mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== THE DINOSAURS WRE TOO BIG Ted Holden As I have noted, the giant animals which formerly inhabited this earth could not walk, fly, gallop, and/or do any of the things which they did in their world in our world; they'd simply be too heavy, and that is a fairly easy mathematical demonstration. We don't have 360,000 lb herbivores or 200 lb eagles in our world any more for all of the reasons I've mentioned. The laws of physics do not change, however. There is no way in which to believe that gravity itself or any of our physical laws were different in antediluvian times. Here are the logical implications of what we know about dinosaurs and other such megafauna: o They required at least an attenuated PERCEIVED gravity to live. o This would arise from earth being in a configuration with some other cosmic body in such a way that earth creatures permanently felt the gravity of the other body as well as that of earth. o This implies that one pole permanently faced the other body and, for the other body to have held us like that, for it to have been considerably larger than earth. o This implies that the other body was a very small, possibly electro-magnetic as opposed to thermonuclear, star or binary system. A star like our sun wouldn't fit the bill... we'd be fried. o There is one other possibility involving the former attraction; that gravity and electro-magnetic force are somehow related as Einstein suspected, and that the electro-magnetic nature of the old system somehow attenuated gravity on earth. The only other possibility would be that the laws of physics have changed, and I rule that out on philosophical grounds. o It also must have provided energy; the system described would have been too far from our present sun to draw warmth from it. o The breakup of that system must have occurred when or sometime after it was captured by our present sun, and the pieces of the elder system broke loose and began to orbit the sun separately. o In all likelihood, those pieces didn't simply disappear or go away; we should look for whatever is biggest in our system aside from the sun, and figure that between Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, probably Jupiter and Saturn, being closer, are one or the other or both remnants of the elder system. o We must then check on whether anything in ancient records or literature mentions anything about Jupiter or Saturn being anything other than what they appear to be now. Most of the evidence being presented in support of the Saturn Myth concept is either historical and heavily dependant upon interpretations of mythological and classical themes, or of a highly theoretical nature (e.g. Rose's explaination for the Tethys Sea). Do we have any more concrete evidence, or any real way of knowing or of proving that the Saturn Myth scenario is actually required for any of the physical evidence of past ages? I believe that we do, and that a careful study of the sizes of antediluvian creatures and of what it would take to deal with such sizes in our world, the felt effect of gravity being what it is now, indicates that something was massively different in the world which these creatures inhabited. I believe that something entirely like the Saturn Myth is positively required to explain what turns up upon such a careful investigation. In fact, I believe that there are at least five categories of evidence which suggest that the super animals of Earth's past could not live in our present world at all, due to what must have been a change in perceived gravity. A look at sauropod dinosaurs as we know them today requires that we relegate the brontosaur, once thought to be one of the largest sauropods, to welterweight or at most middleweight status. Fossil finds dating from the 1970's dwarf him. The Avon field Guide to Dinosaurs shows a brachiosaur (larger than a brontosaur), a supersaur, and an ultrasaur juxtaposed, and the ultrasaur dwarfs the others. Christopher McGowan's "DINOSAURS, SPITFIRES, & SEA DRAGONS", Harvard, 1991 cites a 180 ton weight estimate for the ultrasaur (page 118), and (page 104) describes the volume-based methods of estimating dinosaur weights. McGowan is Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum. This same look requires that dinosaur lifting requirements be compared to human lifting capabilities. One objection which might be raised to this would be that animal muscle tissue was somehow "better" than that of humans. This, however, is known not to be the case; for instance, from Knut Nielson's, "Scaling, Why is Animal size So Important", Cambridge Univ Press, 1984, page 163, we have: "It appears that the maximum force or stress that can be exerted by any muscle is inherent in the structure of the muscle filaments. The maximum force is roughly 4 to 4 kgf/cm2 cross section of muscle (300 - 400 kN/m2). This force is body-size independant and is the same for mouse and elephant muscle. The reason for this uniformity is that the dimensions of the thick and thin muscle filaments, and also the number of cross-bridges between them are the same. In fact the structure of mouse muscle and elephant muscle is so similar that a microscopist would have difficulty identifying them except for a larger number of mitrochondria in the smaller animal. This uniformity in maximum force holds not only for higher vertibrates, but for many other organisms, including at least some, but not all invertibrates." Another objection might be that sauropods were aquatic creatures. Nobody believes that anymore; they had no adaptation for aquatic life, their teeth show wear and tear which does not come from eating soft aquatic vegetation, and trackways show them walking on land with no difficulty. A final objection would be that dinosaurs were somehow more "efficient" than top human athletes. This, however, goes against all observed data. As creatures get bulkier, they become less efficient; the layers of thick muscle in limbs begin to get in each others way and bind to some extent. For this reason, scaled lifts for the super-heavyweight athletes are somewhat lower than for, say, the 200 lb athletes. By "scaled lift", I mean of course a lift record divided by