Archives …and the Fire from Heaven   Published: 04/18/2004   No one is really sure how April Fool's Day came to be, but British folklore claims that the townsfolk of Gotham are responsible for this most idiotic of "holidays." Supposedly, in the thirteenth century it was traditional that if the King traveled over any road it would become public property. When the people of Gotham discovered that King John intended to pass through their town they immediately spread a false story so as to not lose their road. King John, understandably irritated, sent a messenger to demand an explanation. But when the messenger arrived in Gotham he discovered the hapless townsfolk engaged in such activities as trying to drown fish and cage birds in roofless fences. King John, taking pity on the town declared on April 1st that the town was too foolish to punish. Of course the joke was on King John as it was all an act. That's one story. Anyway, sometime this month earthlink.net pulled an April Fools trick on me by deleting the original website for the Anthropogene. In other words, lost history got lost again. This action, I'm sure, had something to do with that mystery of corporate activity called "synergies and efficiencies." The Anthropogene will not fade away so easily. It will be a while before I have the full site back up, but I now have an opportunity to come up with a new layout - and even better the site has a more appropriate url:  http://webpages.charter.net/anthropogene To recap last month's article, in the early fifteenth century the Ming Empire of China launched a maritime program whose scope and breadth was not to be seen again for centuries. Ships of enormous size went out in great numbers to all the four corners of the earth to explore and colonize. But within a few short decades the Middle Kingdom abandoned the great enterprise. The dragon ships of the Treasure Fleet were allowed to rot away at their moorings. The records and logs of the ships were deliberately destroyed. So extreme was the about-face that within a hundred years or so it was a crime for the Chinese to even sail upon the ocean! Without the stone pillar in Fujian Province, some recovered journals from the sailors, and the fabulous tales of the Treasure Fleet that became folklore - the account would have been lost forever. Meanwhile at Sagres, that remote promontory of Portugal known as the Promontorium Sacrum to the ancients, Prince Henry had begun to marshal the resources needed to begin probing the African coast. Without the efforts of the man who has been labeled The Navigator, the age of western exploration would never have happened. It was left to the Portuguese, Spanish and the English to finish what the Chinese abandoned. What happened? Based on the evidence, the Earth has been (and will be until we do something about it) impacted by Near Earth Objects or NEO's. If anyone doesn't believe that can happen, be alerted to the fact that our planet had a very close call a month ago. This is a very real issue and not some really bad made for TV movie. There are two different types. First we have the dirty snowball, a mix of ice and ammonia. These seem to be the more common type and one was probably responsible for the Tunguska Event of 1908. This type of NEO will create an impressive airburst, leveling trees for miles around, but not leaving much in the way of physical evidence afterwards. One of these was probably responsible for the mysterious airburst of 1979 in the Indian Ocean that was blamed initially on a secret South African nuclear test. The second is the meteor or asteroid, a solid object. One only needs to go to central Arizona to see an impressive crater that is about 3/4's of a mile wide and 620 feet deep. Every spring and fall we can look up and enjoy the meteor showers - far, far smaller objects than whatever hit in central Arizona thousands of years ago. In the 20th century there was Tunguska in 1908, Brazil in 1936 and the Indian Ocean airburst in 1979 (originally thought to be a South African nuclear test, until proven otherwise by the declassification of South African records in the 1990's.) Tunguska and the Indian Ocean were both airbursts that fit the dirty snowball model. The Brazil incident left a crater, identified by grainy photos from the period that was quickly hidden by the jungle. We are fortunate that the Indian Ocean incident was a dirty snowball. A meteor impact would have caused a tsunami. The historical record on tsunamis is scant. The furthest recorded written record on one was the 1692 tsunami that wiped out Port Royal Jamaica - and there are other records from Peru go back to the early 16th century. Without written records scientists have to become detectives. For example; Using turbidite data, the subsidence record along the coastline, radiocarbon and tree ring data, coupled with the legends and myths of the Yurok, and Pachena Bay tribe - Japanese scientists were able to confirm that massive tsunami hit the Northwest coastline of Northern America one winter's night in January of 1700. This specific tsunami was caused by an earthquake. But what about those tsunamis caused by extraterrestrial impacts? Our planet is incorrectly named Earth. If we were more objective about the issue, our planet should really be called Water. Over 70% of the planet's surface is covered by water. Therefore, we can safely assume that 70% of all comets, asteroids and meteors land in the oceans. According to sciencenews.org, the researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory calculate that tsunamis caused by such impacts occur about every 5,200 years. Evidence of an undersea crater caused by a meteor impact has been discovered in the South Pacific; 20 kilometers wide and more than 153 feet deep this crater has been named the Mahuika Crater. The crater is south of the Snares Islands and 120 kilometers southwest of Stewart Island. When did the Mahuika event happen? According to Stephen F. Pekar, a sedimentologist at Queens College in New York, this meteor impact occurred sometime in the 1500's. He bases his conclusion on the following evidence: "In eastern Australia, researchers have found jumbled deposits of rocks more than 130 m above   sea level that they propose were left by a tsunami. That debris has