mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ 
For complete access to all the files of this collection
	see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php 
==========================================================
Home 
Up 

The Moon

Current Theories of the Moons Origin

There are currently three theories of the origin of the moon:

1) The Moon originated at the same time as the Earth, being formed
substantially from the same material, aggregating and solidifying.

2) The Moon was formed not in the vicinity of the Earth, but in a
different part of the solar system, and was later captured by the
Earth.

3) The Moon was originally a portion of the terrestrial crust and was
torn out, leaving behind the bed of the Pacific.

Origin versus Acquisition

The above hypotheses really concern the problem of how the Moon came
to be in its current orbit around the Earth. This is not the same as
the actual origin of the Moon. As suggested in Firmament and Chaos, (
), terrestrial bodies did not accrete from cold particles of
refractory materials in the inner solar system as currently believed.
I maintain that all terrestrial-type bodies, including the Moon,
originated as a result of highly energetic impacts on the giant
planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune, which comprised the
original solar system. They are made up of clathrates or gas hydrates
which encapsulate all the elements in the periodic table. The
terrestrial bodies, including the Moon, condensed rapidly from a cloud
of hot plasma that rebounded from the impacts. That is why the outer
layer of the Moon comprises anorthosite, the least dense mafic rock
that would have come to the surface of the very hot proto-Moon, via a
process called plagioclase flotation. The process is explained in
great detail in the section on Venus on this website, since its birth
6000 years ago is clearly described in ancient myth. Only three
terrestrial planets have formed in this way, priori-Mars, Earth, and
Venus, in the order of their creation. Mercury is the former solid
core of priori-Mars, which separated some 2,700 years ago and Mars is
its collapsed outer shell.

Since the Moon is considerably less massive than these planets, it may
have resulted from a less energetic impact or formed at the same time
as one of the terrestrial planets. One possibility is that it formed
as a result of the same impact on Saturn which formed its rings and
satellites. Saturn's rings cannot be extremely ancient, because such
structures would eventually dissipate, as have the rings of the other
giant planets. Rings form as a result of every high energy impact, as
evidenced by the fact that all four giant planets still have rings.
They formed from material which was ejected inside the Roche limit of
the giant planet, and was not able to accrete into a sizeable
satellite. At some future date the origins of all the terrestrial
bodies may be determined by comparing their complete chemical
composition with those of the four giant planets.

The Moons Age Unknown

In spite of the `lunar rocks' that were picked up and returned by the
Apollo astronauts and the unmanned Soviet Luna vehicles, the age of
the Moon is unknown. The regolith that covers the near side to a depth
of some two kilometers, was ejected as vast clouds of rock and dust,
from priori-Mars during the Vedic period (6000 to 2700 years BP).
Thus, although there may be some true lunar rocks among the samples
returned, we do not know which ones they are. The only way to
determine the true age of the Moon will be for astronauts to land on
the far side, which is free of the regolith covering, and chip off
true bedrock.

The Acquisition of the Moon

The three theories above are based on the notion that the Moon has
been in orbit around the Earth for billions of years. This assumption
is without basis if the Moon was captured. The Egyptian mythical name
for the Moon, Isis, means ancient, implying some knowledge of the date
of its acquisition, within their cultural memory.

Immanuel Velikovsky published an article specifically on the Moon,
considering particularly its acquisition age. He cites references to
eight sages whose writings implied that the Moon was captured by the
Earth in proto-historical times, within the `memory' of the most
ancient cultures. He lists references to the writings of Aristotle,
Apollonius of Rhodes, Plutarch, Ovid, Hippolytus, Lucian and
Censorinus. See

He writes:

The period when the Earth was Moonless is probably the most remote
recollection of mankind. Democritus and Anaxagoras taught that
there was a time when the Earth was without the Moon ... Arcadia in
Greece, before being inhabited by the Hellenes, had a population of
Pelasgians, and that these aborigines occupied the land already
before there was a moon in the sky above the Earth; for this reason
they were called Proselenes.

Some allusions to the time before there was a Moon may be found
also in the Scriptures. In Job 25:5 the grandeur of the Lord who
"Makes peace in the heights" is praised and the time is mentioned
"before [there was] a moon and it did not shine." Also in Psalm
72:5 it is said: "Thou wast feared since [the time of] the sun and
before [the time of] the moon, a generation of generations." A
"generation of generations" means a very long time.

