Forgotten Civilization
The Role of Solar Outbursts in Our Past and Future
by Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D.
(Inner Traditions)

Robert M. Schoch is a geologist who, in the 1990’s (at the behest of renegade Egyptologist John Anthony West), threw mainstream Egyptology into turmoil when he noted that the enclosure which surrounds the Sphinx exhibits weathering characteristics consistent with  heavy rainfall — a climatic condition that the Giza plateau hadn’t witnessed since at least 5000 BCE. By making this claim, Mr. Schoch upturned the apple cart. The Sphinx could not have been constructed in 2500 BCE, the date mainstream Egyptology ascribes to it. Even to this day, Egyptologists have a hard time giving up on 2500 BCE, despite the inconvenient evidence brought forth by Mr. Schoch and confirmed by other geologists.

One of the biggest problems with re-dating the megalithic structures of ancient Egypt is that we do not have archaeological evidence of a society that existed prior to the time of the pharaohs and which demonstrated having the tools and the organization to complete such a monumental project. Despite the geological evidence, Mr. Schoch didn’t have any “pottery shards” (p37). But all this hubbub occurred during the ’90s — before the archaeologists had unearthed definitive proof of a culture that both lived around 10,000 BCE and had the means to construct a megalithic city known today as Göbekli Tepe.

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“Looking only at style and quality of workmanship, one might easily suggest that Göbekli Tepe dates to between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE. How wrong one would be. Based on radiocarbon analyses, the site goes back to the period of 10,000 BCE to 9000 BCE and was intentionally buried circa 8000 BCE.” (p41)

10,000 BCE
Those who are unearthing and studying Göbekli Tepe may very well be looking at the remains of a culture that co-existed during the same time period as the mythical Atlantis…and was subject to the very same global cataclysm that submerged that civilization beneath the waters of the Earth and the legends of our collective memory.

“Picture Stonehenge, multiply it by twenty, [and] carve the pillars more ornately…Immense, finely carved, and decorated T-shaped limestone pillars, many in the range of two to five and one-half maters tall and weighing up to an estimated ten to fifteen tons, form circles…and based on geophysical surveys, the entire site may cover three dozen hectares (about ninety acres) and contain another sixteen to twenty stone circles…This is an immense complex!” (p40)

With Göbekli Tepe, Mr. Schoch has confirmation that a sophisticated human culture existed during the period of time in which he dates the Sphinx. But what happened to it?

Scientists agree that sometime around 10,000 BCE, the last ice age ended. The ice melted. The sea levels rose. The face of the planet changed. Mr. Schoch contends that the trigger for this planet-changing event was a massive solar outburst.

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“The solar activity data, the climatic data, the petroglyphs, the rongorongo texts, and the demise of the early civilizations at the end of the last ice age indicate that something mighty — something catastrophic — was happening. All of the evidence points to some sort of solar outburst or cosmic event wreaking terror on the surface of the Earth. Today the Sun is starting to exhibit the same behavior as seen over ten thousand years ago when catastrophe hit. Will we heed the warning signs? Will we take the lessons of the past seriously and prepare for the future?” (p108)

The Glyphs
Sunspots and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are both well-known characteristics of the sun — and it’s also well-known that particularly strong CMEs have the potential to wreak havoc on our planet, affecting our magnetosphere, our ozone layer and the entire technological network that spans the globe. According to Mr. Schoch, we may very well be due for a big one — one that may rival the solar outburst that ended the last ice age.

Mr. Schoch supports this claim with solar activity data and climatic data that suggest these massive solar outbursts occur in measurable cycles; and the cycle seems to imply that we are due — sometime within this century, or perhaps even tomorrow.

If this solar event occurs, we would see massive auroral displays in the skies around the globe. And based on experiments conducted by plasma physicist Anthony L. Peratt, Mr. Schoch suggests that many of the ancient petroglyphs found around the planet are, in fact, representations of the images the ancients saw in the skies when the massive plasma discharges collided with our magnetosphere.

“Powerful plasma discharges, much more powerful than the auroras observed in the present day, form structures known as plasma columns that can expand in some places and constrict or narrow in other places…In profile these plasma columns can form donut shapes and may look like intertwining snakes, a stack of circles, or even resemble human stick figures…”(p92)

Peratt’s experiments demonstrated the variety of figures and shapes that intense plasma discharges can create — and when Mr. Schoch compared those images to Easter Island glyphs (known as the rongorongo script), the similarities were striking. Additionally, when Mr. Schoch compared the rongorongo script to the geoglyphs known as the Nazca lines, he found striking similarities as well.

Could it be that the ancients were recording on land what they were witnessing in the skies?

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“Based on the similarity of the rongorongo glyphs to the images seen in the skies during super auroral events and, as modeled by Peratt (2003), powerful solar outbursts and the resulting plasma configurations that would have been observed, I believe that the rongorongo glyphs were initially inspired by those events in the skies. The rongorongo was a record of what was seen — literally — and it was recorded in a way that made sense to the scribes and copyists of the time.” (p164-165)

Conclusion
I’m certain that Mr. Schoch will always be remembered as the geologist who challenged mainstream Egyptologists, archaeologists, anthropologists and historians — and won. As time marches on, the validity of Mr. Schoch’s evidence becomes clearer to a wider audience.

His newest claim — that many of Earth’s ancient glyphs are representations of what our ancestors witnessed during an ice age-ending, cataclysmic solar outburst that may repeat itself — certainly has legs on which to walk. Time will tell. And if he’s right, many of us will be around to witness it.