The most remarkable aspect of the information supplied by ancient maps like that of Piri Reis and Oronteus Fineaus is that they seem to portray Antarctica without its ice cap. In fact this is not entirely as remarkable as it seems, because Antarctica had no ice cap during much of its existence, as has been proven by finds of tropical plant and animal remains after drilling through the ice. These changes in climate came about by continent drift, just like Africa was once attached to South America. The problem is that these processes play in the hundreds of thousands of years, which puts them too long back by far for any Homo sapiens to have witnessed.
Hapgood, who threw up the problem, also came with a solution. It was known independently from measurements of the magnetism of rocks that with intervals of some tens of thousands of years, the position of the poles shifts. At one time the North Pole was located in Canada, before it shifted to its present position, see the figire on the left. Now a shift of the pole comes with a shift of the rotation of the earth. And physics has a law that says that one cannot change the rotation of an object without some counter change of rotation somewhere else (this is the reason it is so easy to stay upright on a riding bike or motorcycle, while if it stands still you fall immediately: the rotation of the wheels keeps you upright while they don’t want to change their axis of rotation). In case of the earth one would have a hard time to find something to compensate a change in its rotation as a whole, if it would start rotating in another direction.
The idea Hapgood came up with is that for a shift for the poles on the map of earth, it can not only be the axis that does the shifting, but also the map. Hapgood proposed that not the entire earth, but only its surface, the crust, has shifted. Physically this is much more easy, because the crust has only the tiniest fraction of the weight of the whole earth. And since the inner part of the earth is more or less fluid, as existence of vulcanoes show, the crust can easily move around while more or less afloat on these fluid internals.
But then up comes the next question: why would the crust shift anyway. Here comes a surprising name to the fore; Hapgood send his proposal to Einstein, who, as a physicist, knew a reason why something rotating would change its axis: if its weight isn’t evenly divided. And this off balance weight could be caused by the uneven distribution of the ice caps at the poles. There is right now such an uneven distribution at the Antarctic, because its land mass isn’t centred on the South Pole.
So the possible mechanism for a shift of the poles is a shift of the entire crust. For anything on the surface this has the same effect as an earthquake of the entire earth. A great number of volcanoes would get active or come into existence, and all coastal areas would be inundated by giant flood waves.
These are the short term consequences of a pole shift or earth crust shift. On the longer term there are two more catastrophes to come. Firstly the climate in large parts of the world will be disturbed leading to all kinds of unusual weather, having consequences for all living things. Secondly, the change in climate also applies to what used to be the polar regions that are still covered with thick ice caps. These caps will melt for a big part, due their movement to warmer regions. So the sea water levels will rise dramatically, inundating the coastal regions in not as destructive a fashion as the tidal waves, but this time on a more permanent basis.
In ancient times, just like in modern times, much of the important centres of civilization would be close to coasts and rivers, because this provides food and easy transport. So Hapgood’s solution for a possible ice free Antarctica leads to yet another problem: it would wipe out much of existing humanity and civilization. In order to see how much of a problem this is, continue to read about Cataclysm.
Cataclysm
The picture below is of a Mayan stone carving photographed by the traveller Teobert Maler (picture and attribution were found on a discussion site, see here; it is also used with the same attribution in Andrew Collins, Gateway to Atlantis). The interpretation of what is depicted is obvious, from left to right: temple destroyed by earthquake, drowning man, erupting vulcano, tidal waves (tsunami's), man escaping in boat, and overall: a giant flood (not entirely clear is the meaning of the fish, possibly it denotes a large scale extinction). According to other sources, the Inca's have a myth about being decendants of a destroyed civilization, of which this may be a portrayal. The appearance of the man as native South American is of course less dependable, since humans tend to depict any human figure to their own liking (something similar applies to the temple).
The image doesn't by itself confirm the stories, since the stories were probably the inspiration for the image. However, there are other things that point in the same direction. There is the fact that most other ancient civilizations from all over the world have similar stories of a massive flood or similar disaster; for an example especially relevant to this website, see the one from Yonaguni island. More tangible, in Sacsayhuaman, Peru, there are remains that point to some disaster, see below:
The usual interpretation of the feature in the picture is that the makers have made some symbolic upside down staircases. The minimal interpretation is that this feature was made as part of a structure like any other, with the usual meaning of up and down, and that some catastrofe has destroyed the structure, this being a remains of it (there is another part visible on the background), see the raw broken rockfaces on top. This disaster was of course a massive earthquake or earthquakes.
