[caveat emptor]

It's been 35 years since I read Velikovsky, but IIRC he proposed that a comet-like Venus had a close encounter with Earth which resulted in the two planets having their present orbits, and which caused destruction similar to that described in the article.

He was widely attacked by mainstream science, which claimed that the earth had experienced no major short-term changes for millions of years, ie. no such catastrophic events (Uniformitarianism). Also no explanation for the quick frozen Mammoths found in Siberia, and eaten with relish by Zeks in Soviet gulags, according to Solzhenitsyn.

Velikovsky also predicted that Venus' atmosphere would be very hot with extremely high atmospheric pressure, while MSScience claimed that Venus was a "sister planet" of Earth, and had a similar environment to ours. One of my early MSM moments came when the first Soviet Venus lander was crushed under the high pressure and burned in the high temperature, while NYT wrote that "scientists had long suspected that Venus' atmosphere was hot, under high pressure blah blah blah."

The guy pictured below supposedly made a name for himself by vigorously attacking Velikovsky.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #17

Ah, Carl Sagan, an alien worshiper.:-)

[Elsie]

Also no explanation for the quick frozen Mammoths found in Siberia, and eaten with relish by Zeks in Soviet gulags, according to Solzhenitsyn.

What kind of relish? Pickle?

I'll bet a nice slab of cheese and onion slice and sesame seed bun would have helped!