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 VII, No 7 Oct 31, 2003 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS MYTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ev Cochrane WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY . . . Marinus Anthony Van der Sliujs SPIRAL GALAXIES & GRAND CANYONS . . . . . . Wal Thornhill >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>-----<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< MYTH By Ev Cochrane Why should anyone care about ancient myth? The answer, quite simply, is that for untold centuries myth served as the primary means of recording and communicating man's fundamental ideas regarding the nature of the cosmos and the sacred. In this sense, ancient myth represents an intellectual heirloom encapsulating the history of our species and is thus a ripe field of study for all students of evolutionary psychology. If, as appears to be the case, myth also preserves important clues for reconstructing the recent history of our solar system its study becomes all the more essential. Modern scholars have defined myth as a sacred history purporting to describe the origin of the world and mankind's various cultural institutions. Mircea Eliade would emphasize myth's central function in ancient (and so-called primitive) cultures: "One fact strikes us immediately: in such societies the myth is thought to express the absolute truth, because it narrates a sacred history; that is, a transhuman experience revelation which took place at the dawn of the Great Time, in the holy time of the beginnings (in illo tempore). Being real and sacred, the myth becomes exemplary, and consequently repeatable, for it serves as a model, and by the same token as a justification, for all human actions. In other words, a myth is a true history of what came to pass at the beginning of Time, and one which provides the pattern for human behaviourSClearly, what we are dealing with here is a complete reversal of values; whilst current language confuses the myth with 'fables', a man of the traditional societies sees it as the only valid revelation of reality." Countless myths, according to Eliade, commemorate the Creation, the latter regarded by ancient man as something that "really happened, as an event that took place, in the plain sense of the term." Intimately related to this widespread idea that Creation was something actually experienced and witnessed is a corollary belief -- that a great catastrophe brought down the curtain on the paradisiacal conditions which formerly prevailed during a remembered Golden Age. Yet as insightful and compelling as Eliade's analysis of myth proves to be, there is one gaping hole in the argument: No explanation is offered for the origin of the specific mythical themes uncovered -- e.g., Creation, the Golden Age, epoch-ending catastrophe, the primeval hieros gamos, etc. This question is directly related to another major flaw plaguing most modern theories of ancient myth; namely, their general inability to explain the recurrence of mythical themes around the globe. Levi-Strauss emphasized this problem in an essay on myth many years ago: "How are we going to explain the fact that myths throughout the world are so similar?" Particularly troubling are those bizarre details of ancient myth that don't make sense in the real world: flying, fire-breathing dragons, for example; the dwarf-like hero who suddenly assumes a gigantic form; the birth of the warrior-hero from the "heart" of the mother goddess; and countless others. One is naturally inclined to attribute such motifs to creative imagination and fictional storytelling, but this "explanation" runs up against an insuperable difficulty: These seemingly meaningless and impossible motifs are likewise to be found around the globe. As Levi-Strauss emphasized, it is very difficult to understand how creative imagination could explain such recurring motifs: "Mythic stories are, or seem, arbitrary, meaningless, absurd, yet nevertheless they seem to reappear all over the world. A 'fanciful' creation of the mind in one place would be unique -- you would not find the same creation in a completely different place." There would appear to be but three possible explanations for the presence of such recurring motifs: (1)They originated in creative imagination and subsequently became diffused around the globe; (2)They are natural products of the human mind; (3)They have some reference to celestial phenomena, observed and commemorated in mythical language by ancient man the world over. For reasons which will become clear, the third explanation is the only one which is compatible with the evidence and, indeed, it forms the cornerstone of the Saturn theory. [ed note: visit Cochrane's recently up-dated website for this introduction to myth and links (at the bottom of the page) to further articles about the Saturn theory. Buttons at the top of the page connect you to sections from Cochrane's Mars and Venus books, and information for purchasing them.] THE WEBSITE: http://www.maverickscience.com/Myth/myth.html ARTICLE LINKS INCLUDE: The Stairway to Heaven Samson Revealed On Thundergods and Thunderbolts Ev Cochrane www.maverickscience.com/ ******************************************************** WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY By Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs [ed note: The following is a sampling of quotations by modern scientists and others about the connection between myth and early disasters in the sky. The full collection of quotations, with references, can be found on van der Sluijs' Mythopedia