I have gone on record as saying that I doubt that anything
particularly noteworthy will happen on December 21, 2012.
However, this does not mean that I don't think we are in an
era of great change that is going to impact life on earth
profoundly. We are in such an era, and the changes are not
simply of our own making.
At the Dreamland Stargate, I gave a presentation that is now
available as an audio file in Unknowncountry.com's
subcriber section
in which I outlined some of the most amazing changes that I
have discovered.
Something has been happening recently that exemplifies what
I talk about in that presentation. In this case, asteroids
have begun passing earth at close range and, in one case so
far, entering our atmosphere and exploding.
Something that has been estimated to happen every five years
or so--an asteroid of 10 feet in diameter or more passing
close to earth--has just recently been happening every few
weeks. When added to all the other changes that we are
seeing that are related not to events on earth but to larger
cosmic events, one has to think that, whether the ancient
world knew it or did not know it, we are, in fact, in a time
of great change.
So far, none of the asteroids that have come close to earth
would have caused a disaster if they had entered our
atmosphere. To reach the ground or get near enough to it to
do damage, an asteroid needs to be relatively dense and at
least 30 feet across.
Not to say that asteroids of this size would be all that
dangerous even if they did strike the planet. Certainly,
given the density of human population, somebody would
experience effects from the strike of a small object. If a
40 foot asteroid struck a city, it would be a major
disaster, for example. But it would not change life on the
scale of the 6 mile wide object that struck 65 million years
ago and brought the age of dinosaurs to a close, or even the
Tunguska object, which was about a hundred feet across.
However, whatever is happening now, it is clear that the
present asteroid swarm does contain hundred foot objects,
because one passed within 45,000 miles of earth on March 2.
Last July, Jupiter was pummeled with large objects. In
August, a substantial object tore through one of Saturn's
rings. At the same time, a large area in Venus' cloud cover
began glowing, suggesting either that there had been a major
impact that we did not detect, or that an enormous volcanic
eruption was taking place on the planet.
In my talk, I get into all the changes that are happening in
the solar system and why. Right now, it seems to me that it
is worth facing the fact that the solar system appears to
have a much higher level of asteroid activity than normal,
and that this has significance for planet earth.
We have a number of near-earth-object programs. We need to
really ramp up our detection efforts and those programs,
notoriously underfunded, need more money and the equipment
and observers that go with it.
So far, we have had at best just a day or so warning about
the objects that have been incoming. There was no warning at
all of the one that exploded above Indonesia. The one that
passed on November 9 had just 15 hours warning.
The theory--or rather, hope--is that we would get more
warning of a larger object, say, one five hundred or a
thousand feet across. At present, movie fantasies aside, we
have absolutely no way to do anything about such objects,
not without years of warning, and we will be lucky, frankly,
if we get days.
What would happen if we did find a hundred foot object, say,
a week out, would be shocking indeed. We would be able to
accurately calculate that it would hit the earth, but not
where. It would need to be just a short distance away before
we could be absolutely certain where it would hit. During
the time between first detection and final determination of
the impact point, the entire planet would have to wait as
estimates became more and more secure.
Obviously, this could happen, and to pretend that there has
been no increase in the number of objects in the solar
system recently is not appropriate. Scientific institutions,
however, have a tendency to fear controversy, and so are
unlikely to sound any sort of an alarm at the present time.
So far, the few news stories about these objects have taken
each one to be a singular event, not in context with the others.
I think that this is irresponsible. We are in a period of
higher than average asteroid activity in our solar system,
and no matter how the data are massaged to prove that there
is no reason for concern, the fact is that the past two
years have seen an awful lot of impacts and close
approaches, and the past few months have been particularly
notable.
So, what does this all have to do with the 2012 phenomenon?
Frankly, I'm not entirely sure, but I do find it peculiar
and, frankly, a bit ominous, that things like this are
happening more and more the closer we get to the date that a
number of past civilizations associate with great change.
What could they possibly have known? How? From what we know,
for example, of the ancient Maya, there is almost zero
possibility that they possessed a science advanced enough to
make a prophecy so astonishingly accurate.
If, however, somebody in the distant past had knowledge of
exactly where our solar system is in the cosmos, they might
have been able to predict changes on this scale with great
accuracy. For example, if they knew that the debris from an
exploded star was racing toward us, they would be able to
calculate with great accuracy exactly when the various
elements of the explosion--the fast moving gamma rays and
other energetic particles, the slower moving debris--would
hit us.
To do that, though, they would have had to have more than an
ability to observe. They would have needed to be able to
penetrate deep space in order to meet the leading edge of
the expanding cloud before it could first be seen on earth,
which would be when it reached here.