the two-thirds power of the athlete's body weight. As creatures get larger, weight, which is proportional to volume, goes up in proportion to the cube of the increase in dimension. Strength, on the other hand, is known to be roughly proportional to cross section of muscle for any particular limb, which is similar to pr2 , and goes up in proportion to the square of the increase in dimension. This is the familiar "square-cube" problem. The normal inverse operator for this is to simply divide by 2/3 power of body weight, and this is indeed the normal scaling factor for all weight lifting events, i.e. it lets us tell if a 200 lb athlete has actually done a "better" lift than the champion of the 180 lb group. For athletes roughly between 160 and 220 lbs, i.e. whose bodies are fairly similar, these scaled lift numbers line up very nicely. It is then fairly easily seen that a lift for a scaled up version of one particular athlete can be computed via this formula, since the similarity will be perfect, scaling being the only difference. Consider the case of Bill Kazmaier, the king of the power lifters in the seventies and eighties. Power lifters are, in the author's estimation, the strongest of all athletes; they concentrate on the three most difficult total-body lifts, i.e. benchpress, squat, and dead-lift. They work out many hours a day and, it is fairly common knowledge, use food to flavor their anabolic steroids with. No animal the same weight as one of these men could be presumed to be as strong. Kazmaier was able to do squats and dead lifts with weights between 1000 and 1100 lbs on a bar, assuming he was fully warmed up. Standing Up at 70,000 lbs This brings us to the first of the five categories of evidence I mentioned above. Any animal has to be able to lift its own weight off the ground, i.e. stand up, with no more difficulty than Kazmaier experiences doing a 1000 lb squat. Consider, however, what would happen to Mr. Kazmaier, were he to be scaled up to 70,000 lbs, the weight commonly given for the brontosaur. Kazmaier's maximum effort at standing, fully warmed up, assuming the 1000 lb squat, was 1340 lbs (1000 for the bar and 340 for himself). The scaled maximum lift would be a solution to: 1340/340.667 = x/70,000.667 or 47,558 lbs. He'd not be able to lift his weight off the ground! A sauropod dinosaur had four legs you might say; what happens if Mr. Kazmaier uses arms AND legs at 70,000 lbs. The truth is that the squat uses almost every muscle in the athlete's body very nearly to the limits, but in this case, it doesn't even matter. A near maximum benchpress effort for Mr. Kazmaier would fall around 600 lbs. This merely changes the 1340 to 1940 in the equation above, and the answer comes out as 68,853. Even using all muscles, some more than once, the strongest man who we know anything about would not be able to lift his own weight off the ground at 70,000 lbs! To believe then, that a brontosaur could stand at 70,000 lbs, one has to believe that a creature whose weight was mostly gut and the vast digestive mechanism involved in processing huge amounts of low-value foodstuffs, was somehow stronger than a creature its size which was almost entirely muscle, and that far better trained and conditioned than would ever be found amongst grazing animals. That is not only ludicrous in the case of the brontosaur, but the calculations only get worse when you begin trying to scale upwards to the supersaur and ultrasaur at their sizes. How heavy can an animal still get to be in our world, then? How heavy would Mr. Kazmaier be at the point at which the square-cube problem made it as difficult for him just to stand up as it is for him to do 1000 lb squats at his present size of 340 lbs? The answer is simply the solution to: 1340/340667 = x/x667 , or (using the usual Newton's process) 20,803 lbs. In reality, elephants do not appear to get quite to that point. McGowan (DINOSAURS, SPITFIRES, & SEA DRAGONS, p. 97) claims that a Toronto Zoo specimen was the largest in North America at 14,300 lbs, and Smithsonian personnel once informed the author that the gigantic bush elephant specimen which appears at their Museum of Natural History weighed around 8 tons. Sauropod Dinosaurs' Necks A second category of evidence for attenuated felt effect of gravity in antediluvian times arises from the study of sauropod dinosaurs' necks. Scientists who study sauropod dinosaurs are now claiming that they held their heads low, because they could not have gotten blood to their brains had they held them high. McGowan (again, DINOSAURS, SPITFIRES, & SEA DRAGONS) goes into this in detail (pages 101 - 120). He mentions the fact that a giraffe's blood pressure, at 200 - 300 mm Hg, far higher than that of any other animal, would probably rupture the vascular system of any other animal, and is maintained by thick arterial walls and by a very tight skin which apparently acts like a jet pilot's pressure suit. A giraffe's head might reach to 20'. How a sauropod might have gotten blood to its brain at 50' or 60' is the real question. Two articles which mention this problem appeared in the 12/91 issue of Natural History. In "Sauropods and Gravity", Harvey B. Lillywhite of Univ. Fla., Gainesville, notes: "...in a Barosaurus with its head held high, the heart had to work against a gravitational pressure of about 590 mm of mercury (Hg). In order for the heart to eject blood into the arteries of the neck, its pressure must exceed that of the blood pushing against the opposite side of the outflow valve. Moreover, some additional pressure would have been needed to overcome the resistence of smaller vessels within the head for blood flow to meet the requirements for brain and facial tissues. Therefore, hearts of Barosaurus must have generated pressures at least six times greater than those of humans and three to four times greater than those of giraffes." In the same issue of Natural History, Peter Dodson ("Lifestyles of the Huge and Famous"), mentions that: "Brachiosaurus was built like a giraffe and may have fed like one. But most sauropods were built quite differently. At the base of the neck, a sauropod's vertebral spines unlike those of a giraffe, were weak and low and did not provide