When the Sky Fell

When the Sky Fell: In Search of Atlantis

Rand and Rose Flem-Ath

In my selection of reading I have been following a trail of evidence which suggests the possibility that man's societal evolution has not been from simple to complex; brute beast to moral intellectual; uncivilized to civilized. Instead, the evidence suggests that a culture perhaps more advanced than our own (at least as advanced as 18th century Europe) dominated the world prior to about 10,000 BC.

From a strict "Bible Christian" point of view, this would correspond to the antediluvian world -- assuming you can let go of Ussher's dates (i.e. that God created the world on October 23, 4004 BC at 9:00 AM).

The Flem-Ath's look at a number of enigmas and seek to find a common solution to all of them:

	The sudden and world-wide emergence of an agricultural economy from a hunter-gatherer economy about 10,000 BC.
	The fact that the worlds thickest ice caps are on land masses which receive the least snow fall.
	The sudden appearance of advanced civilization in Egypt around 3500 BC with no apparent history of gradual growth and sophistication.
	The existence of maps dating from before the time of Christ which detail the coastlines of the Americas and Antarctica (that is, the coastline as it exists under the ice cap) to within 0.5° accuracy.
	A common thread of mythology suggesting the existence of an island civilization in the southern hemisphere.
	Etc.

The book resurrects a theory first proposed in 1954 by Charles Hapgood (and endorsed by Albert Einstein). Hapgood started from the hypothesis that the great polar ice caps unbalance the earth, like putting a heavy rug into a dryer. Since the crust of the earth floats on a liquid rock base, it would be free to shift if sufficient forces were acting upon it.

As snow and ice accumulate unevenly at the poles, and as the Earth's orbit goes through its normal variations in distance from the sun over time, the centrifugal force from the ice on the poles eventually causes the crust to shift, with the land masses at the poles moving toward the equator. Tidal waves destroy coastal settlements; melting ice (now moved to warmer climates) causes the oceans to rise; and volcanic activity increases.

As these "Earth Crust Displacement" events take place, most life is destroyed. Humans who are fortunate enough to either have access to sea-going vessels or can move to high ground are saved to start over.

The Flem-Aths postulate that the last of these events took place around 10,000 BC. The continent now known as Antarctica was shoved toward the south pole and was rendered uninhabitable. Much of North America moved south, causing what traditional earth historians would identify as the end of the most recent Ice Age.

The book identifies one of the ancient civilizations destroyed by this displacement of the Earth's crust as the residents of the continent Plato called "Atlantis". It identifies evidence of Atlantean influence on Egyptian and Central American culture.

The theory is nothing if not controversial. If you find yourself scoffing you should consider reading the book. It is only 160 pages long. It is very hard to find; I spent a year looking for it. I found it at B.C. Video, 1-800-846-9682. The publisher is St. Martin's Press, 1-800-288-2131. You might also find it through the Amazon.com link on my main Book Reviews page.