- The Biblical flood
Noah built an ark, 300 cubits in length, while the people mocked him…
I have not given the subject of the Biblical flood much philosophical thought since my bible class school years, but I stumbled on a slightly new take on the subject with one of the books I bought for my summer reading that resurrected my interest. It was a book called ‘Magicians of the Gods; by Graham Hancock, who is a long-established researcher and writer of ancient geology, archeology and astronomy. Hancock attracted my interest not with studying the flood evidence in the lands of the Bible but rather to a place referred to as the Scablands of North America.
Throughout the 20th century there had been much debate around the formation of these monumental channels. To put them into perspective, what is referred now to as “The Dry Falls” would have, at the time they were formed, been almost three times higher than Niagara Falls and 50% higher than the Victoria Falls in southern Africa. They would also have been six times wider than Niagara. So the great debate in the 20th century community of geologists was regarding the cause of these massive washed out channels. The geological establishment always favoured the gradual erosion theory following the end of the ice age around 12,000 years ago when Canada and this northern part of North America was under three kilometres of ice. A few geologists did not buy this gradual erosion, arguing that the impact on the landscape was just too dramatic for erosion and therefore had to be the result of a catastrophic event. The two camps argued for a few decades and the community eventually ‘met in the middle’ with the theory of the collapse of a glacial lake causing the dramatic creation of the channels. But neither side really believed in this middle ground. The gradual erosion side were just of that geological religion and the catastrophic geologists just thought that the lake in question, Missoula, would never have contained anywhere near enough water volume to result in the massive scouring today visible. But they simply had no alternative theory to seize.
But enter the 21st century and geologists were now studying an apparently unrelated geological feature: nano diamonds. A team of 25 Geophysicists, with Richard Firestone, a nuclear physicist as its team leader and including Jim Kennett, an oceanographer at the University of California, presented a paper in 2007 claiming that evidence found in a number of 12,000+ year old carbon-rich sites (in the form of nano-diamonds) across North America and one site in Belgium, convinced them that a comet had come into earth’s atmosphere at the end of the last ice age, with North America taking the biggest hit. Such an impact would have also been responsible for the extinction of many of the mega fauna of the northern climes that also occurred at this time. The absence of a crater was explained by the fact that it would have impacted on the 3 km deep ice sheet over Canada and Northern USA. The nano-diamond evidence was created by thermal heat up to, or greater than, 2,200 degrees centigrade. The evidence of glass-like carbon is the smoking gun, or at least the residue from a smoking gun. The evidence began to mount over the next few years. The ongoing search has now found further evidence of these nano-diamond deposits over North America and Northern Europe.
‘Aha’, say the ‘catastrophic cause’ geologists of the Scablands study, ‘we have our event’. ‘Aha’ say the Biblical scholars, we have a date for our great flood. A massive comet impact landing on the 3 km ice sheet of North America and fragmenting across northern Europe would account for the creation of the nano diamond deposits and would also account for an instant melting of 10% of the northern icecap which would be a sufficient volume of water to create the scablands in North America and the great flood through the lands of the Bible, below the Northern Europe ice cap.
The scoured height of the Scablands in North America would indicate the wave of water going through was 150 metres high; that would be three times higher than Niagara Falls. For a modern day comparison, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami measured between 15 and 30 metres at the earthquake’s epicentre near Sumatra and between 6 and 12 metres on the Banda Aceh coast. That tsunami impacted 18 countries in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa, killing nearly 250,000 people in a single day, and leaving more than 1.7 million homeless.
2. Younger Dryas
Further Geophysical evidence from Greenland core studies of the earth’s temperature movements over the millennia shows that the last glacial maximum period of the ice age ended 20,000 years ago when natural global warming caused the gradual retreat of the expanding glaciers. This global warming progressed over 7,000 years until suddenly, 12,800 years ago, a global event plunged the whole earth back into the depths of the previous ice age. This mini ice age continued for a thousand years before natural global warming resumed and this period is scientifically referred to as the Younger Dryas.
It’s not rocket science, the idea of a comet hitting earth is not outrageous sci-fi. A little one did land in Siberia in 1908; a meteor landed in Russia back in 2013. These things happen. But if this big comet hit Canada 12,800 years ago melting 10% of the Canadian ice cap in minutes, then that impact created a wave of water five times larger than that 2004 Sumatran tsunami.