More familiar at Sacsayhuaman is the structure that is usually called a fortress, see below. Its walls are constructed of massive, irregularly shaped stone blocks that fit to each other perfectly. If this way of building is not purely esthetical, the only reason one can think of to justify this kind of effort is protection against earthquakes, an idea so obvious that it is raised by lot of people. And the only reason for the builders to think of taking such drastic counter measures is experience with the phenomenon. If one can gauge the kind of experience by the strength of the counter measures, these must have been massive earthquakes indeed, the earth shattering type. The type one associates with the stone carving.
Below are two more pictures of stones that seem to be in their present position due to some upheaval, also taken at Sacsayhuaman. What is remarkble about them is the size of the stones. Many people will recognize the pictures, because they are from Von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods. Of course, the interpretations by Von Däniken do in no way diminish the status of the data he provides, if this can be corroborated, and these pictures are conclusive enough (the third picture is almost the same as the one above that is taken from a tourist website, so the other ones are probably also reliable). The other remarkable thing besides the size of the tumbled blocks is the fact that they are so seldomly seen in pictures (the one exception until now is the one above), while there are plenty examples of most other constructions from Sacsayhuaman.
Judging from the pictures, these blocks are even larger than those in the fortressand those in Ollantaytambo, as can be seen by the size of the man in the left one (is Von Däniken). The picture on the right concentrates on the stone in the foreground, but Von Däniken mentions the block in the background as being of the same huge size, and having also been worked upon like the ones on the left.
The forces that have overturned these blocks are also big enough to overturn, or at least seriously damage, the constructions of made of smaller stones, among which is the fortress of Sacsayhuaman. This would date the fortress as younger than these even more monumental blocks. This would apply even more to the constructions made of still smaller stones, like those of the Inca at Machu Picchu. In fact, in Machu Picchu a clear distinction can be made between the Inca culture and the remains of an obviously revered other, probably older, culture, see here. Of course, it is this possible older culture that is the most interesting for further investigation on this website.
Climate Change
The connection between a shift of the earth crust and climate change is the daily amount of sunlight. The amount of sunlight in a certain region determines to a large extend the average temperature of the region, and the average temperature determines to a large extend the local climate. The amount of sunlight is highest at the equator and smallest at the poles, hence the deserts in the one and the ice caps in the other region.
One might think that the shift would change everything on earth, but that is not true. A shift of the poles from one position to another can be depicted as a rotation along the circle that connects old and new position. Along this circle, every point on earth changes in latitude by the same amount; if the shift corresponds to ten degrees, half of the points get to ten degrees higher above the equator, and half get to ten degrees lower. Those that get higher will get colder, those that get lower, will get warmer. However, those around the equator are less effected, for two reasons. Firstly, there are the regions that lie about five degrees below; they shift to five degrees above, so get roughly the same amount of sun. And secondly: the amount of energy delivered by the sunlight also depends on the angle between the ground and the sun (the sun is most intense if it stands vertically over your head), and in the equatorial regions a shift of five degrees doesn’t change this angle very much.
Besides the equatorial regions, the other region less effected are those that do not shift. There are such regions, because the rotation corresponding to the pole shift also keeps two points exactly on the same place, and large regions that don’t shift much. For the pole positions given in the picture in Pole shifts, the corresponding rough positions of the equator (in reality the red lines would be curved). The current position of the equator is in each globe on the left hand side the horizontal line through the middle.
For north pole position #1:
For north pole position #2:
For north pole position #3:
So the weather or climate prediction following form an earth crust shift is that in some regions this will change dramatically, literally overnight, and other regions will hardly change at all.
This is a prediction based on theory, so in order to substantiate the theory, we must look for proof of the prediction. Now it is known that there are puzzling occurrences of mass extinction of animals, mainly the larger mammals. Well-known are the examples of the sabre-tooth cat-likes and the mammoths from North America, dated between ten and twenty thousand years ago. Even more well-known is the disappearance of the mammoths from Northern Asia, from what is now called Siberia, named after its present bitter and cold environment. However, the mammoths that have been found made their living on plants growing in much more moderate climates. Besides, the mammoth remains that have been found were not only bones, but almost the entire body, flesh and all, complete to such a degree that their stomach contents could be analyzed for their diet. Now everybody knows that biological material decays quickly, and flesh the quickest of all. There is only one natural way to stop this process completely: to deep freeze it, and to do this quickly after the animal has died. And here we are talking about a matter of days, not of weeks.
There is no other sensible solution for the occurrence of entire, deep frozen, mammoths than an almost immediate change to a much colder climate in the region. It is precisely the kind of phenomenon predicted by earth crust displacement, and for which no other reasonable explanation exists. Also the possible dates for the extinctions coincide with the possible dates of the displacements. So we may take the earth crust displacement as a proven phenomenon.
