Talbot, who founded the journal Pensee and published the influential Velikovsky Reconsidered series through Doubleday, argues that ancient myths worldwide encode memories of planetary catastrophes witnessed by early humans. He presents evidence that the planet Venus once coursed through the solar system as a comet-like body and that Saturn once dominated the polar sky as a stationary central sun worshipped by every ancient culture. Talbot traces universal pictographic symbols, linguistic roots, and mythological parallels across Egyptian, Greek, Mesopotamian, and Hindu traditions to reconstruct what he calls a myth-making epoch of spectacular celestial events. Howe opens the program with a detailed investigative report on Project HAARP in Gakona, Alaska, describing a military transmitter capable of beaming focused electromagnetic energy into the ionosphere, with unclear purposes ranging from submarine communication to earth-penetrating tomography.
A fascinating convergence of ancient mythology, planetary science, and modern military technology that questions fundamental assumptions about our solar system's history.
Key Moments
Project HAARP: Earth-penetrating tomography over the hemisphere: Linda Howe reports that a Senate subcommittee wanted increased 1996 HAARP funding to enable Earth-penetrating tomography across most of the northern hemisphere - turning it into a continent-scale X-ray scanner for hidden tunnels.
HAARP repurposed from Star Wars: punching holes in the ionosphere: Howe argues HAARP looks like a continuation of an SDI/Star Wars program, capable of projecting energy into space, knocking missiles from the sky, and 'blasting holes' in the ionosphere.
Velikovsky's central claim: Venus a comet within historical times: Talbot summarizes Velikovsky's most disgraced thesis - that Venus only a few thousand years ago coursed through the solar system as a comet-like body and twice nearly collided with Earth.
Magellan probe: Venus shows planet-wide recent catastrophe: Talbot points to Magellan probe data showing massive volcanism, continental-scale lava flows, and major regions of Venus with no impact craters - evidence of a recent planet-wide catastrophe.
Ancient sun-god words actually meant Saturn: Talbot's signature claim: words translated as 'sun' in ancient languages - Greek Helios, Latin Sol, Babylonian Shamash - were originally names for the planet Saturn, which once dominated the polar sky.