The memory of a world without a moon lives in oral tradition among
the Indians. The Indians of the Bogota highlands in the eastern
Cordilleras of Colombia relate some of their tribal reminiscences
to the time before there was a moon. "In the earliest times, when
the moon was not yet in the heavens," say the tribesmen of
Chibchas.

Since mankind on both sides of the Atlantic preserved the memory of
a time when the Earth was without the Moon, the first hypothesis,
namely, of the Moon originating simultaneously with the Earth and
in its vicinity, is to be excluded, leaving the other two
hypotheses to compete between themselves. We have seen that the
traditions of diverse peoples offer corroborative testimony to the
effect that in a very early age, but still in the memory of
mankind, no moon accompanied the Earth. Since human beings already
peopled the Earth, it is improbable that the Moon sprang from it:
there must have existed a solid lithosphere, not a liquid earth.
Thus while I do not claim to know the origin of the Moon, I find it
more probable that the Moon was captured by the Earth. Such an
event would have occurred as a catastrophe. If the Moon's formation
took place away from the Earth, its composition may be quite
different.

Since the time the Moon began to accompany the Earth, it underwent
the influence of contacts with comets and planets that passed near
the Earth in subsequent ages. The mass of the Moon being less than
that of the Earth, the Moon must have suffered greater disturbances
in cosmic contacts. During these contacts the Moon was not carried
away: this is due to the fact that no body more powerful than the
Earth came sufficiently close to the Moon to take it away from the
Earth for good; but in the contacts that took place the Moon was
removed repeatedly from one orbit to another.

The variations in the position of the Moon can be read in the
variations in the length of the month. [Ancient calendars reveal
that] The length of the month repeatedly changed in subsequent
catastrophic events--and for this there exists a large amount of
supporting evidence.

Capture Mechanisms

In Firmament and Chaos I accept Velikovsky's premise that the Moon was
captured in orbit around the Earth within proto-historical times. This
process was catastrophic, triggering global earthquakes, erupting
volcanos and tidal flooding across entire continents. Astrodynamicists
claim that such a capture has to involve a third body, in order to
conserve kinetic energy and angular momentum, but this view is based
on the assumption that the bodies are rigid and solid throughout.
Later, the repeated capture and release of priori-Mars proposed in
Firmament and Chaos did involve a third body, proto-Venus. But the
reorienting of the spin axes of both planet's lithospheres during the
encounters makes it clear that understanding the close interaction of
two planet-sized bodies requires taking into account their internal
structure. Indeed, seismic studies of the Earth confirm that the solid
core and the lithosphere rotate independently. As two planet-sized
bodies approach one another, any mass anomalies in their lithospheres,
such as the Tibetan complex and the Tharsis Bulge, would cause their
outer layers to experience torques, resulting in the reorienting of
their spin axes relative to their solid cores. The energy absorbed by
this frictional process and the accompanying reorienting of the total
angular momentum may make possible the capture of a body the size of
the Moon, without invoking a third body.

Planet X?

Professor Emilio Spedicato, of The Universiti Degli Studii Bergamo, in
keeping with current astro-dynamics theory, suggests that the Moon
could have been captured from a rogue planet (dare I call it planet-X
?), which passed close to the Earth. Moreover, this may have been the
same body which impacted Jupiter 5000 years later, resulting in the
birth of proto-Venus. Possible evidence for the return of the rogue
planet to the vicinity of the Earth after the capture of the Moon and
before its impact on Jupiter may lie in the global anomaly which
occurred at approximately 8,200 years BP. This can be seen in the
Greenland ice core temperature data (below).

The Younger Dryas

Geophysical evidence, as well as ancient knowledge, point to the
Younger Dryas as the date for the capture of the Moon. I maintain that
it was captured into its current orbit at the end of this period, 11.6
cal kyr BP. The Younger Dryas was a short period, geologically
speaking, which began at 13,000 years BP, some 1.5 millennia after the
end of the last `Ice Age.' This 1300 year drop of 20 degrees F is well
documented in the Greenland ice cores (below). It is notable for its
rapid onset and an even more rapid conclusion, perhaps as short as a
decade. The evidence for great trauma at this time is also available
in Antarctic ice cores, ocean and lake sediments and continental
flooding, indicating that the event was global in scope.