leverage for the muscles required to elevate the head in a high position. Furthermore, the blood pressure required to pump blood up to the brain, thirty or more feet in the air, would have placed extraordinary demands on the heart (see opposite page) [Lillywhite's article] and would seemingly have placed the animal at severe risk of a stroke, an aneurism, or some other circulatory disaster. If sauropods fed with the neck extended just a little above heart level, say from ground level up to fifteen feet, the blood pressure required would have been far more reasonable." Dodson is neglecting what appears to be a dilemma in the case of the brachiosaur, but there are at least two far greater dilemmas here. One is that the good leaves were, in all likelihood, above the 20' mark; holding his head out at 20', an ultrasaur would, in all likelihood, starve. Moreover, it turns out that a problem every bit as bad or worse than the blood pressure problem would arise, perceived gravity being what it is now, were sauropods to hold their heads out just above horizontally as Dodson and others are suggesting. The volume-based techniques which McGowan and others use can be used to estimate weight for a sauropod's neck, given a scale model and a weight figure for the entire dinosaur. An ultrasaur is generally thought to be a near cousin of the brachiosaur, if not simply a very large specimen of brachiosaur. The technique, then is to measure the volume of water which the sauropod's neck (severed at the shoulders and filled with bondo (auto-body putty) displaces, versus the volume which the entire brachiosaur displaces, and simply extrapolate to the 360,000 lb figure for the ultrasaur. The author did this using a Larami Corp. model of a brachiosaur, which is to scale. To make a long story short, the neck from the shoulders outward weighs 28,656 lbs, and the center of gravity of that neck is 15' from the shoulders, the neck itself being 38' long. This equates to 429,850 foot pounds of torque. Assume that any living creature has to be able to lift its head at least as easily as for a human with 17" biceps to do one-armed curls with a 60 lb dumbell, which in fact is difficult for the human. The working assumption is that cross section of arm is proportional to torque. Simple calculations, assuming the human arm to be circular, show that the human requires an arm 35' in diameter to deal with 430,000 ft-lbs of torque. The ultrasaur's neck at the very widest point where it joined the shoulders appears to have been around 10' by 6', and it would be generous to assume a 6' diameter (for strength calculations) throughout. Strength being proportional to the square of radius, we see that the sauropod is out of ballpark for having the musculature to deal with his own neck by a ratio of 32 to 17.52, or about 34 to one. McGowan and others claim that the head and neck were supported by a dorsal ligament and not muscles, but real-life experience does not show us any example of a living creature using ligaments to support a body structure which its available musculature was 34 to one out of ballpark for dealing with. It isn't difficult to think of things which would go wrong with such a scheme, after about the first five seconds. And so, sauropods (in our gravity) couldn't hold their heads up, and they couldn't hold them out either. That doesn't leave much. And I haven't even mentioned the dilemma involving their tails. Antediluvian Flying Creatures A third category of evidence for attenuated felt effect of gravity in antediluvian times arises from studies of creatures which flew in those times, and of creatures which fly now. In the antediluvian world, 350 lb flying creatures soared in skys which no longer permit flying creatures above 30 lbs or so. Modern birds of prey (the Argentinian teratorn) weighing 170 - 200 lbs with wingspans of 30' also flew; within recorded history, central asians have been trying to breed hunting eagles for size and strength, and have not gotten them beyond 25 lbs or thereabouts. At that point they are able to take off only with the greatest difficulty. Something was vastly different in the pre-flood world. Nothing much larger than 30 lbs or so flies anymore, and those creatures, albatrosses and a few of the largest condors and eagles, are marginal. Albatrosses in particular are called "goonie birds" by sailors because of the extreme difficulty they experience taking off and landing, their landings being (badly) controlled crashes, and all of this despite long wings made for maximum lift. The felt effect of the force of gravity on earth was much less in remote times, and only this allowed such giant creatures to fly. No flying creature has since RE-EVOLVED into anything like former sizes, and the one or two birds which have retained such sizes have forfeited any thought of flight, their wings becoming vestigial. A book of interest here is Adrian Desmond's "The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs. Desmond has a good deal to say about the pteranodon, the 40 - 50 lb pterosaur which scientists used to believe to be the largest creature which ever flew: "Pteranodon had lost its teeth, tail and some flight musculature, and its rear legs had become spindly. It was, however, in the actual bones that the greatest reduction of weight was achieved. The wing bones, backbone and hind limbs were tubular, like the supporting struts of an aircraft, which allows for strength yet cuts down on weight. In Pteranodon these bones, although up to an inch in diameter, were no more than cylindrical air spaces bounded by an outer bony casing no thicker than a piece of card. Barnum Brown of the American Museum reported an armbone fragment of an unknown species of pterosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Texas in which 'the culmination of the pterosaur... the acme of light construction' was achieved. Here, the trend had continued so far that the bone wall of the cylinder was an unbelievable one-fiftieth of an inch thick Inside the tubes bony crosswise struts no thicker than pins helped to strengthen the structure, another innovation in aircraft design anticipated by the Mezosozoic pterosaurs. The combination of great size and