Cogan presents physical evidence including the Carolina Bays, 3,000 elliptical depressions near Charleston that all point toward a crater at 24 degrees north latitude and 61 degrees west longitude. He cites the Camp Century Greenland ice core, which shows an instantaneous 20-degree Fahrenheit temperature spike, a near-tripling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, volcanic ash, and sea salt deposits all occurring simultaneously at the 10,500-year mark.
The impact, Cogan explains, destroyed the ozone layer and sterilized most large animals through ultraviolet radiation, reducing human population by an estimated 90 percent. He contends that pre-impact humans were taller with larger brains than modern people, and that civilization required 5,000 years to reemerge in the form of Sumer, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and Central America.
Key Moments
A six-mile asteroid in the North Atlantic: Cogan lays out his core thesis: 10,500 years ago a 6.25-mile-wide asteroid traveling 43,000 mph crossed over Charleston, South Carolina, broke apart leaving 3,000 'divots' (the Carolina Bays), and impacted 1,500 miles out in the North Atlantic - ending the Ice Age in roughly 4,000 years instead of the natural 120,000.
Continental death cloud and the standing mammoths: Cogan describes how three days of impact-driven volcanism blew one-tenth of the Atlantic Ocean into the atmosphere, depositing loess across Eurasia, then a continental death cloud swept Siberia and killed roughly 40 million woolly mammoths - many left standing in the mud with vegetation still in their mouths.
The first civilization, lost worldwide: Cogan argues that before the impact a single 'high Stone Age, very much maritime' civilization spanned North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Andes, and even reached Antarctica - citing Charles Hapgood's Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings showing an ice-free Antarctic coastline.
Just me, in the library: Art asks who else in science backs Cogan's thesis. Cogan answers: 'No, just me. Me in the library, I guess, in Seattle and at the University of Washington.' He credits German researcher Otto Muck's Secret of Atlantis with originating the 10,500-year asteroid idea.