Ice Core and Other Data

The Greenland ice cores (GISP and GRIP) reveal much more than just the
two rapid temperature changes, determined from 18O / 16O ratios, that
delineated the Younger Dryas (YD). Mayewski points out prominent
instances of increased dustiness, peaking every 500 years before,
during and after the YD. He interprets a sudden rise in the
atmospheric methane concentration at the end of the YD as proving the
event affected low latitude wetlands, because these are thought to be
the major source of natural methane. A similar rise in the methane
concentration was also measured in the Taylor Dome Antarctic ice core,
proving its global significance. An additional abrupt century-long
cooling event about 8,200 years BP is also prominent in the Greenland
Ice Cores. This was also associated with a rise in the atmospheric
methane.

Using Optically Stimulated Luminescence, Hanson2, reports on the ages
of colluvial aprons from the Laramie River and Sybille Creek in
Wyoming, which are deposited on flood plains, arroyo bottoms and
adjacent terraces, He found that these hillsides were denuded both at
the transition into and out of the YD.

Overturning of the Earth's Lithosphere

The evidence is consistent with my hypothesis that the YD events were
caused by the close approach to the Earth of a large body such as the
Moon or planet-X. As suggested in Firmament, the two encounters that
delineate the YD were actual overturnings of the lithosphere of the
Earth, without a significant slowing of its rotation rate. These
encounters caused enormous tidal floods, in which oceans were pulled
from their basins and rushed across entire continents. This scenario
provides a much more appealing source of the rapid rise in methane. I
suggest that it was released from the methane clathrates beneath the
sea beds when these waters were pulled from their beds. These can only
exist under the high pressure created by the weight of the oceans.
When the pressure was released, the clathrates nearest the surface
broke down, releasing their stores of methane. The dust spikes noted
by Mayewski at intervals of 500 years may have marked other
not-so-close perigees of the Moon, each of which reduced its apogee as
part of the capture process.

Caches of Buried Animal Bones

The scenario of tidal flooding is consistent with the ubiquitous
devastation of fauna evidenced by buried caches of millions of broken
animal bones found in completely different parts of the world, as
reported by Velikovsky and De Grazia, with extinct and extant animals
intermixed. These were slaughtered by great rocks tumbling ahead of
the tidal waves as they crossed the continents and were collected in
lowland eddies and immediately covered by silt, preventing their
oxidation. Indeed, the oils from these animals may have seeped into
the Earth until they became trapped by impermeable rock layers,
forming the major source of petroleum available today. Many species
became extinct at the date of the YD, including the Wooly Mammoth in
Siberia and the Saber-Toothed Tiger in North America.

Climate Change after the Younger Dryas

But the ice cores record more than just the changes that occurred at
times of these traumatic events. They show the entire history of the
world climate before (the ice ages and the pre-boreal) and after (the
Holocene) these events. They reveal that the YD marks the onset of a
completely different climatic regime on the earth, called the Holocene
In other words this record actually shows the immediate climatic
effect of the stabilization of the Earth by the presence of the newly
captured Moon. Many geophysics, in keeping with their uniformitarian
paradigm, suggest that the current warm period is merely another
`interstadial,' the name given to the warm period between the ice
ages. They claim that `ice ages' will continue to plague the Earth in
the future. I suggest that the stabilization of the Earth by the
capture of the Moon was the first of several steps leading to its
preparation for the growth and prospering of mankind. The scripture
quoted above by Velikovsky in Job 25:5, "the grandeur of the Lord who
`makes peace in the heights'" may indeed be a reference to the
stabilizing effect of the Moon on the Earth.

Ancient Knowledge

In spite of the evidence, scientists have no idea of the momentous
events that marked the beginning and end of the Younger Dryas. On both
occasions the lithosphere of the Earth was completely overturned, just
as it was later due to two close approaches of proto-Venus. For 1300
years the Sun rose in the west and set in the east. Corroboration of
the overturning of the Earth at the date of the Younger Dryas
transitions is found in the cultural memory of the Egyptians, related
to Solon the Greek around 475 B.C. They stated that their kingdom was
341 generations old. Assuming thirty-seven years per generation, their
cultural memory could have extended back to the time of the Younger
Dryas. Moreover, the priests also told him that in the entire memory
of their people, the Earth had overturned four times. Velikovsky cites
a number of other cultures which `remembered' four `suns,`ages' or
`skys,' - each of which were terminated by catastrophic cosmic events.
The two later overturnings of the Earth were the result of close
passes of proto-Venus around 6,000 years BP. Figure 1 illustrates the
coincidences of their cultural beginnings with the dating of the
Younger Dryas.

