The rings and moons of Saturn

This weekend, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will be doing a flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan (it has done several flybys of that moon already). The Cassini spacecraft was launched in 1997 and arrived at Saturn in 2004.

The spacecraft successfully delivered its 705-pound Huygen probe to the surface of Titan at the beginning of 2005, and the Cassini orbiter continues delivering stunning images of the ringed planet and its moons. The gorgeous image above is actually composed of 165 images taken almost exactly five years ago, on September 15, 2006 (as explained here on NASA's website). As described in this recent article, the image was taken by Cassini from the dark side of Saturn, so that the sun was blocked by the massive planet, but the sun's light illuminated the incredible rings.

More recently, a video has appeared on YouTube composed of actual HD images from Cassini, and they are similarly breathtaking and unworldly (see below):



The rings of Saturn pose difficulties for conventional explanations of the origin of the solar system and planets. As NASA planetary scientist Jeff Cuzzi has explained (for instance in this article), the rings cannot have been formed 4.8 billion years ago, when conventional timelines place the formation of Saturn and the other planets.

The conventional theories used to argue that the rings of Saturn and the other planets with (less spectacular) rings were leftover from the clouds of dust that supposedly congealed to make the giant gas planets (another phenomenon that is difficult to explain). However, as Dr. Walt Brown has pointed out in his online version of his book In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, more recent data and analysis indicates that the rings could not possibly have survived for so many billions of years and must be attributable to a more recent phenomenon.

In fact, Dr. Brown cites a 1985 article from Sky & Telescope in which NASA scientist Jeff Cuzzi states that the rings of Saturn would be dissipated in no more than 10,000 years! This means that they are either younger than that, or that they are being replenished somehow (or both).

The Cassini spacecraft's flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus (and other recent observations of Enceladus) determined that Enceladus is in fact currently jetting water and ice and thereby replenishing Saturn's E-ring. This discovery is consistent with Dr. Brown's theory for the origin and composition of asteroids as coming from Earth during the events surrounding a violent rupture and global flood, some evidence for which we examined in previous posts here and here, as well as in discussions of the water on the surface of Mars far from the polar ice caps in this post here. He explains more details regarding the Enceladus findings on his website here in conjunction with his discussion of the origins of asteroids and meteoroids (some of which have been captured as moons by other planets, including Saturn).

The events described by Dr. Brown's hydroplate theory would also explain the possible source of the organically-produced methane that has been detected both on Mars and on Titan. He notes that the salt water being ejected by Enceladus has a salt content very similar to that in earth's oceans, and believes that the origin of this water is in fact earth. He also believes that the methane found in the solar system originated on earth.

He explains that:

The fountains of the great deep also launched vegetation fragments containing bacteria, so bacteria and their food were in comets, asteroids, and meteorites. Living, but dormant, bacteria have been discovered in meteorites, and it has long been known that comets contain methane. Therefore, besides providing water that flowed on Mars, comet and asteroid impacts also delivered “methane-producing machines” and their food.

Dr. Brown has further predicted that "Bacteria will be found on Mars. Their DNA will be similar to Earth’s bacteria. Furthermore, isotopes of the carbon in Mars’ methane will show the carbon’s biological origin." If similar bacteria or methane are detected on Titan, this would also appear to be supporting evidence that would tend to confirm Dr. Brown's theory and predictions.

These aspects of the amazing planet Saturn and its rings and moons should be kept in mind as further information is sent back to us from the indefatigable Cassini spacecraft.

Every man is an island

The expression, "Good feeling your vibe" is a unique one, and one not heard so often anymore. However, it may contain some deep insights.

As we have discussed in previous posts, John Anthony West in Serpent in the Sky presents extensive evidence, based upon the brilliant insights of R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887 - 1961), that the ancient Egyptians understood the importance of harmonics and vibrations on many levels, and incorporated that knowledge into all aspects of their culture, from mathematics, to medicine, to literature, and of course to architecture and art. For previous discussions of this evidence, see this post, this post, and this post.

If these scholars are correct, the concept of "vibrations" -- as well as the idea of "good vibrations" and "bad vibrations" -- is a very important concept indeed, and one that the ancient Egyptians took very seriously.

In his 1961 book Sacred Science: the King of Pharaonic Theocracy, Schwaller de Lubicz discusses his belief of the importance of this subject to human beings, which he labors to demonstrate was a belief shared by the ancient Egyptians as well. He explains:

The higher animals, as well as the human animal, are totally bathed in a psychic atmosphere which establishes a bond between the individuals, a bond as explicit as the air which is breathed by all living things. In this psychic ambiance, every human can be compared to a radiating energetic source offering a kind of vibration of its own which is received by the other beings. Beings can be more or less aware of this, depending on the degree of their mental neutrality. 153.

