Cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis-Science versus Pseudoscience

I'm making this thread to try to set the record straight on some of the nonsense I've seen on this topic, particularly from Ben Davidson of Suspicious Observers. Davidson and apparently his followers seem to love doom porn. There are plenty of stories about real doom porn scenarios we could investigate, but Davidson has chosen to overhype some things, including the Cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis.

There have been changes in the Earth's tilt. The main issue of science versus pseudoscience is, how long do these changes take to occur?
If the Earth's tilt changes very suddenly, that's how you can get the "Cataclysm" in the "Cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis". If the changes happen more slowly, we would still see some dramatic changes in climate happen but they take a long time to occur, in which case it doesn't seem appropriate to refer to the slow changes as a "Cataclysm".

One of the best known proponents of the idea of a catastrophic rapid shift of the Earth's tilt was a man by the name of Charles Hapgood

Charles Hutchins Hapgood (May 17, 1904 – December 21, 1982)[1] was an American college professor and author who became one of the best known advocates of the pseudoarchaeological claim of a rapid and recent pole shift with catastrophic results.

So if the claim is "pseudoarchaeology" as that description states, why did Albert Einstein write a foreward to Hapgood's book?

The full text of Hapgood's book is now available so you can read Albert Einstein's foreward yourself to see what he says. The foreward is too long to post entirely, but here is an excerpt to help put it in perspective:

To close with an observation that has occurred to me while writing these lines: If the earth's crust is really so easily displaced over its substratum as this theory requires, then the rigid masses near the earth's surface must be distributed in such a way that they give rise to no other considerable centrifugal momentum, which would tend to displace the crust by centrifugal effect. I think that this deduction might be capable of verification, at least approximately.

My interpretation of Einstein's perspective is that when he says "If the earth's crust is really so easily displaced over its substratum as this theory requires..." I see an open-minded scientist who is considering whether Hapgood's idea has merit or not. The fact he says "If" it happens as Hapgood thinks, shows Einstein, while intrigued by the idea, is certainly not completely sold on it. Then Einstein continues by talking about verification, which infers that such verification of Hapgood's idea had not taken place at the time Einstein wrote the foreward. And in fact Hapgood's idea was never confirmed regarding the rapidity of the pole shift changes, though scientists have confirmed that pole shifts do occur at a much slower rate than Hapgood hypothesized.

So while Ben Davidson has a little truth mixed in his story about Einstein commenting on Hapgood's idea, he misleads us into thinking Einstein was sold on the idea but I think it's clear that Einstein thought it was interesting but needed "verification", which now we know it was not verified. Ben Davidson lies when he says this:

The Next End of the World | C.I.A. Classified

The C.I.A. classified a 284-page book on earth's catastrophe cycle and crust displacement in 1966.

I feel sorry for the Ben Davidson fans who fall for his nonsense. The CIA does not classify books in the public domain like that one, so not, the CIA did NOT classify a 284-page book on earth's catastrophe cycle.

What happens is, the CIA has confidential sources and informants from whom they collect information. Apparently they collected some information from one of their sources, which they eventually declassified though the name of the source (apparently) is still redacted, since they don't want to reveal their sources and methods for obvious reasons. The information in the de-classified pdf includes three documents:

-Some clippings from a 1966 article in Time Magazine titled "The Passions & Perils of Nationhood"
-Some pages from a 1965 book by Chan Thomas called "The Adam and Eve Story"
-A transmittal slip with a list of items on it

So it was the combination of those three documents from some CIA source that was classified, then declassified with redactions.That's the topic of this recent thread on ATS trying to spread Ben Davidson's false explanation of the document:

The Next End of the World | C.I.A. Classified
That leads you to Ben Davidson's link where he says "Read the document for yourself:" but the link Davidson has there doesn't work.

