mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== THOTH -A Catastrophics Newsletter- VOL I, No. 15 June 7, 1997 EDITOR: Michael Armstrong PUBLISHER: Walter Radtke CONTENTS: EDITORIAL SECTION..............................Michael Armstrong VELIKOVSKY AND PLANETARY CATASTROPHE.........David Talbott TETHERED SATELLITE DEBACLE.........................Wal Thornhill New URL Section ----------------------------------------------- Quotes of the day: "Anyone with knowledge of college level physics should be able to work out for themselves that Velikovsky's idea is in breach of various laws of physics and hence is untenable. Nevertheless, a breed of Velikovsky disciples emerged, similar to alien-contact enthusiasts, and they proved to be the bane of astronomers, with occasional resurrections occurring even today." Astronomer Duncan Steel, Rogue Asteroids and the Doomsday Comet "The existence of a pervasive paradigm is one of the worst problems that faces science in all its manifestations. The concept of a paradigm shift is often exalted by the very people who do most to obviate such changes in doctrine, their conservatism being the barrier. For the majority of the time, dogma rules supreme." Astronomer Duncan Steel, Rogue Asteroids and the Doomsday Comet -------------------------------------- EDITORIAL SECTION By Michael Armstrong (mikamar at e-z.net) It has been pointed out by many a clear thinking scientist or philosopher that a paradigm is only a framework or model for understanding things we observe. It does not mean the last word on THE NATURE OF THE WORLD. We tend to think that the "laws" of science are inviolate, though in truth our formulations are constantly changing, and sometimes the most drastic revisions are needed. It will be obvious, for example, that the familiar "laws of gravity" can only address a limited range of phenomena, and in the forms customarily expressed these "laws" actually invite contradictions. Any high school physics student can see the problem posed by photographs of galactic and globular cluster structures, where spiral arms are visible but the stars farther out along the arms rotate around the center at a higher velocity than those closer in--not the condition predicted by Newton's laws! Globular clusters are smaller spheroidal galaxies in which either the stars just "sit there" without falling in towards the center as Newton's gravity demands, or they rotate around the center at all angles to each other, a condition which should produce one "smashing" occasion after another. To be sure, astrophysicists are STILL looking for answers to these dilemmas, but they are conducting their investigation within a paradigm that will not survive another generation. The conventional understanding of our own planetary history poses a closely-related challenge. There is overwhelming evidence that the human past has been profoundly misunderstood by modern science. Yet the first response to well-researched and well-documented but NEW ways of seeing planetary history will typically be "that's impossible!" or "you are contradicting the laws of physics!" How easily we forget that, in a thousand ways, currently-observed phenomena contradict "laws of physics' as earlier stated. To put it in the simplest and bluntest of terms, there is much more to the history of our solar system than Newtonian gravity operating across empty space. ----------------------------------------------- VELIKOVSKY AND PLANETARY CATASTROPHE David Talbott (dtalbott at teleport.com) In confronting the strange consistency of planetary mythology one must ultimately ask the question asked more than 45 years ago by Immanuel Velikovsky, author of _World in Collision_. At the heart of Velikovsky's controversial thesis was a seemingly outrageous idea. He claimed that _planets_, moving on quite different courses than observed today, formerly disturbed the motions of the Earth and caused great destruction to ancient nations. These extraordinary events, Velikovsky claimed, are recorded in ancient chronicles, myths and rites around the world, sources that are simply incomprehensible in terms of celestial motions today. Velikovsky contended that the planet Venus, just a few thousand years ago, possessed a spectacular, comet-like "tail" , and its orbit intersected that of the Earth. .Though Velikovsky's interest in the subject began with a reading of biblical accounts of the Exodus period, the plagues of Egypt, and the spectacles of the wandering in the desert, what led to his startling conclusions was a thorough cross-referencing with global myths of disaster--stories in which the agent of catastrophe takes the form of a great comet or flaming dragon, a body consistently identified with the _planet_ Venus. Velikovsky also argued that the planet Mars, in the eighth and seventh centuries before the present era, moved on an erratic course, disrupting the Earth. Celestial upheavals caused by the unstable movements of Mars, according to Velikovsky, are the true reason why Mars appears in ancient records as a great war god, shaking the heavens and producing general pestilence and devastation. Additionally, in a brief unpublished manuscript, Velikovsky made an extraordinary claim about the planet Saturn. He claimed that during a remote epoch remembered around the world as the Golden Age, the planet Saturn was the dominant body in the sky of the terrestrial observer. For the simple answer to the question of Velikovsky's place in the history of science, you can ignore almost everything else you may have heard about the heretic. Why? Because, if Velikovsky was as wrong on the fundamentals as