website at: http://mythopedia.info/experts.htm ] MARK BAILEY astronomer at the Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland: The conjunction of these ideas, linking astronomy and history, therefore suggests that human societies may have been witness to a somewhat more active celestial environment during past millennia. In fact, the extreme preoccupation of most early societies with celestial imagery and the making of astronomical observations appears to be part of a world-wide phenomenon during the period leading up to and including the Bronze age ... This would be consistent with the presence of a once powerful extraterrestrial source with the capacity to cause both local and global destruction and to trigger a common social response. Further arguments for a possibly more active sky in the past include ... the fact that iron was apparently first known through its occurrence in meteorites ... and ... the fact that flood myths and related ceremonies from around the world frequently seem to have a common historical basis ... ... indirect support for such a picture comes from a wide range of historical arguments ... which suggests that there was indeed more astronomical activity in the past than now. Episodes of bombardment ... may provide an explanation for periods of global cooling as registered in the historical record, even for the strong interest displayed by most early civilizations in celestial phenomena, providing a possible common origin for myths and legends from around the world. ------------------------ BILL NAPIER astronomer at the Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland: ... modern astronomical evidence does not support the common supposition that the night sky has been unchanging for 5,000 years. There are likely to have been epochs when the sky contained one or more visible, periodic comets, associated with annual fireball storms of huge intensity, and perhaps also with devastating impact. Such phenomena, enduring for centuries, surely had a profound effect on the minds of early peoples. At a minimum, traces of this ancient sky should still be detectable in the artefacts and belief systems of the earliest cultures. ------------------------ VICTOR CLUBE Astronomer: This leads us to recognise the relatively sudden flowering and foundering of civilizations during interglacials as the principal signatures of punctuational crises that arise as the corresponding debris of a giant comet in a short-period, Earth-crossing orbit passes through the final stages (splittings) of its evolution and decline. Astronomers at the dawn of civilisation perceived danger in the sky and society was notably unsettled. Later, astronomers were to perceive order in the cosmos and society was to become notably less unsettled. ------------------------ MARK BAILEY, VICTOR CLUBE, and BILL NAPIER Astronomers: Indeed, recent researches in modern cometary astronomy now independently suggest that the civilizations of antiquity may have experienced happenings in the sky which have not since been repeated on the same scale ... Many of the legends of mythology can thus be interpreted as highly embellished accounts of the evolution of one, or perhaps a few, very large comets during the last 2,000 years of prehistory. This enables us to place the facts of mythology in a new light and it is concluded that many myths have a common core reflecting world-wide observations of a large active short-period comet. The genealogy of the gods is interpreted as a history of fragmentation. ------------------------ DUNCAN STEEL astronomer at Spaceguard Australia, Adelaide, Australia: Indeed this is the whole crux of what I perceive as being the limitation in previous interpretational work in archaeoastronomy: the assumption that the phenomena seen in the sky by the ancients were the same as those which we see now ... To the contrary, in my opinion their execution of exceptional feats of engineering or other endeavour might rather be viewed as an indication that exceptional phenomena were being experienced. In astro-archaeological investigations I believe that it should be kept firmly in mind that the celestial phenomena which ancient man would have been most concerned with ? objects which moved around the sky relative to the background of stars ? may have been quite different to those observed now. ------------------------ GERRIT VERSCHUUR astronomer at University of Memphis, USA: It is certain that some of those impactors splashed into the oceans to trigger tsunamis and flooding along coast lines and instilling terror in the minds of survivors, a terror so powerful that legends about such floods persist to this day. This possible link between flood legends and impact events is now beginning to fascinate more than just the pseudo-scientist. The issue is entering the mainstream of thought ... ------------------------ CHANDRA WICKRAMASINGHE Astronomer: There can be little doubt that myths and legends would have evolved in response to such experiences, experiences that must surely have been shared by many nomadic tribes scattered widely across our planet. ------------------------ FRED HALL Engineer: The known comets of the past have generally had extremely short and uneventful appearances, and it does not seem likely that any of these would have involved sufficient drama to produce lasting myths. Nevertheless, no one can dispute that comets did arouse utter terror among ancient populations on all continents, and they are still feared today by some cultures. This is not well understood by those savants who do not believe the ancients could have ever