Later, he explains the same concept in slightly different language, saying:

In reality, every living being is in contact with all the rhythms and harmonies of all the energies of his universe: The means of this contact is, of course, the self-same energy contained by this particular living being. Nothing separates this energetic state within an individual living being from the energy in which he is immersed, if not the cerebral presence, such as is the case with man. The animal does not lose this contact as it is not yet in possession of this mental "superiority." 163-164.

It is very interesting that de Lubicz expresses this energy source as "a kind of vibration," which in terms of physics could be described as a wave (all vibrations can be expressed in physics in terms of frequencies, which is a method of describing a wave in time, just as wavelength is a way of describing a wave in terms of distance, and wavelength and frequency are related such that knowing one will allow the determination of the other).

The assertion that everyone we meet is "a radiating energy source offering a kind of vibration of its own" brings to mind the wave patterns created by islands in the ocean (see diagram above), and the traditional navigation techniques used by the Polynesian Voyaging Society described in previous posts (see here, here and here). The techniques used by the wayfinders of the Polynesian Voyaging Society were passed on to them by master navigator Mau Piailug (1932 - 2010), whose ability to sense distant islands by the "vibrations" they gave off is described in the 2009 book Wayfinders by Wade Davis:

Expert navigators like Mau, sitting alone in the darkness in the hull of the canoe, can sense and distinguish as many as five distinct swells moving through the vessel at any given time. Local wave action is chaotic and disruptive. But the distant swells are consistent, deep and resonant pulses that move across the ocean from one star house to another, 180 degrees away, and thus can be used as another means of orienting the vessel in time and space. Should the canoe shift course in the middle of the night, the navigator will know, simply from the change in the pitch and roll of the waves. Even more remarkable is the navigator's ability to pull islands out of the sea. The truly great navigators such as Mau can identify the presence of distant atolls of islands beyond the visible horizon simply by watching the reverberation of the waves across the hull of the canoe, knowing full well that every island group in the Pacific has its own refractive pattern that can be read with the same ease with which a forensic scientist would read a fingerprint. 59.

This is a stunning metaphor for the same concept that Schwaller de Lubicz is talking about with regard to human beings, each of whom he says has the same kind of "personal fingerprint of vibrations" that Davis describes above regarding islands in the Pacific. The phrase "no man is an island" comes to mind, ironically, in that according to this view we are actually quite similar to islands in one way, and yet connected by the ocean that carries these vibrations, in which we are all "totally bathed" at all times, in the words quoted above from Schwaller de Lubicz.

Curiously, this appears to be a possible connection between the ancient science of harmonic manipulation which thinkers such as Schwaller de Lubicz and John Anthony West perceive in the ancient Egyptians and the ancient science of deep ocean navigation which the ancients also appear to have possessed (as we discuss in other posts such as this one, this one and this one).

Based on this information, the phrase "good feeling your vibe" should perhaps make a comeback.

100th anniversary of the start of Amundsen's quest for the South Pole

On the 8th of September, 1911 -- exactly 100 years ago -- Roald Amundsen of Norway began the first successful mission to the South Pole.

Amundsen had arrived at the Bay of Whales in Antarctica in January of 1911, and spent the Antarctic winter preparing and improving his gear for the expedition (remember that the summer months of the northern hemisphere correspond to the winter months in the southern hemisphere). In September, as the spring months began in the southern hemisphere (just as the fall months are commencing here in the northern hemisphere), Amundsen decided to begin his quest for the pole.

Amundsen began towards the pole with seven other members of his expedition on the 8th of September after warmer temperatures appeared to herald the onset of spring, but temperatures soon dropped to an unforgiving -60° F and by the 12th of September, Amundsen decided to cache supplies at 80° south latitude and turn back to his ship and base in the Bay of Whales (they had previously created supply depots at S 80°, S 81°, and S 82° in February of 1911 in preparation for their push to the pole later in the year).

Amundsen would wait until 19 October 1911 to set out again for the pole, which they would reach on 14 December 1911. It would be the first time in known history that human beings reached latitude S 90°.

The success of the Amundsen expedition would be largely overshadowed in the English-speaking world by the death of the English explorer Robert Scott and his party, who reached the pole in January of 1912 but perished on the return journey in February and March of 1912.

