESERVATION-6: The Ecliptic Plane. It is now known that a theoretical gaseous filament will disperse (like a comet's tail) rather than collect. The planets gathered on one single plane, the so-called"ecliptic plane." Pluto is the sole exception. This calls for a capture theory rather than for an extrusion theory.

RESERVATION-7: A Distribution of Elements. The composition of the Sun, so far as is known, is primarily of hydrogen (73%) and of helium (25%). Its most prominent metal is iron, at one-sixth of 1%. Iron comprises an estimated 5% of the Earth's mass. In the Sun's spectrum, silicon is even more rare, at one-fourteenth of 1%. But silicon is the Earth's second-most abundant element at 26% (next to oxygen) in the Earth's crust. Uranium may be the most common element in the core of the Earth, and it is not found at all in the spectrum of the Sun. Reasoning by simple mechanics, centrifugal force, why would the Sun eject its heavier elements and keep its lighter elements? It should be the other way around. Such is yet another contradiction or impossibility in the Nebular Hypothesis.

RESERVATION-8: The Spiral Arm. As mentioned earlier, t"he Sun's orbit around the Milky Way is 180 to 200 million years. In 4.6 billions of theoretical years, the Sun should have made 22 to 25 theoretical orbits. The Milky Way has spiral arms and the Sun is located, along with its neighboring stars, on the second-to-outermost spiral arm. Each of its neighboring stars has a different velocity and a different trajectory than the Sun. Why, then, is the spiral arm still in evidence, after some 25 orbits around the Milky Way?

Thus, this Nebular Hypothesis advocated by the two Emmanuels (Swedenborg and Kant) and advocated by a host of subsequent astronomers breaks down upon examination. It breaks down on the galactic dimension. It breaks down on the spin axis requirement. It breaks down three times on the distributive dimension. It breaks down on the steady state versus shrinkage aspect, among others.

Based on the inconsistencies shown above, genuine uniformitarianism in Earth history has yet to be set into its proper place in the market of science. Its two eras occurred before planetary capture and after disentanglement with the orbit of Mars in 701 B.c. These two uniformitarian eras sandwich around the catastrophic era, 9900 B.c. to 701 B.C., as was discussed earlier in this chapter.

If the last great battle of the Mars-Earth Wars occurred as recently as 701 B.C., one would think that the surviving early literatures of ancient cultures would be full of the devastating effects and of the scintillating celestial spectacles of such cyclic or periodic flybys. They are.

However, at the initial glance, it seems that Mars is not found even once in the Old Testament. Furthermore, it is found only three times in the New Testament, and those three times are in Acts 17 when Paul interacted with the Areopagites (a sect named for Ares) on Mars Hill in Athens. Apart from this single chapter, Mars is also not found anywhere in the New Testament.

Contrary to the initial glance, it is our understanding that the planet Mars appears in the Old Testament over 200 times in a variety of no less than 10 forms. Furthermore, the devastating effects of Mars flybys such as earthquakes, celestial lightning, loud shock waves, "pestilences," "tumults," "indignations," "tempests," "flaming torches," and a considerable variety of similar terms occur in more than 1000 verses.

Is the story the same in the surviving literatures of ancient Greece? Indeed it is. In Greek literature of the Heroic Period, before 700 B.C. one finds Mars appearing in a variety of roles also. These roles include (1) Apollo, (2) Ares, (3) Gorgon and (4) Typhon among others. These celestial actors and calamities surrounding their comings and goings consume a great deal of the limited space in the surviving Greek literature.

Is the story similar in Rome, which was founded in 750 B.C. between the last two Mars flybys of 756 B.C. and of 701 B.C.. Mars[?Pioneer Rome?] was founded in 750 B.C., give or take one or two years. The leading deity in pioneer Rome was Mars. The second and third leading deities were Jupiter and Saturn or Quirinus. Jupiter and Quirinus are derivatives of the Greek Zeus-pater and Chronos, also Jupiter and Saturn. Within 50 years, Romans had built temples to all three of these celestial deities.

