Chapter 48 Chapter 50

I started working on this survey for a few months, and one day my research assistant handed in a 15-page resignation letter explaining why he was resigning.At the time, I hadn't even found the jigsaw pieces I needed to solve the puzzle.Although there is no definite evidence, based on my personal intuition and being attracted by various mysterious and abnormal puzzles, I have been obsessed with the research of this topic.However, my research assistant has done some research on the long and slow progress of some civilizations in human history, and has come to a conclusion. He discovered that the evolution of civilization requires the cooperation of many economic, climatic, topographical, and geographical conditions.He said:

If you are looking for an unknown civilization, and one that is unrelated to other civilizations and developed with its own unique power, this is not only like "finding a needle in the straw", but more like looking for it in the wilderness city.Under your current settings, the civilization at this location should occupy a land that is at least two to three thousand miles wide, that is, a land that is as large as the Gulf of Mexico or two Madagascar islands.This land not only needs to have mountains, but also has major river systems, and the climate must be Mediterranean or subtropical, and it must last for more than 10,000 years... Then, hundreds of thousands of people with high altitudes need to live on this land Civilized people.As you go along, these people must have disappeared so suddenly, leaving hardly any trace, if such a civilization ever existed.The only thing that posterity knows they ever existed is that they left behind a handful of people who were smart enough to know that the end was coming and brought enough resources to be in just the right place to avoid the catastrophe that had to come And make some effort.

And just like that, I lost a research assistant.He thought that my inferences were in any case impossible.The lost civilizations I'm all set on finding can't exist because: He said the land needed to support the kind of civilization I identified would be too large to be lost. Geophysics The questions posed by my assistant continued to haunt me throughout the course of the research investigation.In fact, not only my assistant will ask such questions, most scholars also cannot treat Plato's "Lost Continent of Atlantis" from an academic point of view.As one reviewer put it:

There has never been a so-called Atlantic (Atlantean) land bridge since man came to this earth.There are no submerged landmass beneath the Atlantic: the Atlantic has probably remained unchanged for at least the past 1 million years.In fact, according to Plato, the idea that such a large continent of Atlantis once existed in the Atlantic Ocean is simply not plausible in geophysics. I have long been familiar with this critic's dogmatic tone and authoritarian tone.Modern oceanographers' surveys of the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean know very well that there aren't any lost continents on the bottom of the ocean.

But if the evidence gathered shows that I did find the fingerprints of a lost civilization, then there must have been a civilized continent somewhere on Earth, we just don't know exactly where. So where exactly?For a while I assumed as a matter of course that, if not at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, it was probably at the bottom of some other ocean.Although the Pacific Ocean is large, the possibility of the Indian Ocean seems higher because it is closer to the Fertile Crescent (Fer tile Creecent) in the Middle East.Several of the earliest civilizations in history popped up nearby around 3000 BC.I also plan to go to the Maldives to track down the possibility of the legendary ancient pyramids, or go to Somalia on the coast of East Africa to look for traces of the lost paradise, and I even think of the Seychelles Islands in the West Indian Ocean to look for clues.

But the problem lies with marine geographers.They have carefully surveyed the Indian Ocean and produced a map of the seafloor showing that no lost continents lie beneath the water.They surveyed all other oceans, too, and found no trace of a lost civilization at the bottom of the ocean. However, in the course of my research, I found more and more evidence that a civilization did exist.I began to suspect that the lost civilization might be a seafaring civilization, a nation of navigators.There is a lot of evidence to support this hypothesis: amazingly detailed ancient maps, Egyptian pyramid ships, the amazing astronomical knowledge revealed by the Mayan calendar system, and Viracocha and Quetza Cotel, the legend The gods who sailed in the sea and so on.

The country of the navigators should also be the master of the builders.They built Tihuanaco, Teotihuacan, the pyramids, the Sphinx.They can move 200-ton boulders with ease, and they can take their bearings with precision.I don’t know where these architects are, but they have left their unique fingerprints all over the world, including polygonal megaliths, astronomical arrangements to configure ground buildings, gods incarnated as humans in mythology, etc. .However, a high-level civilization that can build such advanced buildings must not only have abundant resources and a mature organization, but also have the technology to detect and map from the South Pole to the North Pole, and be smart enough to measure the earth The size of the land - it is really impossible to develop from a limited piece of land.The hometown of this civilization, as my research assistant pointed out, must have mountains and rivers, a mild climate, rich agricultural and mining resources, and all environmental elements that are compatible with the development of a prosperous and prosperous economy.

Where would such a piece of land be if it had not sunk to the bottom of the sea? library angel Where would such a piece of land exist in the world, and when would it disappear in front of the world?If it did disappear (I can't think of any other explanation), how?Why did it disappear?Under what circumstances does it disappear? Honestly, how can a landmass disappear? Thinking from common sense, only a large-scale natural disaster, and a super-catastrophic disaster that affects the entire earth, can cause such a thorough and complete wipe-out of a great civilization from the surface of the earth.Yet why can't we find any record of such a large-scale disaster?Or have we not found it yet?