Amundsen's great achievement and the excellent terrain analysis and mission planning that contributed to his success was revived by the 1979 publication of a book entitled Scott and Amundsen by Roland Huntford. The book was the basis for a gripping six-part television miniseries entitled The Last Place on Earth which aired in 1985 and which I clearly remember watching when it was first broadcast. Huntford's book was later retitled The Last Place on Earth as well.

Roald Amundsen was born on 16 July 1872, which means that if you were born on that date in 1972, you are the same age that Amundsen was when he started his push to the South Pole one hundred years ago. He later reached the North Pole in 1925, and because there is some doubt as to the accuracy of the claims of previous explorers who said they had made it to that pole, it is possible that Amundsen was the first there as well.

Roald Amundsen himself disappeared while on a rescue mission in the Arctic, in 1928, looking for survivors of an expedition whose plane had crashed. His body was never found or recovered.

The story of the quest to reach the South Pole is a thrilling one, and well worth studying in greater detail. It reminds us of the tremendous achievements that human beings are capable of accomplishing.

Further, the continent of Antarctica is incredibly important as a source of powerful evidence about the history of the earth. We have examined some of this Antarctic evidence in previous posts, including:

• "Earth's big roll"

• "Lake Vostok and the deep liquid lakes on Antarctica"
  

• "The subglacial fjords in Antarctica"

and of course,

• "Antarctica"
  

Just So Stories: The White Cliffs of Albion

As a child growing up, one of my favorite sources of bedtime stories was certainly Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories (the edition linked is the one I had, and still have to this day, although there are other more complete editions -- this one has wonderful illustrations).

Of all these stories, one of my favorites was (and remains) the delightful story of "How the Whale got his Throat," which relates the tale of the shipwrecked Mariner (a man-of-infinite-resource-and-sagacity) who rather unkindly drags a grating (secured by suspenders) into the throat of the Whale as payback for swallowing him, and to prevent it from happening again.

During his sojourn inside the Whale, the shipwrecked Mariner convinces the cetacean (by means of stumping, jumping, bumping, thumping, and dancing hornpipes) to, as he puts it, "Take me to my natal-shore, and the white-cliffs-of-Albion."

By virtue of this detail, and the illustration in the volume I had as a child (which showed the Mariner debarking from the mouth of the Whale onto a beach very much like the one pictured above), I can never think of the white cliffs of Dover without thinking of the story of the Whale (Albion being a poetic name for England with its white cliffs).

The composition of these famous white cliffs, which are deeply meaningful for Englishmen, is chalk, calcium carbonate, which conventional geology informs us consists of several hundred feet of "coccolithophores, single-celled planktonic algae whose skeletal remains sank to the bottom of the ocean and, together with the remains of bottom-living creatures, formed sediments" (see this Wikipedia entry, which basically relates the well-known orthodox explanation).

On the surface, this explanation for the composition of the cliffs of Dover seems plausible (note that the same explanation is given for the geological origin of the cliffs of Normandy which are found on the other side of the Channel and are very similar in composition and size, and which include the famous Pointe du Hoc up which the US Army Rangers led by Colonel James Earl Rudder, Texas A&M Class of 1932, conducted one of the most daring and difficult assaults against the Nazis on D-Day in World War II).

Digging a little deeper, however, as West Point graduate Colonel Walt Brown does in his examination of the evidence supporting his hydroplate theory, reveals serious problems with the conventional explanation.

For one thing, these cliffs occasionally reach heights of 1,000 feet, and yet the conventional theory which posits that all or most of earth's limestone formations are the remains of slowly settling marine skeletons requires shallow seas for these organisms. How could organisms (primarily corals, which cannot grow at depths below about 160 feet) living in shallow seas produce limestone deposits 1,000 feet high (and probably higher, if these cliffs have been eroding for millions of years)?

To explain such a phenomenon, geologists must argue that the seafloor beneath these shallow seas continued to subside lower and lower, at a rate that was just right to allow continued deposits of calcium carbonate for the millions of years required to build up thousand-foot beds of limestone or chalk (limestone is another form of calcium carbonate). This is difficult to argue, especially since, as Dr. Brown argues in his section on the origin of limestone, "the seafloor cannot subside unless the rock below it gets out of the way. That rock would have nowhere to go" (8th ed. page 224).

We have previously discussed how the catastrophic flood described by Dr. Brown would have created the conditions for the slow sinking of the floor of the Pacific at rates that could allow the growth of the coral atolls found there, but these conditions would not have pertained in the vicinity of the Atlantic and the English Channel. Furthermore, massive calcium carbonate deposits are found all over the world, such as in the Grand Canyon (where the Redwall Limestone layer is 400 feet thick) and -- even more dramatically -- in the Bahamas, which consist of massive limestone banks up to six miles thick!