critics would have us believe, then nothing could be more wasteful than spending any time at all on the subject. But if Velikovsky was even _close_ in his discernment of planetary instability and catastrophe, he is one of the true intellectual pioneers of the twentieth century. It really is that simple. Of course the stakes are high here, because if Velikovsky was right in any fundamental sense, then the treatment of Velikovsky by an arrogant and thoughtless scientific elite will be exposed as exactly what Velikovsky's supporters have claimed--a horrifying picture of business as usual within the scientific establishment. The fact that major theoretical edifices would collapse under the impact of anything resembling Velikovsky's revelations is not a small matter either--a consideration one could hardly ignore in examining the rampant psychology of denial in conventional treatments of Velikovsky. So who was Velikovsky? Here's a common-sense suggestion. When someone claiming knowledge on the subject issues a sweeping dismissal of Velikovsky, the first thing you might ask yourself is whether the speaker could be an ignoramus or fool masquerading as a historian. It's a fact: Velikovsky commanded the respect of intellectual giants of the twentieth century, a respect clearly demonstrated by his friendship and scholarly discourses with the likes of Claude Schaeffer, one of the deans of modern archaeology; the eminent geologist, Harry Hess of Princeton University; Horace Kallen, founder of the respected New School for Social Research in New York; the esteemed Robert Pfeiffer of Harvard University; the pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud; and of course Albert Einstein, who edited the physics and mathematics sections of Velikovsky's publication _Scriptas Universitatis_. But was Velikovsky himself a physicist or astronomer? No. His training was in law, economics, history and medicine. Did he pretend to be a physicist or astronomer? No. But intensive historical research did lead him to believe that physicists and astronomers have failed to understand the history of the solar system. Moreover, as stated by the leading astronomers Archie Roy, Lloyd Motz and Valentin Bargmann--and more recently by Victor Clube (Oxford department of astrophysics) and the astronomer Tom Van Flandern--Velikovsky did show a remarkable ability to converse with specialists outside his own field, even the ability to expose certain weaknesses or anticipate unexpected discoveries in other fields. Not one of these astronomers, it must be added, embraced Velikovsky's comet Venus or anything like the planetary instability claimed by Velikovsky, but in no case did any of them engage in the kind of belittling commentary that seems always to lead the way when the dimmer lights of science begin to expound on Velikovsky. In the years since publication of Worlds in Collision a relatively small group of researchers--some well-accredited academically and some working entirely as outsiders, but all inspired to investigate questions first raised by Velikovsky--has produced interesting and highly significant results. The work ranges from the study of physical markers consistent with interplanetary upheavals, to the systematic exploration of the great ritual and symbolic traditions of the ancient world. All told, the work raises issues that urgently need to be addressed in a forum free of prejudicial rhetoric and posturing. Keep in mind that not just Velikovsky's conclusions, but his entire theoretical approach, challenged conventional ideas. He insisted that events remembered by ancient peoples _count as evidence_. When far flung cultures preserve the same distinct, but highly unusual memory, or employ quite different symbols to tell the _same_ extraordinary story, there must be an explanation we have overlooked . Velikovsky saw in ancient literature, with its pervasive imagery of cosmic disaster and improbable monsters in the sky, a story of planets out of control, and he claimed that the collective records of early man will permit a reconstruction of the crucial events, if only we will suspend our judgment long enough to rigorously assess the material from a new vantage point. And keep in mind as well that Velikovsky's argument for large-scale catastrophe was offered in 1950, at a time when astronomers and geologists were entirely captivated by uniformitarian models, in which catastrophes played virtually no significant role in the history of the solar system, in the history of the Earth, or man's own past. So we have to ask ourselves: under the weight of space age discovery, has it been Velikovsky, or his critics, that have had to give the most ground? Who could deny that, by comparison with the intellectual environment of 1950, the affected sciences have moved dramatically toward more catastrophist models, sounding more Velikovskian every year? But what about Velikovsky's use of ancient mythical, religious and historical material--a body of evidence the scientific elite, in the 1950's, considered to be ludicrous? Well it seems that even this remaining chasm between Velikovsky and established science is closing. Consider, for example, the work of the British astronomers, Victor Clube and Bill Napier, authors of The Cosmic Serpent, and Cosmic Winter, offering a theory of cometary catastrophe that not only sounds a lot like Velikovsky, but is Velikovskian in more ways than one--even in its broad use of ancient myth and symbolism as _evidence_. These respected astronomers bring to their argument a great deal of scientific credibility. Recently, for example, the eminent astronomer, Fred