In pioneer Rome there were two great, solemn celestial "fearidays," not holidays in a festive sense. They were the tubulustrium, held on March 21 much like the Hebrew passover, and the armilustrium, held on October 24 much like the somber Hebrew feast of the atonement. In both Roman feasts, two horses were sacrificed on the altar of Mars. Those two horses may well have symbolized the two celestial steeds of Mars, Deimos and Phobos. From whence in Roman culture comes the ancient advice to beware the ides of March? It came from pioneer Rome, the most ancient era of Roman experience, when the Romans were still living in the catastrophic era, 750 B.C. to 701 B.c. It is to such issues as these in Greek and Hebrew literature that Chapter II is directed.

Fiat Creationists. Those creationists who conclude that the Earth, its crustal deformations, its strata, its flora, its fauna, its satellite, the Sun and its family of planets and planetary satellites, the asteroids, the Milky Way and all other galaxies appeared with suddenness approximately 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, by God's Word. ↩︎
Evolutionists. Those who conclude that gradualism in Earth history in quantities of hundreds of millions and up to 4.6 billions of years of time has been spent since the Sun ejected a filament of material which cooled and condensed into the planets. Most evolutionists accept the Lyellian geological time scale, which allows about 4 billion years for the Earth without biota, and about 0.5 billion years for the Earth with a slowly emerging biota. ↩︎
Uniformitarianism. The idea accepted by most geologists for timing that layers of strata, containing simple life forms, began to develop 450 millions of years ago, and successive layers and eras of time required tens or hundreds of millions to be formed. ↩︎
Humanism. A philosophy of life which is centered on man in a secular setting, and all values of civilization originate with man only. Humanism rejects the idea of a Creator and of divine purpose for mankind and supports chance. ↩︎
Theistic Evolution. A blend of the evolutionary ideas of geological gradualism in Earth history coupled with the concept that gradual development of biota was directed by God during several hundreds of millions of years, with a theistic or God-conscious man as the apex of a guided evolution. ↩︎
Planetary Catastrophism. This is a world view that one or more of the planets has made a series of close flybys of the Earth during the last 12,000 years. Such planet flybys have coincided with the era of developing biota and have caused most if not all of the strata sequences, plus much of the crustal deformation which the Earth displays.   Some Planetary Catastrophists have concluded that a rainbow of planets such as Saturn, Venus and Mars in that order wrought catastrophes on the Earth during the last 12,000 years. Immanuel Velikovsky is the leading example. Other Planetary Catastrophists have concluded that Mars was the sole planet to make close flybys and to cause Earth catastrophes during the last 12,000 years, although the orbit of Mars was significantly influenced by Jupiter and Saturn. This author is a "Mars" Planetary Catastrophist. Based on paleomagnetic data, it is concluded that there were about 170 planet flybys. Based on Old Testament analysis of the timing of catastrophes, it is concluded that Mars flybys were in 54-year cycles, and they alternated between mid-March flybys and late-October flybys for some 9200 years. Thus the catastrophes were cyclic and periodic, a trait of orbits.   Some Planetary Catastrophists are humanists; Velikovsky for example was an atheist and a Freudian. Some Planetary Catastrophists are theists, concluding that the hand of God is seen in both the catastrophes and the biota created during the catastrophic era.   Almost all Planetary Catastrophists conclude (a) that the last of the planet flybys was about the end of the 8th century B.C. and was seen by Hezekiah, Isaiah, Sennacherib and perhaps by Hesiod. Also they conclude (b) that the era of the appearance of biota on our planet coincides with the sequences of catastrophes and that appearance was sudden in terms of thousands of years, not millions or hundreds of millions. ↩︎
There are a variety of grounds to object to the Nebular Hypothesis. They include the following. (1) Spitzer in 1939 showed that matter if pulled out from the Sun would expand and form a gaseous ring around the Sun and would not condense. (2) Russell demonstrated that a major stumbling block is the issue of angular momentum, of which 98% is possessed by the planets versus the Sun, while the planets have .015 of the total mass. (3) Other astronomers have shown that the number of stars in our galaxy is 200 billion, but due to the distances therein, the mathematical probability is that there have been at most 2 close star flybys during the last 5 billion years among the all the star bodies of our galaxy. There are other severe problems also. ↩︎