negligible weight must necessarily have resulted in some fragility. It is easy to imagine that the paper-thin tubular bones supporting the gigantic wings would have made landing dangerous. How could the creature have alighted without shattering all of its bones How could it have taken off in the first place It was obviously unable to flap twelve-foot wings strung between straw-thin tubes. Many larger birds have to achieve a certain speed by running and flapping before they can take off and others have to produce a wing beat speed approaching hovering in order to rise. To achieve hovering with a twenty-three foot wingspread, Pteranodon would have required 220 lbs of flight muscles as efficient as those in humming birds. But it had reduced its musculature to about 8 lbs, so it is inconceivable that Pteranodon could have taken off actively. Pteranodon, then, was not a flapping creature, it had neither the muscles nor the resistance to the resulting stress. Its long, thin albatross-like wings betray it as a glider, the most advanced glider the animal kingdom has produced. With a weight of only 40 lbs the wing loading was only I lb per square foot. This gave it a slower sinking speed than even a man-made glider, where the wings have to sustain a weight of at least 4 lbs per square foot. The ratio of wing area to total weight in Pteranodon is only surpassed in some of the insects. Pteranodon was constructed as a glider, with the breastbone, shoulder girdle and backbone welded into a box-like rigid fuselage, able to absorb the strain from the giant wings. The low weight combined with an enormous wing span meant that Pteranodon could glide at ultra-low speeds without fear of stalling. Cherrie Bramwell of Reading University has calculated that it could remain aloft at only 15 m.p.h. So take-off would have been relatively easy. All Pteranodon needed was a breeze of 15 m.p.h. when it would face the wind, stretch its wings and be lifted into the air like a piece of paper. No effort at all would have been required. Again, if it was forced to land on the sea, it had only to extend its wings to catch the wind in order to raise itself gently out of the water. It seems strange that an animal that had gone to such great lengths to reduce its weight to a minimum should have evolved an elongated bony crest on its skull." Desmond has mentioned some of the problems which even the pteranodon faced at fifty lbs or so; no possibility of flapping the wings for instance. The giant PTEROTORN finds of Argentina were not known when the book was written... they came out in the eighties in issues of Science Magazine and other places. The Pterotorn was a 160 - 200 lb eagle with a 27' wingspan, a modern bird whose existence involved flapping wings, aerial maneuver etc. How so? There are a couple of other problems which Desmond does not mention, including the fact that life for a pure glider would be almost impossible in the real world, and that some limited flying ability would be necessary for any aerial creature. Living totally at the mercy of the winds, a creature might never get back home to its nest and children given the first contrary wind. There is one other problem. Desmond notes a fairly reasonably modus operandi for the pteranodon, i.e. that it had a throat pouch like a pelican, has been found with fish fossils indicating a pelican-like existence, soaring over the waves and snapping up fish without landing. That should indicate that, peculiarly amongst all of the creatures of the earth, the pteranodon should have been practically IMMUNE from the great extinctions of past ages. Velikovsky noted that large animals had the greatest difficulty getting to high ground and other safe havens at the times of floods and the global catastrophes of past ages and were therefore peculiarly susceptible to extinction. Ovid notes (Metamorphoses) that men and animals hid on mountain tops during the deluge, but that most died from lack of food during the hard year following. But high places safe from flooding were always there; oceans were always there and fish were always there. The pteranodon's way of life should have been impervious to all mishap; the notion that pteranodon died out when the felt effect of gravity on earth changed after the flood is the only good explanation. Back to Adrian Desmond for more on size as related to pterosaurs now: "It would be a grave understatement to say that, as a flying creature, Pteranodon was large. Indeed, there were sound reasons for believing that it was the largest animal that ever could become airborne. With each increase in size, and therefore also weight, a flying animal needs a concomitant increase in power (to beat the wings in a flapper and to hold and manoeuvre them in a glider), but power is supplied by muscles which themselves add still more weight to the structure. The larger a flyer becomes the disproportionately weightier it grows by the addition of its own power supply. There comes a point when the weight is just too great to permit the machine to remain airborne. Calculations bearing on size and power suggested that the maximum weight that a flying vertebrate can attain is about 50 lbs: Pteranodon and its slightly larger but lesser known Jordanian ally Titanopteryx were therefore thought to be the largest flying animals." Notice that the calculations mentioned say about 50 lbs is max for either a flier or a glider, and that experience from our present world absolutely coincides with this and, in fact, don't go quite that high; the biggest flying creatures which we actually see are albatrosses, geese etc. at around 30 - 35 lbs. Similarly, my calculations say that about 20000 lbs would be the largest theoretically possible land animal in our present world, and Jumbo the stuffed elephant which I've mentioned, the largest known land animal from our present world, was around 16000. But in 1972 the first of a spectacular series of finds suggested that we must drastically rethink our ideas on the maximum size permissible in flying - vertebrates. Although excavations are still in progress, three seasons' digging - from 1972 to 1974 - by Douglas A. Lawson of the University of California has revealed partial skeletons of three