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The Incredible Cataclysm

Noah’s FLOOD –
a Warning for OUR
Generation!
Was the Noachian Deluge a local or regional Flood in the
Middle East? Is it just an ancient myth or superstition?
Was it truly global and universal in scope? What does the
real EVIDENCE show? What significance does it hold
for OUR generation, at the END of this age?

William F. Dankenbring

Was Noah’ Flood for Real? Did it really happen?

Was there a period of catastrophism commencing prior to the time of Adam and
re-occurring until the time of Noah, culminating in a massive Deluge?

An ancient tradition of the Incas says that the third age of man ended in a cosmic
disaster – a flood. One such legend states that a shepherd and his family were warned
that the world would shortly be destroyed by a deluge. The shepherd collected his llamas
and children and took them to the summit of the mountain Ancasmarca. At that moment
the sea broke its boundaries and rushed over the land, filling valleys, covering plains,
lasting for five days. On the 5th day the waters began to subside and the stars to
reappear.

Another ancient tradition from the Leeward islands declares that Ruahatu, the
ocean god, was sleeping when a fisherman’s hook became entangled in his hair. The
roused god rose to the surface, upbraided the fisherman, and warned he was going to
destroy the whole wicked land. When the fisherman repented of his deed, the angry god
forgave him and directed him to proceed to “a small island where he, his wife and child,
would be safe.” Thereupon the ocean rose, and the next morning only the tops of the
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mountains appeared above the sea. Soon these were covered and all the inhabitants of
the land perished, with the sole exception of the fisherman and his family.

A tradition of the Fiji Islands mentions that a great rain took place, by which the
islands were finally submerged, but before the highest places were covered, two large
double canoes appeared. Rokova, the god of carpenters, and Rokola, his head
Workman, were in them, and picked up some of the people and rescued them from the
flood waters. Those saved were eight in number.

The Papagos, an Indian tribe in northwestern Mexico, relate that there was a
great flood from which Montezuma, a divine hero, escaped, having been warned of its
coming by a coyote. Montezuma hollowed out a boat for himself, so he would ready for
the deluge.

Declared the native Mexican historian Ixtlilxochitl: “It is found in the histories
of the Toltecs that this age and the first world, as they call it, lasted 1,716 years; that men
were destroyed by tremendous rains and lightning from the sky, and even all the land,
without the exception of anything, and the highest mountains were covered by and
submerged in water fifteen cubits (caxtolmolatli); and here they add other fables of how
men came to multiply from the few who escaped from this destruction in
‘toptlipetlocali,’ which nearly signifies a closed chest; and how after men had multiplied,
they erected a very high ‘zacuali,’ which is today a tower of great height, in order to take
refuge in it should the second world (age) be destroyed” (Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge
Story in Stone, p.186).

A very ancient Aztec flood legend, translated from the Code Chimalpopoca,
states that during the Sun Age all mankind was lost and drowned and turned to fishes.

“The waters and the sky drew near each other. . . . The mountains were
swallowed up in the flood. . . . But before the flood began, Titlachahuan had warned the
man Nota and his wife Nena, saying, ‘Make no more pulque, but hollow a great cypress
into which you shall enter in the month Tozoztli. The waters shall near the sky.’ They
entered, and when Titlachahuan had shut them in he said to the man, ‘Thou shalt eat but
a single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also.’ And when they had each eaten one ear
of maize; they prepared to go forth, for the water was tranquil.”

The oldest flood legend of India is found in the Rig Veda, in a collection of
ancient Hindu poems and hymns. A fish tells Manu if he protects the fish, and returns
him to the ocean when of full size, he will protect Manu from a great deluge which will
sweep away all creatures.

Other deluge traditions come from the American Indians and Eskimos. The
Kolushes of Alaska have a tradition that formerly the father of the Indian tribes lived
toward the rising sun. Warned in a dream that a deluge would desolate the earth, he built
a raft and saved himself, family, and all animals, floating for several months on the
water (ibid., p.182).
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Another Eskimo tribe had this tradition: The water poured over the terrestrial
disk, human dwellings disappeared. The wind carried them away. Men fastened several
boats to one another. The waves traversed the Rocky Mountains. A great wind drove
the boats. Presently the moon and the earth disappeared. Men died of a terrible heat.
They also perished in the waves.

Amazing for its clarity is the Hawaiian tradition. The natives of Hawaii say that
the earth became careless of worship and very wicked. Only one man was righteous, a
man named Nu-u. He made a great canoe with a house on it and stored it with food,
taking plants and animals on board. The flood waters came up and destroyed all mankind
except Nu-u and his family (Fornander, Abraham, An Account of the Polynesian Race,
Its Origin and Migrations, p.98-99).

An ancient Chinese legend relates that Fu hi, the reputed founder of Chinese
civilization, escaped the waters of a deluge and reappeared as the first man at the
reproduction of a renovated world, with his wife, three sons and three daughters.

Other flood legends similar to the Noachian epic recounted in the Bible exist
among the Voguls in the Ural Mountains of Russia, the Laplanders, Norwegians, the
Welsh, Lithuanians, the Assyrians and Babylonians. The Latin poet Ovid tells how
Jupiter destroyed the impious race of men sprung from the blood of the Titans by a great
flood. Manetho, an Egyptian historian who lived about 250 B.C., states that there was a
worldwide watery catastrophe in which one called Toth was saved.

The first mention of a Flood in Greek literature is found in the Odes of Pindar
(522-433 B.C.). In the Greek traditions, Deucalion and Pyrrha, his wife, come down
from Mt. Parnassus where the ark is supposed to have landed. Another Greek tradition
relates that Ogyges, the oldest king of Boetia, escaped “with companions in a boat from
a deluge which reached to the sky.” Many other fascinating legends, traditions and local
beliefs relate similar stories of an ancient flood that occurred during the time of man.

Why do all the races of mankind have traditions of a great deluge during the
history of mankind if such an event did not occur?

Why did pagan writers such as Ovid, Pindar, Appollodorus, Manetho, the scoffer
Lucian, all recount legends of a universal Deluge? They certainly did not desire to
establish any biblical record or statement. The existence universally of stories about a
terrible Flood which destroyed all mankind is a remarkable witness to the truth of the
Genesis account.

What History Reveals

The ancient Sumerians, who dwelt in the modern area of Arabia and
Mesopotamia, had extensive legends and stories about a great flood which came upon the
earth, in many respects paralleling the biblical account. The Sumerians, however, called
Noah by the name Xisouthros. He was also called Ziusudra. The legend says God told
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him, “a flood will sweep over the cult-centers; to destroy the seed of mankind. . . .” The
story appears on the fragment of a Sumerian tablet found at Nippur .

Says the tablet: “All the windstorms, exceedingly powerful, attacked as one. At
the same time, the flood sweeps over the cult-centers. After, for seven days and seven
nights, the flood had swept over the land, and the huge boat had been tossed about by the
windstorms on the great waters. . . .”

Old Babylonian traditions also relate the story of a great flood. However, they
called Noah by the name Utnapishtim, which means “Day of Life.” The Babylonian
Noah was told by God, “Tear down this house, build a ship! . . . Aboard the ship take
thou the seed of all living things. The ship that thou shalt build, her dimensions shall be
to measure. Equal shall be her width and her length.”

The Biblical Account

In the book of Genesis, we read this simple, poignant, gripping story: “In the six
hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month,
on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the
heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights” (Genesis
7:11-12, RSV).

The “fountains of the great deep” are called “the subterranean waters” in the
Living Bible. The New English Bible translates it this way: “all the springs of the great
abyss broke through.”

We read: “The flood continued forty days upon the earth; and the waters
increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and
increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the
waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under the whole
heaven were covered; the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen
cubits (roughly 22 feet) deep. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle,
beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm upon the earth, and every man; everything on
the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living
thing that was upon the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and
birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that
were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty
days” (Genesis 7: 11-24, RSV).