Patrick Moore and Garry Hunt, Atlas of the Solar System. Chicago, Rand McNally, 1983. pp. 72-73. "In 1979 evidence was put forward indicating that the Sun was shrinking. From an analysis of solar diameter measurement made at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, over a period of about 120 years from 1836 to 1954, it was suggested that the diameter was decreasing by about 0.1 percent per century. If this figure was correct, and represented a uniform rate of decrease, then the Sun would have been twice its present size about 100,000 years ago, and would shrink to a point in the next 10,000 years. SUCH A CONCLUSION IS PATENTLY ABSURD..." (Caps ours, with disagreement).  Moore and Hunt entitle this section "solar oscillations" for which oscillations there is not a shred of evidence, rather than a shrinking Sun for which there is logic and two lines of evidence. In mis-titling the section "solar oscillations", of which none are indicated, a non-scientific uniformitarian bias is detected. Also the employment of an arithmetic decay rate rather than an exponential decay rate similarly exhibits uniformitarian bias. Cooling, radiation and solar wind blow-off account for the Sun's shrinking, and of this, 99½% is cooling. Insistence on solar oscillations not in evidence reflects the tenacity by which some scientists hold on to the uniformitarian view of cosmology. To recognize solar shrinkage would lead to an abandonment or at least a substantial reservation to the Nebular Hypothesis approach.  In fact, the shrinkage of the Sun over the last 150 years has been regular, and has been observed uniformly on both the latitudinal axis and on the longitudinal axis. ↩︎
The tides from the oceans floating the Ark were in addition to subcrustal tides in the mantle, which were more massive and which were more concentrated. On the day of The Flood, there was no such thing as "mean sea level", a standard concept of our uniformitarian age.   Eurasia contains 21 million square miles. If waters from the Indian Ocean, about 3 million cubic miles, swept across the southern and central 60% of Eurasia, that would be almost 13 million square miles which were inundated by tides from the Indian Ocean. Such would create an average tide of 1200 feet. Tides however do concentrate and 5000 to 7000 foot tides would be expected in regions where the tides would funnel or concentrate. ↩︎
Saturn has three icy satellites with diameters of 900, 700 and 650 miles respectively. Uranus has three ice-ball satellites with diameters of 650, 720 and 810 miles respectively. Our theory is that Mars had an icy satellite of similar size and that ice-ball fragmented during the Noachian flyby. ↩︎
A. Hallam, Great Geological Controversies. London: Oxford Univ Press, 1983, 0. 51. ↩︎
Cyriel Odhner Sigstedt, The Swedenborg Epic. New York, Bookman Assoc., 1952, Pp. 269-286. ↩︎
Sigstedt, op. cit., p. 22. See also p. 107 ff. "Swedenborg describes the effect of motion upon the nebulous mass surrounding the sun which now has an extremely dense crust or cloud revolving around the solar axis. BY CENTRIFUGAL FORCE the matter in this crust removed itself farther and farther outward from the active center, occupied a larger space and became attenuated until finally it collapsed upon itself so that it enveloped the sun like a belt or broad circle. This belt eventually broke and formed into larger and smaller globes, corresponding to thenumber of the planets in the solar system." (p. 114). (Caps ours.) ↩︎
Herein one can ascertain that Swedenborg had no idea of the temperature level or the degree of the gravitational attraction of the Sun. He ascribed centrifugal force as competing successfully with the Sun's gravitational force. It doesn't. The Sun's rotation, in fact, happens to be rather slow, averaging about 29 days, but varying by latitudinal zones. Thus, in its essence, Swedenborg's system was and is anti-gravitational, and this essence continues in Kant's system, in Laplace's, and in the echoes of astronomers of more recent vintage. Since it is anti-gravitational, ergo it is anti-scientific. Such presumption, it is pointed out, is at the heart of uniformitarian thought and assumption. ↩︎
Mars flybys consumed about 5 or 6 hours of intense interaction, and during this time, Mars approached the Earth at about 27,000 m.p.h., and it diverged at the same velocity. If in an ancient galactic scene, Jupiter and Saturn approached within 100,000 miles, their flyby time would have been a very rapid 3 to 4 hours, and this even more rapid flyby time may explain the even more rapid pair of spin rates of these two planets if such flybys were repeated often enough. ↩︎
For further information, see "The Organization of the Solar System," Parts I and II, Aeon, August 1988 and October 1988. (Portland, Oregon, David Talbott, editor:) ↩︎