Archaeological Evidence for Atlantis
Archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy Theories
In the July 1952 issue of Atlantis, Robert C. Bradley’s article Atlantis and the Earth Shaker, discussed the possibility that Neptune may have occasioned the sinking of Lemuria and Atlantis by moving out of its orbit and disturbing the celestial balance. Bradley examined the probable changes wrought by a Neptune moving out of an orbit between Mars and Jupiter and into an orbit between Uranus and Pluto.
In the August 1965 issue of Atlantis, F.C. Wykes’ the Minor Planets, discussed the possibility that the Earth or one of the other planets could capture an asteroid and make it into a permanent moon. It is likely that such bodies have collided with the Earth in the past and caused much local devastation, like the Tungus meteorite that landed in a sparsely populated part of Siberia on June 30, 1908. In the opinion of Soviet Academician Vasily Fesenev, the Tungus explosion was caused by a small comet (about one million tons) which exploded with the energy of a large nuclear bomb at an altitude of six to eight miles above the Earth’s surface. He concluded that hundreds of collisions of comets with the Earth have taken place during the history of our planet.
In March 1966, Sykes’ A Fascinating New Theory from America in Atlantis, discussed that the Atlantis catastrophe together with the breaking up of the planet Phaeton/Malkek, and the removal of Neptune from its normal orbit, could only have occurred with cosmic intervention on a major scale. Kapteyn’s Star is a possibility along with Halley’s Comet, in causing showers of meteors and meteorites which struck the Earth and might even have pushed our present Moon, Selene, into its present position — in accord with Hoerbiger. The rotation of the Earth was speeded up by the blow so that the day was shortened from twenty-eight to twenty-four hours, and the years lengthened to three-hundred-and-sixty-five days from three-hundred-and-sixty days. Back to section top.
In August 1975 in Atlantis, E.O. Winans published the Passing of Kapteyn’s Star that described the fact that 11,600 years ago Kapteyn’s Star passed through our solar system leaving a trail of disaster behind it. It missed the Earth by less than ten million miles. The Mahabharata, the ancient Hindu epic, called it Siva’s Demon and stated that it was as bright as three suns, boiled lakes and rivers, set elephants’ backs on fire, and burnt people into unrecognizable shapes. An ancient Arab legend claims that the Sahara was formed when a giant fireball scorched the Earth. This event could have been the basis of the legend in Greek mythology of Phaeton, the son of Helios, who drove his father’s chariot of the Sun too low and would have set the Earth on fire had not Zeus slain him with a thunderbolt. Phaeton is the name given to the hypothetical planet that existed in the asteroid zone that must have disintegrated during the earliest historical period to account for the folk stories of it.
Two sun spots or holes were left on the face of Kapteyn’s Star where the planets went through, and some ancient pictographs show them as eyes while others show only one hole with a serpent coming out. The rotating star left a spiral trail of debris across the heavens — a fiery serpentine tail with the exploding planet as its head — and is the Celestial Dragon of China, the Serpent of Eden, and the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl, of the Maya.
Hoerbiger's Theory
Years before Hans Hoerbiger was born, Roche worked out what would happen to the Moon if it came too close to Earth. Roche decided that the Moon would break up and the periods of upheaval on the Earth would represent two kinds of happenings: 1) the capture phenomena; and 2) events related to the disintegration of the satellites.
In 1913, Hans Hoerbiger put forward the hypothesis that planetary bodies and moons move in involute spirals and tended to crash upon their primaries when they reached Roche’s limit. A portion of this idea was that our present moon had been captured, and the event not only caused vast tidal and tectonic disturbances to the Earth, but quantities of the surface material of the Moon rained down on the Earth’s surface. This theory was supported by Philip Fauth, the eminent German astronomer, and Alfven, the Scandinavian astronomer.