been dated to about A.D. 1500-a date that matches when the Maori people inexplicably moved away from some areas of New Zealand's coast. "On New Zealand's Stewart Island, two sites sport possible tsunami deposits at elevations of 150 meters and 220 meters, respectively. The source locations and heights of waves that could    have lofted materials to those elevations steered the search for the impact's ground zero to beneath the sea southwest of New Zealand, towards Mahuika Crater." Tektites, small mineral objects, have been dredged up from the site of the crater, another piece of evidence in favor of a meteor impact. We might even be able to specify the exact date of impact. Using the tsunami database at http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/tsu.shtml , a website put up by the National Geophysical Data Center we find a recorded tsunami striking the Japanese coastline on September 6th, 1420. The Chinese colony in New Zealand had been in existence since the time of the Han Dynasty, and a fleet under the command of Zhou Man had been sent to re establish contact and to prepare the way for further colonization, 44 of the great treasure ships were sent on this expedition with their accompanying support ships. According to Cedric Bell, a Chinese trading port of 4,000 people was situated in present-day Christchurch. A hypothetical scenario for what happened on September 6th, 1420 as developed by Cedric Bell and Gavin Menzies: The meteor enters earth atmosphere crossing southeastern Australia (aboriginal legends supposedly mention a fireball of celestial origins,) and strikes in the South Pacific near New Zealand at the aforementioned site identified as Mahuika Crater. Chinese and Japanese stories also tell of a celestial visitor at this time. A tsunami with waves as high as 200 meters radiates out from the impact site. The fleet of Zhou Man is caught out on the open water. Wreckage of the great junks are hurled far inland, one supposedly hurled into a cliff at Moeraki, two buried in debris at Wakanui Beach, Ashburton. Any ships that do survive are wrecked hulks, the crews dead or dying. Debris from the meteor or comet also strikes the South Island of New Zealand at Tananui (the Maori translation is "the big explosion.") The airburst causes damage similar to what occurred in Siberia in 1908. Thousands of acres catch fire, and the Chinese colony at Christchurch is incinerated. Supposedly Maori legends tell "of the falling of the skies, raging winds and massive and mysterious fires, storms from space." The tsunami floods the Apimara plains west of Invercargill.  The place names on the South Island deep inland echo the catastrophe with names such as Tanui, Tairoa, Paretai (Tai translates as waves.) Tsunami waves are noted in Japan and obviously would have struck Australia and the South American coastline. Later, in one of the few surviving documents, an official of the Chinese court bitterly criticizes the loss of "myriads of ships" Further celestial disturbances that "may" have a correlation with the meteor result in the destruction of the Forbidden City; "a fire from Heaven itself" burns the Imperial Capital at a great cost of life. The Yong Le Emperor dies soon after of an illness. When the new Ming emperor come to the throne the balance of power had shifted at the court. His scholar-officials criticized the eunuch cabal and their favorite Zheng He. Yet another barbarian enemy was making inroads on the western borders (were there any climatological changes responsible? - I have not confirmed) and needed to devote its resources to what turned out to be a disastrous struggle. To make sure that China would stay internalized, the court officials destroyed the logs that Zheng He had kept. China's brief flirtation with maritime expansion was over. BUT..... Is the whole account of the Ming Colony in New Zealand and it's apocalyptic destruction just "tarted up junk" as on critic has stated? Last December, New Zealand tsunami expert Dr James Goff visited Mason Bay on Stewart Island and based on the reseach his team completed, argues that there had been no such tsunami, and that the whole business of a meteor impact in 1421 is merely a "geo-fantasy." The tektites brought up from around the Mahuika Crater were "more like to be 100,000 years old," and while the sand deposits at Mason Bay were undoubtedly from a tsunami " "It's the dating of the event that is unproven, and I don't know that there is enough proof yet that there was a meteor impact at the site as suggested." Other critics have released papers reviewing the evidence used, and finds no evidence, either Maori or geological, for a 15th century meteor impact in New Zealand. In the opinion of the critics, all Maori place-names have been incorrectly translated, the radiocarbon chronology is incorrect, and there is no consideration of the numerous potential tsunami sources that were active in New Zealand in the 15th century, such as known and documented earthquakes and the volcanic eruption of Rangitoto Island that are equally more compelling arguments for the tsunamis that did occur during this time. And as for Cedric Bell's argument that a Chinese outpost was located at present day ChristChurch, critics point out that there are no mention at all in the Maori legends of outsiders from China or anywhere else establishing anything in New Zealand before the arrival of Captain James Cook on October 7, 1769. And the so called Han ruins aren't convincing skeptics. As for any kind of confirmation of any kind of global climatological change in the 1420 period due to a major meteorological impact, at this time I have not checked the data available at the GISP2 site. In any event, another research mission is underway on Stewart Island to verify the date of the Mahuika impact and to answer the question of when it happened. 1420 AD or 100,000 years ago. Regardless of the answer, only the spirt of Zheng He knows the truth. Next month, the main thing will be to have the entire website back up. Future topics will include Atlantis (yes, really- I will tackle the hoariest of all ancient mysteries,) and delve into the mysteries of Tritonis and the fate of Wr-Alda.  Last revised: April 18, 2004  Back

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