Here is a working link to the CIA declassified PDF of the three documents I mentioned.:
CIA-RDP79B00752A000300070001-8.pdf

Davidson's claim that "The C.I.A. classified a 284-page book on earth's catastrophe cycle and crust displacement in 1966." appears to be just another lie from Ben Davidson, since they never classified the full book that I can see. The full book has always been available, here's a link to the complete, uncensored book (download link is in the upper right corner if you want to download it):

1965 book by Chan Thomas titled "The Adam and Eve Story" (pdf)

That pdf has 120 double-pages so about 240 scanned pages, I don't know where Davidson came up with 284 pages.
So if you play the video by Ben Davidson in the ATS thread, Davidson starts reading the beginning of the book which sounds like good doom porn.
But if you're interested in the difference between science and pseudoscience, please note the biblical story of genesis in the bible is not considered to be a scientifically accurate or reliable document, even some religious scholars don't think the account in the book of Genesis is completely accurate.

The Adam and Eve book seems to have "re-translated" the book of genesis, but the re-translation seems to depart significantly from other translations I've read of the book of Genesis. There's really no point to nit-picking translation differences since I don't think any of the translations of Genesis can be considered scientifically reliable documents.

So I hope I've cleared up somewhat what the CIA actually classified, which was not the entire Adam and Eve book, it was a collection of three documents from some apparently redacted source, where one of the three documents included some pages from the book. This does not translate to the book being classified as Davidson claims. If you haven't yet realised that Davidson lies, maybe you should watch this video by Professor Dave:
Suspicious0bservers is a Pseudoscientific Doomsday Cult

To sum up the pole shifts, evidence does support that they do happen, but very slowly, not rapidly as Hapgood's now discredited idea (which interested Einstein) hypothesized.

Just to clear things up, which pole?

Does this refer to a change in the axis of rotation of the Earth? Does this refer to the crust slipping on the surface and not the planet as a whole? Or does this refer to the movement of the magnetic poles?

Pole shift could mean any of the above.

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
Just to clear things up, which pole?

Does this refer to a change in the axis of rotation of the Earth? Does this refer to the crust slipping on the surface and not the planet as a whole? Or does this refer to the movement of the magnetic poles?

Pole shift could mean any of the above.

Only one.
The rest are highly theoretical based on "loose" evidence.

Magnetic Poles.
Shift all the time.
Known fact.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Richard Noone wrote a book in 1997 predicting that the pole shift would happen on or near May 5th, 2000.

It didn't happen.

I am not saying that it couldn't or hasn't happened before... but predicting it seems to be a losing proposition.

I do believe that cataclysmic changes do occur due to movements of the Earth's crust and look to the mountains, comparing old ranges to new ones to get my confirmation of that. There have been major displacements that didn't take millions of years to occur, imo.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Just to clear it up for those that do not know what this is about, it is about the GEOGRAPHIC poles not the Magnetic poles which are moving all the time.

Hapgood's theory was that a sufficiently large build up of Ice or even Rock at the poles may result in the natural mechanical pull through the earths rotation around it's axis becoming enough to cause an ENTIRE slippage of the earth's outer crust over the semi liquid mantle beneath it, this is not the same as tectonic drift but rather the entire surface of the earth slipping due to Gyroscopic attraction of a large enough build up of ICE at the pole toward the equator (free motion of the plates would seem to refute this as would geological markers of long duration such as the Hawaiian Islands which are created by a Thermal plume rising from far below the crust within the earth and the long chain of former Hawaiian islands mostly now sunken back into the crust under the ocean but many still sizable sea mounts that were once the Hawaiian Islands before our current ones would suggest a slow progression over this thermal plume and no sizeable upset to that such as a major crustal displacement would cause).

Now to be frank the idea and theory are actually sound, there is nothing wrong about them and in fact the idea has had to be rebranded as TRUE POLAR WANDER, they have had to shrug off Hapgood's NAME from HIS THEORY because it is regarded as pseudo science when in fact it is actual science in order to be able to write serious papers on the subject.

The one difference is unlike the Skin of the Orange theory of Hapgood this may also encompass the idea of the ENTIRE planet tilting in this fashion.

There is also suggestive evidence throughout the solar system that this may occur or have occurred many times over the ages.

There is more than this out there for the enquiring mind to find, here is a link to one on DailyMotion about Ganymede.
www.dailymotion.com...

So the two versions of the Theory, Hapgood's Original ECD or Earth Crustal Displacement and the revised or REBRANDED modern version TPW or TRUE POLAR WANDER.

Science versus Pseudoscience

Who decides?