Ark’s Whereabouts Known in Jesus’ Day

There is much more evidence to substantiate biblical history and the account of
the Flood than the legends and stories of scattered nations of mankind – though they
themselves are impressive. Even in Jesus’ time the Ark and its whereabouts was known
to the nations of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region.
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Flavius Josephus in his epochal book Antiquities of the Jews declared: “Now all
the writers of barbarian histories make mention of this flood, and of this ark; among
whom is Berosus the Chaldean. For when he is describing the circumstances of the
flood, he goes on thus: ‘It is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia, at the
mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen,
which they take away, and use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs.’
Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities, and Mnaseas, and
a great many more, make mention of the same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his
ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them; where he speaks thus: ‘There is
a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that
many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an
ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great
while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses the legislator of the Jews
wrote. . .’”

Tremendous globe-shaking catastrophes which destroyed much of life on earth

would not be quickly forgotten, by the affected peoples of the world. The story of the
Flood has survived for about 5,000 years, and is still going strong. It can be found in the
traditions and legends in some form in more than 200 different cultures, past and
present. These accounts are truly global in nature. Flood accounts are found in the far
north, among the Eskimos, among the Siberian peoples, in Finland and Iceland. In the
south, similar legends are found among the Maori of New Zealand, the Australian
aborigines, and the natives at Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America.

Dr. Arthur C. Custance, fellow of the Canadian Royal Anthropological Institute,

who has authored 52 treatises relating to ancient history, archaeology and Biblical
history, has studied in detail the massive amount of cultural accounts relating to the
Noachian Flood. In “Flood Traditions of the World,” he points out that although the
accounts often differ widely, they are in accord in four basic respects:

“1. The cause was a ‘moral’ one. Man brought the Flood on himself either by his
disobedience or because of lack of piety and reverence. In all the Flood accounts, with
the one notable exception – the Flood tradition from Egypt – the catastrophe comes as a
judgment.

“2. They speak of one man who is warned of the coming catastrophe and thus
saves not only himself but also his family or his friends. Forewarning is always given in
some way. In the Biblical account, Noah is warned by revelation in a manner which is
clear and reasonable if we allow that God is able to communicate with man.

“3. The world was depopulated except for these few survivors, from whom the
present people of the world were derived. None of the flood accounts leaves one with
the impression that the survivors named subsequently met any other survivors to form a
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new community for the repopulating of the area. They alone escaped in every case
creating strong evidence for a universal flood rather than a local flood.

“4. Animals play a part either in conveying the warning, in providing the
transportation to safety, or in giving information about the state of things after the Flood
had subsided. Very frequently birds are mentioned in the accounts. The use of birds in
antiquity and in modern times as navigational aids has been very widespread.” (Quoted
in Patten, A Symposium on Creation, p.9-10).

Lending further authenticity to the Biblical account, says Dr . Custance, is the

fact that in extra-Biblical accounts the survivors always land on a local mountain. But in
the Hebrew account the Ark lands far from Palestine, in a distant country. Declares
Custance: “This is an unusual circumstance because all other Flood accounts report that
the Ark landed locally. In Greece, on Mount Parnassus; in India, in the Himalayas; and
in America, one ancient Indian account has it landing on Keddie Peak in the
Sacramento Valley. Everywhere the same – always a local mountain.” He continues:
“This circumstance surely suggests that here in the Bible we have the genuine account.
And it also underscores the great respect that the Hebrew people had for the Word of
God and the requirement that they never tamper with it. It would surely, otherwise,
have been most natural for them to land the Ark on their most famous mountain, Mount
Zion.”

Some of the widespread accounts agree with the Biblical account that eight souls
survived. A number of accounts give extraordinarily graphic details of such incidental
events to the Flood as must have accompanied it. Although the Biblical account, based
on the first-hand observations and records kept by Noah himself, seems matter-of-fact,
and contains no embellishments, one cuneiform text tells of bodies floating about like
logs in the water.

Dr. Custance continues: “The great majority of these flood accounts have in
common, as we have seen, only four basic elements. All other details – the nature of the
warning, the escape ‘vessel,’ the part played by animals, and so forth – differ in such a
way that borrowing from the Biblical record is virtually excluded altogether.”

“These native traditions of the flood,” says Dr. Custance, “are undoubtedly
recollections from the very distant past of an event which was so stupendous that it was
never forgotten, even though the details themselves became blurred, with local color-
ing restoring what had faded. In a sense, therefore, all these stories are in agreement,
though in fact, they are often as different in detail as it is possible to imagine. In a court
of law the testimony of witnesses who both agree and disagree in this fashion is
considered to be a more powerful witness to the central truth than would be complete
concord, for in the nature of the case collaboration is manifestly excluded.”
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One of the most ancient and most remarkable corroborative testimonies to the
great flood was found on a clay tablet in an ancient library excavated at Nineveh. This
tablet came from the reign of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-627 B.C.). The library
contained 100,000 clay tablets, sealed and forgotten until the site was uncovered by
archaeologists in the 1850s. In this particular clay tablet, Ashurbanipal himself
mentioned: “I have read the artistic script of Sumer on the back of Akkadian, which is
hard to master. Now I take pleasure in the reading of the stones coming from before the
flood.”

Also first unearthed at the Nineveh site was the famous Gilgamesh flood epic.
Various versions of the flood epic have since been found at other places, but the
Gilgamesh Epic is still the most famous of these accounts. Like the Biblical account,
the Gilgamesh epic states the flood was divinely planned. Both agree that the
impending Flood was divinely revealed to the hero of the account. Both agree the
Deluge was sent as punishment upon a wicked human race. Both agree the hero and his
family were delivered. Both agree the hero was divinely instructed to build a huge
vessel to preserve life. Both accounts indicate the physical causes of the Deluge. Both
specify the duration of the Flood, though they disagree in the length of the Flood. Both
name the landing place. Both tell of sending out birds to determine the decrease of
waters. Both describe acts of worship of the hero following deliverance. And both
accounts speak of special blessings upon the hero after the catastrophe.

Among the most impressive accounts of the Noachian deluge are those coming
down to us from the ancient Chinese. A flood of devastating force is said to have
occurred around 2300 B.C. (one account says 2297 B.C.). An overflowing of the great
rivers caused the flood, according to the story. Fah-Le, the Chinese hero, escaped the
destruction with his wife and three children.

Other traditions about the universal Flood in China maintain that all Chinese are
descendants of “Nu-wah,” an ancient ancestor who became famous by surviving a great
flood.

But of all the flood accounts, the Biblical account is by far simplest, the best, the
most reliable. Wrote Sir William Dawson, a historian of the nineteenth century, in The
Story of the Earth and Man (London, 1880): “I have long thought that the narrative in
Genesis 7 and 8 can be understood only on the supposition that it is a contemporary
journal or log of an eye-witness incorporated by the author of Genesis in his work. The
dates of the rising and fall of the water, the note of soundings over the hilltops when the
maximum was attained, and many other details as well as the whole tone of the
narrative, seem to require this supposition.”

The cause of the universal flood, the specific agent which precipitated the
Deluge, has never been identified conclusively. Although the Bible simply states that
God brought on the flood to destroy a wicked, erring humanity, the actual cause for the
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subterranean deeps to break up, and for the waters of the ocean to gush over the land
masses of the earth, covering them completely, has gone undetected and remains an
intriguing mystery of the ages.