Once mainstream science started accepting this comet theory as plausible, the astronomers began trying to trace where this comet might have come from. They have modelled it as having being one massive long cloud of comet fragments through which earth passed on its natural orbit of the sun 12,800 years ago. And on examining the plutonium levels of Greenland ice core samples in that period they concluded that this was not just a single hit, but actually continued for just over twenty years. Evidence of plutonium layers deep in the ice core indicate that twice a year the earth’s solar circuit passed through this comet cloud causing continuous comet strikes. The unrelenting strikes on land would have set the planet alight with massive wild fires; a living hell beyond anything we could imagine today. The smoke and dust from this 20+ year bombardment blocked the sun for a thousand years causing the Younger Dryas climatic event and, quite literally hell froze over.
3. Day of Judgment
Whatever level of civilisation humans may have developed by that stage would have completely been burned and /or submerged and would have left little or no evidence behind for archeologists to discover today. If there was an Atlantis then this is when it would have disappeared beneath the flood. It could be reasonably speculated that most of the survivors from this hell on earth would be likely to be living south of the equator, below the primary impact region: South America, central and southern Africa, Southern India, Indonesia, Australia and lands of Oceania which rising seas would have carved into islands.
A common narrative handed down to us through our western religious indoctrination is the concept of heaven, limbo and hell as the three outcomes of judgement day. We are told that at the end of days the ‘righteous’ will be taken directly into the heavens, those who are in God’s grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified are placed in a state of limbo to become righteous and the rest are damned to an existence amongst fire and brimstone. We have no date for this scenario but what if that day of reckoning has already happened? Was this comet strike event humanity’s actual ‘Judgement Day’.
4. Survival in Hell and Limbo
While this was a global cataclysmic event that could have almost caused extinction of our species, the fact is that humanity did actually survive. These are the humans who lived far enough away from the impact zone and adapted to survive through the thousand year winter that followed. We learn from the Bible that this flood event with the destruction of the human race was foretold to Noah who was directed to build an ark to survive the impending flood with his immediate family of wife, three sons and their wives, with plants and animals to sustain them. The Hebrew Bible talks about Noah taking plants and seeds in his ark to Canaan, near Lebanon to repopulate the world. The legend that these were the sole survivors of the great flood probably had a factual basis but would almost certainly be a tribal rather than a global account of surviving the great flood. Rather than all the animals of the planet they would have taken on board the normal animals on which they relied for food and milk. The Bible also recounts that thousands of years later Moses’ Israelite army, under the instructions of Yahweh, slaughtered the Canaanites, who included the ‘giants’ who were descendants of Ham son of Noah, to claim Canaan for themselves as their promised land.
Graham Hancock went down this same path of study linking the Comet strike of 12,800 years ago with the great flood legends. One part of his research led him to the writings of the prophet Zarathustra who is reported by Plato to have lived 5,000 years before the Trojan War. But exactly when that was no one is quite sure, but it is known that Zarathustra borrowed from more ancient writings. His writings talk of the prediction of a great serpent that would sweep through the sky and bring forth a great winter. That sort of aligns with the comet and subsequent plunge back to the ice age. But then the Zoroastrian texts, as they are known, talk of the building of an underground shelter to survive this impending great winter. Into this underground shelter, called a Vara, the seeds of men and women of the greatest best and finest kinds…. the seeds of every kind of cattle…tree….fruit, until the dire winter passed and spring returned. The texts specified that no lepers, lunatics, impotent or deformed humans would be bred in this Vara; and only the seeds of the fruits and vegetables that are ‘fullest of food and sweetest of odour’.
The Vara that Zarathustra refers to was to be constructed on three subterranean levels, each smaller than the one above, the largest with nine streets, the middle with six streets and the smallest three streets. It also described the use of “uncreated lights that shine from below’ since the sun and moon would not be visible. Someone called Yima was given responsibility by the Gods for the construction. He was to bring the seeds of men and women, the seeds of every kind of fruit and of tree. Finally we learn from these texts that ‘every fortieth year, to every couple two are born, a male and a female. And thus it is for every sort of cattle.’ There is also a note that the humans live in Vara for 150 years. Moreover, intriguingly, the births of offspring to every couple do not result from sexual union but from the seeds deposited in the Vara. Actually as sci-fi as this Zorastrian text sounds, it resonates with how we would try to survive a cataclysmic global event today and is much more plausible than Noah and his sons and the animals floating on their ark for forty days being the source of all life on earth today.
