To begin again like children, in complete ignorance of what had happened before . . .
Plato quoting the ancient legends of the Egyptian priests of Heliopolis
And Ahura Mazda spoke unto Yima: Yima the fair, Upon the material world a fatal winter is about to descend, that shall bring a vehement, destroying frost, and snow of great abundance. Ten months of winter are there now, two months of summer, and these are cold as the water, cold as the earth, cold as the trees. . . . There all around falls deep snow; that is the direst plague.
From the Iranian Avestic scriptures
Abandoned by the gods, men were driven from their hearths and the human race was swept from the surface of the earth. The earth itself was beginning to lose its shape. Already the stars were coming adrift from the sky and falling into the gaping void. Then all the rivers, all the seas rose and overflowed. They swelled and boiled over all things. The earth sank beneath the giant ‘surt’ that set the entire earth on fire. The world was no more than an immense furnace. Flames spurted from fissures in the rocks, and everywhere there was the hissing of steam. All living things and all plant life were destroyed.
Teutonic myth
The first world was destroyed as a punishment for human misdemeanors by an all-consuming fire that came from above and below. The second world ended when the terrestrial globe toppled from its axis and everything was covered with ice. The third world ended in a universal flood. The present world is the fourth. Its fate will depend on whether or not its inhabitants behave in accordance with Creation.
Hopi myth
We have invented nothing.
Picasso on seeing the cave paintings at Lascaux, southern France
Our three friends floated in the atmosphere for days, heading for the Andes Mountains, catching different winds to move along the right direction. Silicone’s resourcefulness and knowledge of Earth’s geography, geology, and atmospheric meteorology were indispensable.
The landscape spread underneath them, a giant tapestry of desolation and human desperation. One overpopulated human settlement after another soiled the planet. Everywhere upon the scarred earth, waste and toxicity poisoned the land, the water, and the air. Here and there, however, our friends spotted Mother Earth’s sanctuary in isolated hidden forests, marshlands, or mountain lakes, where she tended hidden nurseries of all but extinct flora and fauna.
Why the contrast? Were humans not of this world? Our friends wondered. What they saw and the numerous questions that arose hardened their resolve to pursue their mission. They discussed their observations and what they would do when they reached the timespace transfer portal. They began calling it the Transportal for short.
Then they became aware of a pair of airborne strangers hovering and watching them. Noticing that they were noticed, the strangers approached hesitantly, and one said, “Forgive our intrusion. But, we could not help observe that instead of leaving us as rain like the rest, you have stayed up here for quite a while. We followed you. We wanted to know what you are up to. We overheard some of your conversations. We are very curious about it all. Allow me to introduce us. I am Nitrogen, and this is my old friend Helium. We are what you find mostly here in the atmosphere along with Oxygen and Hydrogen.”
The strangers’ courtesy reassured our friends. They talked a long time about their experiences, and their ambitious plans and their destination. In turn, Nitrogen and Helium told them about the increasing atmospheric pollution, rising temperatures, increased radiation due to a shrinking earth’s protective ozone shield, as well as strange meteorological patterns of storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Such unprecedented conditions were a big problem for all who dwelt in the atmosphere, and they pondered the causes.
“Would you let us come along?” Nitrogen asked. “We would very much like to join your journey. The way we see it, if we do not seek help from a higher power, our habitat is doomed.”
“And we have a lot of buddies up here. Perhaps we can be helpful,” Helium added.
Cautiously, Silicone embraced their offer. “You must consider the potential dangers that may lie in our path. Your knowledge of the winds and the atmosphere is certainly welcome.”
The new friends made the trip to the Andes a breeze as favorable winds sped them along. Finally, they arrived in a reassuringly pure and harmonious natural world. In the distance spread the majestic Andes, their twisting north-south alignment a timeless axis of serenity, like a giant serpent asleep.
Before they reached the mountains, Silicone took them to hover over the wide, flat desert floor of the Peruvian Nazca Plain. Below them, hundreds of lines, geometric shapes, and beautifully carved animal figures patterned the rocky desert. The scale was immense. The numerous intersecting lines were perfectly straight and traversed many miles, as if someone deliberately left a giant drawing or map, visible only from the air. Indeed, they realized that none of the patterns could be seen from the ground. Who carved such enigmatic geometric shapes and lines invisible to those creeping upon the earth’s surface? Why and for whom?