seen a comet at closer range than we see them now. If, on the other hand, the fears of comets can be traced to a more spectacular and destructive comet than ever documented in our time, then the enigma is removed. ------------------------ BRUCE MASSE environmental archaeologist at the US Department of Air Force and the University of Hawaii: Mythology to date has been largely under exploited as a resource because of our failure to understand its meaning and logic, and our failure to realize that the data contained in mythologies can be retrieved by systematic scientific methodology. Mythology, rather than being fanciful as is commonly believed in Western science, is actually a large multifaceted window on the major natural environmental events and processes that have shaped human history. An equally important goal of cosmography is that of the reconstruction of past environmental events and processes not presently known, or at least poorly known to science as determined from patterns elicited from the archaeological, documentary, oral historical, and palaeoenvironmental record. Chief among these are cosmic impacts. Due to my familiarity with the literature on volcanic eruptions, I also realized that many myths did not well reflect volcanic eruptions or other known physical processes on Earth, but rather seemed to reflect disasters of cosmic origin. ... mythologies, at least in part, represent cosmographic records of real environmental events, especially temporary celestial events ... some iconographic images of gods, demigods, supernatural beings, and legendary rulers portray specific celestial phenomena and events ... environmental events such as floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and droughts, are often cognitively linked with unusual celestial events (e. g., comets, meteor storms, supernovae, planetary conjunctions, eclipses, cosmic impacts) that may have occurred within a few years of the earthly environmental event. ... the birth names of chiefs and royalty can encode spectacular temporary celestial events as is also true for names acquired during the reigns of these individuals ... at least some cosmogonic myths, as well as myths about demigods and culture heroes, encode temporary celestial events ... at least some legendary stories about epic battles and voyages encode temporary celestial events, especially the passage of spectacular comets ... art, iconography, architecture, and chiefly or royal symbols of power are sometimes used to encode temporary celestial events. The secret of humankind's past has long been locked within the fabric of our cultural traditions ... within our mythologies ... within the iconography, art, and architecture of past societies ... within the patterns of social behavior that can be elicited from the archaeological record ... and within the corpus of wisdom so zealously shepherded and preserved by our various religions. It is sobering to realize that until now the most visually and intellectually stimulating part of humankind's overall environment, that of the processes and events in the celestial heavens, has been virtually ignored in nearly all studies of human history and human behavior. With the realization of just how important temporary celestial events were to past cultures, we now have a key that can unlock many of the biggest mysteries of our past. However, in order for us to most effectively use this key we must break down the artificial barriers that presently exist between the social sciences, the physical sciences, and the humanities, and indeed the barriers between science and religion. Past cultures worldwide often shared in a single cosmic vision, and we must not let our own present fragmented fields of knowledge hinder our attempt to recapture that vision. ------------------------ LEWIS FARNELL professor of Greek religion: What is normal in nature and society rarely excites the myth-making imagination, which is more likely to be kindled by the abnormal, some startling catastrophe, some terrible violation of the social code. ------------------------ DAVID PANKENIER Lehigh University, Philadelphia, USA: ... the broad spectrum of cultural responses to cataclysmic events ? from deep-seated fear and dread, to intense efforts to mediate what they saw through ritual reenactment, mythic recounting, and sacrifice, to the ultimate domestication of the frightening implications of chaotic intrusions into their lives through various forms of deep-play all attest to the profoundly unsettling impact chaotic events in the skies may have had on the minds of those ancient Chinese. ------------------------ ADRIAN BAILEY comparative mythologist and author: Could our failure to understand our distant past be due to our method of approach and a strange reluctance to pursue a line of enquiry ? well signposted with clues ? to its conclusion? Can there be any doubt that, in the absence of written records, myths and symbols, legends and folklore, passed down from generation to generation, and migrating through diverse cultures and societies while retaining their original meaning, provide us with the most reliable clues to the mysteries of the past? ------------------------ Anonymous editor of the Larousse encyclopedia of mythology: ... are all these legends a confused account of great events on a planetary scale which were beheld in terror simultaneously by the men scattered everywhere over the world? ------------------------ HANS BELLAMY comparative mythologist: Chance and luck allowed a remnant of mankind to get through the cataclysm of the former satellite. These survivors treasured their