The "Middle Kingdom" ended in The Age of Fire, the third of the three Sun Ages on ancient record. This was by far the best documented of the major disasters of the ancient world. It has been recorded in all histories of the then-civilized world which represented the "band of Life" zone of human development, particularly in the annals of Egypt.

"The Age of Fire" marked the end of a brief period of re-cuperation and reorganization after the Great Flood. To describe the global implications of this disaster would be too confusing and tax the patience of even the most ardent scholar, so once more I will try to confine this history mainly to the events which affected the land of my birth.

The actual catastrophe was preceded by seven years of strange disturbances in the natural order of life. This caused extensive drought and famine. What was thought to be a new star appeared in the sky. As this star approached Earth it was clearly large enough to be called a planet. It came closer and closer, its brightness increasing at an alarming rate.

The onrushing star was accompanied by a noise. This was slight at first and could hardly be noticed except by the attuned ear at night when stillness settled over the land. As the intensity of light from the new star increased, so did the noise; louder and louder it grew, never ceasing for a second.

At first there seemed little to fear. In a short period of three hundred and eighty-four years people had already forgotten the flood, and had been far too preoccupied in rebuilding to ponder history's warnings. All had forgotten, except perhaps Moses who, like his forebears, was a brilliant opportunist and saw in the events now building a chance to utilize the confusion and at the right moment lead the Israelites out of bondage to freedom in the promised land.

Under the direction of his god, Yaweh, Moses bided his time waiting for the right moment to depart. The intervening period was occupied in organizing the people, teaching them how to plunder friendly Egyptians, and preparing them as much as possible for the exodus. It is hard to realize the enormity and complexity of Moses' task, to be undertaken under the very noses of the guards and soldiers. There were thousands of men, women and children to be involved in the exodus, together with their herds, their flocks, and their household belongings.

None but a mystic could have chosen such as apt time to depart. He almost left it until too late, for the actual clash of the giant planets came only a day or two after the march began.

The Jewish history, Exodus, tells the story of haste, plunder, and wondrous guidance for the Israelites. They left Rameses en mass, six hundred thousand of them; and there wasn't even time to tarry to leaven the bread, a night to be observed by the children of Israel in all their generations.

We read in Exodus 3: 21,22: "... And it shall come to pass that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty: But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour and of her that sojourneth in her house. ..." And there is Exodus 12: 35, 36: "And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment ... and they spoiled the Egyptians."

In spite of their miraculous assistance, Ego creeps into the narrative when the scribe's version of the event is committed to paper, and God makes a series of grandiose promises to show how He favours this select group. Indeed, this trend runs through the religious histories of the world. We find in Exodus 12: 12: "For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgement: I am the Lord."

A topographical survey of the land through which the Israelites first travelled before reaching the "Red Sea" shows that the whole area was made up of reedy marsh lands. Several small lakes formed a loose chain in the area. The Red Sea at that time was actually a tidal river which crested and subsided, in much the same way as did the Nile, to flood the series of shallow lakes. The Israelites came marching up between these lakes and the sand dunes to the right. They headed for the only safe crossing for such a multitude of people and animals.

This river, let us call it the "Red River" to avoid confusion, followed the same deep channel that presently moulds the Red Sea. It emptied into the Gulf of Aden. The main difference between the Red River, as the Israelites found it, and the way it had been in the time of the earliest Egyptian culture, was that it was very much broader, not yet the Red Sea as it is known in your day, but still wide enough in places to have engulfed the ancient City of Pillars.

The full length of this river was populated by farmers who tilled the prized arable land. On the one side there were Egyptians and on the far side lived the fierce Amu, with the river forming a natural boundary between the two peoples.

The desert, or wilderness, began on the far side of a long ridge of fairly high hills. Only the periodic flooding which created the marshy area prevented the desert's extending into Lower Egypt.

The Age of Fire was heralded by many nights and days of catastrophe. On the very first night of these events, three major movements of large groups of people took place.