The fact is that there simply is too much limestone on earth to be explained by the marine skeleton theory so favored by conventional uniformitarian geologists. Further, this entire hypothetical mechanism for the creation of organic limestone begs the question of where the organisms got the ingredients for the limestone they created in the first place -- as Dr. Brown explains, the organisms needed inorganic ingredients precipitated in the oceans of the earth to create the limestone that did come from organic sources. In short, Dr. Brown explains that the vast majority of limestone deposits found around the world today come from inorganic sources, and even the organic limestone had its ultimate origins in the inorganic limestone that was dissolved in the sea which was then processed by the corals and other marine life to become organic limestone when their skeletons sank to the seafloor.

Dr. Brown explains, using clear chemical formulas, where this limestone originally came from and why it is found all over the world. He explains that water trapped under great pressure beneath the earth's surface prior to the flood event would have dissolved minerals in the floor and ceiling above and below them, and that rising temperatures prior to the flood event would have caused increasing amounts of limestone and salt to precipitate out of the solution. During the rupture and subsequent flood event, the escaping subterranean water would have swept this limestone to the earth's surface, distributing it widely in great volumes.

Immediately after the flood event, there would have been greater abundance of dissolved limestone in the oceans of the earth, which would have precipitated into the formations we see today. Limestone also forms the cement which bonds most sedimentary rocks in the geological strata worldwide.

In his book, Dr. Brown gives extensive scientific evidence for the conclusion that most limestone found on earth is inorganic and was not produced by marine organisms over millions of years. Further support for this theory comes from the high limestone content found in some meteorites which have hit the earth, which (as we have discussed previously here and here) probably originated from earth during the flood event in the first place, and have now fallen back to earth after some time in space. It is fairly clear that the limestone in these meteorites did not come from abundant marine life in shallow seas.

Based on the evidence, it appears that the conventional explanation for massive limestone and calcium carbonate formations, including the Bahamas Banks and the White Cliffs of Dover and Normandy, resembles a Just So Story, although not as charming as the Just So Stories of Rudyard Kipling.

As difficult as they are to maintain, however, geologists will often prefer their uniformitarian Just So Stories to the alternative of admitting the possibility of a global catastrophe such as the flood described in the hydroplate theory, because catastrophic explanations severely undermine the Darwinian theories which are built upon uniformitarian geology (for more extensive discussion of this connection, see here).

To read more of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories online, follow this link to a table of contents of the 1902 edition with 1902 illustrations (each title in the list is a link to the corresponding story).

The Dendera Zodiac and the Panel of the Wounded Man at Lascaux

In the previous post, we discussed the evidence that the cave paintings at Lascaux contain images that can clearly be shown to represent celestial constellations -- a truly astounding allegation. In fact, it is such a powerful piece of evidence refuting the conventional timeline of human development that it deserves to be revisited in much greater depth.

In the previous post, we noted the evidence which has received the most attention so far, which is the existence of six dots in an arrangement which traditionally represents the Pleiades, painted in the proper location relative to the enormous Bull #18 image in the Hall of the Bulls at Lascaux.

However, in addition to that, we examined the so-called "Panel of the Wounded Man" in which a bird-headed man (who is drawn from two parallel lines) is inclined at a forty-five degree angle between a bull and a rhinoceros with a tail in the form of the stars in the head of Leo. We saw that the presence of the bull and the Leo-shape indicate that these parallel lines leaning at an angle (the "wounded man") represent the constellation Gemini, the Twins (a constellation which itself consists of two parallel lines, and which appears to incline at the same angle).

We pointed to articles discussing this compelling evidence, and noting that below the wounded man is a bird on a post or pole (see image below).






















Most astonishing was the incontrovertible fact that in the famous Round Zodiac of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, a Horus-falcon is depicted upon a post directly below a depiction of the Twins of Gemini, in exactly the same location as the bird-on-a-pole relative to the "wounded man" at Lascaux! See the detail from the Round Zodiac below:

























This correlation is truly significant, as it puts the defenders of the orthodox timeline of human history in an extremely uncomfortable position.

First of all, it is very difficult to argue that there is absolutely no cultural connection between these two works of art. The stars in the sky certainly suggest shapes, and it is perhaps possible to argue that two completely isolated human cultures would group the same stars into the same groupings even without any contact with one another.