Now, being a keen traveller and diligent researcher, Hancock went in search of such underground laboratory/ depository and did find that in Turkey’s Cappadicia region there are a large number of underground structures carved out of solid rock and usually, as described with Vara, consisting of multiple levels. He actually visited the one called Derinkuyu in 2013. Eight of its levels are open to the public, but there are others below still closed off. It also features a subterranean tunnel several kilometres long connecting with another underground ‘city’. Large stone doors shaped like millstones and weighing around half a ton were located ready to be rolled into place to block access. They had a remarkable system of ventilation shafts connecting from the bottom levels to the surface. It was a remarkable feat carved from volcanic rock and extending over four square kilometres.
In Turkey numerous underground cities have been discovered. Some of these may have been built before the great Flood to survive the climatic catastrophe of a comet strike or simply as a defence against marauders. We just don’t know, but we do know that very ancient writings described such places as refuges for life on earth to be preserved within earth’s embrace and survive emerge again when the great winter ended and spring returned to the earth. Such is the way of nature.
5. Seven Sages
Sumerian clay tablets dating back to as far as 5,000 years ago are the oldest written documents discovered. They pre-date the Bible by over 1,000 years. They also have their tale of the great flood, although their hero of the flood is named Ziusudra not Noah. In these Sumerian clay tablets is also reference, post-deluge, to seven sages, the magicians of the Gods, travelling and sailing to different parts of the globe on a mission to re-civilise the world. Egypt was first port of call for the civilising process, Turkey and Babylon not far after. China was also an early starter in the modern civilisation process followed by Japan. South Americans have similar tales about Gods arriving after the flood and teaching them metal-craft, gold-smithing and the engineering skills to build intricately designed irrigation schemes on the sides of mountains and precision pyramids with accurate astronomical references.
Continuing his further research Hancock also studied ancient scripts in Egypt and Mesopotamia relating to this same period and found reference to “the seven sages who set forth in ships to all parts of the world to take with them humans, animals and seeds with which to repopulate a world that had been devastated by the great flood”
And so, just as the Sumerian and Egyptian writings describe, a thousand years after that great flood event, the Seven Sages emerged from beneath the ground with their technological, agricultural, chemical and engineering knowledge and set themselves on a mission to rebuild a new civilisation accompanied by the humans now pale-skinned, blue/green eyed and fair headed as a result of having been laboratory-bred underground for a thousand years. And eventually these ‘sons of Gods’ went forth to distant lands to find the descendants of those who survived the great flood as hunter gatherers. Those who migrated from the jungles of South America up through the plains of North America, those who had always lived in Southern Africa since the dawn of the species and eventually the island-dwelling people of the Pacific.
Humans living in parts of southern Africa, southern Asia, Australia, Oceania and South America also survived the great flood and lived a hunter gatherer existence over the thousand year winter. They were well south of the North American ice sheet and also out of range of the main impact of the comet so were the people who witnessed the arrival from the Middle East of these god-like pale skinned humans, bringing with them their hi-tech magic to show them how build great pyramids and temples and how to fashion metals and gems. And thus began the worship rituals of the Mayans, the Incas, the Persians, the Indians and Asians as they embraced the knowledge and the mysteries of their allocated sage, one of seven, and the ‘sons’ who accompanied them.
The Pacific ocean was first recorded by Europeans in 1513 and the first recorded European contact with a Pacific Island people, on the Marquesas Islands, was not until 1595 when a Spanish explorer randomly encountered the island during a voyage. A Dutch explorer, Willem Janszoon, landed at Western Australia in 1606 and James Cook arrived on the East Coast of Australia in 1770. The Aborigines had occupied Australia for an estimated 60,000 years prior to that and yet one thing undeniably links the ancient aboriginal cultures with those of Europe, America and Asia. This is a group of remote stars in the cosmos. Looking up into a clear night sky with no street light pollution we are presented with a seemingly infinite choice of stars. Apart from our own solar system’s planets, which are much brighter by their proximity, there is little to distinguish the billions of stars we can see for the amateur sky gazer. Certainly some are brighter than others and some may cluster more than others. Some may form a shape that localised navigators create in their minds as a navigational tool but still there is nothing so remarkable as to be obvious to anyone who looks up into the night sky from any point on the planet.
