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Blast from the Past

14 December 2013
Catastrophism

Gary Gilligan has sent in an article by Velikovsky published by the New York Times on July 21st of 1969 – which appeared in Pensee as 'Are the Moon's scars only 3000 years old?' in which the newspaper took the liberty of deleting a few  lines of text here and there (and names of people). Velikovsky claimed that less than 3000 years ago (in reference to his Mars catastrophe sequence) the Moon's surface was repeatedly molten and bubbled. Domes on the Moon are unburst bubbles, he went on, and the Moon had hundreds of hotspots and 'even its light is not all reflected solar light …' and 'researchers have come up with calculations that flourescence would not account for' (it all).

This seems to imply the idea of flourescence is a quite well known phenomenon when it comes to the Moon. Velikovsky suggested astronauts take thermoluminescence tests while on the Moon in order to establish when it was last heated up (or the rocks melted). The samples, he went on, should come from at least three feet below ground level and not from the surface itself.

He also predicted the discovery of petroleum on the Moon as he thought a shower of petroleum on Earth had occurred during a catastrophic event. This is outlined in his book Worlds in Collision, and the reasoning was that if a shower hit the Earth it must also have splashed on to the Moon. However, subsequent heating events on the Moon, as a result of lightning discharges betwee Earth and Mars, he felt, could have led to them being converted into carbides or carbonates. He also said it was 'quite possible' chlorine, suplhur and iron in various compounds would also be discovered, and water would be present (on the Moon). He appears to have visualised this as a remnant of the Flood event, which presumably caused water to fall on the Moon as well as the Earth.

The link to the Pensee piece is on the Catastrophism CD and is available as a print out via the Book Service.

 

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