1. The fleeing Israelites, spurred on by fear of retribution by the plundered Egyptians, heard the news from their scouts that a small army of Lower Egyptians was at their heels. As their own ideas of justice were based on an "eye-for-an-eye" principle, they concluded that this army was coming after them to take revenge.
2. Marauding Amu tribesmen, fearful of the impending catastrophe, (terrified by the now ceaseless, deafening roar of the approaching planet) and half starved by years of famine, invaded Lower Egypt by the only safe and sensible route out of their desert territory.
3. The army of Lower Egypt was out to protect their land from the invading Amu.

All three groups were heading for the only safe crossing area from Lower Egypt to the Amu territory, but this strip was already crowed with oncoming Amu warriors.

When the Israelite scouts brought this message, Moses decided to gamble on an earlier border crossing, for they still believed they were the intended quarry of the Egyptians.

Immediately prior to their attempted crossing of the Red River, an earth tremor shook the area. It started a rift deep down at the mouth of the Red River in the Gulf of Aden. The rift followed the course of the river but divided in two near the area of the marshlands. The right thrust of the rift continued along the Gulf of Aquaba and the Aralia Valley to the Dead Sea, the Sea of Gallilee, and along the Jordan River to the Orontes Valley in Syria, the source of the Red River.

Behind this rift a wall of water rose, towering above the heads of the Israelites as they made their crossing. In front of this wall of water the river bed was sucked dry, which enabled the bulk of the Israelites to make a passable crossing. Hence most of the Israelites were able to reach higher land before the vacuum subsides and swirls and eddies of the incoming wall of water drowned the rear of the Israelite columns and the Egyptian army which followed.

The cosmic records of my people indicate that there never was any attempt made to prevent the departure of the Israelites; indeed by their own words they had permission to leave. Rather than trying to stay their flight, there was a massive sigh of relief in the hearts of my countrymen to know that they were planning to depart, for we were at a loss to know how to cope with men of such powerful identity backed by a "foreign" God who seemed to supply an ego-drive beyond the understanding of our priests.

On this night, the leader of the troops from Lower Egypt, probably one of the princes, displayed a race sense of valour. Word had come that his country was in peril, that Apopi, the fierce God of Darkness with all his host, was about to invade Egypt. The noise, the darkness, the showers of rubble and earthquakes all supported this belief. Believing as he did in the power of the gods, and indeed in his own power as an immortal being, what great courage the prince must have had to go into battle against such overwhelming odds.

In more recent times a monolith was found at el-Arish which was being used as a watering trough at the time of its discovery. Despite the fact that regular use had obliterated much of the original transcription, it read, "... His Majesty of Shou went to battle against the companions of Apopi," a description which could in no way relate to the fleeing Israelites with their children and their flocks of sheep.

The el-Arish monolith goes on to say, "Nobody left the palace during nine days," and as only the Pharaoh's residence was called "the palace" we can assume more about the identify of the brave prince, "His majesty of Shou." He was in all probability the ruler of a local area close to the site of the Amu invasion, and "Shou" was the name of the home or district which he governed. Such a prince would have neither the authority nor any interest in harassing departing Israelites.

Darkness fell over the land for nine days, beginning about the time of the Red River crossing; the el-Arish monolith declares, "... and during these nine days of upheaval there was such a tempest that neither the men nor the gods could see the faces of their next ... Invaders approaching by way of Yat Hebes came in the gloom and overpowered Egypt. The children of Apopi, the rebels are at Oush-Arou (desert)."

Thus we can see that time, day and night, became meaningless. None of the three groups knew exactly what was happening and was probably most concerned with its own survival. The invading Amu entered Egypt by the planned Israelite departure route. They were called the children of Apopi because not only were they fierce desperados but they also came out of the darkness. Once his Majesty of Shou and all his army had perished, there was no one really left to defend the Lower Egyptian territories. The populace was understandably terrified by the manner of the Amu's arrival, and submitted to four hundred years of serfdom as a consequence.