The ancient Babylonian star catalogues however name one, quite unremarkable group MUL.MUL or “star of stars”, and they head the list of stars along the ecliptic, reflecting the fact that they were close to the point of vernal equinox around the 23rd century BC. Several Sumerian clay tablets have depicted these seven stars that reference the harvest period.
The modern common name for this cluster of stars as recorded in Greek mythology is ‘Pleiades’. Pleiades is mentioned in the poems of Homer and Hesiod around 1,000 BC, in which the Pleiades were seven sisters: Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope. According to Greek mythology, after a chance meeting with the hunter Orion, the seven sisters became the object of his pursuit. Enamoured with the young women he pursued them over the face of the Earth. In pity for their plight, Zeus changed them into a flock of doves, which he set in the heavens.
Even though the Greeks actually name nine stars of the Pleiades, they acknowledge that only six stars are distinctly visible to the naked eye. Apart from the seven daughters they also name Atlas and Pleione as the parents. These two stars do exist although they would have been invisible to the searching eyes of ancient Greeks, Chinese or Persian astronomers. But of the seven sisters, they write that the star Merope is often called the “lost Pleiade” because she was not seen by astronomers nor charted like her sisters. The ancient Greeks explained that Merope was most faintly visible because she took a mortal husband, Sisyphus, the King of Corinth. It is a mystery how they knew of more than the six visible stars.
In Norse folklore the same cluster was known as Freyja’s hens, identified as a hen with six chicks. In Celtic tradition the rising of this cluster between the Autumn equinox and Winter solstice was a period to mourn the dead which led to festivals of “all souls day” and Halloween. The stars also appear in Hindu writings as early as the Indus Valley civilisation (3300–1700 BCE) known as the Matrikas, a group of seven divine mothers. This same cluster of stars appears in the folklore throughout the Americas, from the Cherokee to the Aztecs (Tianquiztli , the marketplace).
The cluster is also recognised in Japan under the name Mutsuraboshi (“six stars”) in the 8th century Kojiki and Manyosyu documents. The constellation is also known in Japan as Subaru (“unite”) and you may note that the Subaru car logo contains six stars. Interestingly Japanese often refer to seven stars instead of six. Travellers to Japan may be familiar with Shichifukujin (literally “seven happy gods”) which are often seen at temples and in miniature at souvenir shops throughout Japan. Locals in some prefectures of Japan still call the cluster “Shichifukujin”. As with many things Japanese, the recognition of this cluster of stars was imported from Chinese astronomy observations. This cluster of stars seem to be among the first stars mentioned in astronomical literature, appearing in Chinese annals of 2357 B.C. The Chinese were a very advanced civilisation in the study of astronomy.
The Pleiades cluster is within 4° of the ecliptic and is in the constellation of Taurus. In the Northern Hemisphere the cluster can be seen in November from dusk to dawn. The heliacal (pre-dawn) rising of the Pleiades marks late May/ June mid winter season in the Southern Hemisphere. In Hawaii this cluster is named Makaliʻi hiki (also translates as ‘little eyes’). The Makaliʻi hiki in Hawaii rises shortly after sunset and is visible for four months from October/November to February/March. In Hawaiian tradition, this was a four month period of celebration of the harvest called Makahiki. Warfare was forbidden and it was a period of feasting, sports, dancing and celebration. The Makaliʻi hiki were also a navigational guide for the Hawaiians.
In Aotearoa the cluster is called Matariki (also translated as ‘ little eyes’) and it appears in the South-East horizon of the night sky in May/ June and is referred to as the mother, surrounded by her six daughters whose role is to assist the weakened sun to return to strength.