Hoyle, expressed personal support for the Clube and Napier general thesis. What Clube and Napier have done is write a Velikovskian thesis of cometary catastrophe in historical times while replacing the comet Venus with the known comet Encke, thereby removing the potential embarrassment posed by Velikovsky's _planetary_ "comet." In the process they have created for themselves a different set of unanswered questions: 1) why do ancient sources repeatedly identify the intruder with the planet Venus? and 2) why do so many _global_ aspects of the story refuse to fit a theory based on the comet Encke? (Much has already been published outlining universal imagery of the "Great Comet" that simply cannot be explained by the comet Encke, under any conceivable scenario. I can only urge the intellectually curious to begin with the publication AEON: A Journal on Myth and Science.) Issues of this sort are moving science inexorably toward a final reckoning on the Velikovsky question. If Clube and Napier's use of previously forbidden evidence (ancient chronicles) is accepted, there will be just one core issue remaining. And if that issue is answered in Velikovsky's favor--as I am certain it will be--the final victory will be Velikovsky's even if, on the way to victory, he erred a hundred times and more. This issue is: did the planet Venus, only a few thousand years ago, appear as a comet-like form in the sky, moving close to the earth and contributing to _remembered_ upheavals? All that is needed here is an appropriate methodology allowing the researcher to apply common-sense rules of logic and demonstration. If Venus' did, in fact, once roam the skies in anything like the fashion Velikovsky suggested, this attribute would--beyond a shadow of a doubt--show up in the ancient language and mythical images of Venus, even though the images would have no relationship to Venus' appearance in our sky today. What a fascinating juncture this is! After more than forty five years, the challenge sparked by Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision has come down to an issue on which the evidence is overwhelming. If I speak with assurance on this, it is because I have (along with fellow researcher Ev Cochrane) spent many years examining the images of Venus around the world. And I can say without the slightest equivocation that wherever astronomical traditions of Venus are preserved in any detail, Venus is the mythical Great Comet, appearing in the sky at a time of world-destroying catastrophe. You will find this identity confirmed from Mexico and Peru to ancient Greece and Rome, from ancient China to even more ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Long-haired star. Bearded Star. Smoking star. Torch star. Feathered star. Cosmic serpent or dragon. In fact, literally all of the astronomical hieroglyphs for "the comet" are _simultaneously_ attached to Venus and to the revered great goddess, who _is_ Venus in the first astronomies. To apply common-sense rules of logic, one should start with the obvious: 1) the symbols cited above are the acknowledged, most frequently- employed hieroglyphs for the comet in the ancient world, and 2) the _only_ astronomical phenomenon answering to these glyphs is the comet. Additionally, as a matter of simple logic, the attachment of these distinct comet glyphs to Venus must be considered alongside the _convergence_ of these glyphs on a biologically impossible monster-- the bearded serpent, long-haired serpent, flaming serpent, fire-breathing serpent, and feathered serpent. In none of these instances could phenomena observed today account for the incongruous motifs, which occur again and again throughout the ancient world. But let the comet glyphs mean what they meant in the ancient languages themselves, and the incongruity vanishes. Should it surprise us that one acknowledged comet glyph would be brought into conjunction with another comet glyph? And will anyone propose with a straight face that these universal comet images could have found their inspiration in the quiet and regular motions of Venus today? (Just in case the point is missed: the comet as celestial serpent or dragon, and the comet as long-haired star leads to the simple and undeniable identity of the comet as the long-haired serpent, etc. If, as a matter of curiosity, you will investigate the incredible extent to which ancient language, in seeming denial of nature, combined words and images for "serpent" and for "hair", you will begin to sense how deeply the roots of civilization itself were shaped by experiences the modern world failed to understand. In the Egyptian language, for example, numerous, words mean, at once, "hair" and "serpent", a fact which the conventional schools could only explain as a ridiculous coincidence. And by such an explanation they must ignore the _worldwide_ juxtaposition of hair and serpent in myth, language and religious symbolism. Try as you may, you will never find an explanation for this apart from the global identity of the "long-haired star"/Great Comet with the cosmic serpent/Great Comet) To see the integrity in the ancient profile of the Great Comet is to simply take the first step. Even more stunning is the inseparable link of these Venus images to the larger themes of ancient myth and ritual. Velikovsky's comet Venus is, in fact, a key to the substructure, enabling us to re-envision human history and the history of the solar system in ways never anticipated by established science. In the end, many revisions in Velikovsky's reconstruction will be necessary, but none of these revisions will diminish the stature of the