It is even possible to suggest that some of these groups would suggest identification with the same animals -- the long sinuous form of the Scorpion, perhaps, and even the "V"-shape of the horns of the Bull, Taurus (although the "V"-shape is much less suggestive of a bull than the stars of the Scorpion are suggestive of a scorpion, and in the Mathisen Corollary book itself, I discuss the fact that the "V"-shape of Taurus was also interpreted to resemble an adze in addition to a bull).

However, it is extremely difficult to argue that the stars below Gemini are at all suggestive of a bird on a pillar, and that this image would be seized upon by two completely disconnected cultures which never shared any form of contact.

And yet, this is exactly the argument that defenders of the conventional history must take, if they wish to explain the undeniable similarity between the images at Lascaux and the Round Zodiac of Dendera. The conventional timeline declares that Lascaux is the product of Upper Paleolithic humans operating as far back as 17,500 BC.

Here is an essay typical of the treatment this cave art usually receives, from the website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art website. While acknowledging that they represent a tremendous achievement in the history of mankind, the author of the article describes the paintings from the perspective that their creators were hunter-gatherers who chose to depict animals of "species that would have been hunted and eaten (such as deer and bison) as well as those that were feared predators (such as lions, bears, and wolves)."

The bird on the pole, and its clear connection to the Dendera zodiac, causes a king-sized problem for interpretations like this one. Arguing that these images simply manifested themselves in two cultures with no cultural contact is very unconvincing. However, another alternative -- that there could be some cultural contact between a culture operating in France around 17,500 BC (or even 15,000 BC as the article from the Met's website alleges) and the culture of ancient Egypt that produced the Dendera zodiac (which dates to as recent a date as 50 BC, although some scholars have argued that it is almost certainly patterned upon an earlier model, as was common in ancient Egypt) -- is equally difficult to argue convincingly.

How could a specific set of artistic conventions survive for over 17,000 years (or for nearly 15,000 years, if we select a later date for the creation of Lascaux)? Such a possibility becomes absurd when considered carefully. Fifteen thousand years is more than seven times the number of centuries than the number that separate us from the artists who created the Dendera zodiac. In order to argue that artistic norms were somehow transmitted intact across such a vast gulf of time, one must make various assumptions, all of them distasteful to conventional theories of ancient history. One explanation for such preservation might be the existence of some civilization that existed for many thousands of years before the Egyptians. Another, more plausible explanation might be that the accepted date for the painting of the cave art at Lascaux is incorrect and that it was not actually painted in 15,000 BC or 17,500 BC.

Because it is extremely difficult for conventional theorists to explain how such an image could turn up in two isolated cultures, and because arguing for cultural contact is extremely difficult if the orthodox dates for Lascaux are maintained, conventional academia appears to be ignoring the celestial aspects of Lascaux altogether (and instead chooses to discuss the images as desired hunting targets, or powerful predators that early human hunters wished to emulate).

However, another explanation is possible, and that is that the artists of Lascaux were descended from the same cultural source which influenced the culture of ancient Egypt. In this case, the cave paintings of Lascaux might have been contemporary with the art of ancient Egypt, or might have been created slightly earlier or slightly later than the works of Egypt.

Such a possibility appears to be much more likely than the possibility that the conventional theory of Lascaux, which is confidently taught to children in schools in their segments on "early humans," corresponds at all to reality and the truth.

Celestial imagery in the cave paintings of Lascaux

On the twelfth of September, 1940 -- almost exactly 71 years ago -- four teenage boys and a dog named Robot unexpectedly and accidentally discovered one of the most amazing pieces of ancient art in the world -- the cave system of Lascoux, decorated with nearly 2,000 images which had been preserved for millennia.

Who created them and what they mean is unknown, although conventional history books confidently tell us that they are the product of various "upper paleolithic" cultures that lived in the area and decorated the caves in from about 17,500 BC through 9,000 BC. The images at Lascaux and other nearby sites are often interpreted as artistic renditions of the prehistoric European animals that the paleolithic humans would have encountered at the time -- aurochs and red deer and other mammals -- and the few scenes containing human figures (there is only one such scene at Lascaux) are generally interpreted as "narrative" accounts of hunting episodes, in which certain animals were killed and perhaps in which some hunters were injured or met their end as well. Some scholars go beyond the idea that the paintings are mere narratives and argue that they represent an expression of deep and mystical identification with the power of nature manifested in the mighty bulls and horses and stags.