memories in those reports which we now call 'cosmological myths'. They recorded the terrors from which they had escaped, and they told of the time of calm which followed the great upheaval. ------------------------ IRVING WOLFE professor of English literature, University of Montréal, Canada: Nature produces Culture and the natural cataclysms which our ancestors have collectively experienced have influenced and shaped the cultural artifacts created afterwards. To put it simply, cultures are what they have gone through. The past determines the present, and the cosmic past exerts the greatest influence. A culture, if properly interpreted, therefore becomes a mirror of what preceded it. ... catastrophe leads to new civilisation: revolutions in Culture arise from the behaviour of Nature. The catastrophe would nevertheless have to be large enough to cause violent and sensational spectacles in the sky and correspondingly sensational effects on nature and culture. What is important for our purposes is the agreement among many researchers that the Ur-story behind the combat myths is cosmic, for this is what allows us to propose that it may refer to a real historical event. ... if humankind for the first time began to look for and find objective order in the heavens during the pre-Socratic period, it did not happen because there was a sudden increase in Greek brainpower, or because of a sudden and unexplainable desire to perceive the heavens as they were rather than invent things that were not there in the sky. I think it occurred because for the first time the heavens displayed an objective order which could be observed. If there was a catastrophe around 700 BC, the skies might have settled down sufficiently by 600 BC or slightly later to permit recurrent observation of the year-length, the solstices and equinoxes and lunar cycles and even the Venus-Earth interlock, such that it would be apparent that the heavens were orderly. ... most of the creations of our culture (idea systems, religions, cosmologies, sports, works of art) are unconsciously-directed denials of catastrophe, self-delusions designed to make us believe that cosmically-induced natural destructions did not occur and therefore will not. ... the Games served a therapeutic purpose, in that the athletes emulated the actions of the cosmic forces which had been seen on the screen of the sky, with the winners representing the original divine sky champion, able to defeat all enemies at cosmically symbolic feats ... The Games therefore re-enacted in safe and re-assuring imitation the victory of stability over chaos in the sky. If we accept the hypothesis that Culture follows Nature, then ... we have no choice but to guess that something drastic happened in the skies not too long before the cultural upheaval, which leads us to ask of course when it occurred and what was its cause. ------------------------ E. TRIPP classical mythologist: The mythical battle is generally believed to have been a personification of terrifying natural phenomena S of cataclysmic proportions. ------------------------ BARBARA HAND CLOW Writer: The marauding cosmic agencies responsible for such dire devastation are now identifiable with reasonable accuracy and are still graphically remembered as the hydras, griffins, dragons, and Medusas, the world encircling serpents and vast 'monsters' of popular mythology ... actually symbolized cosmic phenomena. The sky did fall within recent memory, and then the recovery period from 9000 to 1500 B. C. was filled with periodic upheaval. ------------------------ R. M. SINCLAIR National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia: When we talk of astronomical phenomena, we usually make an assumption of uniformity in the past, that the long-term average of these phenomena has always been much the same. We can say with certainty that this is true for the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars because we can track their motions back for millennia S But we do not know with the same certainty that the bombardment of Earth from space has been the same as we now observe it to be S The present rarity of sizable 'hits' may not always have been the case. Some of the evidence comes from old records and traditions, that suggest strongly that the sky some millennia ago was so different as to lie completely outside our present experience. Early records speak fearfully of the sky being alive with meteors, much as we have occasionally seen during rare showers; were there many more small ones, there could be as many more big ones. At those times bombardment from the sky would have been a real hazard. Tunguska-sized events may have been common enough, to make people fear the skies as something to watch with dread, to worship, and to propitiate. The idea of repeated passage through 'danger zones' in the Solar System would explain much of the fear and worship of the sky that we still see in place today, albeit diluted. It is otherwise hard to understand this dread of the sky, since there is no historical record of anyone actually being killed by a meteorite or threatened physically by a comet. Those studying myths and legends, and early art, could profitably work with astronomers (and vice versa) to learn more about this little-understood aspect of the history of mankind and of the Solar System. Historians and anthropologists who do not include astronomical phenomena in their work, and who do not understand how dangerous the Solar System can be, are likely to interpret texts or traditions about things 'seen in the sky' or 'falling to Earth' as references to 'heavens' or 'warfare