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proof that Venus was not even present in the skies until fairly recent times, that it first appeared as a comet hauling a tail and followed a course somewhat different from its present one. Its passage through our solar system caused massive disturbances on earth and probably wholesale destruction. There are written records of those disturbances and archaeological and geological ee ee 08 ee ee ee In relatively recent times Venus posed a new mystery. Today's astronomers agree that our sister planet has no moons. But a satellite was observed orbiting Venus in 1672 by a prominent astronomer named CasdnL He saw it again in 1686. Other well known astronomers, using primitive but adequate instruments, sighted it in 1740, 1759, 1764, and 1791. They all noted that it seemed to be about one fourth the size of Venus itself (giving it a diameter of two thousand miles) and that it was very bright, almost luminous. It's very hard to lose something two thousand miles across... even in space. But no astronomer has seen this object since 1791. Hying saucer cultists have taken Venus* vanishing satellite to their bosom, claiming naturally that it was really a gigantic spacecraft But the object's extreme luminosity could mean that it was a fragment of the Venus comet itself, following a retrograde orbit which eventually sent it into the planet's surface. We have followed a long and bizarre trail from the ancient rumours of massive catastrophes to the Atlantis-bound theories of Donnelly to the Ice Age notions of Horbiger's Wei and finally to the carefully researched and thought-out conclusions of Dr Immanuel Velikovsky and his still controversial concept of colliding worlds, These men and their many followers were probably mostly wrong... but there is always a chance that they might also be partially right. While their peers and colleagues have fumed, fussed” fought. ridiculed, and attacked their body syntheses, a new generation of scientists has steadily uncovered substantial scientific evidence which seems to 0 support them. New theorists will yoo : awe ta 1 wea aa toa pikers. We are beginning to realize that the Earth's crust is in constant motion, that the continents are adrift. The whole planet may flip-flop on its axis every few thousand years, causing water to bury land areas, bringing new land areas to the surface, and thrusting temperate zones into the Arctic cold to be smothered by ice. And if we can accept Velikovsky, our little mudball is running the constant hazard of encountering objects and forces in space which can wreak unbelievable havoc in hours or days. The moon could even fall on us one day, or the sun could suddenly explode. Our whole technological civilization could be wiped out in a flash. It would not be too surprising, therefore.if other great civilizations might have flourished on this planet many thousands of years ago. Other great races, not necessarily linked to us biologically, could have existed here. The supergiants of Pauwels and Bergier could have been real. All that has survived of that ancient race are the puzzling stone monoliths and the great mounds and ridges. It was a logical step for a super-civilization to move from the construction of mounds and earth-works to the building of the more permanent pyramids of Egypt, China, and South America. Their culture, or remnants of it, survived and were imitated by early man. For eccentricities. The claims have now been verified. He claimed that the ancient records stand as evidence of that destruction. undoubtedly seize upon this new evidence and construct concepts which will make them seem we