PART II: THE IPUWER PAPYRUS

Other extant records of the Age of Fire can be found in the well-known Ipuwer Papyrus, which reads in part: "A foreign tribe from abroad has come to Egypt. Not seen ... enemies ... enter the temples ... weep. And through it all is to cause the Asiatics to know the conditions of the land.

And later a small piece was found inscribed by the command of the Queen of Egypt. It reads: "The abode of the Mistress of Oes has fallen into ruin ... I restored that which was in ruins, and I completed that which was left unfinished. For there had been Amu in the midst of the Delta and in Hovar (Auris), and the foreign hordes and their number had destroyed the ancient works; they reigned ignorant of the god Ra.

Thus three sources of earthly records showing the Egyptian version of the Exodus remain, and each recorded item leads to the others. Each description states that Lower Egypt was invaded. The first script calls them "children of Apopi", the second states they were "Asiatics", and well after the event when they had become known, the third scribe calls them Amu.

Again, the Israeli history as told in Exodus 14:19, describes another phenomenon of the times: "And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them, and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them," and in verse 24:" ... The Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud ..."

In these words there is a brief reflection on the truth of the events. Some historians suggest that the Israelites turned south because of the forts in the north near the sea. This would only be logical if there were many crossing places. Instead, the Israelites took the shortest possible route to the nearest accessible crossing place and, having passed over, under normal conditions would then have headed north to utilize the scanty pasture that skirted the desert. Or else they would have set out boldly to cross the desert. Instead, after completing the crossing, the Israelites turned south, away from the direction Moses planned, and moved towards the invading Amu warriors. Why?

Perhaps the Egyptian records, the Ipuwer Papyrus, can supply the answer: "Forsooth, the land turns around as does the potter's wheel ..."

It must be remembered that at the times of which we speak "Wise Men" were astrologers who navigated by the stars, and doubtless these were Moses' chief navigational aids. But hardly had their long trek started when the skies grew dim and the whole earth shook and trembled. This left Moses completely without any sense of direction.

Even more important was the world itself, turning topsy turvey so that north it seems became south, and south, north. Moses, therefore, was travelling north -- his north -- which had been south.

And the tale on the el-Arish monolith tells how the son of an army leader set out to find out what had happened to his father: "He asks information ... give him the information about all that happened to Ra in Yat Hebes, the combats of Thom." Here is that story:

The Amu were an ancient Arabian race living in and around Mecca. Their culture dominated the whole of Arabia Felix, Arabia Petrae and Arabia Deserta.

Then came a flood in the form of an immense tidal wave, followed by a violent earthquake when thousands of people were swept away in the disaster.

Saba (Sheba) in Southern Arabia, Mecca, and thousands of miles of the Tehama Coast were shattered. All the tribes on the peninsula suffered from these events. In a single night a turbulent torrent over-ran the land of Djohainah drowning the entire population.

Again, these catastrophes were preceded by seven years of plague, drought and famine, causing the Amu to move northward in an effort to find food and pasture. Their entry into Egypt, coinciding with the nine days of darkness, caused them to pass into Egypt unseen by anyone.

For weeks previously, however, Egyptian border guards had noted the Amu preparations and had sent word to the garrison at Or, the nearest major centre.

A force of 600 chariots was organized in haste to rush to defend the border. No foot soldiers were involved in the manoeuvre, possibly because the conditions of the elements were so grim that only an extreme emergency force seemed logical.

Shortly after the fateful night of the exodus and the total annihilation of the Lower Egyptian forces in the incoming rush of the Red Sea, the Israelites met the Amu. Unlike the massive column of Israelites and their belongings, the Amu were desert raiders who travelled in very small bands. Their method was to attack the rear of the unwieldy Israelites and cut off small groups of people and animals. They never stayed long enough to do battle with the main body of the Israelites, rather darted in and out plundering and raiding.

Biblical history gets a little off track at this point, for either the Israelites still believed themselves to be travelling north, or the scribe who recorded the events was swayed by later happenings and surmised the only people that Moses could have encountered were the Amalekites whose homeland would have normally been on his route.