ultra-large pterosaurs in the Big Bend National Park in Brewster County, Texas These skeletons indicate creatures that must have dwarfed even Pteranodon. Lawson found the remains off four wings, a long neck, hind legs and toothless jaws in deposits that were non-marine; the ancient entombing sediments are thought to have been made instead by floodplain silting. The immense size of the Big Bend pterosaurs, which have already become known affectionately in the palaeontological world as '747s' or 'Jumbos', may be gauged by setting one of the Texas upper arm bones alongside that of a Pteranodon: the 'Jumbo' humerus is fully twice the length of Pteranodon's. Lawson's computer estimated wingspan for this living glider is over fifty feet It is no surprise, says Lawson announcing the animal in Science in 1975, that the definitive remains of this creature were found in Texas. Unlike Pteranodon, these creatures were found in rocks that were formed 250 miles inland of the Cretaceous coastline. The lack of even lake deposits in the vicinity militates against these particular pterosaurs having been fishers. Lawson suggests that they were carrion feeders, gorging themselves on the rotting mounds of flesh left after the dismembering of a dinosaur carcass. Perhaps, like vultures and condors, these pterosaurs hung in the air over the corpse waiting their turn. Having alighted on the carcass, their toothless beaks would have restricted them to feeding upon the soft, pulpy internal organs. How they could have taken to the air after gorging themselves is something of a puzzle. Wings of such an extraordinary size could not have been flapped when the animal was grounded. Since the pterosaurs were unable to run in order to launch themselves they must have taken off vertically. Pigeons are only able to take-off vertically by reclining their bodies and clapping the wings in front of them; as flappers, the Texas pterosaurs would have needed very tall stilt-like legs to raise the body enough to allow the 24-foot wings to clear the ground The main objection, however, still rests in the lack of adequate musculature for such an operation. Is the only solution to suppose that, with wings fully extended and elevators raised, they were lifted passively off the ground by the wind? If Lawson is correct and the Texas pterosaurs were carrion feeders another problem is envisaged. Dinosaur carcasses imply the presence of dinosaurs. The ungainly Brobdignagian pterosaurs were vulnerable to attack when grounded, so how did they escape the formidable dinosaurs? Left at the mercy of wind currents, take-off would have been a chancy business. Lawson's exotic pterosaurs raise some intriguing questions. Only continued research will provide the answers." Note that Desmond mentions a number of ancillary problems, any of which would throw doubt on the pterosaur's ability to exist as mentioned, and neglects the biggest question of all: the calculations which say 50 lbs are max have not been shown to be in error; we have simply discovered larger creatures. Much larger. This is what is called a dilemma. Then I come to what Robert T. Bakker has to say about the Texas Pterosaurs ("The Dinosaur heresies", Zebra Books, pp 290-291: "Immediately after their paper came out in Science, Wann Langston and his students were attacked by aeronautical engineers who simply could not believe that the big Bend dragon had a wingspan of forty feet or more. Such dimensions broke all the rules of flight engineering; a creature that large would have broken its arm bones if it tried to fly... Under this hail of disbelief, Langston and his crew backed off somewhat. Since the complete wing bones hadn't been discovered, it was possible to reconstruct the Big Bend Pterodactyl [pterosaur] with wings much shorter than fifty feet." The original reconstruction had put wingspan for the pterosaur at over 60'. Bakker goes on to say that he believes the pterosaurs really wre that big and that they simply flew despite our not comprehending how, i.e. that the problem is ours. He does not give a solution as to what we're looking at the wrong way. So much for the idea of anything RE-EVOLVING into the sizes of the flying creatures of the antedeluvian world. What about the possibility of man BREEDING something like a pteratorn? Could man actively breed even a 50 lb eagle? David Bruce's "Bird of Jove", Ballentine Books, 1971, describes the adventures of Sam Barnes, one of England's top falconers at the time, who actually brought a Berkut eagle out of Kirghiz country to his home in Pwllheli, Wales. Berkuts are the biggest eagles, and Atlanta, the particular eagle which Barnes brought back, at 26 lbs in flying trim, is believed to be as large as they ever get. These, as Khan Chalsan explained to Barnes, have been bred specifically for size and ferocity for many centuries. They are the most prized of all possessions amongst nomads, and are the imperial hunting bird of the turko-mongol peoples. The eagle Barnes brought back had a disease for which no cure was available in Kirghiz, and was near to death then, otherwise there would have been no question of his having her. Chalsan explained that a Berkut of Atlanta's size would normally be worth more than a dozen of the most beautiful women in his country. The killing powers of a big eagle are out of proportion to its size. Berkuts are normally flown at wolves, deer, and other large prey. Barnes witnessed Atlanta killing a deer in Kirghiz, and Chalsan told him of her killing a black wolf a season earlier. Mongols and other nomads raise wheep and goats, and obviously have no love for wolves. A wolf might be little more than a day at the office for Atlanta with her 11" talons, however, a wolf is a major-league deal for an average sized Berkut at 15 - 20 lbs. Chalsan explained that wolves occasionally win these battles, and that he had once seen a wolf kill three of the birds before the fourth killed him. Quite obviously, there would be an advantage to having the birds be bigger, i.e. to having the average berkut be 25 lbs, and a big one be 40 or 50. It has never been done, however, despite all of the efforts since the days of Chengis Khan. We have Chengis Khan's famous "What is best in