From: Subject: Are the Moon's Scars Only 3000 Years Old? Date: Sun, 4 May 2008 18:25:24 +0300 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="windows-1255" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://localhost:8780/pubs/journals/pensee/ivr01/14moonsc.htm X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198 Are the Moon's Scars Only 3000 Years Old?

Are the Moon's Scars Only 3000 Years Old?

Immanuel Velikovsky

Editor's Note: The following article, referred to in "A = Record=20 of Success," was published in the New York Times, = early city=20 edition, July 21, 1969. The material in brackets was = acknowledged by=20 the Times to have fallen out of the piece during the production = process.

Man, free from the bonds tying him to the rock of his birth, is about = to make=20 his first steps on the lunar landscape. It is an amazing achievement of = man's=20 technological genius, and with it the first stage of the Space Age = (19571969)=20 will be concluded.

These 12 years have been unkind to many accredited scientific = theories of the=20 solar system. Some of the most fundamental concepts are being summoned = for=20 revision.

In celestial mechanics, all new evidence has conjured against the=20 concept--basic in science until very recently--that gravitation and = inertia are=20 the only forces in action in the celestial sphere.

The new discoveries are the interplanetary magnetic fields centered = on the=20 sun and rotating with it; the solar plasma; the terrestrial = magnetosphere that=20 caused the moon to rock when entering and leaving the magnetic funnel; = the=20 enormously powerful magnetic envelope around Jupiter through which the = Galilean=20 satellites plow, themselves influencing the Jovian radio signals.

Who is the physicist that would insist that Jupiter, traveling with = its=20 powerful magnetosphere through the interplanetary magnetic field, is not = affected by it? Or that the Jovian satellites are not influenced in = their=20 motions by the magnetic field of their primary?

And in cosmology the puzzling discoveries have been Venus' = incandescent heat;=20 its massive atmosphere (140 atmospheric pressures!); its retrograde = rotation=20 controlled by the earth (it turns the very same face to us when in = inferior=20 conjunctions), and its mountain-high ground tides (this is my = understanding of=20 the paradoxical altitude readings of the recent Venera 5 and 6), which = also have=20 caused it in the past to acquire a nearly circular orbit; Mars's = moon-like=20 surface and its apparent loss of a large part of its rotational momentum = (Mariner 4); and the moon's active state--it is not a dead body cold to = its=20 core.

All these discoveries unite to defend the thesis that the present = order of=20 the solar system is of recent date.

In divergence from accepted views, I maintain that less than 3,000 = years ago=20 the moon's surface was repeatedly molten and its surface bubbled. Since = the=20 nineteen-fifties, many unburst bubbles--domes--have been observed on the = moon=20 and gases have been found escaping from several orifices.

The moon has hundreds of hot spots and even its light is not all = reflected=20 solar light; researchers have come up with calculations that = fluorescence would=20 not account for the rest.

In thermoluminescence tests, it should be possible to establish the=20 recentness of the last heating (melting) of the lunar surface. For that = purpose,=20 astronauts need to take samples from about three feet below the surface, = to=20 where the long lunar day hardly transmits any solar heat. Such tests = could=20 establish the time when the lunar surface was molten.

The moon has a very weak magnetic field; yet its rocks and lavas = could=20 conceivably be rich in remanent magnetism resulting from strong currents = when in=20 the embrace of exogenous magnetic fields.

Before their removal from the ground, the specimens should be marked = as to=20 their orientation in situ. Meteorites could not fall all similarly = aligned. This=20 simple performance of marking the orientation of samples, I was told, is = not in=20 the program of the first landing.

Despite the fact that there are no oceans on the moon and no marine = life to=20 give origin to petroleum hydrocarbons, I would not be surprised if = bitumens=20 (asphalts, tar or waxes) or carbides or carbonates are found in the = composition=20 of the rocks, although not necessarily in the first few samples.

A visitor to the earth would not detect deposits of petroleum in the = first=20 few hours, either. I have claimed an extra-terrestrial origin for some = of the=20 deposits of petroleum on earth; the moon did not escape the same shower. = Only in=20 a subsequent melting of the ground, such deposits would most probably = convert=20 into carbides or carbonates.

It is quite probable that chlorine, sulphur and iron in various = compounds,=20 possibly [oxidized, will be found richly presented in lunar formations. = In my=20 understanding, less than 10,000 years ago, together with the Earth, the = moon=20 went through a cosmic cloud of water] (the Deluge) and subsequently was = covered=20 for several centuries by water, which dissociated under the ultra-violet = rays of=20 the sun, with hydrogen escaping into space.

I maintain that--although not already at the first landing--an = excessively=20 strong radioactivity will be detected in localized areas, in those among = the=20 crater formations that resulted, I contend, from interplanetary = discharges.

I also maintain that moonquakes must be so numerous that there is a = bit of a=20 chance that during their few hours on the moon the astronauts may = experience a=20 quake.

Some authorities (Harold Urey among them) claim that the scars on the = face of=20 the moon are older than four and a half billion years. The lunar = landings will=20 provide the answer: Was the face of the moon as we see it carved over = four and a=20 half billion years ago or, as I believe, less than 3,000 years ago?

If this unorthodox view is substantiated, it will bear greatly not = only on=20 many fields of science but also on the phenomenon of repression of = racial=20 memories, with all the implications as to man's irrational behavior.

PENSEE Vol. I

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