Evolution of the Moon's Orbit

The orbital parameters of the Moon established at the date of the YD
transition to the Holocene, were not exactly the same as their current
values. Due to the close passes of proto-Venus, 6000 years BP, the
many (one hundred) prolonged encounters with priori-Mars and the
lingering effect of proto-Venus during these encounters, its period
has varied somewhat. The changes are reflected in the differing
lengths of the month recorded in the calendars of many ancient
cultures, from as long as thirty-six to as few as twenty-seven days.

Computer simulations reveal that the orbit of the Moon was `scalloped'
when priori-Mars was captured in geosynchronous orbit at a
center-to-center distance of 44,000 km. An orbit from one of these
simulations is shown above.

The Moon's rotation (spin) period, which now is identical to its
orbital period was probably different at the conclusion of the Younger
Dryas because at that time its center of gravity was not offset. The
rotation was probably brought into exact coincidence with its orbital
period within the last 6,000 years due to the deposition of a two
kilometer thick layer of regolith on the near side. Its spin-orbit
synchronization is now ensured because the regolith has offset its
center-of-gravity approximately some two kilometers from its
geometrical center, in the direction of the Earth. This material was
all ejected from priori-Mars during the dance encounters and fell onto
the surface of the Moon in the last 6,000 years.

Regolith

Most of the regolith is currently believed to be rock of lunar origin
that has become pulverized by the influx of innumerable
micrometeorites over the last 4.5 billion years. I maintain that all
the regolith is from priori-Mars, blasted to the Moon in great clouds
of rock and dust, in the last 6,000 years. This material was propelled
by enormous convulsions in the interior, caused by priori-Mars'
rapidly passing through alignments with the Earth, Moon and Sun. These
dangerous eruptions killed many people on Earth and were the reason
for the ancients great concern about predicting eclipses. Because
innumerable particles fell to the Moon in vast storms, on top of
similar particles already in place on the lunar surface, many do not
exhibit the signs of shocking that would be expected for individual
impacts. These small rock particles and dust falling on similar
material already emplaced caused highly localized melting and the
sticking together of tiny particles, forming the most common rock type
found in the regolith, breccias.

The Origin of the Maria

The maria are currently thought to be lava flows from the interior of
the Moon. There are several problems with this hypothesis. The most
obvious one is that the `lava flows' are only present on the near side
of the Moon, more specifically in basins formed by impacts on the near
side. Another problem is that the calculated ages of the rocks in
different maria are between three and eight hundred million years
younger than the basin ejecta. This implies that for some reason the
subsurface rock, deep in the interior, melted and flowed exclusively
into the maria basins at different intervals of the order of hundreds
of millions of years after the giant impacts that formed the basins. A
third problem, that is rarely stated, is that the maria are not filled
with lava. Quoting from Fred Hoyle (The Cosmogony of the Solar
System).

" ... almost all lunar geologists are of the opinion that rock
emerged long ago at the Moon's surface from melting processes that
took place in the sub-surface layers ...

This picture would essentially have been proven if visits to the
lunar maria had revealed the presence of extensive lava beds. But
no astronaut has ever stood upon a lava bed. It is commonly stated
that lava flows have been found on the Moon, but such statements
are incorrect. Lava flows have been found only in the imagination
of those who have examined distant photographs taken from [of?] the
Apollo landing sites. What astronauts actually found was a great
deal of fine powder. Embedded or lying on the powdery surface was a
multitude of rock fragments. Subsequent chemical analyses of the
rock fragments showed them to be of highly variable chemical
composition, making it quite unlikely that they were fragments from
a single coherent flow of molten rock. Rather they seem to be
ejecta from impact events that occur over a wide areas of the
Moon's surface.

I maintain that the maria formed when a series of large hot bodies
were ejected, rapid fire, from the same volcanic vent on priori-Mars,
as it orbited the Earth. This stream of glowing bodies had barely
sufficient velocities to reach the Moons orbit and therefore impacted
the lunar surface at less than escape velocity. Researchers from the
Fermi Institute and the University of Chicago who have calculated the
impact velocities for a dozen large impact basins conclude that they
are very low, indeed, six of them fall below the escape velocity (2.4
kilometers per second) of the Moon. Although there are a number of
assumptions in their method, they conclude that most of the basin
forming impacts had systematically low impact velocities. The
currently accepted theory cannot offer any explanation as to why there
should be such low impact velocities.

