Venus probe tests theories of space heretic

Press, 22 December 1978, Page 13

Venus probe tests theories of space heretic

brightest planet, is missing from their records. Velikovsky deduced from these ancient legends and astronomical records that Venus was born as a comet in the secund millennium B.C. and that by the beginning of the first millennium it was still not on its present orbit. Its orbit crossed the orbit of the Earth and endangered it every 50 years. Venus the comet twice made citact with the Earth, and its stretched elliptical orbit possibly brought it into repeated contact with Mars. One catastrophe, he

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GABBY ARTHUR

deduced, happened about 1500 B.C. at the time of the Biblical Exodus, when the world, disturbed by its rotation, was darkened by a tempest of winds. Another happened about 50

years later, at the time of the conquest by Joshua, when the sun remained in the sky for more than a day. It was the same comet making contact with the Earth. Each time the contact caused the comet to change its own orbit, and eventually- it became the planet Venus, achieving a circular orbit and losing its tail about 800 B.C. Contact with Venus displaced Mars from its path, causing that planet to approach Earth repeatedly in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. “In all these contacts between

Venus, the Earth, and Mars, there was an exchange of atmopsheres, the earth acquiring the carbon clouds of Venus and also some of the atmosphere of Mars.”

Velikovsky said. Venus's brilliant envelope. said Velikovsky. is the remnant of its tail of the days when, three thousand years ago, it was a comet’ He assumed that Venus was rich in petroleum gases. He also deduced that Venus was very hot. Velikovskv said in 1946 that his theories could be largely' substantiated if it could be shown that, contrary' to all conventional expectations, Venus was still hot (evidence of its recent birth); it was enveloped in hydrocarbon clouds ( remnants of a hydrocarbon-aceous tail); and it had anomalous rotational motion (showing that it Suffered unusual disturbances before settling into its orbit as a planet.)

Data from Mariner II showed Venus to have a surface temperature of about 800 degrees F.. and indicated that its clouds

must consist of heavy hydrocarbons and more complex organic compounds. About the same time radiometric observations showed Venus to have a unique slow retrograde rotation. Followers of

Veiikovsky's revolutionarv theories — expounded and Collision,” “Earth in Upheaval,” “Ages in Chaos," and other books — will be watching the results of the present Venus experiments with great interest.

If he is eventually proved right, not only the astronomers will have to go “back to the drawing boards.” as the N.A.S.A. scientists are now preparing to do. but so will the geologists, physicists, archaeologists, historians, and many others besides