life..." quote, and the typical mongol reply from one of his captains involved falconry. They regarded it as important. Chengis Khan, Oktai, Kuyuk, Hulagu, Batui, Monke, Kubilai et. al. were all into this sport big time, they all wanted these birds big, since they flew them at everything from wolves and deer (a big berkut like Atlanta can drive its talons in around a wolf's spine and snap it) to leopards and tigers, and there was no lack of funds for the breeding program involved. Chengis Khan did not suffer from poverty. Moreover, the breeding of berkuts has continued apace from that day to this, including a 200 year stretch during which those people ruled almost all of the world which you'd care to own at the time, and they never got them any bigger than 25 lbs or so. Remember Desmond's words regarding the difficulty which increasingly larger birds will experience getting airborne from flat ground? Atlanta was powerful enough in flight, but she was not easily able to take off from flat ground. Barnes noted one instance in which a town crank attacked Atlanta with a cane and the great bird had to frantically run until it found a sand dune from which to launch herself. This could mean disaster in the wild. A bird of prey will often come to ground with prey, and if she can't take off from flat ground to avoid trouble once in awhile... it would only take once. Khan Chalsan had explained the necessity of having the birds in captivity for certain periods, and nesting wild at other times. A bird bigger than Atlanta would not survive the other times. One variety of pteratorn, however, judging from pictures which have appeared in Science Magazine, was very nearly a scaled-up golden eagle weighing 170 lbs or so, with a wingspan of 27' as compared to Atlanta's 10. In our world, that can't happen. Predators too Large to Sustain Falls A fourth category of evidence derives from a careful analysis of antediluvian predators. It is well known that elephant-sized animals cannot sustain falls, and that elephants spend their entire lives avoiding them. For an elephant, the slightest tumble can break bones and/or destroy enough tissue to prove fatal. Predators, however, live by tackling and tumbling with prey. One might think that this consideration would preclude the existence of any predator too large to sustain falls; weight estimates for the tyrannosaurs, however, include specimens heavier than any elephant. That appears to be a contradiction. Assorted Other Evidence There are other varieties of this sort of evidence. For instance, elephants are too heavy to run in our world; as is well known, they manage a kind of a fast walk, at least one foot always on the ground. They cannot jump, and anything resembling a gully stops them cold. Mammoths were as big and bigger than the largest elephants, however, and pliestocene art clearly shows them galloping. The picture to the right is from F8 L8 Cnjkzh7 Ghjbp[j;ltybt Bpj,hfpbntkmyjuj Bcrecndj (Origins of Representational Art), Moskow/Art 1985, p 104. It shows a statue of a mammoth elephant in full gallop. One final example: the January 1993 issue of "Discover" magazine carries a picture of the Utahraptor, a 20', 1500 lb version of a velociraptor recently found in Utah. The creature apparently ran on the balls of its two hind feet, on two toes in fact, the third toe carrying a 12" claw for disembowling prey. A very active lifestyle is indicated in fact. Very few predators appear to be built for attacking prey notably larger than themselves; the utahraptor appears to be such a case. In our world, of course, 1500 lb toe dancers do not exist. The only example we have of a 1500 lb land predator is the Kodiak bear, the lumbering gait and mannerisms of which are familiar to us all. And so, over and over again, this same kind of dilemma, things which can't happen in our world being the norm in the antediluvian world. The Saturn Myth and attenuated perceived gravity are the only explainations which really work. /////90 MINUTE VIDEO DOCUMENTARY\\\\\ Kronia communications has completed a 90 minute video documentary on "Saturn Myth" author Dave Talbot's startling discoveries about destructive perturbations in the planetary arrangement of the solar system. "Remembering the End of the World" give a clear insight into the very different world that ancient peoples inhabited and told about in their myths and art. The video is profusely illustrated with computer animation and a beautiful gallery of archaeological photos and ancient art. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Direct inquiries about ordering to our toll free number 1-800-230-9347 Internet: http://www.kronia.com/~kronia email: inquiries at kronia.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ///// CONTEMPORARY VELIKOVSKIAN SCHOLARSHIP \\\\\ On Nov. 26, 1994, Portland, Oregon hosted an international symposium on ancient myth and modern astronomy dedicated to the pioneering work of Immanuel Velikovsky, author of "Worlds In Collision". Over 20 researchers spoke on the need for a reinterpretation of the archaeological, astronomical, geological and anthropological records in light of growing evidence that The Earth's recent history witnessed catastrophic encounters with a number of planetary and comet-like bodies. Kronia Communications is making the proceedings of that symposium available both on audio cassette and as ASCII text 3 1/2" diskettes. We also have a collection of representative text files from the pages of historic and ongoing Velikovskian journals including Pensee, Kronos, The Velikovskian, AEON, SIS Review and Catastrophe & Ancient History. A partial list of the contributors and their bios is below. Prices are as follows: 20 Cassette set of audio tapes from the International Symposium: "VELIKOVSKY- ANCIENT MYTH AND MODERN ASTRONOMY" $60.00 PROCEEDINGS on 3 1/2" IBM floppy- ASCII text, no illustrations $10.00 30 + ARTICLES from the above journals on floppy $10.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KRONIA, box 403, Beaverton, Or 97008 email: walter at teleport.