At the time that Hoerbiger’s Theory was published in 1913, astronomical knowledge was at a low ebb with the existence of other galaxies suspected but unconfirmed; archaeology had fixed the beginnings of culture at 4000 BC (with considerable reservations about such an early date); the science of comets and meteors was in its infancy; space flight was deemed an absurdity; and geology was in kindergarten. Neptune was considered as the outermost planet of our system; Pluto had not been considered; and the Trans-Plutonian planets were not even figments of the imagination. There was not a single optical telescope on Earth worthy of the name, and radio-astronomy, man’s arrival on the Moon, and the sending of probe rockets to nearby planets was just beginning to appear in science fiction.
Concisely, Hoerbiger’s Theory stated that any small planet between the Earth and Mars would, in due course of time, spiral past the Earth on its way toward the Sun, and would in all probability be captured by the superior gravitation of the Earth as compared to its own. It appears almost certain that this happened several times in our past history; the rain of disintegrated material which accompanied the final dissolution of these small bodies having in each case marked the end of a geological era by crushing all that had preceded it and adding measurably to the Earth’s bulk. The Cambrian, Silurian, Carboniferous, Mesozoic, and Tertiary deposits appear to have come into being this way. The destruction of the Tertiary satellite — to our forefathers, the first greatest disaster in the whole history of the human race — is recorded in the Eddas, the Old Testament, the Book of Enoch, and the Book of Revelation. The loss of Atlantis occurred 12,000 years ago when Luna, the small planet between Earth and Mars, was captured, causing an increase in the water covered areas near the Equatorial and Tropical belts; with a corresponding shrinkage near the North and South Poles; a shift of the North Pole from somewhere near Petermanns Peak in Greenland to its present position; and a slight variation in the tilt.
Hoerbiger tabulated no less than ten moons that had been picked up by the Earth and eventually crashed down on it. The current Moon, Luna or Selene, was a small planetoid covered by an ice crust (cosmic ice of -273 degrees Celsius), which were caught up in the Earth’s gravitational field about 10,000 BC.
Hoerbiger also postulated that space was filled with a highly tenuous medium and he anticipated the discovery of the cosmic cloud. When Hoerbiger first advanced his theory, nothing was known about the cosmic cloud, and it was generally believed that the celestial bodies went their ways untrammeled through empty space. In 1923, the existence of the cosmic cloud was established beyond doubt. J.S. Plaskett, working with the seventy-two inch reflector at the Dominion University, British Columbia, examined the spectra of a large number of stars and found in them absorption lines that were not due to the stars themselves but to a highly tenuous cloud of gas between them and the Earth.
In May 1948 in Atlantis, Francis Ashton wrote Hoerbiger and the Cosmic Cloud, in which he stated, ‘We now know that within our galactic system this cloud pervades all space and its mass is equal to that of all the stars within the system. Its density is not uniform and there are regions where it is so condensed that it becomes visible. It may be seen with the aid of a telescope, but it is best observed by means of photography. In some places, it appears as filmy wisps of gas, glowing with fluorescent light and often wreathed into delicate lace-work, in others it is an opaque mass blotting out the light of the stars beyond. Many of these condensations, or nebulae, have been known for a very long time, but it is only in recent years that astronomers have realized that they have no boundaries and that each nebula, tailing off gradually in density, extends until the outskirts of the next one are reached.’
The Impact Of Politics
The Hoerbiger Theory suffered much from the impact of political events in Europe. Its original appearance shortly before the outbreak of World War I effectively closed any approach to the Anglo-Saxon world for years. By the time the path was open again, the theory had become involved in the Nazi philosophy of life, which caused it to be attacked in the sharpest manner, not on account of its scientific value, but rather on account of its political affiliations. Between 1922 and 1942, in an attempt to show the untrammeled superiority of the Nordic strain, the Germans created new philosophies of life that included the German Hoerbiger organization, which enrolled several thousand members.