Speculation, however, is of course rampant. And most authorities seem to agree

that the spark that set off the flood had to be extra-terrestrial in origin. Dr. Frederick
Filby in The Flood Reconsidered suggests that a canopy of water hung over the pre-
Flood world. Many Biblical scholars assert that the pre-Flood world’s atmosphere was
canopied by a layer of water vapor, creating a greenhouse effect on the planet.
Temperatures throughout the earth, they say, were remarkably similar, and tropical
plants and life forms even thrived in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

Support for the water vapor canopy theory comes from the book of Genesis
itself, chapter 1, verses 6- 7: “And God said, Let there be a firmament (expansion) in the
midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the
firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters
which were above the firmament: and it was so.”

A canopy of water vapor around the earth would have had very important
corollary effects upon life on earth. It would have moderated fluctuations in temperature
change, and produced a “greenhouse” type of world. Harmful ultraviolet radiation from
the sun would have been largely filtered out before it reached the earth, thus enabling
men to live much longer lives. The traditions of several ancient peoples, aside from the
Biblical record, indicates that in a long gone era men lived for hundreds of years.
Methuselah, the Bible records matter-of-factly, lived to the ripe old age of 969. The
indication from Genesis is that humans matured much more slowly and were often over
one hundred years old before they married and had children (Genesis 5:6, 9, 12, 15, 18,
28).

Says geographer Donald Patten, “It is proposed that the water vapor canopy was
3,000 to 5,000 feet thick, and ranged between 5,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level.
The pre-Flood atmosphere also is suspected to have contained from 6 to 8 times as much
carbon dioxide as the present atmosphere. Both carbon dioxide and water vapor are
efficient at capturing long wave radiation, which happens to be the kind our planet’s
crust gives off. Hence, in the lower atmosphere, pre-Flood conditions existed in which
the Earth lost very little of its long wave radiation, its heat. Indeed, it retained almost all.
The temperatures of the Earth’s surface, it is suspected, were warm on a pole-to-pole
basis, and the oceans were similarly warm in high latitudes as well as in low latitudes.”

A Few Facts about the Ark

But could an Ark have been built large enough to preserve the fauna of the
earth? Skeptics and agnostics for ages have lavished ridicule upon the very notion.
However, a few facts will show that it is entirely possible.
Notice a few facts about the size of the Ark mentioned in the Bible. We read in
Genesis, chapter 6, God told Noah: “Make thee an ark of gopher wood [many think this
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cedar or cypress; cypress was anciently used in ship-building and abounded in Assyria;
the exact meaning of “gopher wood,” however, is not known – the word is nowhere
else used in Scripture]; rooms [nests or compartments] shalt thou make in the ark, and
shalt pitch it within and without with pitch bitumen]. And this is the fashion which
thou shalt make it of: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of
it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits” (Gen.6:14-15).
How long is a cubit? The standard cubit – the length from the “elbow to the tip
of the middle finger” – was about 18 inches. At this measurement, the Ark would have
been 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. However, one ancient cubit was
nearly 22 inches long. At this measurement, the Ark would have been 547 feet long, 91
feet wide and 54 feet high.
Another ancient Hebrew cubit would have been about 25 inches long, making
the Ark 600 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 60 feet high.
Just what cubit Noah used in making the Ark, is not definitely known.
However, it was a huge vessel, even by modern-day standards of ship-building.
Using the smallest cubit, the Ark’s volume would have been 1,396,000 cubit
feet – a carrying capacity equal to 522 standard stock cars used by modern railroads –
or eight freight trains with sixty-five cars in each one. However, if the 25 inch cubit
was used, the volume of the Ark would have been 3,600,000 cubic feet-equal to 25
trains, each one 52 cars long.
Some have calculated the tonnage of the Ark to have been between 40,000 and
50,000 tons. Stood on end, it would have been the height of a 45 story building. Only
in modern times have ships of such tremendous size been built.
Was the Ark big enough to preserve animal life? Consider, Noah did not have
to carry any of the 18,000 species of fishes, or 88,000 species of mollusks or 15,000
species of protozoans, and others amounting to a total of 142,000 species of marine
animals. Realistically, he probably carried no more than 35,900 individual vertebrate
animals.
Even if the average size of the animals was the size of a sheep, there would
have been ample room on the Ark. A standard two-decked stock car carries about 120
sheep per deck, or 240 total. To carry 35,000 animals, therefore, only 146 stock cars
would have been necessary – yet even that minimal estimate for the size of the Ark
gives it the capacity of 522 stock cars.
Undoubtedly, Noah had plenty of room to take care of the animals, and had
room left over for food storage, grain, and whatever he needed. There is no reason to
assume he and family were unnecessarily cramped or confined.
But what about physical evidence on the Earth? Does the Earth show signs of
having been submerged in a gigantic Flood? Does it show evidence of dramatic,
awesome catastrophism, such as would have accompanied Noah’s Deluge?
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Creation of Mountains and Rifts

During the Flood, we are told, “And the waters prevailed exceedingly on the
earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The water prevailed
fifteen cubits upward, and the mountains were covered” (Gen.7:19-20). “And all flesh
died that moved on the earth: birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that
creeps on the earth, and every man” (v.21). “So He destroyed all living things which
were on the face of the ground: both men and cattle, creeping thing and bird of the air.
They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah and those who were with him in the
ark remained alive” (v.23).
The Flood is dated by Archbishop Ussher to 2348 B.C. Many have ridiculed
the very idea that waters could prevail over such mountain ranges as the Alps,
Himalayas, and Andes, some peaks which soar upwards of 29,000 feet, almost six
miles above sea level.
Interestingly, however, there is strong evidence that the present mountain
ranges did not reach their current heights until recent times, after the Noachian Deluge.
Scientists studying the Rocky Mountains found to their surprise that for hundreds of
miles they had been thrust up and pushed out many miles over the plains.
The displacement of the Alps was also found to be extensive. The visible rocks
of the northern Alps of Switzerland were shoved northward about 100 miles. Mount
Blanc was moved and the Matterhorn overturned.
Mountains have been found to have traveled uphill and across valleys, even
with masses of granite weighing billions of tons. In the Alps Pleistocene human
remains and artifacts have been found at surprisingly high altitudes.
Remarks Immanuel Velikovsky in Earth in Upheaval, “In recent years evidence
has grown rapidly to show, in contrast to previous opinion, that the Alps and other
mountains rose and attained their present heights, and also traveled long distances, IN
THE AGE OF MAN” (p.73, my emphasis).
Uplifts amounting to many thousands of feet have occurred within the
Pleistocene epoch itself. This occurred with the massive mountain systems of North
and South America, and the Alps-Caucasus-Central Asian mountain systems and many
others.
Says Velikovsky, “The fact of the late upthrust of the major ridges of the world
created, when recognized, great perplexity among geologists who, under the weight of
much evidence, were forced to this view. . . Not only in the age of man but in the age
of historical man, mountains were thrust up, valleys were torn out, lakes were dragged
uphill and emptied. Explorer Bailey Willis wrote about Asian mountains, “The great
mountain chains challenge credulity by their extreme youth” (quoted by Velikovsky
p.73).
What once was conceived of as impossible, therefore, becomes merely a matter
of how and when. Where does the evidence all lead us?
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The Awesome Record in the Rocks

The mountains of evidence is devastating and overwhelming, when carefully
sifted and analyzed. If the frozen gray muck of the Alaskan Peninsula could but speak,
what an eloquent, engrossing, spellbinding tale it could tell!
To the north of Mount McKinley, where the Tanana River joins the Yukon,
prospectors have milled for gold out of the frozen Alaskan gravel and muck. This
strange muck consists largely of the frozen bodies and bones of huge masses of
prehistoric animals and trees. Muck deposits have been found consisting of the
dismembered remains of millions of animals, twisted, splintered, and torn apart by
cyclonic forces. The frozen bones of extinct mammoths, mastodons, super-bisons,
horses, have been found protruding from the miles and miles of muck.