According to Exodus 17: 8, 11 and 16: "Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said unto Joshua, "choose us out men and go out, fight with Amalek": So Joshua did as Moses said to him and fought with Amalek; And when he let down his hand Amalek prevailed. For he said, because the hand of Amalek is against the throne of the Lord, therefore the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation."

Can you imagine it, a God of love talking revenge and retribution from generation to generation! When the Spirit of that same God is distributed among every human being in the universe.

Actually, in such times of stress the law of Nature (survival of the fittest, the most cunning, the most devious) prevails. And those struggling for life kept more or less to the same narrow bands of security which lay behind the hills that ran in a chain from north to south. Meetings and conflict between such wanderers was inevitable, the villain and the hero types being entirely dependent on whose history one happens to be reading in the twentieth century.

The Amu, being less prepared for migration had almost no cattle or sheep and therefore found the wealthier Israelites fair game, as had the Israelites found the Egyptians.

The Egyptians offered almost no resistance to the main body of the Amu and forward elements were already in Memphis, as witnessed by Ipuwer who wrote his Papyrus during the time the actual events were in progress. "Through it is to cause the Asiatics to know the conditions of the land."

My beloved Queen Hatshepsut's inscription has been transcribed in these words: "The abode of Oes was fallen in ruin, the earth has swallowed her beautiful sanctuary and children played over her temple ... I cleaned and rebuilt it anew ... I restored that which was in ruins, and I completed that which was left unfinished. For there had been Amu in the midst of the Delta and in Hauar, and the foreign hordes of their number had destroyed the ancient works; they reigned ignorant of the god Ra."

She caused it to be written not long after her brother Thutmose III had reunited Upper and Lower Egypt by the expulsion of the Amu nearly four hundred years after the catastrophe. Having total access to all the records, no one was in a better position to know the truth of the events herein described.

Of the catastrophe itself, it might be best to let the one who lived through this event and was able to document the happenings as they occurred in Memphis, his place of residence, do the telling. The Ipuwer Papyrus has been called a lament, but to me it also holds drama unfolding with the poignancy of a great scholar. It is not necessary to quote the whole transcription, neither do we adhere strictly to the order of documentation, but we have included enough pertinancy to prove our point.

"Plague is throughout the land ... Blood is everywhere. Forsooth, the land turns round as does a potter's wheel ... Forsooth, the desert is throughout the land. The Nomes (Districts) are laid waste. A Foreign tribe from abroad has come to Egypt. Forsooth, that has perished which yesterday was seen. The land is left over to its weariness like the cutting of flax. All animals their hearts weep. Cattle moan ... No fruit nor herbs are found... hunger. Behold, noble ladies go hungry. It is groaning that is throughout the land, mingled with lamentations. Behold, no offices are in their place, cattle stray and there is none to gather them together, like a frightened herd without a herdsman. Each man fetches for himself those branded with his name.

"The towns are destroyed. Upper Egypt has become dry. The storehouse of the King is the common property of everyone. Lower Egypt weeps ... The entire palace is without revenue. To it belong wheat and barley, geese and fish. This is our water! That is our happiness. What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin. The land is not light. All the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. Trees are destroyed. He who places his brother in the ground is everywhere.

"Forsooth, grain has perished on every side ... The prison is ruined. Forsooth, gates, columns, and walls are consumed by fire. The river is blood, men drink tasting ... human beings, and thirst after water. Forsooth, the children of princes are dashed against the wall. Forsooth, public offices are opened and their census lists are taken away ... Men ventured to rebel against the Uraeus (the emblem of church authority) and that magical spells connected with the serpent are cast forth. Men walk upon ... in public places. Forsooth, the children of princes are cast out in the streets. Forsooth, those who were in the place of embalmment are laid on the high ground.