An evocative description of this view is given by Wade Davis in his deeply thought-provoking book The Wayfinders, a book we have touched on in a few previous posts such as "Some thoughts on the Hokule'a" and "How does barbarism win?" Describing the conclusions of observers who believe that the paintings found in the cave of Lascaux and other nearby sites represent an artistic depiction by very early man -- man barely separated from the animals -- of a nostalgia for the time when mankind and the animal kingdom were not yet sundered, Mr. Davis writes:

I recently spent a month in France in the Dordogne with Clayton Eshleman, who has been studying the cave art for more than thirty years, ever since a fateful morning in the spring of 1974 when he abandoned, as he put it, the world of bird song and blue sky for a realm of constricted darkness that filled his being with "mystical enthusiasm." [. . .]

Northrop Frye struggled in vain to assign purpose to these works. "We can add such words as religion and magic," he wrote, "but the fact remains that the complexity, urgency, and sheer titanic power of the motivation involved is something we cannot understand now, much less recapture." Frye saw the animals portrayed as a kind of "extension of human consciousness and power into the objects of greatest energy and strength they [the humans] could see in the world around them. It was as if in painting these forms on rock, the artist was somehow assimilating "the energy, the beauty, the elusive glory latent in nature to the observing mind." We look at the animal forms with human eyes and "suspect that we are really seeing a sorcerer or shaman who has identified himself with the animal by putting on its skin."

Clayton, too, sensed that the cave art did much more than invoke the magic of the hunt. Human beings, he suggested, were at one time of an animal nature, and then at some point, whether we want to admit it or not, were not. The art pays homage to that moment when human beings, through consciousness, separated themselves from the animal realm, emerging as the unique entity that we now know ourselves to be. Viewed in this light, the art may be seen -- as Clayton has written -- almost as "postcards of nostalgia," laments for a lost time when animals and people were as one. 29 - 30.

As attractive as this vision of the cave art may be, there is evidence that the entire thesis that Lascaux represents the first amazing artistic endeavors of extremely early humans may be completely wrong. Without taking anything away from the power and beauty of the artistic depiction of animals found in the natural world, it may in fact be possible that these images represent celestial formations -- that they in fact represent constellations familiar to us today!

This startling hypothesis has been put forth by several serious scholars in the past two or three decades, reviving theories first suggested in the nineteenth century but generally forgotten, as described in this extremely interesting article by William Glyn-Jones on the website of Graham Hancock (the article is three pages long and full of important images -- be sure to read page 2 and page 3 as well). For a more detailed description of this connection, see the longer discussion on Mr. Glyn-Jones' own blog here, which is also linked at the beginning of the first article.

Mr. Glyn-Jones points to previous work by scholars including Luz Antequara Congregado and Mary Settegast suggesting that the cave art of Lascaux depicts specific constellations, including Taurus (with the Hyades and the Pleiades -- see for example this article arguing for the identification of the Pleiades in one famous image at Lascaux), and that the famous "Panel of the Wounded Man" showing an angled human form next to a charging bull may be associated with the myth of Yima and the Bull.

As Mr. Glyn-Jones explains, in the ancient Zoroastrian texts dating to at least 550 BC, Yima is described as the first being, who led humans into a cave to protect them from destruction by ice, and then led them out again, and sacrificed a bull in an attempt to make humans immortal. Similarly, in Norse mythology, the frost giant Ymir is the first being to arise from the gaping primordial whirlpool of Ginungigap, followed closely by an ice cow. Later, the first three Aesir gods Odin, Hoenir and Lodur overthrew Ymir and fashioned the earth and heavens from his body.

In the articles linked above, Mr. Glyn-Jones notes that not only is Yima (or Ymir, or -- as he appears in ancient Hindu texts, Yama and his sister-bride Yami) always associated with a primordial bovine, but that his name appears etymologically related to the root word which gives us the word Gemini -- the Twins (Yama and Jama and Gem- being linguistically similar). The constellation Gemini is located in the zodiac right next to Taurus the Bull, and in fact leans at an angle relative to the bull at the same angle as the bird-headed human image in the cave.

In the Panel of the Wounded Man, from the cave of Lascaux, Mr. Glyn-Jones notes that the man is drawn quite stylistically and simply, with two parallel lines, in marked contrast to most of the other, very lifelike, images of animals in the caves, and he suggests that this was done to make it quite clear that the so-called "wounded man" represents the constellation Gemini.




















Mr. Glyn-Jones notes that "The Twins constellation, Gemini, is located next to Taurus, the Bull. Gemini consists of two long straight lines leaning at a 45-degree angle with respect to the ecliptic, while the majority of Zodiac figures stand upright at culmination. The Bird Man also leans at this angle, and is drawn from two long straight lines. He is certainly in the right position relative to the Bull."