of the gods' rather than descriptions of actual physical events. When used with understandable caution, human history does offer a way to probe the astronomical record on a time scale of millennia. ------------------------ C. L. N. RUGGLES & H. A. W. BURL: We can be sure that the actions of prehistoric people were very strongly dependent upon their perceptions of the world, expressed in systems of belief and ritual, and that celestial phenomena were an integral part of this perception ... ------------------------ MIKE BAILLIE Dendrochronologist: We now have a set of environmental events at 2354-2345 BC, 1628-1623 BC, 1159-1141 BC, 208-204 BC and AD 536-45 ... There are connections between the events in that all now seem to have references to extraterrestrial occurrences. Mythology links several of them quite explicitly, and the mythological connections suggest some cosmic linkages to the same events. It appears that there may have been a catastrophic set of happenings in or around 1628 BC involving a close-pass comet and volcanic activity. We have what may be some reasonably accurate descriptions of what it was like at the time with incredible coloured sky displays, assorted impacts and general mayhem. It is not impossible that versions of this may have happened more than once, especially if the responsible body exhibited even temporary periodic behaviour. ------------------------ W. MULLEN: It is necessary to rethink the 'Axial Age', connecting cultures from Greece to China in the 6th and 5th century BCE: The assumption on which this rethinking is based is that these cultures' simultaneous activities in rewriting the mythical accounts of world-destructions bequeathed to them by immediately preceding generations was essentially conditioned by the fact that human consciousness had only recently emerged from such events into a period of relative celestial and terrestrial stability. Erratic events in the heavens are terrifying; predictable events need not be so. The former belief is the heritage of the traumatizing catastrophes of the past; the latter is the product of a new determination to survey the heavens as an orderly system. Collected by Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs ******************************************************** SPIRAL GALAXIES & GRAND CANYONS By Wal Thornhill www.holoscience.com.au (c)Copyright 2003 The grandest canyon in the solar system is Valles Marineris on Mars. It stretches a third of the way around the planet. But what in heaven can spiral galaxies have to do with the geology of Mars? [Ed note: The full article with photos can be found on Wal Thornhill's website: http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=rnde0zza PHOTO CAPTION: The great scar of Valles Marineris looks as if it has been burnt into the planet's face. Behind, a barred spiral galaxy glows from the depths of space. In October 2001, I wrote "In light of more than a century's research in the field of plasma cosmology and the 20th century discoveries of the space age, we can confidently propose the celestial thunderbolt as a common cause of the formation of canyons and rilles on rocky planets and moons." At that time I had not come to any conclusion about the details of the electrical event that created the colossal Valles Marineris canyons on Mars. Like geologists, I use a process of pattern matching when attempting to understand the processes that may have formed a feature seen on the surfaces of planets and moons. But unlike geologists, who have been seriously misled by astrophysicists and are now confused by what they see on Mars, I have the luxury of contemplating the effects of the most powerful erosion force in the universe -- that of the electric arc. Following the lead provided by Ralph Juergens in the 1970's I looked at the detailed morphology of Valles Marineris to conclude that it was a scar caused by a cosmic discharge. But the question remained: how did the arc move to create a chasm at least 4000 kilometres long? There is no obvious start or finish to the canyons. Indeed there is a kind of symmetry about the central region of Melas Chasma. Electrical effects offer a unique advantage in being scalable over more than 14 orders of magnitude. In other words, erosion effects observed under an electron microscope provide direct insights into planetary features on a scale of hundreds or thousands of kilometres. However, I had limited my perspective by not looking at large scale galactic objects to see if there were any clues in their patterns to the much smaller features on planetary surfaces. THE CONNECTION LIES IN THE FACT THAT GALAXIES ARE THE LARGEST VISIBLE ELECTRIC DISCHARGE PHENOMENON IN THE UNIVERSE. That may be a controversial statement when conventional astrophysics uses the weakest force in the universe, gravity, in a fruitless attempt to explain the dynamics of galaxies. It is a glaring indictment of the way science works when a compelling competing theory is neither mentioned nor tested against an accepted theory that requires ad hoc and mysterious "dark matter" and "dark energy" in order to appear to work. It has forced plasma physicists and the IEEE to hold separate meetings and to publish papers on plasma cosmology. With a very few notable exceptions, the astronomical community ignores the subject. The strongest support for plasma cosmology comes from the close correspondence between observations, supercomputer simulations and experiment. It does not require any new forces, new physics or phantom particles to force a match with observations. It explains why galaxies naturally favor the beautiful