"Forsooth, great and small say: I wish I might die ... years of noise. There is no end to noise. The residence is overturned in a minute. Behold, the chiefs of the land flee. Behold no craftsmen work. Behold, he who slept without a wife through what finds precious things. He who passed the night in squalor ... She who looked at her face in the water is possessor of a mirror. A man strikes his brother, the son his mother. Behold, the fire has mounted up on high. Its burning goes forth against the enemies of the land ... weep ... the earth is ... on every side ... weep ... that have never happened before. Woe is me because of the misery of this time. Men ... they have come to an end of themselves. There is none found to stand and protect themselves. Would that there might be an end of man, no conception, no birth! Oh, that the earth would cease from noise, and tumult be no more.

"Behold, one use violence against another ... if three men journey upon a road, they are found to be two men, the greater number slays the less ... The land is as a weed that destroys men. Today fear ... more than a million people. Not seen ... enemies ... enter into the temples ... weep. The roads were impassable being 'dragged' and 'flooded' there was great 'lack of people'. Men set ... in the bushes until the benighted comes, in order to plunder his burden. How terrible it is. What am I to do?

"And now it is over. What has happened? ... through it is to cause the Asiatics to know the conditions of the land ... there was blood throughout all the land."

The monolith of el-Arish reads in part: "The land was in great affliction. Evil fell on this earth ... It was a great upheaval in the residences ... Nobody left the palace during nine days, and during those nine days of upheaval there was such tempest that neither the men nor the gods could see the faces of their next ...

There are further revealing lines in the text which speak for themselves in this matter: "His Majesty of Shou ... We shall see our father R-Harakti in the luminous region of Bakhit. His Majesty of Shou went to battle against the companions of Apopi. His Majesty ... finds on this place called Pi-Kharoti." The prefix Pi before a noun in the Egyptian language denoted "the abode of." The full English interpretation of Pi-Kharoti would be: "The abode of Kharoti", just as Pi-Thom or Pithom was the "abode of Thom", one of the two cities the Israelites were caused by build as garrisons. The second city was Ramses.

The monolith goes on to tell us how a son, becoming restless over the prolonged absence of his father, with no word of his deeds filtering back, set out himself to look for him. Unfortunately a lot of the story is obliterated, but: "... His Majesty Geb. He asks information ... give him the information about all that happened to Ra in Yat Nebes, the combats of the Thom."

We are told of invaders approaching, by way of Yat Nebes, in the gloom: "The children of Apopi, the rebels that are at Ousherou." All those who accompanied Prince Geb were killed "by a terrible blast," and the prince sustained bad burns before he returned, but he did not go to On "with the companions of the thieves of the sceptre." Evidently more and more of the Amu were advancing into Lower Egypt, coming by the same route, being followed by the Israelites. Geb must also have heard of the Israelite crossing but he refers to them as "thieves of the sceptre." It was habitual for the prince of the armies to have with him the sceptre of his rank, and as the Israelites were the only ones near the tragedy, it would seem that they had been seen to rescue this sceptre. It was a mark of honour among soldiers of high rank to have his sceptre buried with him if he were killed in the field. In surrender, these officers passed sceptre to the enemy, who in turn destroyed it. To steal a general's sceptre would be tantamount to stealing not only his honour but the honour of the family also.

This invasion of Amu was no organized attempt by one country to conquer another. It was a slow building up of people who pressed forward, each in the footsteps of earlier bands, to find a whole country disorganized, in fear, and its protective coat of soldiers demoralized by terror and for the want of leadership, disbanded; they were more apt to pillage under the circumstances than to fight. Affairs had sunk to the animalistic right of each man for himself, and the stronger will of the Amu won.

His Majesty Geb goes on to say that his father had battled with the rebels and "massacred the children of Apopi." Did his Majesty Thom indeed meet one of these bands and massacre them? We have only this tiny bit of evidence unsupported by other evidence, and therefore must leave it under question.

One other significant fact is brought to light and should be weighed in the scale with the Ipuwer statement about pillars, gates, and walls, all of stone or brick, being aflame: The air cooled off, and the countries dried."