The bitter controversy between supporters of Hoerbiger and his opponents split the scientific world of Central Europe for years, and the merits of the idea became hopelessly obscured in the personal likes and dislikes of the protagonists. By the time that Austria was taken over, the operations of the Austrian societies were greatly restricted in favor of the German group. As Hitler became more estranged from anything scientific, the Hoerbiger Theory was quietly shelved.
Science and Hoerbiger's Theory
Up until Hoerbiger, astronomers regarded the Moon as a naturally born child of the Earth. Since then, the theory that the Moon is a captured planet has been hotly debated.
Before Hoerbiger proposed his theory of Lunar Capture, scholars answered the question of why Atlantis sank by falling back on the earlier platitude of divine wrath; a sudden tilt of the axis of the Earth; or that the accumulated ice sheets of thousands of years proceeded at one fell moment to melt. Donnelly came close to the solution in Ragnarok when he talked of a comet having caused the great drift. It was Hoerbiger who unintentionally produced the only scientific explanation for the accumulation of the vast masses of water necessary to submerge the Atlantic continent.
In July 1948 in Atlantis, H.S. Bellamy wrote Hoerbiger In Britain in which he stated,
"Whatever its nature and its density, one thing is certain; however, the cosmic medium will offer resistance to all bodies moving in it. It is the resistance encountered by bodies moving in orbits that will engender the most interesting consequences and allow fertile deductions to be made. Owing to the resistance of the medium, the orbit of a planetary body cannot be a re-entering curve but must be an inward-tending spiral, even if this involution should be ever so minute. Whatever the speed of this orbital involution it would be of necessity be greater for smaller bodies. Thus, smaller outer planets must always become the satellites of inner bigger ones. Eventually the orbital involution causes a satellite to get so near that it breaks up and its material becomes united with that of its primary. The various stages of the approach and the breakdown of a satellite and some of its consequences, such as tidal catastrophes and bombardment with the satellitic wreckage, I have endeavored to elucidate in my previous books. There I have also tried to put forward the theory that mankind has experienced at least one of those world-wide cataclysms and has preserved memories of it in many magnificent myths... The approach and disintegration of a satellite; however, has also other and even more interesting and important aspects. As intimated before these are mainly of a geological nature... It is here that Hoerbiger’s Theory may enter, helpfully introducing important extraterrestrial aspects and factors into the problems of Earth-building."
According to H.S. Bellamy, Hoerbiger believed that confirmation of his Theory of satellites would eventually come from the region of Tiahuanaco.
Application to Mythological Problems
In March 1949 in Atlantis, H.S. Bellamy wrote How I Remember Hoerbiger. Bellamy became acquainted with the Hoerbiger Theory in 1921 and was immediately sold on the ideas: first, because he (Bellamy) was a collector of flood myths and the theory provided a rational explanation of the myths; and second, because he (Bellamy) had had from early childhood, a vivid and nightmarish dream about the disintegration of a huge moon-like body and a terrific earthquake which followed this magnificent spectacle. After reading Hoerbiger’s cosmological teachings, the dream was never repeated again.
It was in the autumn of 1922, an Austrian friend of Bellamy invited him to give a talk about his thoughts regarding the application of Hoerbiger’s Theory to mythological problems, at his house in Mauer. In the question and answer period after the talk, the old greybeard in the audience who seemed to object to some of the points made, turned out to be Hoerbiger himself. A friendship began, and Bellamy was often invited to Hoerbiger’s home as his guest. They chiefly discussed mythological and archaeological problems. Hoerbiger was happy and grateful that Bellamy intended to introduce his theories to the English speaking world.
In May and July of 1953, E.H. Nutter remarked in A Revised Hoerbiger Theory Part I & II in Atlantis, that the Kalasasaya Calendar and its adjacent sloping strandline of the Bolivian antiplano are Hoerbiger’s best evidence. The Calendar of Kalasasaya shows that the Earth’s rotation has speeded up by some 25% since it was carved, and the only way of disproving this would be to produce an entirely new interpretation of the Calendar — equally logical and complete. The Calendar also shows that man existed in the Tertiary Epoch in a highly civilized state.