The greatest harvest of the Alaskan gold mines has not been the yellowish
priceless metal that men have industriously slaved after, but the tons and tons of
smashed, ripped up and torn bodies and bones of millions of animals and trees. Bones
of mammoths, mastodons, bison, horses, wolves, bears and lions have been found
within the mass of fine, dark gray muck. Twisted parts of animals and trees have been
discovered intermingled with lenses of ice and layers of peat and mosses.

“It looks as though the middle of some cataclysmic catastrophe of ten thousand
years ago the whole Alaskan world of living animals and plants was suddenly frozen in
mid-motion in a grim charade,” wrote archaeologist Frank C. Hibben in The Lost
Americans (p.118).

The frozen Alaskan muck presents a gripping, nightmarish scene of destruction

and frozen death! In the frozen bank of the Yukon River and its tributaries bones and
tusks of animals have been exposed at all levels. “Whole gravel bars in the muddy river
were formed of the jumbled fragments of animal remains,” writes Hibben. And similar
bone beds have been found in the frozen tundra of Siberia.

What caused the mysterious death of all these creatures? What cataclysm
overwhelmed and buried the Siberian and the Alaskan mammoths? How long ago did it
occur?

The Alaskan muck is virtually a “gold mine” for fossils. Amazingly, the bones
of ancient animals were found to be in a remarkable state of preservation. Says Hibben:

“The frozen muck had preserved, in a remarkable manner, tendons,

ligaments, fragments of skin and hair , hooves, and even, in some
cases, portions of the flesh and bone of these dead animals. In one
place, at Cripple Creek, near Fairbanks, we found the shoulder of a
mammoth with the flesh and skin yet preserved. We tasted the black
and sand-impregnated meat. It was terrible-tasting and gritty. And yet
an Eskimo dog wandered by and ate the stuff readily” (ibid., 121).
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Such a remarkable state of preservation argues forcefully for a comparatively

recent date for the cataclysm that overwhelmed the mammoths.

At one location at Rosey Creek, north of Fairbanks, miners were using a

bulldozer to shove the muck into a sluice box to extract gold. As the bulldozer blade
pushed across the muck, it shoved aside huge piles of mammoth tusks and bones, and as
the sun came up and blazed down from the summer sky, the stench became unbearable.
Hundreds of tons of rotting mammoth flesh could be smelled for miles.

Hibben relates: “Apparently, a whole herd of mammoth had died in this place
and fallen together in a jumbled mass of leg bones, tusks, and mighty skulls, to be frozen
solid and preserved until this day. Only the greed of man for gold had opened up their
long-frozen grave.”

Alaskan Chaos

Continues Hibben in his graphic description:

“Mammals there were in abundance, dumped in all attitudes of death. Most

of them were pulled apart by some unexplained prehistoric catastrophic
disturbance. Legs and torsos and heads and fragments were found together
in piles or scattered separately. But nowhere could we find any definite evidence
that humans had ever walked among these trumpeting herds or had ever seen
their final end.”
The evidence for man’s presence was not long in coming. As the remains of an
Alaskan lion, somewhat reminiscent of a Bengal tiger, was unearthed from the frozen
muck, the excavators stumbled across a flint point still frozen solid in silt.

Standard theory suggests that the Wisconsin glaciation (comparable in time to the
Late Wurm glaciation in Europe) began about 50,000 years ago, or during the time of
Neanderthal man. There were several advances and regressions, culminating in the
Tazewell advance, dated generally 20,000-17,000 years ago. The maximum extension of
the ice, says Dr. Charles Hapgood, “was not earlier than 17,000 years ago and may have
been considerably later.”'

Regardless of the precise time element, at the close of the Ice Age a vast ice cap
covering half a continent and as deep as the Antarctic ice cap is today disappeared,
accompanied by violent volcanic and telluric activity.

At the close of the Pleistocene, gigantic creatures were wiped out en masse. The
great dire wolf, standing six feet high at the shoulders; the saber-toothed tiger; bears
larger than today’s grizzly; giant beavers, as big as a black bear; bison that had horns
extending out over six feet; large camels, pygmy camels, huge pigs and dogs; a ground
sloth as heavy as an elephant which could munch on leaves hanging 20 feet above the
ground; the imperial mammoths and royal mastodons, the former with 13-foot tusks and
a shoulder height of 14 feet; all these were suddenly wiped out.
15

It seems inconceivable that mere ice advances and retreats over many thousands
of years could have accomplished such awesome extinction. But the action of
catastrophism, accompanied by a tremendous deluge, is certainly a plausible
explanation.

Did this incredible violence occur contemporaneous with a gigantic Deluge

during the time of Man?

The Biblical record, and corroborating traditions, legends, myths, and accounts
of peoples around the world, from the Philippines to the Hawaiian islands, from the
ancient Sumerians to the Chinese, from the Polynesians to the American Indians,from
the Incas to the ancient Greeks, THUNDER FORTH unanimous testimony that long,
long ago there was a horrendous global catastrophe which included a tremendous
deluge, where almost all life, human and animal, was direly affected.

For centuries, skeptics and agnostics have held such stories in utter contempt and
held them up to severe ridicule. But as modern geology continues in its quest for the
facts, the testimony of the rocks, fossils, and strata under our feet grows in monumental
corroboration of the occurrence of a worldwide maelstrom and cataclysm as was attested
to by our illustrious ancestors.

Says Dr. Charles Hapgood, the sea has covered as much as 4,000,000 square
miles of North America at one time, and that sedimentary beds composing the mountain
ranges from the Alps to central Asia were laid down under the sea. Hapgood says that
although geophysicists argue that such seas were shallow affairs, there is a fallacy in this
argument. In fact, he states, the positive evidence against the assumption that all these
seas were shallow is “enormously strong.”

He quotes Umbgrove: “Not only have parts of the continents foundered below
sea-level since pre-Cambrian times but they have done so until quite recently, and their
subsidence occasionally attained great depths! “ (Hapgood, The Paths of the Pole,
p.150).

Paleo-lndians and the Flood

Near the small town of Clovis in eastern New Mexico, some of the most
astonishing ancient fossils have been found. Along the bed of an old river called the
Blackwater Draw, evidence of animal bones of extinct species was found over a large
area. Dr. E.B. Howard of the University of Pennsylvania Museum began digging in
1932, and since then many archaeologists have exhumed bones from the banks of the
ancient river. Evidence of early man, called “Clovis man,” was unearthed, and huge piles
of mammoth bones stretching for miles in all directions.

Also found at the site were remains of “Folsom man,” just above the Clovis
layer, typified by the Folsom points. Whereas the earlier men had hunted mammoths
16

with large lance points, fluted at the base, the Folsom men hunted bison with shorter
fluted Folsom points. These men lived at the close of the Ice Age.

Folsom man was first discovered by Dr. J .D. Figgins, director of the Colorado
Museum of Natural History in Denver in 1927 in an exciting indirect manner. A black
cowboy noticed bones jutting from the bank of a dried stream bed in northeastern New
Mexico, and found a curious flint projectile point unlike any he had seen before. J .D.
Figgins learned of the discovery and determined that pieces of the bone which the
cowboy sent to him had belonged to an extinct bison that lived supposedly some 10,000
years ago.

When Figgins began his own excavation of the site, more projectile points were
found. On September 2, a point was discovered still embedded between two ribs of the
skeleton of an ancient bison!

Years later, high in the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico, Dr.
Frank C. Hibben was excavating and digging, looking for more evidence of early man in
a cave where a few archaeological artifacts had come to light. While digging, he turned
up the bony core of the claw of a giant ground sloth which became extinct at the end of
the Ice Age, about the time the mammoths had died out.

As Hibben and his party continued digging, carefully searching for more fossils,
they came upon a flint point of undoubted human origin – apparently older than the
Folsom points found elsewhere. Eventually nineteen projectile points were found,
evidence of Sandia man. The Sandia points were longer and more primitive in structure
than the Folsom points.