pioneer. ---------------------------------------------- TETHERED SATELLITE DEBACLE Wal Thornhill (walt at netinfo.com.au) I mentioned this interesting cockup at the World Conference in January as a good example of the naive view that scientists have of the Earth's environment. The report is attached. The current dogma is that the Earth's magnetosphere is created by the Earth's intrinsic magnetic field and traps plasma to form a buffer against the buffeting of the solar wind. However, I believe that Ralph Juergens, Earl Milton and others are correct when they attribute electric charge to the planets and the Sun. With this single, simple assumption, backed up by myriad observations, the Earth's magnetosphere is plainly a PLASMASPHERE, which is formed to shield a charged body from the surrounding plasma. The Earth's magnetic field is then an effect of the rotating, charged Earth, rather than a cause of the magnetosphere. A plasmasphere has a strong radial electric field, with a voltage drop equal to the difference between the Earth and the solar plasma. As an indication, the clear air field at the Earth's surface is about 500volts/meter. (This field has been a long-standing puzzle). Along come some bright sparks who decide that they could provide electric power for satellites by running a long wire out radially away from the Earth, while orbiting at 17,000 miles/hr. The wire would cut the Earth's magnetic field and, hey presto, you have a simple electric generator. What they didn't count on was the radial electric field. Even if it is conservatively estimated at 500 volts/metre, by the time you have reeled out 20km of wire you have 10 million volts being short-circuited! Now, the plasma in space being very tenuous, it puts up with this insult until breakdown suddenly occurs and the tether is vaporized - which is precisely what happened. But what does the NASA report say? "The arcing occurred because either external foreign object penetration (but not orbital debris or micrometeoroids) or a defect in the tether caused a breach in the layer of insulation surrounding the tether conductor." I don't believe it would have mattered much how good the insulation was. An indication that they were heading for trouble was the-- "arcing, which began in an intricate part of the Tethered Satellite System known as the lower tether control mechanism, sputtered intermittently for nine seconds as the moving tether passed through deployer mechanisms and then into the boom area of the tether system. At the time, tether was continuing to play out at one meter per second, or slightly more than three feet per second." An odd phenomena was observed from Earth after the tethered satellite broke away. It was observed glowing like a neon sign, in the shape of a giant question mark! The glow of the fine wire tether is also explicable in terms of the electrical nature of the plasmasphere. Wal Thornhill -------------------------------------------------------------- RELEASE: 96-112 TETHERED SATELLITE INVESTIGATION REPORT IS RELEASED NASA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) today released the report of the investigative board appointed to determine factors which resulted in the Feb. 25 tether break and loss of the Tethered Satellite during the STS-75 Space Shuttle mission. Findings of the board, included in a 358-page document, identified primary causes which accounted for the tether break during deployment of the Tethered Satellite. "The tether failed as a result of arcing and burning of the tether, leading to a tensile failure after a significant portion of the tether had burned away," the report concludes. The arcing occurred because either external foreign object penetration (but not orbital debris or micrometeoroids) or a defect in the tether caused a breach in the layer of insulation surrounding the tether conductor. The insulation breach provided a path for the current to jump, or arc, from the copper wire in the tether to a nearby electrical ground. The board found that the arcing burned away most of the tether material at that location, leading to separation of the tether from tensile or pulling force. The break occurred when approximately 12.2 miles (19.7 km) of tether was unreeled, in a period when the tether was experiencing normal stresses of approximately 15 pounds (65 newtons). In addition to the two primary causes for the tether break, the board cited, as one contributing factor, that "the degree of vulnerability of the tether insulation to damage was not fully appreciated." The board noted that the actual environment that the tether was exposed to in flight made it more vulnerable to damage than was expected. And, it noted that the high voltages under which the system was operating could, over a period of time, have reduced the ability of the tether insulation to withstand electrical breakdown due to contamination found in the tether. "The tether itself was a remarkable engineering achievement," said Ken Szalai, who chaired the investigative board, "and produced some startling scientific discoveries." Scientific papers recently presented at an American Geophysical Union conference reported that currents generated by the tether were three times higher than theoretical models had predicted prior to the flight. "Constructing a tether that was strong, lightweight and electrically conducting took the project into technical and engineering areas where they had never been before," said Szalai. "Now, with 20/20 hindsight, they know where the system is vulnerable and can improve the design." The Tethered Satellite System is a joint NASA-ASI system that was flown aboard