Writers of ancient Arabian history have recorded the invasion of Egypt by Amu. El-Welid, son of Douma, was the leader of these people. It was he who first decided to migrate. However, not until conditions worsened in their own land did others decide to follow in his footsteps. From their own historic accounts of the times we learn that there was flooding, described as an immense wave that swept across the land. People were also swept away by a blast. The earth quaked violently, and this catastrophe was preceded by plagues.

Are we to believe the colourfully written word of one people, yet ignore the greater evidence of others, though less colourfully written?

So closely related are the plagues they can but corroborate each other. Catastrophe culminated these seven years of plague. Only the details of each differ in places; and yet, was not a huge tidal wave, a wall of water big enough to wipe out a whole city thousands of miles before it reached the Israelites, the same in both instances? Was not the earth quaking in at Mecca, a deep rift that followed the course taken by that wall of water?

Mecca was already an ancient city at this time but all the evidence points to the fact that the present city is not more than -- 1500 in age - two hundred years younger than the events here described. Strong evidence also points to the city's having been further south and west, on the banks of the Red River. A sister city, the capital of Egypt, was situated on the other bank, known as the City of Pillars -- the home of Egypt's true Pharaohs.

El-Harit, the writer of ancient Arabian history, has also left us with this story: "From el-Hadjoun up to Safa all became desert. In Mecca the nights were silent, no voice of pleasant talk. We dwelt there, but in a most tumultuous night, in the most terrible of devastation we were destroyed." (The "we" of these writings does not allude to the writer or his family but is used to signify the people to whom he belonged as a tribe.)

So ended the "Middle Kingdom", crushed by the elements. The population scattered in abject terror only to meet death, lifetimes of severe privation, or to find themselves taken in slavery by barbarous hordes.

Some of the royal family escaped. These children had been sent from the City of Pillars to the hinterland in the company of certain young priests. The Pharaoh hoped that in this way the remnants of the royal-priestly hierarchy could be preserved. History later proved the wisdom of this foresight, for these survivors eventually contributed much to the later glory of Egypt.

While fire, flood, earthquakes, plague and famine wrecked havoc on earth, in the heavens Mars locked horns with the invader planet. In their wake, long trails of fire, stones and vapour poured down on earth.

The noise defied description; it was as though the thunderclaps of all time clashed together to reverberate across the sky in one continuous rolling sound. These sounds shook the earth to its very core as magnetic forces fought for supremacy, while long spears of lightening struck earth's surface, tearing it apart.

The air was laden with fine red dust, so thick it made day seem as night. It covered the whole land, and on dissolving in the waters seemingly turned them to blood. Molten fire rained from the skies as cosmic vapours liquefied in earth's atmosphere and burned as naphtha while there was oxygen enough for ignition. For years afterwards sudden spurts of flame lit the desert sands where the Israelites were wandering.

The Ipuwer Papyrus relates: "All the waters that were in the rivers turned to blood ... Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire ... His Majesty Geb sustained bad burns before he returned."

Cities lying in the path of the floodwaters were utterly destroyed, while others were consumed by the "heavenly fires". People, livestock, flora and fauna perished in countless millions. The greatest marvel is that anything at all survived.

Mountain ranges spewed forth from earth's core in a welter of lava and smoke. The Himalayas were among those created when Earth's jolted core twisted against the external spinning.

Mars, when its headlong momentum finally subsided, spun off at a tangent and settled back into orbit. Formerly the home of an advanced, peace-loving civilization, Mars, "The God of War", was now devoid of life forms. We dearly hope that this culture, sacrificed to the greed and egotism of mankind, was not in vain; and that eventually living things will once more grace Mars' surface and flourish undisturbed by marauding earthlings.

The invading planet also moved off to one side, but this one was not yet finished with Earth. Twice it returned to give Earth a jolting reminder of ancient folly. But its force was waning, and it finally settled down into a comparatively steady orbit around the sun, though it still exhibits certain skittish tendencies compared to the orderly pattern of older planets. Today we see Venus as both the morning and evening star as she peeks at us first from one side of the sun and then the other. Quick to adopt this fortunate circumstance of a new star, the Mithraic religion of the Amu of Lower Egypt eventually passed it on to modern man as the traditional Star of Bethlehem.