“Who did all this?” Hydrogen asked.
“No one knows for certain,” Silicone sighed. “Records describe them as very ancient. strips, and geometric shapes configure a contains much information about the earth. The ancients believed that if used three dimensionally in conjunction with natural features nearby and on the scale of the adjacent topography, it becomes a giant address book. There are also other theories and secrets about the site I do not know about. The animal figures are much smaller and belong to a later time. They say the local inhabitants carved them a few thousand years ago. They probably denote the ancients’ awareness of the plain’s sacredness, and may be a sign of respect to those who mapped the original geometric layout. Some believe the people were trying to attract or communicate with their heavenly gods.”
“Airborne gods evidently,” Helium observed.
“What gods? The Source?” Oxygen asked.
“It’s too complicated. We can talk about it later. But I can tell you why we’re here. Certain information on the map identifies the exact location of the Transportal. That’s why we came.”
After studying the lines a while longer, Silicone said, “I think I have it. We’re ready to leave.”
As they approached, our friends gazed at the distant, towering Andes peaks. Hydrogen and Oxygen recalled the elders in the icecap, still frozen in the safety of their crystal lattices. Were they aware of the grave issues that confronted Earth? What would they think about the mission?
Silicone monitored the landscape’s coordinates The lines, map that and topography until at last it said, “According to my calculations, this must be it.”
Nitrogen and Helium helped the winds deliver our friends to their destination. They stood before a small, barely visible cave near the top of a mountain peak, overgrown and hidden by tree roots. They entered without hesitation. Light dimmed as it passed through the maze of roots and shrubs over the cave’s mouth. Floating dust and haze reflected the narrow beams to produce a hypnotic, translucent atmosphere. Here and there, a spider’s web captured the light beams, appearing as illuminated fishing nets suspended in a dark ocean. Through the dim light they saw algae-like vegetation growing everywhere. Insects buzzed about, mocking fireflies as they passed through the light. The plants and insects seemed out of place in the high, dry, cold climate. Surely an alternative energy source was near.
Silicone pointed to a deep cavity or well in the center of the cave, from which came a strange halo of bright white light. There was no vegetation near the well, just bare rocks. As our bewildered friends stared at the shining well, a fly unwittingly approached its mouth. Our friends watched with disbelief as the insect disappeared in a bright flash of light, as if stricken by lightning. It was their first encounter with the magical Transportal.
“So what now?” Helium asked at last. “Should we go for the zap or is there another method to this madness?”
“According to my recollection,” Silicone said, “this place is a crossing point for multitudes of Earth’s energy fields. My friends, we are witnessing Mother Earth’s magical power. We have seen a brief reflection of the Source. But I have not the slightest clue about the Transportal’s power.”
At that very instant, a voice came from a large white rock near the mouth of the well. “Perhaps I can be of assistance. But first I would appreciate knowing who you are, where you come from, and where and what you seek?”
The stranger was Calcium. They spent some time telling their story and their destination. Calcium then gave them important information about the Transportal.
“I have no specific scientific knowledge about it. I do recall that many thousands of years ago certain humanoid entities came to this cave and transported through time and space. I know nothing of the details of their mission or its outcome. But, before they entered the well, their leader instructed them to hold hands and remember his previous instructions—which of course I did not hear. Upon his signal, they jumped into the well all together and disappeared from view. I overheard that the time-space lapse would last exactly twelve hours, something to do with Earth’s orbit around the sun. They could stay in their destination only when the sun was invisible. Sure enough, twelve hours later they reappeared and left without speaking a word. That was the only time I saw this well used, except for the occasional unfortunate insect. That is all I can tell you, but I really would like to go with you. I have stared and wondered about this well for too many millennia.”
“Welcome aboard,” Silicone said for the rest.
