Atlantis Beneath the Ice (6 page)

Because Hapgood’s idea can be applied to so many different problems, it constitutes a “scientific revolution.” In
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
a work commonly called “the most influential treatise ever written on how science does (and does not) proceed,”
⁸
philosopher and sociologist Thomas S. Kuhn traces the characteristics of the great changes in scientific thought. Kuhn shows how a dynamic new idea can initiate a scientific revolution by solving a set of persistent, unanswered problems. When the dust settles, intellectual territory has been expanded and scientists are presented with a fresh set of problems to explore. But, ironically, the new idea that originally sparked the scientific revolution is often met with either violent controversy or smothering silence.

New theories are more often resisted than welcomed and indeed are often ignored, only to be recognized as scientific revolutions by a new generation. The sociology of science explores this paradox. For instance, Darwin’s theory of evolution was met with great outrage, not only by the church, but by scientists as well. Copernicus was wise enough to have his theory published at the end of his life. He appreciated the dan
gers of his radical idea that the earth was not the center of the universe.

Kuhn distinguishes between what he calls “normal science” and science in “crisis.” Normal science includes activities that we commonly associate with scientific achievement, such as building a bridge, launching a space shuttle, or searching for a cure for cancer. Scientists are trained to solve problems by using well-established theories. In normal science, they make a “devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education.”
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Each discipline surrounds itself with a layer of insulation from problems not perceived to be within its domain. Kuhn calls these assumptions about what are “real problems” a “paradigm,” a framework for approaching any scientific enigma.

Kuhn argues that the acceptance of a new framework by any scientific discipline is similar to the retooling of a factory. Initially, the costs of retooling often seem to outweigh the rewards of the improved design:
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
But if the competition across town is solving more problems using the new design (the new paradigm), then all manufacturers are eventually compelled to adopt the improvements.

However, the force of competition has a less immediate impact on science than it does in the world of commerce. Only when an old paradigm’s blind spots are dissolved by a new idea do scientists begin to consider retooling their theories. Until this crisis occurs the old tools are wielded relentlessly, dull or outmoded as they are, even as they steadily lose their grip on the problem.

We will explore several long-standing, unsolved, and ignored problems by looking at them through the fresh lens provided by the theory of earth crust displacement. We consider the unsolved problem to be the most fundamental unit of science. Theories are the nets that scientists use to capture problems and solve them. Earth crust displacement is a significant new theory because of its wide scope. It can solve a range of unsolved problems that are currently considered the isolated domain of different disciplines. For example, an odd geological mystery surrounds today’s ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.
It is a fact that the land that holds the thickest ice sheets now receives the least annual snowfall. At the same time, the areas of thinnest ice receive the most annual snowfall. Current geological assumptions can’t explain this puzzle. And, more significantly, geologists have yet to come up with a single theory that can solve this long-standing unsolved problem. We will show that Hapgood’s theory can explain the distribution of ice sheets on a global scale. No other theory can come close to the scope of explanation offered by the idea of a shifting crust.

Likewise, several competing theories have been advanced to explain the sudden mass extinctions that punctuate our planet’s history. However, when it comes to an explanation of the extinctions that happened 11,600 years ago, Hapgood’s concept can explain why mammoths became extinct in North America while elephants survived in Africa. It can account for the rates of death, continent by continent, on a global scale.

Two other long-standing problems are seen in a new light when viewed through the lens of the earth crust displacement theory. The origins of agriculture remain a mystery and the full story behind the peopling of the Americas continues to elude the existing archaeological paradigm—and again, earth crust displacement offers answers.

Funding also heavily influences attitudes toward new ideas. The choice of which scientific problems to pursue is seldom left to scientists themselves. They are more often than not chosen by industrial, governmental, and educational institutions. Most scientists are
assigned
to problems that seem solvable. Other problems simply receive no funding.

Moreover, the scientific community shares an implicit covenant within its ranks. Separated as it is from society, it eagerly celebrates science’s success stories. Unveiling long-awaited solutions to scientific problems is a noble act. But if the general public is invited to examine a set of unsolved problems, then the scientific community becomes indignant. And indignation can rapidly lead to bitter controversy. Often a new idea is met with stony silence. That, despite the enthusiastic support
of Albert Einstein is the fate that greeted Hapgood’s theory of earth crust displacement.

With one simple idea (a shifting crust), Hapgood’s theory can simultaneously solve long-standing problems in geology, archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology. By opening new frontiers, this theory clears a whole new intellectual territory for scientists to explore.