I've often wondered what force could be used to alter a planets rotational speed, direction, or rotational angel to the sun. Science dictates the paradigm to consider, setting boundaries to where one's mind is allowed to wonder.

We were never allowed to consider that maybe a outside force has in essence Terraformed planet earth. There is a solid, un penetrable wall in this area. After all if there were such a "Outsider" who were capable of such a feat would they not make themselves known to us?

Science, good science starts with the observation. But no one alive today has seen any axis changes, or for that matter seen a rotational reversal of the planet. Does it take a short time to adjust, or millions of years? No one knows. Well, that depends on "If" the planet has been or can be adjusted by mechanical means, via terraforming.

Two very important records to consider are historical oxygen content of the planet, and the progressive ages of the oceans. When combined and viewed outside of the accepted paradigm, betray certain ancient events that must have occurred.

Is there anything in science that precludes us living on a terraformed planet? Would such a process, leave marks?

a reply to: LABTECH767

Imagine the waves this would cause... I think somewhere, not sure if related, I read that some geolocical structures like the gran canyon are indicating that huge amounts of water were thrown inland to wash it out. Rather than a steady stream...

If this was something that happened before, should we find some better clues?

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
Just to clear things up, which pole?

Does this refer to a change in the axis of rotation of the Earth? Does this refer to the crust slipping on the surface and not the planet as a whole? Or does this refer to the movement of the magnetic poles?

Pole shift could mean any of the above.

Einstein talked about rapid displacement of the Earth's crust as Hapgood's idea that wasn't verified. The magnetic field of the Earth does not originate in the crust, so Hapgood's idea wasn't about magnetic pole shifts, those originate much deeper than the crust and magnetic poles can move much more rapidly than the crust can move.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Richard Noone wrote a book in 1997 predicting that the pole shift would happen on or near May 5th, 2000.

It didn't happen.

I am not saying that it couldn't or hasn't happened before... but predicting it seems to be a losing proposition.

I do believe that cataclysmic changes do occur due to movements of the Earth's crust and look to the mountains, comparing old ranges to new ones to get my confirmation of that. There have been major displacements that didn't take millions of years to occur, imo.

I suppose you'd have to define "cataclysmic changes" and give me some examples of what you think would qualify. There are landslides but those aren't large enough to have dramatic effects on the Earth's tilt.

Take the 2004 Earthquake and tsunami in Southeast asia for example, there was a big underwater landslide and the tidal wave was somewhat cataclysmic in that it killed many thousands of people. The earth's tilt actually was calculated to have changed by an extremely small amount which is probably too small to actually measure. In order to fall into Hapgood's idea the changes in tilt would have to be much more significant, not only large enough to measure, but much larger than out measurement threshold.

a reply to: LABTECH767
Your description of Hapgood's idea seems reasonable. As for modern theory being Hapgood's idea re-branded, not exactly. The main issue isn't whether the Earth's tilt changes, it does. The main issue is how rapidly it happens. The modern science agrees changes in tilt happen but are not Hapgood's theory re-branded because they do not support the sudden shifts Hapgood hypothesized, the changes happen more slowly than that.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I suppose you'd have to define "cataclysmic changes" and give me some examples of what you think would qualify. There are landslides but those aren't large enough to have dramatic effects on the Earth's tilt.

I was treating cataclysmic as separate from a pole shift in that instance. I mean that the Rocky mountains may have formed in much smaller amount of time, as in from a plain into their present height in a matter of a month or a year, vs a million years.

I still try to find a physical explanation for the molten layers to be solidified / liquidized in the timespan of 12 hours and what would do that. This is the weak point for me, in that argument. What mechanism could do this, is there something known like this?

From what I understand, the theory is that the liquid layer of molten magma behaves like a solid, providing grip to the outer shell of Earth, much like a skateboards grip tape. If that liquidizes it enables the outer shell to rotate away, as the inner Earths parts still rotate. Like when the grip tape on the skateboard turns suddenly to fluid glue and sand grains, it won't provide grip anymore to the feet.

originally posted by: Terpene
a reply to: LABTECH767

Imagine the waves this would cause... I think somewhere, not sure if related, I read that some geolocical structures like the gran canyon are indicating that huge amounts of water were thrown inland to wash it out. Rather than a steady stream...