Or would they? There is a book called "the Cycle of Cosmic
Catastrophes" that makes an interesting case that physical
debris from a supernova struck earth approximately 12,000
years ago, shattering the Laurentide ice sheet and bringing
the last ice age to an end. Subsequently, further evidence
of this impact has been found in various places, most
recently on islands off the coast of California.
Another book, called The Cosmic Winter, published about 10
years ago, contains calculations that suggest that the
Piscid, Orionid, Perseid and Taurid meteor showers, two
comets, Encke and Rudnicki, and the asteroids Hephaistos and
Oljato, all came from the same gigantic object, a huge
cometary body that entered our solar system about 20,000
years ago.
Debris from this body was probably responsible for the
disaster that befell earth 12,000 years ago, and, if people
with sophisticated astronomical and mathematical skills had
been present on earth at that time, they would have been
able to make calculations similar to those made by Victor
Clube and Bill Napier, the authors of The Cosmic Winter, and
perhaps, therefore, to accurately predict when this debris
field, which must be in some way moving in orbit around the
sun, might return.
But how could that be? When we look back 12,000 years, we
certainly do not see an earth populated by a great
civilization with scientific skills on a par with our own.
To the contrary, we see a human species that has not yet
even developed agriculture, let alone anything approaching
any science at all, let alone a sophisticated science.
Or is that really true? Barbara Hand Clow wrote a most
innovative book called Catastrophobia that suggested that we
received such a devastating blow at that time that we are in
a sort of state of amnesia about it, which explains the
curious inability of many scientists to face the fact that
planetary catastrophes have, far more than evolution,
altered the course of life on earth, and also that of human
life.
We do know that the same disaster that extinguished most of
the large ungulates of North America also destroyed the
entire Clovis culture, and that it was thousands of years
before human beings repopulated the continent.
We also know that there were substantial and very sudden
changes then. The Gulf Stream stopped flowing, and, as has
recently been discovered, a Superstorm event took place,
causing further planetary disruption. (I pass over the fact
that science, which scorned me and Art Bell for identifying
the fact that such storms are possible, has now proved that
they do happen.)
Sea levels also rose an average of 30 feet as the glacier
collapsed, and fantastic events took place, such as a
phenomenal rush of water and debris into the Gulf of Mexico
and out along the US continental shelf. Any structures or
civilizations existing along the shores of the Pleistocene
would have been decisively destroyed. And, in fact, there is
off the coast of India evidence of a city that must have
been submerged at least 9,000 years, which is described by
Graham Hancock in his book Underworld.
So it is possible that we did possess a greater civilization
during the Pleistocene. Obviously, it was not
consumption-intensive like this one, or it would have left
more profound marks. But we already know that high levels of
materialism are not essential to mathematical skill,
otherwise the Maya, who lacked even the wheel, would not
have been such expert astronomers and mathematicians.
Did that civilization hand down a warning, that was
preserved by the Maya and some other cultures, in the form
of calendars that suggest major changes around this time? I
think that this is certainly possible, and we do ourselves a
disservice to continue to ignore the inescapable fact that
our solar system is changing just at the time that the old
predictions suggested that it would, and that these changes
might have profound effects on our lives and our future.
December 21, 2012 is a place-marker, I think, not a precise
date. But it is increasingly obvious that it does identify
an era of change, and we do ourselves a disservice if--no
matter its origin--we continue to ignore it.
So, what is to be done? Hide in caves? Jump off a cliff as
some idiot has announced he is planning to do? Make a run on
the freeze-dried food industry?
Hardly. To face change that is larger than we are, we need
to begin by acknowledging our fragility and also our value,
and look within ourselves for the strength we will need to
survive.
12,000 years ago, if there was an advanced civilization on
earth, it did not survive. But mankind did survive, and that
will happen again. They left us a spiritual legacy that we
continue to draw on to this day, even though we have
forgotten its origins.
We might leave a good deal more, because I believe that
human civilization is now much more extensive than it was
then. If it existed then, it clung to the coastlines of a
planet that was teeming with animal life. It did not involve
huge populations, not like now.
Frankly, I think that, with care and determination, our
civilization could probably weather a disaster on the scale
of what happened 12,000 years ago. Clearly, we would take a
substantial blow, but the survival would most likely be rich
enough to recreate civilization without the huge gap that
took place last time.
I wonder if our forebears knew this, too, which would be why
many of the old predictions also suggest that the period of
change will end with a new beginning, not a dark age?
This is the premise, at any rate, of my upcoming novel, "The
Omega Point," which is to be published in June. Like
"Nature's End," and "Superstorm," the book is already
proving to be oddly prophetic. It was written out of deep,
profound hope and the expectation that mankind has, in these
past 5,000 years of development, crossed a threshold. If I
am right, we may well experience a tremendous catastrophe of
some sort in the relatively near future. If I am right,
though, we will not lose so much as we did the last time,
and will carry forward this time with all we have gained on
our journey, and re-create civilization on a new foundation.