As I continued my research, I began to read myths about fires, floods, earthquakes, ice storms, and more.As I mentioned in the fourth part of this book, there are too many myths in the world, all of which refer to major disasters caused by geology, climate and other influences, and the disasters may affect a wide area. In the short history of mankind on earth, I have found only one major disaster that comes closest to my prediction: the catastrophe caused by the dramatic melting of snow and ice at the end of the last ice age from 15,000 BC to 8,000 BC .Moreover, as shown by the monuments and pyramid buildings in Teotihuacan, many related myths seem to hide scientific information, and become a tool to convey scientific information of a certain kind, and this is not exactly what I think Part of the putative "God's Fingerprint"?

Although I didn't understand it at the time, I already felt that there was a very strong relationship between the chaos at the end of the Ice Age and the inheritance and disappearance of ancient civilizations. At this time, "library angels" (library angels) appeared. missing piece of the puzzle The novelist Arthur Koestler, who is very interested in synchronicity, is the inventor of the term "library angel".He used it to describe the kind of luck that skillfully finds the most needed information in the process of research, at the moment when it is most needed. Just when I needed it most, luck was on my side.The time was the summer of 1993. After several months of traveling, I was not only physically exhausted, but also mentally depressed.A piece of land as large as a continent cannot disappear into the invisible geographical theory, which gradually shakes my confidence and makes me doubt the data I have dug.At this moment, I received a letter from Nanaimo, a small town in British Columbia, Canada, mentioning my previous book "The Sign and the Seal" (The Sign and the Seal) and the Asian spirit mentioned in the book. The theory of Atlantis, and the hero image of "surviving from the water and spreading civilization".