Our friends discussed other things they did not know about the Transportal, especially where and when it might transport them. Although they did not know how to determine their time-place destination—as that group of humanoids apparently did—they were glad that they would be back in twelve hours. Also, they knew at least that they should embrace, concentrate, and jump in at the same time. That sounded easy enough.
“For now,” Silicone cautioned, “I cannot tell you exactly where the library was. For that, we need to travel to a point long before the floods. But since we don’t know exactly how to use the Transportal, we’ll have to depend on trial and error or sheer luck.”
With Silicone’s caveat in mind, they approached the well. They saw the abyss to which they were about to entrust their fate. It was a bottomless pit, lit by a whitish-blue halo and buzzing with multitudes of strange sparks. None of them had seen anything like it before. It had no familiar physical dimensions. Indeed, it appeared quite unearthly. They all looked at each other, nodded, embraced, and leaped into the unknown.
After what seemed like a brief lost moment, they found themselves in a large cave, dazed by a flash of brilliant white light. They were all there, and still together, relieved to be conscious and in one piece. They looked around curiously and found another strange perplexity. They were inside a very large cave with a fairly level floor and a very high ceiling. Here and there, black soot covered the ceiling, an indication of regular indoor fires.
They peeked outside through the narrow entrance. It was unusually dark. No visible stars, no moonlight, just a pitch-black night sky. Either all heavenly bodies had forsaken Earth, or clouds covered them. A powerful storm raged, like none they had ever seen. Only frequent thunder and lightning interrupted the howling wind. Intense rains and black bituminous hail balls smashed anything in their path. A foulsmelling smoke thickened the air. The wind roared through the cave’s mouth, an emissary of the symphony of horrors outside.
“I’m glad that hole had enough sense to land us inside the cave.” Helium murmured.
Within the cave, many human families huddled around numerous small fires. They wore torn, dirty animal skins or unfinished leather. They were dirty, frightened, weak, and desperate. The men went around, handing out tiny pieces of smoked meat and dried berries to the women, who clutched their hungry, crying children. A few skinny canines sat by the fires, gnawing the bones of large animals and jumping at the thunder and lightning.
Beside the small bonfires was a larger central fire that illuminated a tall flat wall in the center of the cave. A roughly built scaffold of wooden platforms and ladders gave access to the higher parts of the wall. All along its surface were charcoal drawings and symbols that Silicone recognized at once. They were linguistic symbols of people who lived around 17,000 years ago on the northern plains of Asia. They were looking at an improvised writing board. An old man spoke to a few dozen young children as he wrote with charcoal on the cave wall. It appeared to be a makeshift classroom.
In another corner, a few of the older males and females gathered around a fire. They were tall, fairskinned, and their shining blue eyes radiated intelligence. Despite their pathetic surroundings, they neither looked nor behaved like savages. They talked busily, drawing lines and symbols on the dirt floor, and marking on and reading from wooden tablets. They pored over a map made of elaborate lines and stone and wood markers in the dirt floor. Our friends approached the heated discussion. Understanding certain phrases of their language, Silicone translated.
“We have to move soon and to the south,” one man said.
“We need to wait for the weather to calm down. We have to find out what the catastrophe has done to our homeland,” a graying woman of obvious high stature replied.
Another man, holding an elaborate staff shaped like a coiled serpent and appearing to be the chief of the group, spoke. “The catastrophe has changed everything we used to know. Nothing is the same. The animals either died or have disappeared. The forests have been ravaged. The few surviving trees have borne no fruit for four years. We do not know everything that has happened, but I agree. We need to move—and soon. We are running out of food. The storms and floods have ruined everything. We haven’t seen other survivors for months. It’s dangerous out there, but we can’t stay here starving and struggling like apes. The children are weak and restless. We have a duty to save them and our civilization. Much of our world is gone. Our cities, homes, schools, and temples, all destroyed. Look at us. When we die, what will our children and their children remember, living like scavenging animals? Will any of them know the glories of their ancestors, their heavenly gods, or their wonderful cities and temples? What will they recall of our anyone remember miserable children. They can’t even deal with our efforts to educate them. They are afraid, cold, and hungry. The volcano smoke, ash and lava are poisoning us. Most of the young ones will not live long enough to pass on what little we can teach them. Can’t you see that our history is doomed?”