The observation is amazing and extremely plausible. It becomes even more stunning when Mr. Glyn-Jones notes that the Rhino located to the left of the leaning man appears to represent the constellation Leo the Lion. Note the curious angle of the tail of the Rhino -- it is quite plausible to argue that the shape portrays the same stars that form the head of the constellation Leo (see below, and see also the excellent illustrations in the articles from Mr. Glyn-Jones linked above, which show the images of Lascaux superimposed upon charts of the night sky).





















Even more startling, Mr. Glyn-Jones suggests that the "bird on a pole" next to the "wounded man" is very suggestive of the image of a bird on a pole in the Denderah round zodiac (pictured in this previous post) which is similarly located directly below the image of the Twins there as well!

This connection is utterly astounding, particularly because historians generally agree that the falcon on the pole beneath the Twins on the round zodiac of Denderah is representative of the standard of the Followers of Horus and that it marks the location of the star Sirius. Mr. Glyn-Jones points out that Sirius was not visible from the latitude of Lascaux in the remote epoch of 17,500 BC, and because of this he modifies his position to suggest that perhaps in the Lascaux cave the image represents Procyon instead of Sirius.

He also notes that the presence of such a diagram from a time so far before Egypt must mean that these Upper Paleolithic people may have eventually migrated south to become the forerunners of dynastic Egypt, as incredible as it is to suggest that such cultural iconography could have survived intact for so many thousands of years.

However, we should step back from these two details and look at a bigger issue. The astounding evidence that the cave art of Lascaux appears to incorporate precise celestial imagery suggests that this art is not the product of Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers at all. In fact, the entire ancient timeline that describes mankind emerging from an animal-like state into long ages of paleolithic hunting and gathering and ultimately settling down into neolithic agricultural cultivation and eventually higher and higher forms of civilization is a fabrication of Darwinian assumptions about the origins of man and is in fact built upon extremely suspicious assumptions, as we have argued many times previously in this blog and in the Mathisen Corollary book as well.

It's not that the supposed Paleolithic human beings who were hunter-gatherers were not intelligent or artistic enough to observe constellations and then depict them as art in the form of animals and bird-headed humans. However, which is more likely: that Paleolithic artists depicted a bird-on-a-pole in the position of Sirius at an epoch when Sirius was not even visible at the latitude that it was painted, and that they developed the understanding of the zodiac constellations which was still in use fifteen thousand years later in Egypt and Babylon, or that this cave art was not actually produced in 17,500 BC but at a time when Sirius was quite visible in Europe, perhaps by people who also inherited some portions of the astronomical knowledge that was also passed on to Egypt? As John Anthony West and R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz have observed, much of the science of ancient Egypt appears fully-formed in the very earliest temples and texts -- it does not appear to have been developed by the Egyptians but rather inherited by them.

In other words, it appears to me to be quite possible that the authors of these amazing paintings were descended from the same lost ancient civilization from which the Egyptians were also descended, rather than the less likely possibility that the Egyptians are descendents of these artists (to put it one other way, I would argue that the Egyptians and the artists of Lascaux are co-descendents of the same lost civilization).

For those who would counter that radiocarbon dating firmly establishes the dating of Lascoux, I would point out that in my book, I discuss reasons why carbon dating for ages over 5,000 years may be based on faulty assumptions and thus yield incorrect conclusions, following the arguments that Dr. Walt Brown has published in his book detailing the hydroplate theory.

Also, note well that, contrary to the sequence related in the ancient Yima / Ymir mythology (in which Ymir rises first from the brine, followed by the cow), Gemini does not lead Taurus in the nightly rotation of the zodiac across the heavens. On the contrary, Taurus leads Gemini in the sky's nightly rotation. It is only in the subtle and millennia-long motion of precession that the Age of Gemini leads the Age of Taurus (which in turn precedes the Age of Aries, which precedes the Age of Pisces, which precedes the much-anticipated Age of Aquarius).

Ancient myths which speak of Ymir being overthrown, or of a god who ruled the previous age being superseded and going down to sleep in the underworld (as does Osiris in ancient Egypt or Kronos/Saturn in ancient Greece) clearly indicate extremely ancient awareness of precession. Are we to understand that, in addition to passing along the constellations and many of the icons associated with them, these ancient Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who painted in caves also found time to make the detailed recordings of astral positions for the successive centuries that would be required to detect and decipher the phenomenon of precession?