Space Shuttle Columbia in an experiment to better understand the electrically charged environment of Earth's ionosphere, and how tether systems behave in it. ASI had the responsibility of providing the satellite, while NASA had the responsibility of the Deployer, which includes the tether, and the overall responsibility for payload integration and operations. The provision of science investigations was shared by ASI and NASA. The system was generating 3,500 volts DC and up to 0.5 amps of current during satellite deployment. That high level of electrical energy resulted from the length of conducting tether extending from the Shuttle, coupled with the 17,500- mile-per-hour speed at which the Shuttle and tether were cutting through Earth's magnetic field lines. The board found sufficient evidence to identify two possible causes of the breach in the insulation -- foreign object damage, or a defect in the tether itself. Debris and contamination found in the deployer mechanisms and in the tether itself could have been pushed into the insulation layer while the tether was still wound on its reel. The investigation found evidence of damage to copper wire in the tether, and also established that normal forces on the tether while on the reel could push a single copper strand or foreign debris through the insulation. The arcing, which began in an intricate part of the Tethered Satellite System known as the lower tether control mechanism, sputtered intermittently for nine seconds as the moving tether passed through deployer mechanisms and then into the boom area of the tether system. At the time, tether was continuing to play out at one meter per second, or slightly more than three feet per second. "This arcing produced significant burning of most of the tether material in the area of the arc," the board found. The tether was designed to carry up to 15,000 volts DC and handle tensile forces of up to 400 pounds (1780 newtons). It used super-strong strands of Kevlar as a strength-providing member, wound around the copper and insulation. However, postflight inspection of the tether end which remained aboard Columbia showed it to be charred. The board concluded that after arcing had burned through most of the Kevlar, the few remaining strands were not enough to withstand forces being exerted by satellite deployment. Extensive, rigorous tests performed in support of the investigation established that undamaged tether would not arc, even when subjected to electrical potentials much higher than the 3500 volts experienced during the mission. The board was able to exonerate a number of factors which clearly did not cause the break. These factors include the satellite, the science equipment hardware and operations, which were being conducted prior to the break, in addition to micrometeoroids or orbital debris impact, and electrical storm activity. The investigation panel made several detailed recommendations which it said should be followed for any future space missions involving electrodynamic tether systems such as that flown aboard Columbia. These include more precautions to ensure any such tether systems in the future do not suffer from possible debris or contamination damage and specific attention during design to minimize the possibility of high-voltage arcing. The board offered, in the form of observations, its assessment that the STS-75 tether problem "is not indicative of any fundamental problem in using electrodynamic tethers." It also noted that in spite of the break, a "significant amount" of scientific data was obtained from the Tethered Satellite operations during STS-75. The nine-member independent review panel was formed in consultation with ASI and appointed by NASA's Associate Administrator for the Office of Space Flight, Wilbur Trafton, shortly after the tether break. The board was chaired by Ken Szalai, director of the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, and included representation from NASA and the ASI. -end- ----------------------------------------------- THOTH readers may be interested in the new book below. The Genesis of Israel and Egypt by Emmet John Sweeney The Genesis of Israel and Egypt proposes a radically new view of ancient history and the forces that shaped it. The book begins with the great flood which has been recorded in the traditions of virtually the entire human race. However, as the author clearly explains, a flaw in the methodology has resulted in contemporary events being placed centuries apart. Details on the Web at: http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/sweeney/ Submitted by Ian Tresman ----------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE-- http://www.kronia.com/~kronia/ Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: http://www.ames.net/aeon/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/xxx/cat/velikovskian/ http://www.access.digex.net/~medved/Catastrophism.html http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.tcel.com/~mike/paper.html http://nt.e-z.net/mikamar/default.html ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging field of astral catastrophics. Our initial focus will be on a reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in relation to a new theory of planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation. We welcome your comments and responses. New readers are referred to earlier installments in issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above. Go to the THOTH page and click on the image titled "Thoth: the Egyptian God of Knowledge" to access the back issues. Michael Armstrong Mikamar Publishing mikamar at e-z.net