The older woman stopped the old chief’s hopeless ramble calmly. “Then we will have to do better than the best we can do. That will be our destiny, for as long as we survive. We have to use all our past wisdom and knowledge to ensure our children’s survival. That’s what our gods want us to do to preserve our legacy. We will send out an expedition to track migrating animals. We can follow their instincts to a safer place. As soon as the storms subside, I’ll dispatch a few scouts.”
“But the storms have been going on for over six months.” another woman cried.
sciences, arts, and culture? Will the sacred wisdom? Look at our
The old matriarch looked sorrowfully at the children in their makeshift class and sighed, “I wonder how much of our culture and civilization will survive the chaos and struggle? How much of the wisdom our gods gave us will be lost?”
“What great ‘catastrophe’ do they mean?” Oxygen asked.
The reply came from a few yards away. “It was an unprecedented and unimaginable event. No one comprehends the immense scale of destruction. All sorts of turbulent events have followed the catastrophe that happened almost four years ago.”
They saw a totally black earthling, lodged in a charcoal writing stick one of the elders was using to take notes on a flat stone slate.
“Who are you?” Oxygen asked.
“I am Carbon.”
“This planet’s keeper of the sun’s energy,” Silicone recalled. “Every life form on earth is made partly of carbon. Its stored energy gives all processed organic matter, like wood, coal, and oil, their quality as fuel.”
Carbon affirmed. “I see that you know a lot. Please accept my humble greetings.”
“Can you tell us more about the catastrophe?” Nitrogen asked.
“What I can tell you is that it happened and ended very suddenly. These people, whom I have accompanied for years, belonged to a much larger community. They lived in a fertile, forested land. I came from one such forest. Theirs was a lush, temperate world of rivers and lakes where countless herds of large, hairy mammals roamed. Finding food was the least of concerns. Life was an ongoing merry affair of harmony between nature, humans, and gods. For thousands of years, countless races and cultures evolved from such abundance. Many developed large civilized communities. Rivers flowed, seasons passed, festivities came and went, and they paid tribute to the gods for good fortune. Their children were reared lovingly in the community traditions and knowledge. They cared for their elders and buried the deceased respectfully. Only rare regional quarrels and tribal arguments disturbed their lives, conflicts usually limited in scope and resolved by councils of elders. Their problems were rarely related to survival or exploitation. Their gods taught that humanity must live in harmony with itself and nature. Disagreements were resolved amicably. They had lived that way for as long as anyone could remember. . . . Excuse me for a second.”
The old human lifted the writing stick and scribbled something on a stone tablet.
When the writing stick was again laid down, Carbon continued. “Then one day all hell broke loose. It started with strange lights and colors in a cloudless blue sky. Then out of nowhere, storm clouds appeared on the horizon and rushed forward like a dark army, shooting lightning. The animals went mad, screamed and ran around. The sun’s light failed, as if night had come. The winds became more and more violent and powerful. The atmosphere blew up and thundered. Strange atmospheric halos of light and constant lightning filled the sky. Animals and humans were sucked up into the air and disappeared. Howling winds uprooted giant trees and tossed them around like sticks. One lovely tree was my old home. Then countless giant tornado funnels formed. Like an army of black-booted infantry, they crushed and vaporized anything in their path. It went on for a few hours. Everyone ran for safety, trying to save their dear ones. Many were already dead when it happened.”
“What happened?” Hydrogen asked breathlessly.
“The catastrophe. The world turned sideways.” “What do you mean?”
“I’m serious. The world seemed to turn on its side. Barely visible through the clouds, the sun seemed to slide across the sky. Moments later, horrendous winds blasted by with unimaginable force and speed. They audibly howled.
“Shock waves!” Silicone gasped.