Revisions of the Theory
In May 1954 in Atlantis, L.M. Suggars (an engineer, amateur astronomer, and once president of the Coventry Astronomical Society) wrote Hoerbiger’s Moon Capture Theory in which he stated, "The methods of moon capture appear to fall into two classes which may be labeled classes I and II. The class I capture in which the satellite has always been tied to its primary body (the planet) by gravitational forces; and class II in which the satellite has had in the past a free orbit around the Sun and thus has not always been tied to the gravitational forces of the primary..."
In November 1954 in Atlantis, Georg Hinzpeter wrote The Chronology Of The Pre-Luna Period in which he stated,
"A considerable amount of evidence is advanced; however, to show that during the Miocene period, pre-Luna was anchored above the Earth’s peak of the high mountain range of Abyssinia, calling forth stupendous electro-magnetic changes and emanations between it and the Earth, under which our race developed from the animal state (ape men and primitive men) in rapidly progressing major mutations (changing by leaps and bounds) into mankind. The remarkable discoveries in South Africa have furnished palaeontological proof ? even if doubts have not all been removed ? that the process of evolution of man commenced in the Miocene, and was mainly completed by the end of this period..."
In September 1955 in Atlantis, after three years of scholarly debate in the journal about the merits and impossibilities of the Hoerbiger Theory, Robert A. Bradley, in An American Viewpoint, proposed a modified version of Hoerbiger in which the Moon came within 25,000 miles of the Earth and then retreated to a distance that was somewhat necessary for the preservation of life, and that the Moon was born of the Earth. Nutter (an engineer in the Royal Navy in Britain) replied that the size, density, obliquity, orbital plane, and lack of rotation all militate against this. In the course of the argument, it was also stated that geological and Calendrical evidence show that the capture occurred within the last 15,000 years.
In May 1956 in Atlantis, Paul Allan wrote Hoerbiger and Tiahuanaco in which he stated that Hoerbiger’s Theory was confirmed by investigations into the Calendar, the Great Idol, and the Idol Kochamama.
Ice Theories
In September 1957 in Atlantis, Dr. N. Th. Zhirov published The Cosmic Ice Theory Brought Up To Date in which he stated, "Despite the many contradictions and the wealth of fantasy, as seen in the light of contemporary science, the cosmic ice theory nevertheless contains undoubtedly sound ideas... The basic premise of the Cosmic Ice Theory which corresponds with contemporary scientific discoveries is the statement that ice can constitute the cosmic building material of heavenly bodies which have cooled..."
In June 1961 in Atlantis, K.I. Meyer wrote A Recent Corroboration Of World Ice Theory in which he used the example of the Beresowka mammoths which suddenly died without showing any signs of violence, and froze so quickly that every cell of their enormous bodies was preserved intact. The mammoth’s mouth and stomach, frozen thousands of years ago, contained green grass and fresh dandelions. Dr. Sanderson postulated that if a gigantic warm-blooded animal is to be completely frozen at such a speed, the degrees of frost that must be applied must be very near space-temperature. The author speculated that at the time of lunar capture, the shifting of the poles and the invasion of space cold, froze the mammoths before many of them could even swallow the last mouthful.
Professor H.C. Urey of the University of California, speaking at the 1971 Moon Congress held in Newcastle, England, stated that, in his opinion, the Moon had probably been acquired by capture as postulated by Hoerbiger in 1913, and the process would have caused a severe bombardment by fragments of the Lunar crust. Urey received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of deuterium, the heavy water isotope of hydrogen.
In 1976 in Atlantis, Sykes wrote Hoerbiger And The March Of Science in which he included a table of Geologic Ages and their corresponding Hoerbiger Moon and Meteor Strike Zones.
In January 1977 in New World Antiquity, Sykes wrote Hoerbiger After Sixty-Four Years in which he listed nine things that Hoerbiger was right about according to the Proceedings of the Austrian Hoerbiger Institute in Vienna.
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