The Australian Aborigines also include this same Pleiades star cluster, which they call the Meamei, in their dreamtime folklore. According to their mythology, the cluster represents seven girls chased by the hunter, Djulpan. This is an identical myth to the Greek myth of Orion, the hunter chasing Pleione and her six daughters. Again they speak of seven stars although only six are possibly visible to their naked eyes.
So when science tells us that man only emerged from a primitive hunter gatherer existence to becoming a civilised farmer just 12,000 years ago, we must ask then how an unspectacular star cluster exists in the dreamtime mythology of a race that had migrated to this southern continent 60,000 years before Europeans records show first contact with the Aborigines of Australia.
So from that link important questions arise. Do the seven stars of Pleiades represent the Seven Sages who, according to ancient Sumerian clay tablets and Egyptian stone records, set forth on boats to re-civilise the world after the great flood? Do these Seven Sages align with the seven archangels of the Hebrew bible and the seven senior Gods of the Accadian clay records as referenced in my earlier blog on “Angels”? Were the seven sages / archangels/ gods of ancient lore actually beings who came from the star cluster we know as Pleiades? Did they explain their origins to our ancestors?
So, if a cataclysmic comet strike ushering in a thousand year winter was indeed our judgement day, we can see those who lived in this hell on earth for a thousand years until the fires extinguished, the ice melted and the atmosphere cleared would then represent the damned. Those who were artificially preserved and bred in underground Vara represent the chosen ones to be purified; but what, if anything happened to the blessed who were to be raised, body and soul, into the heavens?
6. Stairway to heaven
Today Governments around the world are investing billions in a race to colonise Mars. The United States, China and United Arab Emirates have all active missions to Mars programmes in 2020. Why? Transport entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Richard Branson compete to develop the ability to commercially transport humans to Mars. Why? There are so many priorities on earth for our investment and technological developments; why is there this focus on colonising a planet where the atmosphere cannot even support life? Mars’ atmosphere contains more than 95% carbon dioxide and not even 1% oxygen; earth is nearly 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. Plants cannot grow up there, we can’t even breathe up on Mars; its’ surface is exposed to radiation levels that would kill humans in minutes. We would only live inside a dome. It seems madness. Why are we not putting that energy, money and focus into making our own planet a better environment to live in? And yet we are hell bent on this mission to colonise Mars.
In America, Elon Musk has established his own special school, Ad Astra (to the stars), on the SpaceEx campus in Los Angeles. He took his five sons from Los Angeles’s Mirman School, a K-8 school for “gifted” children. Musk also hired one of Mirman’s teachers, Joshua Dahn, to run Ad Astra. In the new school’s first year, the Musk children (twins born in 2004 and triplets born in 2006) were joined by a few children of SpaceX employees. Today, more than 30 students aged 7 to 14 take part in a curriculum focusing on science, maths, engineering, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Ad Astra leaves a very light digital footprint from its absence of grades to the secrecy of its admissions process. Reportedly, spots are limited to the children of SpaceX employees and, even then, are by invitation only.
Somebody knows something they aren’t telling us.
Minkowski, Einstein, Tesla and Hawking have all been figuring out this time-space warping concept that leads to a conclusion that there are black holes and wormholes in space. The closest I could get to rationalising this was from an old-style department store in my youth called Penroses. It had a network of brass pipes running all around the store with little portals at each counter. The sales assistant would place a sales docket with the cash into a capsule, insert it into the portal and by some gravity defying, vacuumed magic the cylinder could be heard being sucked up through the network of pipes towards the upstairs office. A few moments later a clunk would announce its return and the assistant would retrieve the cylinder and remove the receipt and change. Is there a space portal on Mars that connects to a black wormhole that fast-tracks between our solar system and the Pleiades? Is Mars not intended as a colony to live on but rather an intergallactic space-port?
Ok so if earth’s natural, dark-skinned native population represent the resilient survivors of the cataclysmic comet strike 12,800 years ago and the white-skinned westerners are the descendants of the artificially preserved humans kept in underground limbo for 25 generations, did any of us make it on the list of the righteous and gain a ticket on a direct ascension into the heavens? And if so, what has happened to them? Were they taken up to the Pleiades? Do they keep in touch? Are they inviting us to join them?
And Elon built a space-ark, 300 cubits in length, while the people mocked him……