“I cannot make you imagine,” Carbon went on, “what I shall never forget. The ground shook violently for hours. The earth’s layers heaved, cracked, and shifted up or down. Giant fissures opened everywhere. Fire, ash, and smoke spewed from the ruptures. Immense earthquakes and volcanic eruptions continued for months until the winds, the storms, and the lightning grew monstrous. Trees and animals vaporized or burst into flames, roasted, turned to ashes, or just disappeared as if transported into an invisible dimension. Sometime later, out of nowhere came the floods. Miles-high ocean waves rolled up the peaceful river valleys and lowland plains and washed away everything thousands of miles inland. They smashed, mangled, and uprooted all in their path. They carried water, mud, debris, and dead life forms. Only the highest altitudes were spared. Entire forests, animals, and people, indeed most of the world’s life forms were obliterated. Whole civilizations either disappeared or found themselves reduced to a state of desperate survival. The humans you see here are among the few survivors. They have struggled to migrate to a safer refuge. They call themselves Aryans, after their old home, Aryana Veja.”
“I know the event you have described,” Silicone interjected. “The Great Library archives described it in detail. It happened millennia before the Flood event that destroyed my old library and cast me adrift.”
“You mean there will be another flood? Another catastrophe?” Carbon seemed shocked.
“Yes, my new friend,” Silicone replied. “Traumatic cataclysms have visited this planet since the beginning. But, the records that survive are wiped clean of their previous historical heritage and detail. What little remains in the human survivors’ collective memory often appears much later as distorted tales or myths.”
“Please describe what you know about the event that reduced us to such a sad state,” Carbon requested.
“A sudden drastic pole shift event caused it.”
“Pole shift?” our friends repeated with amazement.
“Yes. Here is how it all happened,” Silicone said. “You see, Earth is a giant sphere, but its solid rocky outer crust is only about five hundred miles thick. It floats freely on a molten lava mantle, which in turn covers an inner metallic core. The core is made of an outer liquid metal core and an inner solid metal core. The outer liquid metallic core turns freely around the inner solid metal core at Earth’s very center. And just like the center point of a spinning spindle, it moves relatively slower than the solid metal center. The differing relative speed of the liquid metal outer core and the solid metal inner core creates Earth’s tremendous electromagnetic fields. The movement differential between the solid and molten metal cores is Earth’s own giant electromagnetic field generator. The phenomenon serves essential functions. For example, in the absence of an electromagnetic field, drag forces exerted by the sun’s solar wind would blow Earth’s gaseous atmosphere away. The earth’s magnetic shield deflects the electrically charged solar wind particles. Without it, the atmosphere would be blasted away into space, exposing all life forms to intense harmful solar radiation that would annihilate them instantly. Earth’s electromagnetic field affects events like earthquakes, volcanoes, and atmospheric storms directly.
“Like most things, Earth is not flawless. Its core layers are not perfect spheres. The liquid metallic core is much denser than the molten lava mantle. But like tree roots, the liquid metallic core and the liquid mantel penetrate each other’s zones. The earth’s crust is not uniformly thick everywhere. There are high mountains, deep oceans, and thick ice caps at the poles. Earth itself is not a perfect sphere. Due to centrifugal forces caused by its rotation around itself, it dips at the poles and bulges at the equatorial latitudes. Also, the moon’s gravity moves billions of tons of water from one place to another every day as oceanic tidal waves. Other neighboring cosmic bodies also exert gravitational forces on earth. And so on. Then there is the flotation of Earth’s crust over the outer liquid lava mantle. The crust’s slow slippage over its liquid interior is called tectonic plate movement from whose built up friction energy earthquakes result. Earth’s energy fields, in conjunction with its mineral mass configuration and movements, create and preserve the atmosphere and all other ecological settings that sustain life on earth. It is a finely balanced life-support system, an intricate nursery, provided and maintained by Mother Earth for all earthlings. Now, if some unusually powerful outside cosmic force affects the fragile balance, then the whole thing can be thrown off balance. All earthly phenomena seem fairly well sudden external arrangement. External influence might include unusual temporary gravitational force from a large cosmic body like a comet, asteroid, or another planet. Are you guys following me so far?”
“Sort of. Go on.”