These bodies were still hot when they impacted on the Moon. Their
impacts were cushioned by the thick layer of regolith (dust and small
rocks) already in place from millennia of earlier ejections from
priori-Mars. The heat of their impacts was sufficient to allow the
already softened bodies to break into small rocks which remained in
the basins formed by the impacts. Thus the maria do not contain true
lava flows, instead the differences of the rocks that made up the
impacting bodies are preserved in the basins.

The currently accepted notion that the basin depths and the rupturing
of rock beneath them allowed lava to flow up into them exclusively,
hundreds of millions of years later, is negated by the simple fact
that a number of smaller craters, due to the impact of secondaries,
which broke away from the main maria impactors, also contain the dark
maria material as shown above.

The maria basins exhibit strong gravitational anomalies - so large
that they can produce considerable errors in orbital predictions. The
fact that these deposits have not reached isostatic equilibrium is
strong evidence against their being due to lava flows from the
interior of the Moon. It implies that the lunar crust was already
sufficiently cool and rigid enough to support the impacted masses.
Some of the western maria also exhibit gamma ray spectra of Potassium,
Rare Earth Elements, and Potassium, all of which are quite `foreign'
to the Moon. These KREEP rock are too dense to have floated to the
surface of the Moon when it was molten, and therefore must have been
part of the impacting bodies.

An ancient Egyptian myth describes the formation of the maria. It
tells that Set cut up the body of his enemy, the god Osiris, into
fourteen pieces and spread them all around so that he could not be
resurrected. But Osiris' faithful lover, Isis (the Moon) went around
and searched until she found every one. At each place she found one
she placed a monument. I maintain that Osiris was the enormous
hardened lava figure at the north pole of priori-Mars that extended
toward the Earth during its prolonged encounters with the Earth. It
was the primary deity of every culture on Earth during the Vedic or
Olympian period. (See the section on priori-Mars). When periodic
convulsions shook the planet this massive body collapsed, as large hot
bodies were ejected from the same volcanic vents from which it
originated. This was interpreted as the death of Osiris, but the
figure reformed after each collapse. On one such occasion a sequence
of fourteen large hot bodies were shot in a stream from the same vent
in rapid succession, which just had sufficient velocity to reach the
orbit of the Moon, where they impacted one after another. Those bodies
not only formed the maria, but, softened by their hot origin, each
from deeper inside priori-mars than the previous one, they broke into
myriads of small rocks and remained in the basins created by their
impacts.

Is there any physical evidence of these impacts? Quoting from an
article entitled "Lunar Cataclysm? ... ", by the only Apollo geologist
astronaut, Harrison .H. (Jack) Schmitt, now at the University of
Wisconsin - Madison, in which he cites all the events that would be
necessary to define a single cataclysmic event on the Moon, item (f)
reads:

Formation of 14 young large basins, >300 km in diameter, that are
sharply circular, have many characteristic basin features clearly
delineated, and have both positive and negative mass concentrations
(mascons) associated with them. Measured and inferred ages for
these events range from 3.92 (Nectaris) to 3.8 b.y. (Orientalis)
.

Thus, close study of the lunar surface has identified the fourteen
basins formed by the bodies in the Egyptian myth. The calculated ages
and compositional differences of the rocks in these maria are due to
the different depths within priori-Mars from which the rocks
originated. The hotter ones, from greater depths, lost more of the
argon gas used for age calculation, by diffusion, and thus appear
younger. The age of their origin within priori-Mars forms an upper
limit and can be determined from the same rocks exhibiting `fossil
magnetism' found in the regolith. These were near surface rocks formed
in the magnetic field of priori-Mars, which were not heated enough to
lose their magnetism or their age determining elements.

The offset center of gravity, the regolith, the low velocity of maria
impacts, the lack of true lava flows, the fossil magnetism of many
rocks, the differing ages calculated for the maria, are naught but
smoke and mirrors. This is the Trickster at work, who is preparing to
show the folly of the scientists who say that science has replaced
God.

Walt Whitman, the first great American writer once wrote:

Hurrah for positive science! Long live exact demonstration! ...

Gentlemen, to you the first honors always!

Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,

I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.

If you have any questions or comments about this site, send an email
to angiras at firmament-chaos.com