If this was something that happened before, should we find some better clues?

I don't think it happened in the Grand Canyon, but elsewhere, ice dams formed and held huge amounts of water behind the dams as the glaciers retreated in the ice age cycles. Eventually when the ice dams broke, huge floods could be created, like the Missoula floods
When a huge amount of water shifts after the ice dam breaks, you might be able to calculate the small pole shift that would result as in the 2004 Earthquake near Malaysia, but probably still too small to measure.

a reply to: Terpene

I have a different theory that may also explain a mega tsunami of unimaginable size (Talking thousands of feet high), imagine if the entire south American continent TILTED cataclysmically pushing entire regions even city's that had once been on high ground under the water on it's eastern seaboard while elevating city's that had once been on fjords (Titcaca - sea level flora and fauna that adapted to slow desalination of the waters and lower oxygen levels are found in it today) that were open to the sea on it's western seaboard up thousands of feet into the sky.



This may have happened through the following mechanism.

As the poles melted the continental rock of the northern and southern hemispheres became more buoyant and rose upward lowering the pressure on the underlying magma, this in turn allowed magma to flow from the areas beneath the increasingly HEAVY seas back under the continents and in turn this made the Atlantic ocean want to SINK a little, add to this as it moves over the older Pacific plate which may be the remnants of a long lost continent (proto Continent there have been at least seven periods of continent formation in our planets history and all those previous continents long ago returned to the mantle to be recycled perhaps as our modern continents over time) and is much, much thicker causing it to want to ride UP and over this thicker pacific plate.

So upward pressure on the western pacific seaboard, reduced pressure on the eastern Atlantic sea board and a mechanism is there that could have caused such a continental tilt during or AFTER the last Ice Age period of major glacial melting.

IF it was fast the tidal waves on both oceans would have been large enough to wash up to the Himalayas in India and across the low land of most other continents perhaps entirely with only the highlands such as South Africa and similar regions being unaffected, also as the tilting could have also caused a displacement of the remaining magma under the depressed Atlantic crust toward Africa in a subcrustal wave it may have caused west Africa to Elevate possibly explaining why the Eye of the Sahara looks so much like the mythical Atlantis as it too may once have been much lower in altitude prior to this event.

Of course I am NOT A geologists so my hairbrained idea is just that for now.

originally posted by: butcherguy
I was treating cataclysmic as separate from a pole shift in that instance. I mean that the Rocky mountains may have formed in much smaller amount of time, as in from a plain into their present height in a matter of a month or a year, vs a million years.

I don't know how you came up with that idea, according to this source it took about 25 million years from 80 to 55 million years ago which sounds much more consistent with what I know about plate tectonics.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
I still try to find a physical explanation for the molten layers to be solidified / liquidized in the timespan of 12 hours and what would do that.

Can you post a citation for this?

When double shines the single sun
7 weeks until it's done

when 3 days of darkness you see
15 days until pole shift asymmetry

6 days of sunrise west
keep moving above 300 ft to stay abreast

5.9 days of rotation stop
stay close; rush to cover, from firestorms up top

1 hour of quakes, rain, and flood
most water turns to blood

2 years of polar melt
700 ft is the new ocean belt

3,657 years it comes, no one believes
Very few believe
All will believe, when the time comes

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
I still try to find a physical explanation for the molten layers to be solidified / liquidized in the timespan of 12 hours and what would do that.

Can you post a citation for this?

No, because it is inside the PDF that is not searchable.

But it's on page 20, the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs.

www.cia.gov...

Add: Snipped and marked the parts, for the rest of ATS.


I question the solidify / liquify and the atomic explosion part. How to know, how to measure, how was it measured, if, and with what.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

I remember that, they were frightened according to the story of releasing that to the public in case it caused panic and even may have helped to belittle Hopgood's theory in public for fear it may cause economic chaos if people believed it, cheery bunch those ABD guys in the states they always think the worst of human nature and act accordingly.

This is the one big topic that has captured my attention the last few years, and the more I read about it ,the more plausible it sounds.
I started following this author in a Facebook group, bought his book.