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ///////\\\\\\\ AEON is a journal of science devoted to the collection and exploration of archaeo-astronomical traditions and analysis of common patterns in ancient myths from around the world. Topics include: Reconstruction of standard archaeological dating systems Evidence for cataclysmic evolution and extinction Common elements in the myths of the planets, the Deluge and comet-like dieties associated with quakes, volcanos, tempests conflagrations, ice ages, plagues, mass destruction and migration in Egypt, India, Assyria, Akkadia, Chaldea, Medea, Minoa, Sumeria, Judea, Greece, Rome, Babylon, Persia, China, S.E. Asia, the Pacific, Scandanavia, the Americas and among contemporary native peoples. Please send all manuscripts and inquiries to: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AEON, 601 Hayward St., Ames, IA, 50014. email: ev at eai.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ///////\\\\\\\ THE VELIKOVSKIAN is a journal devoted to Myth, History and Science. Topics have included: origin of the Moon, ice core dating evidence, the suppression of science, the nature of Venus' heat, gravity and electrical properties in space, ancient maps, "dark matter", calendar dating, planetary magnetic fields, the dating of ancient ruins, etc. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE VELIKOVSKIAN, 65-35 108TH St., Ste D15, Forrest Hills, NY 11375 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ///////\\\\\\\ SIS- THE SOCIETY FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY REVIEW is a journal about chronology and catastrophism- the evidence for catastrophic events in archaeology, history, anthropology, and evolution. Other topics include: celestial mechanics, myth and tradition, historic dating, erratic events in the Solar System, meteors, ancient planetary dieties, problems and new interpretations in Greek, Persian, Hebraic, Egyptian, Babylonian history, etc. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SIS REVIEW, 10 Witley Green, Darley Heights, Stopsley LU2 8TR, Bedfordshire,England ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ///////\\\\\\\ SCIENCE FRONTIERS- William Corliss' bimonthly collection of digests of scientific anomalies in the current literature. Hundreds of short abstracts in many areas including: Archaeology, Astronomy, Biology, Geology, Geophysics, Psychology, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Esoterica ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SOURCEBOOK PROJECT, P. O. Box 107, Glen Arm, MD 21057 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ///////\\\\\\\ Speaker Biographies - International Symposium "VELIIKOVSKY- ANCIENT MYTH AND MODERN SCIENCE" DWARDU CARDONA- Electrical engineer, founder Canadian Society of Interdisciplinary Studies, senior editor of AEON. Researcher and prolific writer on comparative mythology having published over 100 articles in various journals. VICTOR CLUBE- Dean of the astrophysics department at Oxford University, England. Co-author of two books, "Cosmic Serpent" and "Cosmic Winter", claiming that major cometary disasters have occurred within historic times, devastating early civilizations. His current work is aimed at alerting government agencies to such perils as comet Shoemaker/Levy and encouraging governments to mobilize the technologies necessary to identify potential cometary intruders and to provide terrestrial defenses against them. EV COCHRANE- Associate Editor Kronos; executive editor and publisher AEON; published many articles in Kronos and AEON from comparative mythology, to planet/comet catastrophism and biological evolution; currently finishing major work: "The Many Faces of Venus". VINE DELORIA- An American Indian activist, lawyer, historian, educator author screen writer and consultant. He is author of "Custer Died For Your Sins", "God Is Red", "Indians of The Pacific Northwest", "The Nations Within", and 10 other books on native peoples issues. He has served on the editorial boards of the American Historical Society, the National Geographic Society, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the Journal of International and Comparative Law, and over 15 other publications. He has over 5 honorary degrees, has authored 8 special government reports on Indian affairs., and has over 100 periodical articles including articles in Pensee and Kronos. ROBERT DRISCOLL- Graduated Caltech (physics) and Case Tech (mechanical engineering) (cum laude); author "Unified Theory of Ether, Field and Matter", 1964; member American Physical Society and his articles on physics have appeared in The Bulletin of the American Physical Society, Hadronic Journal, Physics Essays, AEON, author of numerous journal articles. CHARLES GINENTHAL- Editor-in-Chief, The Velikovskian;; contributor to Kronos, AEON, Meta Research Bulletin; author: "Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky" and "The Continuing Velikovsky Affair: The Second Generation". Charles is also working on a cosmology invoking electromagnetism as a counterforce to gravity in interplanetary and interstellar space. ROBERT GRUBAUGH- Structural Dynamicist 1967-1990 at TRW Ballistic Missiles Division, San Bernardino CA, Section Chief, Department Manager, Senior Staff Engineer- Analyzed trajectories in relation to stipulated orbital conditions; inventor of a rotational shock measuring device, now being used by the Japanese for earthquake measuring. RICHARD HEINBERG- Velikovsky's personal assistant and editor of his unpublished manuscripts. Heinberg's popular book, "Memories & Visions of Paradise" was hailed by Jean Houston (noted authority on the great religions) as "...a new classic in the study of the world's psyche." He is also the author of two other books and numerous articles on mythology, anthropology, and ecology. GUNNAR HEINSOHN- Masters Sociology 1971, Doctorate Social Sciences 1973, Doctorate Economics 1982, Freie Universitat, Berlin; tenured Professor, University of Bremen 1984. Author of over 15 books and 300 articles since 1969 in the fields of history, economics, theory and chronology of civilization, the separation of modern man from Neanderthal, Bronze Age Mesopotamian civilization, Greek city state economics, origins of Jewish monotheism, recontructions and revisions of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Akhaemenid