“During the pole shift Carbon described to us, Earth’s entire solid surface crust suddenly slipped on the interior liquid mantle. I do not know what caused that choreographed, yet introducing a force can change the fragile
“At that time the north pole was somewhere over Greenland, and the polar icecap covered the North Sea, northwestern Europe, and northeastern America. The southern icecap did not cover all of Antarctica, and its long peninsula was temperate and habitable. If any maritime culture lived there, the pole shift froze their continent into an uninhabitable wasteland. Before the pole shift, the equator crossed the southern tip of Africa, leaving North Africa a temperate savannah. Many ancient civilizations lived there. The deserts of North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia are quite young. Until about seventeen thousand years ago, their lush plains were home to many people. The Australian land mass was farther south, cooler, and not so arid. The biggest impact occurred, however, in Asia’s northern Siberian plains. Before the pole shift, icecaps covered most of northwestern Europe and northeastern America and were much larger and thicker than the icecaps of our era. They accumulated over hundreds of millennia, and with so much water stored in ice, the world’s ocean level was almost 450 feet lower. Who knows how many ancient ruins, how much of the world’s history, the rising seas have submerged? With the northern Asian plains warmer and the ocean level lower, the shallow Bering Strait was dry land and at lower and more temperate latitude. Likely, people and animals moved freely between Asia and America. Population exchange between America and Asia took place far longer than some believe today. Before the cataclysm, fertile plains and forests, rivers, animals, and humans were common in northwestern Asia. The flat northern Siberian landmass and the lower ocean levels made for large, broad fertile plains. The milder supported a variety of flora and fauna. As Carbon said, there was plenty of food to support the hunter-gatherer human inhabitants. They were excellent horsemen and hunters, strong people whose horsemanship and knowledge of weapons were useful when their survivors fought their way south, southeast, and southwest. Immigrants, they overwhelmed or mixed with and adopted the cultures they found to the south. The mythical Aryans, who once lived west of the Ural Mountains, migrated south, west, and southwest. The ancestors of the northeast Asians, who lived east of the Urals, migrated southeast. The inhabitants of the Americas were cut off from their Asian brethren forever, as the northern passage suddenly moved north, became cold and hostile, and over the millennia sank beneath the rising oceans.
“Some believe the pole shift moved the north pole approximately twelve degrees, its present location in the Arctic Ocean. The south pole shifted closer to the center of the Antarctic land mass. The two most affected areas were northern Siberia and Antarctica. A thick blanket of ice covered Antarctica and the remains of any civilization that may have existed there. Everything near the new polar zones that survived the initial catastrophe froze within hours. In our own time, the remains of mammoths, woolly rhinos, saber-tooth tigers, ancient deer species, and trees and other vegetation turn up now and then under several meters of permafrost in northern Siberia and Alaska.
“The catastrophe caused winds, storms, lightning, earthquakes, and volcanoes, and after the tsunamis that rolled over the low lying regions, crushing most life forms into heaps of mangled flesh and bones, tree debris, mud, rocks, and volcanic ash—the content of most Siberian and Alaskan permafrost. Modern geological evidence in the excavated soil strata from the period confirms the occurrence of such an event. Most developed human civilization disappeared instantly. Entire races, all their accomplishments and histories, vanished from the pages of history. The few remaining survivors were thrown into a state of primitive survival and forced to struggle against unimaginable hardships. The world’s climate changed rapidly and unfamiliarly in most regions. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, rising oceans, and periodic flooding wrought continuous havoc. The world’s human and animal populations fell drastically. After many years of such conditions, animal and human survivors faced transformed global conditions. Many species that could not migrate or adapt became extinct. The hungry human survivors hunted many of the remaining species—mammoths, woolly rhinos, saber-tooth tigers—to extinction. Their distant cousins survived because they were in less affected areas of the earth, like south Asia and Africa. The surviving humans of the freezing northern Asian plains migrated en masse, passing on what recollected knowledge they remembered to new generations.
“So began the mass migrations of the Aryans and the ancestors of modern East Asians from the northern Asian land mass. Although new ice began slowly forming over the new polar regions, the much quicker thawing of the old ice caps, burned memories of rising oceans, floods, and lost cities and civilizations into the world’s mythical and religious consciousness. The catastrophe still affects modern history.”