As for Earth, it changed its poles once more, though not its polarity. Once again the sun rose in the east and set in the west; this being the fifth time that the sun had appeared at a different compass point.

The seasons changed to such an extent that Moses and other world leaders lamented the fact that new calendars had to be devised again. The year lengthened to three hundred sixty-five and one-third days. New dates were adopted for sowing and reaping; the former harvest season now became spring and vice versa.

As might be expected, the world, when made to halt its rotation on an axis, would in actual fact only pause on the outer surface. The inner liquid and semi-solid core would continue to rotate for some brief period in its former pattern, the time lapse dependent on the abruptness with which the outer crust halted. Such a stoppage would cause a frictional build-up of heat between the core and surface and have the effect of causing considerable cracking of the crust.

All this came to pass, resulting in volcanic eruptions, fires, and the sinking of large land masses. Large bodies of water, particularly inland lakes, suddenly drained into the large surface cracks. The sea, being a vast liquid mass, wanted to continue the rotary motion of earth's former pattern which caused tremendous tidal waves to inundate low-lying areas. As a result, fertile lands became desert as the build-up caused an undertow to suck water away from land on the opposite side of the flow.

The eventual amount of flooding would be dependent again on the speed of the rotational pause. Noah's flood was most probably the result of a swift, sudden halt of some duration, while the 1706 B.C. pause was slower and shorter.

The change recorded in the sunrise direction, plus the change of seasons, would suggest that on recommencing, Earth's rotation was almost in the opposite direction to its former path. Two major events culminating in many minor occurrences were, then: a push into a new orbital path shown by the increased number of days in a year, and the temporary inability of our globe to continue its rotational motion on its axis.

Archaeologists agree that there is very strong evidence to indicate a major conflagration along the ancient life belt somewhere towards the end of the second millennium. Ancient Egyptian tombs and pyramids attest these facts. Widespread excavations bespeak a common denominator as diggings expose layers of civilizations one on top of another, as if the former cultures had met swift obliteration.

Mayan and ancient Chinese records attest these facts. Mayan manuscripts refer to seven epochs which were later changed to read Sun Ages, such as Earthquake Sun, Water Sun, Hurricane Sun and Fire Sun, to quote the last four. Each of the four natural elements is mentioned as each "age" is designated after the predominance of one of these elements.

A fascinating question arises here. Why did the Bronze Age precede the Iron Age? Also, why did the Iron Age in Europe follow so closely behind the Bronze Age that only about 250 years separate them? Yet, the Bronze Age lasted for several thousands of years in the Old world.

It is a paradoxical situation. Here we have a civilization, evolved and intelligent to the point that they created highly complex buildings, dams and skilled engineering feats. They were able to mine two ores and skilfully produce a single metal like bronze, yet apparently lacked the know-how to extract and smelt iron -- by far the simpler ore to obtain and manufacture. The logical inference is that there was no iron ore obtainable.

Prior to the period we have discussed, European man was a cave dweller, primitive and uncivilized. About this time he gradually began to emerge as a more progressive race.

We have already put forth the hypothesis that the light-skinned races lived in a area of darkness which affected both pigmentation and culture. It was not until full sunlight graced the European area that evolutionary advances began for the light-skinned races.

Accomplished as the white man was at fighting for survival, the European rapidly grasped his new advantages so that his evolutionary progress was rapid. The Bronze Age emerged speedily. In a brief period ironware suddenly made its appearance in two widely separated areas -- Europe and Egypt -- without any communication being made between them.

Even before the art of making bricks or building was discovered, and long before any form of writing emerged, ironware was in evidence in Europe. Surely coincidence cannot be carried this far.

How much more rational is our contention that Earth's surface was heavily bombarded with massive quantities of iron ore, a heritage from the aerial battle in our skies. This would make the iron ore easily available with no complex mining equipment required.