and Indus-Valley civilizations, the European witch hunts, and the 20th century Jewish Holocaust. EARL MILTON- BS 1956, MS inorganic chemistry 1958, doctorate gas phase spectroscopy University of Lethbridge, Montreal; staff University of Saskatchewan, photometrics of the aurora borealis; founding faculty member and head Centennial University at Lethbridge where he engaged in laboratory research on the aurora and stellar spectra and developed an all-electric theory governing cosmic and terrestrial events; currently completing manuscripts on astro-catastrophism including collaboration on an Encyclopedia of Quantavolution and Catastrophes; editor of "Recollections of a Fallen Sky, Velikovsky and Cultural Amnesia" and co-author of "Solaria Binaria: Origins and History of the Solar System" WILLIAM MULLEN- Recognized as one of the world's leading classicists, Dr. Mullen is currently Professor of Classics at Bard College. Undergraduate study- Harvard, Magna cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and Bowdoin prize for best undergraduate essay; Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin; Assistant Professor of Classics, University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Mullen is the author of "Choreia; Pindar, and Dance" (Princeton University Press, 1982), and articles on "Dithyramb" and "Choral Dancing," in the "INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DANCE," in addition to many other articles and published works. DONALD PATTEN- B.A. and M.A. degrees in geography from the University of Washington. Author of The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch (1966), The Long Day of Joshua and Six Other Catastrophes (1973), and Catastrophism and the Old Testament (1987). He is also a principal in the production of two videos, "Cataclysm From Space 2800 B.C." and "The Discovery of Noah's Ark." LYNN E. ROSE- Professor of philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo; B.A. cum laude, Ohio State University, 1955, in ancient history and Classical Languages (Greek), Phi Beta Kappa; .M.A. in Philosophy, Ohio State University, 1957; Ph.D. in Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, Author of over a half-dozen books on Classics and several dozen journal articles. DAVID TALBOTT- Founder and publisher of Pensee magazine's ten-issue series, "Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered," which helped to spark international interest in Velikovsky's work in the mid seventies. Author of "The Saturn Myth" (Doubleday, 1980), and founder of the journal AEON: A Symposium on Myth and Science. WALLACE THORNHILL- computer systems engineer with IBM and the Australian Government; postgraduate Astrophysics studies at Queen Mary College, University of London; papers on Venus and the origin of chondritic meteorites have been published in the UK Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS) Review and the Proceedings of the National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers; Past committee member of SIS. ROGER W. WESCOTT- B.A. Princeton, (linguistics, summa cum laude); Ph.D. Princeton, linguistics 1948; Rhodes Scholar; anthropological field work in Nigeria; director African Language Program, Michigan State University.; Author of over 40 books and 400 articles; listed in Who's Who; Professor of Linguistics in the Humanities Division of the Graduate School and Professor of Anthropology in the Social Science Division of the College of Liberal Arts at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey; first holder of The Endowed Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee.; current President of the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations. SAMUEL WINDSOR- Windsor is a mechanical engineer previously employed by Boeing and by the Department of the Navy in building nuclear submarines. Currently working as a naval architect and marine engineer. His essays have appeared in the journals Catastrophism and Ancient History and AEON. TOM VAN FLANDERN- Phd 1969 Yale, celestial mechanics; former director U. S. Naval Observatory, Celestial Mechanics Branch; teacher of astronomy and consultant to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; frequent contributor to scholarly technical journals and astronomy magazines. Author- "Dark Matter, Missing Planets, & New Comets". DUANE VORHEES- Doctorate in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University. His dissertation was "A Cultural and Intellectual Biography of Immanuel Velikovsky." Dr. Vorhees is currently with the University of Maryland, Asia Division, teaching American History, literature and related courses. He is the author of numerous articles in Kronos and AEON. IRVING WOLFE- B.A. English and Philosophy 1956, M.A. English 1958, doctorate Drama 1970 McGill University, Montreal; Professor of Drama, McGill University 1978 to present; author of over 25 articles and 50 papers on Velikovsky and the role of global catastrophe in the shaping of ancient and contemporary dramatic themes, in the formation of cultural amnesia, in the creation of world religions and other forms of collective behavior; frequent lecturer and consultant outside the university. NANCY OWEN- B.S Michegan State University, M.E. University of Texas; author "Astronomical Events on the Dates of the Dresden Codex" and "Archeoastronomy in Pre-Columbian America", contributed papers to Sobretiro de: Estudios de Cultura Maya Vol VIII, SIS Review, , Il Coloquio Internacional de Mayistas, ESOP, Memorias del Primera Coloqueo Internacional de Mayistas; presented papers at the Museum of Natural History, NY, AAAS- Mexico City. ERIC MILLER- Poet, playwright, writer; former Trustee of Island Campus (Pacific Institute for Advanced Studies); correspondent with and performed research for I. Velikovsky; author of "Passion for Murder: The Homicidal Deeds of Dr. Sigmund Freud" (1985 New Directions), "Venus Worship In Ancient China" (manuscript), "The Errors of Einstein" (manuscript). CHARLES RASPIL- B.A. Political Science. 1967, City College of NY; currently working as a Fair Hearing representative for the City of New York; published in Horus, The Velikovskian, Proceedings of the International Forum on New Science.