How Earth Was Almost Destroyed 3500 Years Ago. Allegedly | Unveiled

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How Earth Was Almost Destroyed 3,500 Years Ago</h4>

How many times have you heard that the world’s going to end? And how many times did it actually happen? Often but never. However, delve back into ancient history and there are countless claims and theories on when the worst really did nearly unfold, long before we were all here.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at how Earth was allegedly almost destroyed 3,500 years ago.

From some perspectives, 3,500 years is a long time. Since 1,500 BCE, whole civilizations have risen and fallen. Whole religions have been created, become entrenched, and sometimes disappeared. Many, many billions of people have been born, lived, and died over that period. Discoveries have been made; technologies have been created and lost. And yet, when set against the history of the Earth in total, 3,500 years is very, very little. On the timeline of this planet, it’s the tiniest slither of a fraction, right at the end. So today’s parameters can be viewed in one of two ways… but, nevertheless, for one alternate theorist in particular, we’re actually extremely lucky to have seen the last 3,500 years at all.

In 1950, the Russian-American writer Immanuel Velikovsky published “Worlds in Collision”, a book in which he laid out one of the most controversial alt-history models of the twentieth century. Velikovsky proposed that the planet Venus, situated between Earth and Mercury in the Solar System as we know it… was actually born out of Jupiter. According to him, Venus was once contained within the distant gas giant, but was ultimately ejected, something like a massive comet, around 3,500 years ago. It’s then said that this version of Venus careened through space, blazing past Earth itself on at least two occasions, and close enough to change and distort our planet’s orbit, as well as its axial tilt and rotation speed. It’s also claimed that this chaotic, Venusian voyage affected Mars, leading it to also pass perilously close to Earth. Velikovsky doesn’t go so far as to say that any planetary collision actually took place… but he summises that the various near misses messed up the conditions on Earth so badly, in general, that they did cause a large number of massive disasters on the ground - many of which form the basis for various catastrophic events as described in our myths, legends, and religious and sacred texts.

In his original work, Velikovsky weaved in apparently sound, scientific evidence, including alternate explanations for how and why Venus got to be so hot… and to seemingly link its chemical makeup with that of its alleged planet-mother, Jupiter. However, and under pressure from the scientific community post-publication, some of that evidence - such as key appendices - was subsequently removed. For the most part, then, the new theory was constructed around comparative mythology, the practice of analyzing and cross-examining cultural myths and stories in order to uncover potential patterns or repetition. Broadly, we of course do have a lot of legends pertaining to massive, disastrous events - from flood myths to huge, god-like eruptions. These are key to Velikovsky’s theory, as Venus passing nearby could have - according to him - affected Earth enough to cause those events. For example, the Minoan Eruption circa 1,600 BCE destroyed (and literally changed the shape of) the Greek island of Santorini. It’s before been mused that it may have even inspired the legend of Atlantis. But perhaps it could here fall within the confines of Velikovsky’s model, too.

But, let’s row back a little bit. Because why exactly is the Worlds in Collision theory quite so controversial? In short, it’s because it flies against almost all conventional, mainstream science on the formation of the solar system. While there is some mystery as to exactly the speed and order of things, most scientists, astronomers and cosmologists agree that our particular planetary setup is around 4.5 billion years old. It was created when the wider universe was about 9.3 billion years old. Originally, what became the solar system was an inconceivably vast cloud of dust and gas. An external something - probably a massive supernova explosion - triggered that cloud to collapse in on itself. The matter within then grew denser; a quickly-swirling seeming-chaos of substance took shape, called a solar nebula. At the center, and with gravity doing its thing, the pressure grew and grew until it became pressurized enough for early hydrogen atoms to fuse into helium. This eventually resulted in the birth of the sun, which incredibly accounts for more than ninety-nine percent of all the mass in the solar system. The other one percent, however (or just under) would go on to form the planets, moons, asteroids… all of everything else that circles our star. Rocky worlds formed in the inner solar system, closest to the sun, while murkier, often icier worlds formed further out.

In this way, and while conditions have certainly changed over time on both planets, Venus has always been an inner rocky… and Jupiter has always been the first of the outer giants, after the asteroid belt. The solar system’s habitable zone has changed and evolved in line with the sun itself, but there is little-to-no room for Velikovsky’s proposed version of events. His detractors insist that the Worlds in Collision theory is impossible based on known physical laws of the universe, and also highly unlikely due to the dramatically reimagined time frames that it’s built around. Over billions of years, it’s thought that Jupiter - as the second-most massive solar system object behind the sun - may have had some kind of hand in the way in which everything settled down. That its gravitational force might’ve helped to tweak and shape planetary orbits. But nothing so major as what Velikovsky suggests. And, with regard to Venus being actually born out of Jupiter, mainstream science has so far never supported that theory.

Of those against Velikovsky, Harlow Shapley and Carl Sagan are perhaps the most well known, and were amongst the more outspoken. Sagan mounted his opposition throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, including as part of his much heralded book and documentary series, “Cosmos”. Again, most of Sagan’s criticisms boiled down to the insistence that Velikovsky’s Venus (and the problems it may have caused for Earth) were physically impossible. Harlow Shapley is arguably a more intriguing figure in the story, however, given his history in the years and decades before “Worlds in Collision” was released. Shapley is probably most famous for being on one side of the Great Debate, held in 1920, when he pitched his ideas on space against one Heber D. Curtis. Both were leading academics at the time, but they differed on their view of the structure of the cosmos - Curtis believed there were island universes beyond the Milky Way, while Shapley believed that the Milky Way contained everything in the universe. While neither was exactly right, it’s generally deemed that Shapley was more wrong. Thirty years later, though, and Shapley’s career has gone from strength to strength, so that he emerges as the first voice of scientific reason when Velikovsky’s views first come to light… to the point that Shapley (and others) actually campaigned to stop “Worlds in Collision” from being published. Or at least to stop it being published as a scientific text, or under a reputable publishing name.

All to say that, for all the turmoil that it imagines in the solar system around us, this particular theory has been a thoroughly contentious issue from the outset. And, while there have been some defenses mounted in favor of it, none have really caught the wider scientific or public imagination. But, nevertheless, what’s your opinion? Let us know what you think in the comments below. Could anything that Velikovsky had to say actually be correct? Are the mainstream models just too watertight to be broken? Or could there yet be another theory to account for exactly why the planets are arranged as they are.

For now, Velikovsky is remembered by history as much more an unfounded catastrophist than a revolutionary thinker. Those against him essentially argue that just because he said it was true, doesn’t mean that it actually was. The hard evidence for Velikovsky’s birth of Venus seemingly just doesn’t exist. But his book does lay out the entire, spectacular tale, regardless. And that’s how Earth was allegedly almost destroyed 3,500 years ago.