The quest for Atlantis has been treated as either a scientific curiosity or with great skepticism as belonging to the murky realm of fantasy. It was inevitable that a scientific revolution would be required to find the lost continent.

We will show that there is reason to believe that we are not the first advanced civilization to inhabit our world. This recognition provides the key to unlocking one of the most compelling mysteries of all. Using the theory of earth crust displacement, we will travel across the planet as it was in 9600 BCE., watch the incredible results as the surface of the earth buckles, and share the survivors’ memories of the great flood.

THREE

THE WAYWARD SUN

The sky fell. The land was not. For a very great distance there was no land. The waters of the ocean came together. Animals of all kinds drowned.

T
HE
C
AHTO OF
C
ALIFORNIA

It is sunset at the camp of the tribe known as the Ute. Preparations for the annual sun dance have begun. Men and women draped in rabbitskin robes are drawn to the fire’s glow. Dishes of simmering turtle, lizard, and insects, and generous servings of berries and seed are shared around the circle.

It is time.

An elder rises and passes a lined hand over his buffalo-skin cloak. The children are immediately alert, their eyes wide with anticipation. Listen now, on this feast of the sun dance, to the Ute’s myth of the taming of the sun god.

Once upon a time Ta-wats, the hare-god, was sitting with his family by the camp-fire in the solemn woods, anxiously waiting for the return of Ta-va (the wayward sun-god). Wearied with long watching, the hare-god fell asleep, and the sun-god came so near that he scorched the naked shoulder of Ta-wats. Foreseeing the vengeance, which would be thus provoked, he fled back to his cave beneath the earth.

Ta-wats awoke in great anger, and speedily determined to go and fight the sun-god. After a long journey of many adventures the hare-god came to the brink of the earth, and there watched long and patiently, till at last the sun-god came out, and he shot an arrow at his face, but the fierce heat consumed the arrow ere it had finished its intended course; then another was sped, but that also was consumed; and another, and another, till only one remained in his quiver, but this was the magical arrow that had never failed its mark.

Ta-wats, holding it in his hand, lifted the barb to his eye and baptized it in a divine tear; then the arrow was sped and struck the sun-god full in the face, and the sun was shivered into a thousand fragments, which fell to the earth, causing a general conflagration.

Then Ta-wats, the hare-god, fled before the destruction he had wrought, and as he fled the burning earth consumed his feet, consumed his legs, consumed his body, consumed his hands and his arms—all were consumed but the head alone—which bowled across valleys and over mountains, fleeing the destruction from the burning earth, until at last, swollen with heat, the eyes of the god burst, and the tears gushed forth in a flood, which spread over the earth, and extinguished the fire.

The sun-god was now conquered, and he appeared before a council of the gods to await sentence. In that long council were established the days and the nights, the seasons and the years, with the length thereof and the sun was condemned to travel across the firmament by the same trail day after day till the end of time.
¹

The Ute, after whom Utah was named, were among the most warlike tribes in the American West. They fought with the Comanche, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Cheyenne for domination over hunting grounds. Young braves were taught when to attack, when to retreat, and when to find honor in vengeance. These challenges were interwoven with forceful lessons about the humbling power of nature. Tales of the hare god’s antics and the sun god’s power were much more than exciting children’s
stories. The myths illustrated the critical factors a warrior must weigh in times of battle, how the seasons came to be, and why the sun follows its predictable path across the sky. This cohesive view of the world was strong glue binding the tribe together.

This particular myth was also a reflection of the human need to create order out of nature’s chaos. The social problems of war and peace were mirrored in nature’s forces of chaos and order. Ta-wats, the hare god, is sleeping in the woods when the wayward sun provokes him by scorching his shoulder. He rises and seeks revenge on the fleeing sun god. Eventually the sun god is attacked with a magic arrow, and the explosive forces of nature are released. The sun erupts, and then a Great Flood engulfs the world. Order is restored only when a council of the gods creates predictable seasons and condemns the sun to follow an unalterable path across the heavens until “the end of time.”

The myth of the wayward sun can also be seen as a distant echo of the last earth crust displacement. As the ground shuddered beneath them, it would have seemed to the earth’s shocked inhabitants that the sky, sun, and stars were tumbling from their place in the heavens. The violent earthquakes caused by the displacement generated great tidal waves that rolled across the ocean, smashing vulnerable coastlines. Ice caps melted, forcing the ocean level higher and higher. For many it was the end of the world. But for the survivors, it became the first day of a brand-new era.