During the Ice Age, these cultures had thrived, living on the vast teeming herds
of animal life. Some archaeologists maintain that Clovis, Folsom, and Sandia cultures all
overlapped in time. The radiocarbon dates [we will discuss radiocarbon dating later] for
the Early Hunters generally range from 9,000 to 13,000 years before the present. But
whatever happened to these ancient men?

They simply disappeared. Vanished! As the Ice Age ended, something unique in
the history of man happened. The big animals that roamed the plains by the millions
suddenly were wiped out. And when the big game disappeared, so did the paleo-Indians!

According to radiocarbon dating, several thousand years passed before the next
human cultures appear prominently on the scene – new cultures which knew agriculture,
and which merged into the later Pueblo and Mound Builders of the American scene.
Unlike the Early Hunters, the new cultures seemed to live a more sedentary existence,
picking berries and nuts. The big animals had gone – completely disappeared.

American horse, elephants and camels had died off. Mammoths, mastodons,
saber-toothed tigers, and early bison had perished. And the early hunters suddenly
disappeared from the scene. But why?
17

Most scholars admit they don’t really know the answers. As C.W. Ceram
pointed out, “We may as well state at once that there are innumerable theories and no
solution as yet.” There is a wide variety of opinions, and none has established itself
(Ceram, The First American, p.278).

Why, for example, did small animals perish, too – including a variety of rabbit
and three species of antelope?

One of the earliest and most attractive theories to account for the widespread
extinction, was catastrophism. Partisans of this theory held that tremendous earthquake
activity and volcanic eruptions accounted for the devastation and slaughter. These great
convulsions that shook the continent took place about ten thousand years ago, according
to this theory.

The catastrophic theory, for many reasons, is the most compelling theory, except
for one drawback. If radiocarbon dating techniques are completely accurate for the
period, then all the animals did not die out suddenly – some, like the mammoth, may
have survived until ostensibly 4,000 B.C. The bison antiquus roamed the prairies until
supposedly 6000 to 5000 B.C.

The evidence, then, suggests that a series of catastrophes must have occurred at
the close of the Pleistocene period. If the Biblical evidence is properly understood, these
cataclysms culminated eventually, in the time of Noah.

Many of these cataclysms may have begun prior to the time of Adam. Read our
articles “Beyond Star Wars” and “Life on Earth Before Adam?” Other catastrophes may
have been a result of Adam’s own rebellion against God. God warned Adam because of
his sin in the garden of Eden: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat
of it all the days of thy life . . .” (Genesis 3 : 17). Adam lived for 930 years. The curse
lasted for all that time, until the Deluge.

Let’s put aside dates for the moment, and just consider the facts. The Pleistocene
extinctions occurred. What was the cause? Some have suggested that man was
responsible – it was a case of “Pleistocene overkill.” Fire may have been the agent of
the destruction. But many animals would have fled from the fires. It is stretching the
imagination and credulity to ask that one believe fire alone accounted for the massive
extinction of many species of animals!

The LOST Early Americans

In the words of Frank C. Hibben in The Lost Americans:

“With the occasional torrential showers of the closing phase of the glacial
period, the bare earth of the Folsom landscape was washed away by the millions
of tons. Many a Folsom point and mammoth tusk must have been sluiced away in
the process. Other evidences were deeply covered. This washing process was the
agent that changed the contours of the Lindenmeier valley and covered the original
18

Folsom vale with twenty feet of accumulated earth. Many campsites and kill
sites on high ground must have been washed away entirely. Those in the
valleys and hollows were covered so deeply that many probably will never be
discovered. It was as though the cataclysmic forces of nature had, at the end
of the age of extinct mammals and ancient hunters, dragged a covering blanket
over the landscape to hide all their traces. It has only been occasionally and by
accident that corners of this blanket have been turned back or torn away to reveal
the story of ancient man beneath!” (Hibben, op. cit.,p.77-78).

Notice the expressions and phrases that are in italics very carefully. Dr.
Hibben is plainly talking about tremendous water action, flooding, and catastrophic
storms at the end of the Ice Age, laying tremendous layers of sediment in some
valleys and canyons, and eroding away other areas beyond recognition.

Does such flooding reflect at least in part the action of the Noachian deluge,
which occurred about 5,000 years ago?

Near the town of Abilene, Texas, Dr. Cyrus Ray wandered along a local stream
bed and examined the cutbank in 1929. He noticed charcoal lenses and fragments of
chipped stone protruding from the sand. As he casually glanced upward, he was startled
to see forty feet of layered sediments above him in the cutbank. Beneath all this
sediment, he found evidence of early man-crude implements, charcoal, bits of bone, flint
points, scrapers and knives.

The general opinion is that centuries must have been required to pile up the
thickness of earth in the bank over the human relics. But sometimes a great depth of soil
can be washed over a spot in a single torrential deluge. Could this sediment include that
resulting from the Noachian Deluge?

Evidence of paleo-Indians, or Ice Age hunters, has been uncovered in southern

Mexico, Central America, South America, New Mexico, and in every corner of the
eastern United States, besides southern Canada. Their fluted points have turned up in
every state east of the Mississippi. From 1951 to 1957, some three thousand paleo-Indian
tools were found beneath Wisconsin age sand at Ipswich, Massachusetts. Ecuador, Peru,
Argentina, and Chile also bear testimony of Ice Age hunters.

Pleistocene Catastrophe

Whatever happened to these Pleistocene hunters?

The word Pleistocene is derived from Greek words that mean “most of the new,”
relates Frank C. Hibben. He points out that many new animals appeared – many new
species and many millions of each species. It has been called the “Age of New
Animals.”
19

But most of them have died off – become extinct. Our landscape has lost a great
deal since Pleistocene times. Imagine what it must have been like to hunt the sabre-
tooth tiger, and the woolly mammoth, compared to hunting deer or elk. It was a hunter’s
paradise!

Dr. Hibben, in a chapter entitled fittingly enough “End of a Universe” describes

the end of the Pleistocene thus:

“The Pleistocene period ended in death. This was no ordinary extinction

of a vague geological period which fizzled to an uncertain end. This death
was catastrophic and all-inclusive . . . The large animals that had given the
name to the period became extinct. Their death marked the end of the era.
But how did they die? What caused the extinction of forty million animals?
This mystery forms one of the oldest detective stories in the world. A
good detective story involves humans and death. Those conditions are met
at the end of the Pleistocene. In this particular case, the death was of
such colossal proportions as to be staggering to contemplate. The antiquity
adds a rare relish to the tale. Who or what killed the Pleistocene animals
is a query that has not yet been answered” (p.250).

The animals of the Pleistocene wandered into every corner of the New World not
covered by ice. Their bones have been found in the sands of Florida and in the gravels of
New Jersey, protruding from the dry terraces of Texas and from the sticky ooze of the tar
pits of Los Angeles. These remains have been encountered by the thousands in Mexico
and in South America.

How did these animals all die? Hibben declares:

“. . . where we can study these animals in some detail, such as in the greatbone
deposits in Nebraska, we find literally thousands of these remains together.
The young lie with the old, foal with dam and calf with cow. Whole herds of
animals were apparently killed together, overcome by some common power.