Description via Amazon

In this book we will delve into our ancient history, the earth changes that our ancestors had to endure which lead to foretelling prophecies, scriptures and ancient depictions of the cataclysmic events that took place. We will also be connecting all the dots from the past and present geological changes and how everything that happens on this planet is governed by the coming pole shift, from political agendas, illuminati, Masons, religious orders, CERN, HAARP, Gwen towers, chemtrails, the great pyramids, Antarctica, magnetic polarity displacement, solar system influences, project blue beam, black op missions, jet stream disturbances, earthquake progression, volcanic progression, core expansion all the way to he increasing earth wobble which is interacting with the world renowned nemesis system and how it all interconnects with absolutely everything that occurs on our home planet.

He, along with some very devout followers and researchers including Laura Wells ( YouTube, Facebook, Patreon) firmly believe we are headed for a catastrophic pole shift mid 2023. I've been on the fence about some of their connected dots but cannot deny there must be something to it.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Any memories on the atomic explosion part inside Earth?

Lol @ the panic part, because logically there is no reason to freak out. If it's like this, it was like this before the knowledge arrived, so no reason to freak out about it. It's not something we can change or influence, we have no power over it. It's like acknowledging there are asteroids out there capable of taking out Earth.

If it happens we're dead anyways, so what gives. There is nowhere to run.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Richard Noone wrote a book in 1997 predicting that the pole shift would happen on or near May 5th, 2000.

It didn't happen.

I am not saying that it couldn't or hasn't happened before... but predicting it seems to be a losing proposition.

I do believe that cataclysmic changes do occur due to movements of the Earth's crust and look to the mountains, comparing old ranges to new ones to get my confirmation of that. There have been major displacements that didn't take millions of years to occur, imo.

It seems more logical that this has been under circumstances we have not witnessed yet anywhere. To imagine some physical pole shift does seem fantastic without a rogue celestial object affecting Earth's Pole. It seems right now that is not likely, but certainly is possible. The Magnetic pole shift is periodically occurring according to the magnetite formations Scientist have analyzed showing the direction of mag field at the time of the deposit of magnetite.

It seems that a huge pole shift is out logically, but a small one is not. If for any reason a slight change happens to our pole the water on earth will still have it's inertia and angular momentum. It will continue "zigging along on its path when we zag".

Do I believe that a huge pole shift will happen? No, but I do believe it is possible for an abrupt shift of a much smaller scale. That would most likely be because an outside force on Earth like a passing comet of enormous mass.

Doom porn? Absolutely, but it still might be true.. We can't do crap about it. As he says "NO FEAR". I like that philosophy and just watch those to see what happens later so I can critique it one way or another one day.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

You know I have heard that before ON ATS not sure if it was from someone like yourself actually.

Other than that there were some ropey movies made going back in which they seemed to think they could SWIM in the subcrustal material and treat it like an underwater adventure movie using bomb's to kick start the core after a secret experiment caused it to stop, it was fun but beyond far fetched, actually at that depth though we treat it like a liquid it is hard, actually Geological modelling treats the continents and even the mountains as a viscous fluid that flows over time under the forces of gravity and erosion trying to form a flat surface.

If our planet was old enough to have a solid core yet still had weather and erosion in time it's surface would become featureless as a result.

Interestingly our planet is more like a knobbly potato than the sphere we perceive it as though if we add in the ocean and even more so the atmosphere then it is a sphere albeit a slightly flattened one that bulges out at the equator a bit more than it does at the poles.

As for Safe Haven I am quite certain that would have been there major concern and they would have conducted a huge study in secret to find the safest locations and there are some I am sure of that but what would be left of the world for these survivors no matter how well prepared to pick up the pieces afterwards, likely we would eventually end up back in the stone age, no industry because the bulk of the population dead, any surviving technology would rust and break down and no spare parts so the only viable plan would be to try to save a huge number of people so that a working society, industry, farming and the rest of it could be put back in place as rapidly as possible after the event as that is the only way that civilization itself could be saved.

Beyond that the survivors would have to have as many children as they could to replenish the human race and the danger of after shock's from the incident would be a genuine grave danger to these survivors and they may continue for century's even millennia as the earth settled back down.

And then there is the danger of Competing Ideologically opposed survivors whom may then pose a threat of an entirely different kind.