July 19, 1993 Dear Mr Hancock: After studying the lost continent of Atlantis for 17 years, my wife and I completed a book——When the Sky Falls (When the Sky Fell)①.We were dismayed to find that the few publishers we approached, while interested in writing the book, were very repulsed by the topic of Atlantis. In Miracles and Symbols, you mention that "those who survived the flood passed down the secret of the beginning of all things".Our book investigates where those who survived may have settled.They probably moved to higher latitudes where freshwater lakes are available.The climate of Lake Titicaca and Lake Tana (TanaLake is located in Ethiopia, on which most of "Miracle and Symbol" is set) is just right, and the environment of this area is stable, which has good conditions for these people to start farming again. The same letter attaches a summary of "When the Sky Falls Down".If you are interested, manuscripts will be sent. Sincerely, RandFlemAth I start flipping through the synopsis.After reading the first few paragraphs, I found that I had found the missing piece of the puzzle I had been looking for.It fits perfectly with the ancient global maps I studied.Those maps, not only correctly depict the Antarctic continent under the glacial bed (see Part 1 of this book).From its summary, I can see that the great floods and global catastrophes that appeared in ancient myths everywhere did have environmental impacts.Moreover, Framiyas also reasonably explained why a large number of mammals that seemed to be "instantly frozen" were found in northern Siberia and the Arctic Circle; , you'll find puzzles like fruit tree fossils up to 90 feet tall.He gave an answer to the sudden melting of ice during the last ice age in the northern hemisphere after 15,000 BC, and the causes of global volcanic activity that occurred simultaneously with the melting of ice.He answered a big question hanging in my mind: "How could a good continent disappear?" In fact, his statement was based on Hapgood's "crust movement" theory.I had already heard of Hapgood's radical geological hypothesis, and Frameyas summed it up as follows: Antarctica is one of the least known lands.Most of us assume that this large island in the sea has been enclosed by ice and snow for millions of years.But the latest discovery proves that parts of Antarctica were not covered by ice until at least a few thousand years ago.And in terms of geology, that's pretty close.We can use the theory of "crustal movement" to explain why the ice bed of the Antarctic continent became the shape it is today in such a short period of time. The "crustal movement" explanation referred to by Framias actually refers to the hypothesis put forward by Hapgood: the Antarctic landmass was not actually located at the South Pole until 11,000 BC, but at a distance from its current position At least 2,000 miles north (in milder climates), but moved to its present position after a major crustal shift. Flemyas went on to write: The movement of the earth's crust has caused large areas of land to drift into the death circle (Alaska, Siberia), and this phenomenon is most obvious.All lands where animals became extinct (especially in North and South America and Siberia) are obviously the result of drastic changes in latitude... The results of crustal changes are of course violent and abnormal.With the drastic changes of the earth's interior, violent earthquakes and floods occur.The earth groaned, its position changed, and the sky seemed to be collapsing.In the depths of the ocean, earthquakes are frequent, and the resulting tsunami hits the coast and submerges the land. Some land is pushed to a warmer climate zone, and some are driven into the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, and are covered by ice forever.Melting ice sheets are causing sea levels to rise.All creatures must adapt to the environment, or they will migrate to other places, or they will be eliminated... While reading, I thought of Hapgood's description of the crust: it is hard and thin, and once peeled off, "it's like peeling an orange. After the skin and flesh are separated, the orange is still intact, but the skin is broken." Seeing this, I am quite familiar with the content.But the two researchers went on to raise two key questions that I hadn't thought of. amazing gravity The first question they ask is the effect of gravity (like the changing shape of the Earth's orbit described in Part 5 of this book) on the rise and fall of ice ages as a mechanism of crustal movement: Naturalist and geologist Louis Agas siz first proposed the concept of ice ages in 1837.The academic circles at the time were very disapproving of him.However, when more and more evidence favorable to him appeared, even those who were originally skeptical had to admit that the earth had experienced a long and terrifying winter.No one can understand why there is such an ice age that stops everything from growing.It was not until 1976 that the world found direct evidence that the ice age did exist on the earth.Now everyone uses various astronomical features of the earth's orbit and the inclination of the earth's axis to explain the formation of ice ages.Indeed, the elements of astronomy have a very direct relationship to the occurrence of ice ages.However, that may be only one of the relationships, and the equally important one may be the topography of the glacier, and the theory of crustal movement will be an important key to unraveling this mystery. Einstein once did research on whether the thick and unevenly distributed ice on the north and south poles may cause the crust to move.He wrote: "Under the influence of the two ice caps with uneven weight, the rotation of the earth produces a centrifugal force, and the force of the centrifugal force is transmitted to the hard crust, and the intensity continues to increase. After gathering a certain force, This would create a reaction between the crust and the Earth itself, causing the poles to move toward the equator." When Einstein wrote the above passage in 1953, the influence of astronomy on the formation of glaciers was not well understood.When the earth's revolution orbit deviates from a perfect circle by 1%, the influence of the sun's gravitational force will increase, which will generate greater tension on the earth and the ice on it, and the weight of the ice bed will exert heavy pressure on the earth's surface, plus the earth's inclination (to Another factor affecting the shape of the orbit), forcing the surface to change position, the crust changes... What does gravity have to do with the onset and decline of ice ages? relationship is obvious. When the earth's crust changed, the land masses that were originally at the North and South Poles (like the current Antarctic continent were completely covered under ice) suddenly moved to low-latitude areas with a warmer climate, and the ice melted rapidly.Similarly, the land that was originally in the warm low-latitude zone was suddenly moved to the north and south poles, and under the climate change, it quickly disappeared under the ice sheet. In other words, during what we consider to be the last ice age, most of the land in northern Europe and North America was covered under thick ice not because of some mysterious factor that made the weather gradually turn cold, but mainly because The area of ​​​​the land is closer to the Arctic Circle than today, so it is covered with ice and snow.Also, as stated in Part Four, the Wisconsin and Umm Ice Ages began to melt around 15,000 BC, not because of a change in Earth's weather, but because of the movement of ice sheets to warmer lower latitudes... That said, ice ages are still going on right now -- in the Arctic and Antarctic circles. lost continent The second question raised by Framyas is closely related to the first one logically: if the crustal movement is a periodic phenomenon, and the last crustal movement moved a huge piece of land that was originally in the warm zone to the Antarctic If it is a circle, then we only need to dig 2 miles down from the surface of the ice at the North and South Poles, and we should be able to find many relics of lost civilizations under the thick ice. Suddenly, I had an epiphany, how could a piece of land once inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people and bred a prosperous society disappear so suddenly?As Flemyas said in his conclusion: "We must start from Antarctica to find answers about the origin of civilization. And these answers may still be hidden in the depths of the bottom ice of the tundra." Once again I found the research assistant's resignation letter in the archives, and began to examine the prerequisites he proposed for the existence of a high degree of civilization: large mountain ranges, large river systems, plus "a large land area covering at least two or three thousand miles."Moreover, he also mentioned that the stable growth of a culture must rely on a mild climate for at least 10,000 years. The Antarctic continent is definitely not the needle in the haystack: it has a vast territory, larger than the Gulf of Mexico, equivalent to seven Madagascar islands, and almost the same land area as the United States.Moreover, according to the measurement of seismic waves, we know that there are high mountains on the Antarctic continent under the ice sheet.And several ancient maps seem to prove that ancient map makers who understood latitude and longitude very well described the mountains and rivers that disappeared before the ice sheets, and how the rivers that flowed from the mountains moistened the vast valleys and plains and poured into the sea. middle.We have collected enough stratigraphic data from the Ross Seabed in Antarctica to prove the existence of these rivers. Finally, I also want to declare that the theory of crustal movement does not contradict the necessary conditions for a stable climate to last for more than 10,000 years.Before the sudden change of the earth's crust, that is, at the end of the last northern hemisphere ice age, the climate of the Antarctic continent should have been stable for more than 10,000 years. If the location is 2,000 miles north, then the northernmost part of the Antarctic continent should be around 30 degrees south latitude, and the people living on it should be bathed in a Mediterranean or subtropical climate all year round. But has the Earth's crust really ever moved?Are the ruins of a lost civilization really sleeping forever under the ice of the Antarctic continent, waiting for us to dig it? In the following chapters, we find that the above problems are not only possible, but quite possible. note ① "When the Sky Falls", 1995.The preface is written by Colin Wilson, and the postscript is written by John Anthony West. When the Sky Fell, withan introduction by Colin Wilson and Afterword by JohnAnthonyWest, published by Stodart, Canada, 1995. ② See the first part of this book.