“We have already seen that the muck pits of Alaska are filled with evidences
of universal death. Mingled in these frozen masses are the remains of many
thousands of animals killed in their prime. . . We have gained from the muck
pits of the Yukon Valley a picture of quick extinction. The evidences of
violence there are as obvious as in the horror camps of Germany. Such piles
of bodies of animals or men simply do not occur by any ordinary natural
means” (ibid., p.158).
Pleistocene animals in Europe and Asia met similarly untimely deaths. The icy
glaciations of Europe, Asia, and America occurred at the same time. The animal
populations there met the same tragic fate. The mammoth herds of Siberia became
extinct. At the same time, the European rhinoceros died out. The cave bear of Europe
and the bison of Siberia perished. The American camels met their death at about the
same time as Asiatic elephants.
20

Hibben concludes, “the consuming mystery of the death of forty million

Pleistocene animals still stands.” He adds: “One of the most interesting of the theories of
the Pleistocene end is that which explains this ancient tragedy by worldwide earth-
shaking volcanic eruptions of catastrophic violence.”

In the Alaskan and Siberian regions, he says, this idea has considerable support
because layers of volcanic ash are interspersed with the animal remains. Coincidental
with the end of the Pleistocene animals, in Alaska, volcanic eruptions of tremendous
proportions occurred. Toxic clouds of gas from volcanic upheavals could have
contributed to the gigantic death scale.

But, adds Hibben:

“Throughout the Alaskan mucks, too, there is evidence of atmospheric disturbances

of unparalleled violence. Mammoth and bison alike were torn and twisted as
though by a cosmic hand in GODLY RAGE. In one place, we can find the foreleg
and shoulder of a mammoth with portions of the flesh and the toenails and the hair
still clinging to the blackened bones. Close by is the neck and skull of a bison with
the vertebrae clinging together with tendons and ligaments and the chitinous
covering of the horns intact. There is no mark of a knife or cutting implement. The
animals were simply torn apart and scattered over the landscape like things of straw
. . . even though some of them weighed several tons. Mixed with the piles of bones
are trees, also twisted and torn and piled in tangled groups; and the whole is
covered with the fine sifting muck, then frozen solid.

“Storms, too, accompany volcanic disturbances of the proportion indicated here.

Differences in temperature and the influence of the cubic miles of ash and pumice
thrown into the air by eruptions – this sort might well produce winds and blasts of
inconceivable violence. If this is the explanation for the end of all this animal life,
the Pleistocene period was terminated by a very exciting time indeed” (p.251-252).

Catastrophism Revisited

As the glaciers retreated, huge lakes were left which slowly were drained out.
One of these, the largest, was Lake Agassiz, covering 100,000 square miles in Ontario,
Manitoba, Canada, and North Dakota in the United States.

Other remarkable evidence of the catastrophism of the Ice Age times is the
discovery of several whale skeletons found in shore deposits of the ancestral Great
Lakes. How these whales got there is not known, though some speculate they swam up
the giant rivers of the time. One wonders, however, if they may not have been left high
and dry as immense flood waters receded from the continent.

Other evidence of a possible deluge of vast dimensions accompanying the Ice

Age, at its termination, is provided by ancient Lake Missoula which once covered
several thousand square miles in western Montana. It may have been over a mile deep
and contained 500 cubic miles of water, locked in a natural ice dam.
21

Other mammoth lakes existed in North America at the close of Pleistocene

times, giving evidence of gigantic disturbances that occurred at that time. Were many of
these huge lakes the remains of an epochal flood or deluge.

When did this awesome period of destruction occur?

Radiocarbon Dating Not Reliable

In 1963 two British scientists, Don Brothwell of the British Museum and Eric
Higgs of Cambridge, took stock of the many methods developed up to that time to
answer archaeological questions, including dating methods. Only twenty years before
that time, nobody would have dreamed of such scientific discoveries relating to the
dating of artifacts.

Of all the dating methods, C-14 or radiocarbon dating has created the greatest
interest to date. Developed by Willard F. Libby of the University of Chicago –
between 1941 and 1945 Libby participated in the development of the atomic bomb –
this method of dating has become the touchstone of all fossil dating up to 40,000 years.

Libby postulated that cosmic ray-produced radiocarbon might be a key to age

determination. Supposing that C-14 atoms produced by cosmic rays would be readily
oxidized to carbon dioxide and would mix freely with the atmospheric carbon dioxide,
and because of the rapid turnover of the earth's atmosphere, Libby assumed the
radiocarbon portion of carbon dioxide would achieve uniform global distribution, and
would logically be taken up in the same proportion by all plant life during
photosynthesis. All animal life, which indirectly or directly lives off of plants and
vegetation could also be expected to contain the same UNIVERSAL proportion of C-
14. Similarly, even sea life would be thus affected, because carbon dioxide of the
atmosphere is in exchange equilibrium with the oceans.

Libby himself commented on this “constant” value or amount: “We can see
that IF the cosmic rays have been bombarding the earth in essentially THEIR
PRESENT INTENSITY for 10 or 20 thousand years, we can expect that a STEADY-
STATE CONDITION had been established, in which the rate of formation of carbon-14
is EQUAL to the rate at which it disappears" (Willard F. Libby, “Radiocarbon Dating,”
American Scientist, Vol. 44, No. I 1, Jan. 1956, p. 99).

But this is only an “assumption.” If this ASSUMPTION is correct, the C-14

ratio of any ancient specimen or artifact could be related to the PRESENT ratio of C-14
in modem specimens. Dating then becomes very simple. So IF NO OTHER
UNKNOWN FACTORS had disrupted the method, a radiocarbon year would equal a
calendar year. So what is the problem?
22

Thus EQUILIBRIUM is vital to the theory! The production of C-14 MUST

equal the amount leaving the system in disintegration if this method of dating is to be
valid. However, it takes a LONG TIME to bring the C-14 level into equilibrium.

If the system is not yet in equilibrium, it simply means that not enough carbon-
14 has been produced to match the decay of this atom. It also means that old dates
determined by this method would therefore be MUCH MORE RECENT!

Was the C-14 system nonfunctional in terms of its effect on the earth until just a
relatively short time ago? Have other factors disturbed or changed the crucial C-14-to-
ordinary-carbon ratio? Should all the great stretches of time scientists claim for tested
fossils be TELESCOPED into a few thousand years?

Before the Deluge

There is, of course, the possibility that dating techniques for early man are in
error due to unknown factors. In particular, the dates assigned to Cro-Magnon man are
still primarily based on C-14 dating.

During the pre-diluvian world, we find described waters ABOVE THE

FIRMAMENT as well as beneath (Genesis 1:7). At the time of the Deluge, the WIN-
DOWS OF HEAVEN were opened like a mighty sluice, and the fountains of the great
deep were broken up (Genesis 7:11). The waters which were ABOVE THE
FIRMAMENT apparently cascaded down to the earth, altering the composition of the
atmosphere. The waters above the firmament would have acted as a shield, absorbing
much of the cosmic radiation, vastly reducing the formation of C-14 prior to the Deluge.
The absence of cosmic radiation may be partly responsible for the long life spans of
man before the Flood, as recorded in the book of Genesis. But after the Deluge, and the
break up of the concentration of waters above the firmament, cosmic radiation would
have INCREASED in the atmosphere and on the earth, resulting in a rapid increase of
C-14 (which still hasn’t reached equilibrium), and also in SHORTENING the life span
of man on the earth.

WHEN Did It Occur?

According to Biblical chronology, Noah’s awesome Deluge occurred in 2348

B.C. When did the awesome extinctions of the Pleistocene Age occur? Immanuel
Velikovsky in his seminal book Earth in Upheaval provides us with the following facts:

Velikovsky points out that on the Atlantic coast of Florida, at Vero, in the Indian
River region, in 1915 and 1916, “human remains were found in association with the
bones of Ice Age (Pleistocene) animals, many of which either became extinct, like the
sabre-toothed tiger, or have disappeared from the Americas, like the camel” (p.167).
23

In 1923-1929, thirty-three miles north of Vero, in Melbourne, Florida, “another

such association of human remains and extinct animal remains was found, ‘a
remarkably rich assemblage of animal bones, many of which represent species which
became extinct at or after the close of the Pleistocene [Ice Age] epoch.’ The discoverer,
J. W. Gridley, of the United States National Museum, established unequivocally that in
Melbourne – as in Vero – the human bones were of the same stratum and in the same
state of fossilization as the bones of the extinct animals. And again human artifacts
were found with the bones” (p.168-169).