spiral form. Gravity alone can only produce featureless disks. The current theory of planet formation relies on this fact. PHOTO CAPTION: On the left is a series of single frame stills from a computer animation of a cross-section through two interacting Birkeland current filaments. Not shown is the elliptical core of plasma trapped at the geometric center of the simulation. Top right is the form taken by two interacting plasmoids fired at each other across a magnetic field (courtesy of W. Bostik). Below that, side by side to show the striking correspondence between lab experiment and computer simulation in plasma cosmology, are the development of auroral instabilities as current increases from top to bottom. All images are from _Physics of the Plasma Universe_ by Anthony Peratt. THORNHILL CONTINUES: In the simulation of the electrical formation of a spiral galaxy the two fuzzy spots in the earlier frames show where two cosmic current filaments pass vertically through the plane of the developing galaxy. The force between these cosmic current filaments is more powerful and long-range than gravity, declining linearly with distance. It leads to a natural pairing of filaments when many filaments are present in plasmas in which the magnetic field plays a major role. I accounted for the pairing and rotation of plasma current filaments when explaining the formation of circular craters. However, it was not until I examined the MOLA topographic map of Mars (above) that I realized THE EXTENDED FORM OF VALLES MARINERIS AND CONNECTED CANYONS WAS IDENTICAL TO THAT OF A CLASSIC BARRED-SPIRAL GALAXY. PHOTO CAPTION: It seems that a cosmic thunderbolt has struck Mars with two huge filaments or plasmoids focussed on a spot now occupied by the deepest central canyons of Valles Marineris. Electromagnetic forces then constrained the discharge across the surface of Mars to the classic shape of a barred spiral. All of the enigmatic large-scale features of Valles Marineris then have a coherent and simple explanation. Note the tendency for Ius Chasma to be concave downwards and Coprates Chasma to be concave upward. That matches the effect seen in Bostik's lab experiment above. Also many odd details make sense. For example, for the aficionados of powerful plasma discharges, the 3bar2 is formed by Ius Chasma to the west and Coprates Chasma to the east. At their extremities they "pinch" down before entering large chaotic regions, Noctis Labyrinthus in the west and Capri Chasma and Eos Chasma in the east. This is typical of diocotron instabilities that sometimes occur in the arms of spiral galaxies. After pinching down, the discharge curves and balloons out. The surface damage is spread over a greater area, forming chaotic etched terrain in the east and a vast system of pitted trenches in the west. The act of pinching the discharge leads to filamentation, which may be seen in the thin parallel channels at the extremities of the main canyons. The filamentation instability occurs most readily at large currents. This effect could also explain the tendency to "doubling" of the canyons, to form a central ridge. Electrons rushed from remote regions along the outer "spiral arms" of Claritas Fossae in the west and a number of channels including Tiu Vallis in the east. In doing so they created the usual electrically scoured channels. As Michael Carr, leader of the Viking Orbiter imaging team noted, "Canyons, chaos and outflow channels are thus physically connected, and their origins may be in some way related." There are some smaller parallel canyon systems, closed at both ends, to the north of Valles Marineris. They appear to be the result of smaller discharges of the same type as created Valles Marineris, probably immediately following the main stroke. Multiple strokes, decreasing in intensity, are a well-known characteristic of lightning. THE ACCEPTED MODEL No one was there to witness the evolution of the Earth, so geologists have constructed an elaborate story about the history of the Earth. It is founded upon a simple belief that the planets were all formed at about the same time and have remained for billions of years in their present orbits. It was inevitable that chapters of the Earth's story would be translated to Mars. The result is a succession of hypothetical Martian "ages" including a "Noachian" age of deluge. And remember that this is a story about a frozen desert planet! One of the most highly developed capabilities of the human mind is to concoct stories. Equally, we have a strong desire to be told stories and to believe them. If we believe a story to be true we have a strong tendency to accept confirming evidence and to ignore contrary evidence. Geologists are human and show the same tendencies when explaining planetary surface features. The idea of former oceans and rivers existing on Mars came from the many scoured channels and the flat, low terrain in the northern hemisphere. This marked hemispheric dichotomy is inexplicable by any known geological or astronomical effect. It has never occurred to geologists that the agent involved was electrified plasma. Why should it? Astrophysicists tell them that we live in an electrically neutral universe in which cosmic charge separation is impossible. But if that single assumption is incorrect everything changes. If the visible universe suffers cosmic charge separation then we have a source of energy to build and shape galaxies, light stars, give birth to planets, organize stable orbits and leave the resulting scars of electrical transactions on all solid bodies. IMPLICATIONS OF THE PLASMA MODEL Gigantic fresh scars