In short, the very credible evidence suggesting that the images in the caves of Lascaux and the rest of the Dordogne area encode celestial phenomena completely upends conventional timelines of mankind's ancient past. The clear parallels to iconography used in ancient Egypt as well as to mythology stretching from the Hindu Vedas to the ancient Zoroastrian Avestan texts and even to the Norse myths suggests a cultural connection to a lost ancient civilization that conventional history completely rejects.

Although the theory that these images point to events in the celestial sphere was put forward in the nineteenth century, that possibility was ignored until the 1990s -- most likely because of the deadening effect of the spread of Darwinian theory throughout academia towards the end of the 1800s, enroute to the absolute stranglehold that it has on academic thought today.

To take a virtual tour of the caverns of Lascaux and the ancient artwork they contain, check out the impressive Virtual Lascoux website. It will load in French, but to see it in English (or German, Spanish, or with videos containing sign language), simply move your mouse/cursor-pointer to the far left side of the screen, which will cause a "pop-out panel" to slide into view, and then move your mouse/cursor-pointer to the bottom of this panel, which will reveal flags of the UK, Germany, Spain, and an image of two hands -- click on these and be patient: it will reload the entire website in the desired language.

The tour is visually beautiful and well worth browsing through in multiple sittings. To find the "Panel of the Wounded Man" in the major section of the site entitled "A Visit to the Cave," go to the section of the caverns entitled "The Shaft" and then to the sub-section entitled "Panel of the Wounded Man." To find the image of the Taurus Bull with the clear sign of the Pleiades in the correct astronomical position relative to the horns of Taurus, go to the "Hall of the Bulls" and to the section entitled "Panel of the Black Bear."

Navigation of the massive site is made somewhat easier by the same pop-out panel described above (pops out from the left side of your screen), which contains a square entitled "Visit to the Cave" which contains a sub-menu if you click on the square, showing the sections of the cave: The Hall of the Bulls, the Axial Gallery, the Passageway, the Nave, the Chamber of Felines, the Apse, and the Shaft.

The hydroplate theory and the destruction of Comet Elenin

Earlier this year, a comet discovered in 2010 by Russian amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin was generating numerous theories of collision with earth and other doomsday scenarios (some speculated that it had hordes of alien spacecraft trailing in its wake enroute to a rendezvous with earth).

However, recent observations show Comet Elenin dropping rapidly in brightness and exhibiting signs associated with disintegration, suggesting that it may be tearing apart (see for example this article from Sky & Telescope). Note that Comet Elenin is not to be confused with another comet which is currently visible in the night sky, Comet Garradd.

Comets in fact are quite fragile and susceptible to being torn apart by the gravity effects of planets and the sun, including the same gravitational forces which cause the tides on earth and which are explained in this previous post.

This fact is powerful evidence against the conventional theory that argues that comets originate in a speculated "Oort Cloud" located some distance outside the boundaries of the solar system. The reason that the fragility of comets argues against the Oort Cloud is as follows:

• There are roughly two groups of comets -- short-period comets whose furthest orbital point (aphelion) is close to the orbit of Jupiter, and long-period comets whose aphelion is much further out and which approach the sun at much higher velocities, velocities that are almost fast enough to expel them from the solar system altogether (and which, if given a slight boost in velocity when passing a large planet or slingshotting around the sun, will eject them from the solar system).
• If all comets originated from a point outside the solar system, it would require significant slowing of these long-period comets to bring them down to an orbit that only reached to Jupiter (in other words, it would take a lot of "braking" to turn a long-period comet into a short-period comet).
  
• The forces required to slow a long-period comet (or any comet coming in from outside the solar system) down enough to turn it into a short-period comet would tear the comet apart.

Comet Elenin, a long-period comet, is apparently being torn apart right now. This event is an example of the problem that faces those who postulate an origin of comets outside of the solar system.

This line of argument, and much more detailed scientific evidence to support this line of reasoning, is presented by Dr. Walt Brown in his online book about the hydroplate theory. Dr. Brown explains that the events surrounding the cataclysmic global flood event would have launched water into space at tremendous velocities, sufficient to explain the origin of comets. His theory would explain the existence of short-period comets. It would also explain why long-period comets still exist, despite their fragility (because he presents evidence that this flood event took place only several thousands of years ago; theories which postulate comets circling the sun for many millions of years must be able to explain why they have not all been ripped apart or swept away by planets, particularly Jupiter and Saturn).

The hydroplate theory is not mere speculation, but is supported by literally many hundred solid pieces of geological evidence on earth. It is also supported by many details in the solar system, including the composition and behavior of asteroids, and of comets.

For previous discussions of the mysteries of comets, and the difficulties that they pose to conventional theories, see this previous post and this previous post.