In the opinion of I. Rouse, an analyst of the fossils, “the Vero and Melbourne
man should have been in existence between 2000 B.C. and the year zero A.D.” Opines
Velikovsky, “There is no proper way out of this dilemma other than the assumption that
now extinct animals still existed in historical times and that the catastrophe that
overwhelmed man and animals and annihilated numerous species occurred in the
second or first millennium before the present era” (p.169). This may well have been a
catastrophe which paralleled the great cataclysm which befell the Middle East during
the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt! I suggest in this case that we are talking about a
catastrophe which occurred AFTER the Noachian Deluge, which occurred in the middle
of the third millennium B.C.!

Says Velikovsky: “What follows? It follows that the extinct animals belong to
the recent past. It follows also that some paroxysm of nature heaped together these
assemblages; the same paroxysm of nature may have destroyed numerous species so
that they became extinct” (ibid.).

East and West Reversal

Such a devastating flood as that which destroyed most all human and animal life
in the days of Noah would have been awesome to behold, and worse to experience. It
must have had an enormous effect on the earth. Whether we like to think of it or not, the
earth may have been affected in many ways.

In Tractate Sanhedrin of the Talmud we read: “Seven days before the deluge,
the Holy One changed the primeval order and the sun rose in the west and set in
the east” (108b). Tevel is the Hebrew name for the world in which the sun rose in the
west. Arabot is the name of the sky where the rising point was in the west.

The Koran speaks of the Lord of “two easts and of two wests” (Sura, LV).
Averrhoes, an Arab philosopher of the twelfth century, tells about the eastward and
westward movements of the sun. Even the Eskimos of Greenland told missionaries that
in an ancient time the earth turned over and the people who lived then became
antipodes.

Seler, perplexed by the statement of the old Mexican sources that the sun
moved toward the east, exclaimed: “The traveling toward the east and the
24

disappearance in the east. . . must be understood literally. . . . However, one cannot

imagine the sun as wandering eastward: the sun and the entire firmament of the fixed
stars travel westward.” Nevertheless, the ancient peoples of Mexico called the sun that
moves toward the east Teotl Lixco. They symbolized the changing direction of the
sun’s movement as a heavenly ball game with attendant upheavals and earthquakes
(quoted by Velikovsky in Worlds in Collision, p.113).

Bellamy, in Moons, Myths and Man points out that the Chinese say that it is
only since a new order of things had come about that the “stars move from east to
west.” He adds: “Signs of the Chinese zodiac have the strange peculiarity of
proceeding in a retrograde direction, that is, against the course of the sun” (p.69, quoted
in Worlds in Collision, p.112).

Statements of the sun setting in the east are also found in the ancient Greek
classical authors, particularly in Plato. In Timaeus Plato describes a collision of the
earth with “a tempest of winds,” with an “alien fire from without,” or waters of the
immense flood which foamed in and out,” with the earth engaging in all motions,
“forwards, backwards, and again to right and to left, and upwards, downwards,
wandering every way in all the six directions.”

Plato speaks of the earth, represented as possessing a soul, as suffering a

“violent shaking of the revolutions of the Soul,” . . . and which produced “all manner
of twistings, and caused in their circles disruptures of every possible kind, with the
result that, as barely held together one with another, they moved indeed more
irrationally, being at one time reversed, at another oblique, and again upside down”
(Plato, Timaeus, 43 B,C, quoted in Worlds in Collision, p.111).

Euripides wrote in Electra, “Then in his anger arose Zeus, turning the stars' feet
back on the fire-fretted way; yea, and the sun’s car splendour-burning, and the misty
eyes of the morning grey. And the flash of his chariot-wheels back-flying flushed
crimson the face of the fading day. . . . The sun. . . turned backward. . . with the
scourge of his wrath in affliction repaying mortals” (Electra, 11, 727, Worlds in
Collision, p.110).

Seneca, in Thyestes, reveals the reaction of the people living through such
traumatic events. He has them asking, in terror: “Have we of all mankind been deemed
deserving that heaven, its poles up-torn, should overwhelm us? In our time has the last
day come?” (11, 794, Worlds in Collision, p.110-111).

Ironically, or so it would seem to most Egyptologists, in the tomb of Senmut,

the architect of Queen Hatshepsut, a panel on the ceiling shows the vault of heaven
depicted, with the signs of the zodiac and other constellations in a reversed orientation
of the southern sky. In this panel, which was a venerated chart apparently from several
centuries earlier, in the Orion-Sirius group, Orion appears west of Sirius instead of
east. A. Pogo, in “The Astronomical Ceiling Decoration in the Tomb of Senmut,”
25

wrote candidly: “A characteristic feature of the Senmut ceiling is the astronomically

objectionable orientation of the southern panel.” He continues: “The orientation of the
southern panel is such that the person in the tomb looking at it has to lift his head and
face north, not south.” Says Pogo, “With the reversed orientation of the south panel,
Orion, the most conspicuous constellation of the southern sky, appeared to be moving
eastward, i.e., in the wrong direction.”

Apparently, the southern panel shows the sky over Egypt as it was before the
heavens reversed north and south, east and west.

In the Ermitage Papyrus, a reference is made to a cataclysm that turned the “land
upside down; happens that which never (yet) had happened.” Similarly the Magical
Papyrus Harris speaks of a tremendous catastrophe in which fire and water destroy the
earth, and “the south becomes north, and the Earth turns over” (Gardiner, Journal of
Egyptian Archaeology; Worlds in Collision,p.107).

The priests of Egypt, when Herodotus, the “father of history,” was researching
his history of Egypt, asserted that within historical ages and since Egypt became a
kingdom, “four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to his wont;
twice he rose where he now sets, and twice he set where he now rises” (Herodotus, book
ii, p.142).

Caius Julius Solinus, a Latin author of the third century after Christ, wrote a story
about the people living on the southern borders of Egypt. He narrates: “The inhabitants
of this country say that they have it from their ancestors that the sun now sets where it
formerly rose” (Polyhistor, xxxii, Worlds in Collision, quoted on p.112).

In Voluspa of the Icelanders we are told: “No knowledge she (the sun) had where
her home should be, The moon knew not what was his, The stars knew not where their
stations were” (ibid., p.118).

In the western hemisphere, the shattered condition of the earth after an “age”
ended, with prevailing gloom and darkness, and disorder, led to speculation as to where
the new sun would first appear. The Mayan legends relate that “it was not known from
where the new sun would appear.” “They looked in all directions, but they were unable
to say where the sun would rise. Some thought it would take place in the north and their
glances were turned in that direction. Others thought it would be in the south. Actually,
their guesses included all directions because the dawn shone all around. Some, however,
fixed their attention to the orient, and maintained that the sun would come from there. It
was their opinion that proved to be correct. “

Ancient memory scars persist. On the Andaman Islands the natives are fearful
that someday a natural catastrophe will cause the world to turn over. And in Greenland
the Eskimos fear that the earth will turn over. The people of Flanders in Belgium go
further: “In Menin (Flanders) the peasants say, on seeing a comet: ‘The sky is going to
fall; the earth is turning over!'’” (ibid., p.120).
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Phaethon

The Latin poet Ovid dealt with the story of Phaethon. In his version the chariot of
the sun, driven by Phaethon, moved “no longer in the same course as before.” The
chariot’s horses “break loose from their course” and “rush aimlessly, knocking against
the stars set deep in the sky and snatching the chariot along through uncharted ways.”
The constellations of the Bears tried to plunge into the forbidden sea. The sun’s chariot
was “borne along just as a ship driven before the headlong blast, whose pilot has let the
useless rudder go and abandoned the ship to the gods and prayers.”