show that Mars has suffered recently and terribly. Millions of cubic kilometres of jagged boulders were burnt and torn from its surface and strewn from horizon to horizon ? as all of the images relayed from the surface have shown. The implications for the search for life on Mars are profound. IF THERE WAS A PAST ENVIRONMENT CONDUCIVE TO LIFE ON MARS IT HAS BEEN WRECKED. Not only the surface suffered but also the atmosphere was stripped and exogenous gases and solids dumped on the hapless planet. Mars1 orbit and climate changed drastically. See the THEMIS website for the fullsize image of the eastern end of Ius Chasma: http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-20030820a.html It is interesting to compare a geological story of Mars with that of the electrical. The THEMIS image has the following explanation attached: "The steep canyon walls and ridge forming layers of Valles Marineris are on display in this THEMIS picture. Landslides and gullies observed throughout the image are evidence to [sic] the continued mass wasting of the martian surface. Upon close examination of the canyon floor, small ripples that are likely migrating sand dunes are seen on the surface. Some slopes also display an interesting raked-like appearance that may be due to a combination of aeolian and gully forming processes." THORNHILL COMMENTS: The term "mass wasting" for Valles Marineris is a euphemism for the disappearance of millions of cubic kilometres of rock and soil. The two mechanisms proposed for the formation of Valles Marineris are underground water erosion or massive surface rifting. Neither stand up to scrutiny. There is no mechanism available to geologists to cause mass wasting, particularly on such a gargantuan scale. The minor features are merely explained in an ad hoc fashion. The electrical model now has a coherent explanation for the broadest features of five major and distinct landforms associated with Valles Marineris. The five features are: 1. the Valles Marineris canyons; 2. Noctis Labyrinthus; 3. Claritas Fossae; 4. the eastern chaos region; 5. the great eastern valley systems. The missing mass (shades of the purely gravitational thinking of astronomers) was not transported or buried on Mars. It was lofted toward space by blast and electrical forces. The same kind of process operates far more quietly today on Io, lofting matter hundreds of kilometres into space. The fact that we receive martian meteorites today is solid evidence of the removal of rocks from the surface of Mars in the recent past. The electrical model also explains the detailed features. The small ripples on the canyon floor are not sand dunes but a solid reminder of the path of the arc that blasted the canyon. They are massive "fulgurites" - the glassified sand formed by underground lightning. They are transverse to the arc because they record the corona discharge filaments associated with lightning. The same effect seems to have solidified the soil along the ridge crests into "Lichtenberg figures," which is another characteristic pattern created by lightning. Ridge crests and canyon edges would be the focus of secondary discharges. The raked appearance of the slopes are probably the result of surface lightning feeding the ridge crests with electrons to satisfy the discharges there. We find such patterns of grooves on objects as diverse as asteroids, moons and planets. For reasons yet to be revealed, I think it likely that Mars in the recent past had an environment not much different to that of the Earth. But the extensive layering on Mars suggests the earlier environment was globally and episodically buried and electrically scarred when that changed . That could explain the detection of extensive subsurface ice, if the hydrogen signature found by the Odyssey spacecraft is due to water. Certainly, Martian craters with flow features away from their rims fit such a picture. The flows are due to electric heating of ices by subsurface currents flowing away from the arc that formed the crater. What about the Grand Canyon? As many geologists have pointed out, the Grand Canyon is the size of a mere tributary of Valles Marineris. The Grand Canyon shows detailed similarities to the canyons of Valles Marineris but the discharge that created it did not take the same striking shape. If forced to use a galactic analogy, it could be the equivalent of a dwarf irregular galaxy. (c) Wal Thornhill 2003 author of The Electric Universe: A Holistic Science for the New Millennium See www.electric-universe.org ******************************************************** PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA GROUP WEBSITE: http://www.kronia.com Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, now with regular features on the Saturn theory and electric universe, may be ordered from this page: http://www.kronia.com/library/aeon.html Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: http://www.aeonjournal.com/index.html http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/ http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovskian/ http://www.bearfabrique.org http://www.grazian-archive.com/ http://www.holoscience.com http://www.electric-cosmos.org/ http://www.electric-universe.org http://www.science-frontiers.com http://www.catastrophism.com/cdrom/index.htm http://www.dragonscience.com ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging field of astral catastrophics. Our focus is 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. thoth at Whidbey.com New readers are referred to earlier issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above.