The legend continues: “The earth bursts into flame, the highest parts first, and
splits into deep cracks, and its moisture is all dried up. The meadows are burned to white
ashes; the trees are consumed, green leaves and all, and the ripe grain furnishes fuel for
its own destruction. . . . Great cities perish with their walls, and the vast conflagration
reduces whole nations to ashes” (Ovid, Metamorphases, bk.II, quoted by Velikovsky,
Worlds in Collision, p.143).

Solon, a wise ruler of Athens, on his visit to Egypt questioned the priests who
were well versed in the lore of antiquity. One of the priests, an old man, told him:
“There have been and there will be many and divers destructions of mankind, of which
the greatest are by fire and water , and lesser ones by countless other means. For in truth
the story that is told in your country as well as ours, how once upon a time Phaethon, son
of Helios, yoked his father's chariot, and, because he was unable to drive it along the
course taken by his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth and himself perished by a
thunderbolt – that story, as it is told, has the fashion of a legend, but the truth of it lies in
the occurrence of a shifting of the bodies in the heavens which move around the earth,
and a destruction of the things on the earth by fierce fire, which recurs at long intervals”
(Plato, Timaeus, quoted by Velikovsky, ibid., p.145).

Earth’s Reversed Polarity and Magnetism

Scientific evidence in the rocks also attests to incredible changes in the earth’s
rotation in historical times. Writes Immanuel Velikovsky in Earth in Upheaval, “In all
parts of the globe rock formations are found with reversed polarization; paleomagnetism
almost every month detects more areas of inverted orientation” (p.143). He continues,
“An even more puzzling fact is that the rocks with inverted polarity are much more
strongly magnetized than can be accounted for by the earth’s magnetic field.”

Says Velikovsky, “Thus we are confronted with an ever-growing puzzle. The

cause of the reversal of the magnetic field in the rocks of the earth is unknown and the
fact contradicts every cosmological theory. The strength of magnetization of the rocks
with inverted polarity is astonishing” (Earth in Upheaval, Immanuel Velikovsky, p.144).

S. K. Runcorn of the University of Cambridge reported in an article that the

earth’s magnetic field reversed many times and said that “there seems no doubt that the
earth’s field is tied up in some way with the rotation of the planet. And this leads to a
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remarkable finding about the earth’s rotation itself.” The unavoidable conclusion,
according to Runcorn, is that “the earth’s axis of rotation has changed also. In other
words, the planet has rolled about, changing the location of its geographic poles” (Earth
in Upheaval, p.145).

This is the testimony of the wise men of ancient times! This is the testimony of
modern scientists, who corroborate the catastrophic events which overtook mankind in
earlier generations! All this evidence shouts loudly that Noah’s Flood did occur, and it
bears an incredible WITNESS AND TESTIMONY for our world generation, today!

Biblical Testimony and Warning

In the Scriptures we read of times when “all the foundations of the earth are out
of course” (Psalm 82:5).

This planet has gone through turbulent, tumultuous times. Isaiah the prophet, son
of Amos, who lived about 2,800 years ago, wrote: “Behold, the Lord maketh the earth
empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the in-
habitants thereof. . . . The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord
hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and
fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under
the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance,
broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they
that dwell therein are desolate; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few
men left” (Isaiah 24:1-6).

Says the Amplified Parallel Bible, “Behold, the Lord will make the land and the
earth empty and make it waste and TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN (twist the face of it) and
scatter abroad its inhabitants” (verse 1).

The prophet laments: “From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs,
even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the
treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously. Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon
thee, o inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the
noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit
shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open. and the foundations
of the earth do shake”(vs.16-18).

Says the Amplified Parallel Bible: “Terror and pit [of destruction] and snare are
upon you, O inhabitant of the earth! And he who flees at the noise of the terror will fall
into the pit; and he who comes up out of the pit will be caught in the snare. For the
windows of the heaven are opened [as in the deluge], and the FOUNDATIONS of the
earth tremble and shake.”

Surely the prophet was describing a colossal destruction upon mankind. He

spoke of the foundations of the earth being shaken, of the inhabitants of the earth being
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“burned,” the earth being “utterly emptied,” made “waste,” and even “turned upside
down.”

But to leave no doubt as to the extent of the catastrophe he was describing, Isaiah
continued: “The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is
moved exceedingly” (verse 19). “The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall
be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it
shall fall, and not rise again” (verse 20).

The Parallel Bible has it: “The earth is utterly broken, the earth is RENT
asunder, the earth is SHAKEN VIOLENTLY. The earth shall stagger like a drunken
man and shall sway to and fro like a hammock; its transgression shall lie heavily upon it,
and it shall fall and not rise again.”

Dramatic changes in the earth’s orbit – destruction on every continent – a planet

careening through space upside down, hurled into a new orbit around the sun.

The catastrophe of Noah’s Flood has remained in the memory of mankind. It has
been belittled by skeptics and called “fables” and “mythology” by modern supposed
‘scholars,” but the testimony of the ancients is unanimous – and so is the testimony of
the rocks beneath our feet!

And it was a SIGN, a TYPE, of the great cosmic destruction and calamity which
shall befall the earth in OUR DAY, at the END of this wicked, lawless age of man!

Destruction by FIRE

In the King James Bible we read in a prophecy for the future, the END of Days:
“God came from Teman (the south), and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His
glory covered the heavens. ..And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out
of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and
burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and
drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual
hills did bow: his ways are everlasting. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the
curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Was the Lord displeased against the rivers?
was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride
upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation? ...Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.
The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the
deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in
their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering
spear. Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in
anger" (Habakkuk 3:3-12).

Says the Parallel Amplified Bible: “God [approaching from Sinai] came from
Teman [which represents Edom] and the Holy One from Mount Paran [in the Sinai
region]. . . . And His brightness was like the sunlight; rays streamed from His hand, and
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there [in the sunlike splendor] was the hiding place of His power. . . . He stood and
measured the earth; He looked and shook the nations, and the eternal mountains were
scattered, and the perpetual hills bowed low] . . . The mountains saw You; they trembled
and writhed [as in pain]. The overflowing of the water passed by [as at the deluge]; the
deep uttered its voice and lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood back [as
before Joshua] in their habitation at the light of Your arrows as they sped, at the flash of
Your glittering spear” (Hab.3:3-11).

A SIGN for Our Time

The story of Noah’s deluge, according to many skeptics is beyond the pale of
scientific acceptance. Any references to global catastrophes, they claim, are
mythological and unworthy of serious consideration by educated scholars. But they are
blind both to ancient history, the record of geology, and the ineffable testimony of divine
Scripture.

It’s time we open our eyes and take a NEW LOOK at the incredible worldwide,
global evidence of the Flood, and remember the lessons it was meant to teach mankind!

Jesus Christ declared of the Flood, and of the day of His return to our planet, in
the soon-coming future day of Judgment and wrath:
“But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the
Son of Man be. For as in the days before the Flood, they were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the
day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the Flood
came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the
Son of Man be” (Matt.24:37-39, NRSV).

The Amplified Parallel Bible has it: “As were the days of Noah, so will be the
coming of the Son of Man. For just as in those days before the Flood they were eating
and drinking, [men] marrying and [women] being given in marriage, until the [very] day
when Noah went into the Ark. And they did not know or understand until the FLOOD
came and swept them all away – SO WILL BE THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.”

Christ continued, “Watch therefore [give strict attention, be cautious and active],
for you do not know in what kind of a day [whether a near or remote one] your Lord is
coming” (Matt.24:37-42).

Are you getting ready, preparing for the coming of the Messiah? “Prepare to
meet your God, O Israel” (Amos 4:12).