There is evidence that Earth has undergone pole shifts in the past, and belief that it could do so again in the future. But what could be the cause of a geographic shifting of the earth’s crust?
There are numerous theories on what could potentially cause a pole shift.
Theory 1 – Internal Forces
The first theory revolves around the uneven distribution of ice around the earth’s north and south poles. Scientists such as Immanuel Velikovsky and Charles Hapgood have theorized that an uneven build-up of ice in the polar regions could potentially cause a geographic pole shift.
The theory is that, as ice continues to build up on one side of the planet thicker than on the other, the uneven distribution of weight would cause the earth to wobble. A large enough wobble could be enough to cause a pole shift as the crust of the entire planet would move as the poles shifted to re-align themselves more evenly.
Albert Einstein himself seemed to agree with this idea, at least theoretically. He had this to say about the idea:
“A great many empirical data indicate that at each point on the earth’s surface that has been carefully studied, many climatic changes have taken place, apparently quite suddenly. This, according to Hapgood, is explicable if the virtually rigid outer crust of the earth undergoes, from time to time, extensive displacement over the viscous, plastic, possibly fluid inner layers. Such displacements may take place as the consequence of comparatively slight forces exerted on the crust, derived from the earth’s momentum of rotation, which in turn will tend to alter the axis of roatation of the earth’s crust.”[1]
Interestingly, in April of 2016, NASA scientists published a report stating that “as ice melts and aquifers are drained, Earth’s distribution of mass is changing – and with it the position of the planet’s spin axis.”
This report states that since the year 2000, the pole’s typical drift has made a “dramatic change.”
The north pole had shifted back and forth from east to west, with an overall trend that had it moving toward Canada. But since 2000, the pole’s drift has changed, steadily moving eastward by about 75 degrees, heading toward the Prime Meridian that runs through Greenwich, England.
For at least a decade, scientists have suspected that the massive amounts of melting taking place in glaciers around the world could significantly redistribute mass on Earth.
“What we have shown is that melting ice and a pattern of continental water storage are combining to cause a dramatic shift in the direction of the pole.” – Surendra Adhikari, Earth Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory[2]
These scientists do not postulate that a geographic pole shift will occur due to this shifting of the earth’s poles, instead focusing on climate change as a potential cause of the shifting.
However it is interesting that NASA scientists are now, at least in part, giving credence to the ideas of shifting poles theorized by past scientists including Immanuel Velikovsky, Charles Hapgood, and Albert Einstein.
Theory 2 – External Physical Forces
Asteroids and Comets
Asteroids and comets are the most likely suspects to cause a geographic pole shift on Earth, hurtling through space without regard as to what gets in their way. The earth, as theorized by many, could be on a collision course with a giant meteor that would shake it to its core.
This theory is probably the most widely accepted in the scientific community. It’s no secret that Earth has been visited by outside influences throughout its past. Asteroids and meteors have no doubt impacted the earth before, and the idea that one could do so in the future isn’t far fetched to some astronomers.
The 2013 Chelyabinsk Meteor that exploded over the Russian city on February 15th, was a huge wake-up call about the dangers of an asteroid strike on our planet.
About 56 feet in diameter [17 meters], this meteor exploded only 12-15 miles above the earth’s surface with 30-40 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima. It was powerful enough to be detected in monitoring stations as far as Antarctica, and damaged over 7,200 buildings, injuring over 1,500 people from six Russian cities. It was the first time in recorded history that people have been injured due to a meteor, most by shattered glass as windows over those six cities were blown in by the force of the explosion.
Interestingly enough, an unrelated meteor with a diameter of 98ft [30 meters] was in the process of passing within 17,200 miles from Earth at the same time. This meteor, dubbed 2012 DA14, was of strong interest due to its (cosmological) close approach to the earth. So there were a lot of eyes and telescopes on the skies that day, yet not one picked up the approach of the Chelyabinsk Meteor due to entry-point out of the sun, where no one looks due to the sun’s brightness. The Chelyabinsk Meteor took everyone on the planet completely by surprise, especially the people closest to the explosion.
Imagine if the meteor hadn’t exploded above the surface, but rather impacted it fully? Or if it had been just a little larger, or the angle of its entry a little deeper? Chelyabinsk would be wiped off the map, as would much of the surrounding area.
Therefore it is not unprecedented that meteors have taken the inhabitants of Earth by surprise. Could another one be on a course to do just the same? The conclusion must be that it is a stark possibility.
Planet X
Another suspect in the category of external forces that may affect our Earth is a “Planet X” or a “Planet X system”.
The theory that an as-of-yet undetected planetary sized body making a close enough approach to Earth to cause a geographic pole shift has been the cause of much speculation and debate for well over ten years now. But this seemingly fringe idea has a real basis in science and scientific study.
The first mention of a “Planet X” was by American astronomer Percival Lowell sometime between 1905 and 1908. Lowell believed that perturbations (or small, unexplained variations of orbit) observed with the planets Uranus and Neptune were caused by the gravitational influence of a larger planetary body even farther out in the solar system. In part because of this theory, Pluto was discovered in 1930 by an astronomer at Lowell’s own observatory 15 years after Lowell’s death.
And, though not as widely publicized today, astronomers are still theorizing an as-of-yet discovered planet or star to explain perturbations in not just Neptune, but also in trans-Neptunian objects (TNO’s) and extreme trans-Neptunian objects.
A major clue to the existence of this unseen body is a mysterious dwarf planet called Sedna that was spotted on an elongated 12,000-year-long orbit around the sun.
Mike Brown, who discovered Sedna in 2003, said:
“Sedna is a very odd object – it shouldn’t be there! It never comes anywhere close to any of the giant planets or the sun. It’s way, way out there on this incredibly eccentric orbit.
The only way to get on an eccentric orbit is to have some giant body kick you – so what is out there?”
Professor John Matese, of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, says most comets in the inner solar system seem to come from the same region of the Oort Cloud – launched by the pull of a companion star to the sun that scatters comets in its wake.
He suggests it is up to five times the size of Jupiter or 7,000 times the size of Earth.
He said:
“There is statistically significant evidence that this concentration of comets could be caused by a companion to the sun.”[3]
Since 2014, astronomers Chad Trujillo and Scott S. Sheppard, Carlos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos and Sverre J. Aarseth, and Caltech’s Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown have all proposed an as-of-yet undetected planet or planetary body to explain the orbits of trans-Neptunian objects or extreme trans-Neptunian objects.
Batygin and Brown, after having analyzed the orbits of six extreme trans-Neptunian objects, determined a probability of just 0.007% that their orbits would align in approximately the same direction in physical space, and lie in approximately the same plane by chance. Their simulations and data suggest a hypothetical object with about 10 times the mass of Earth that has yet to be detected in our solar system.
With more discoveries of ETNO’s with extreme orbits, the evidence for the existence of the hypothetical Planet X becomes stronger. It may just be a matter of time before it is proven.
Theory 3 – External Gravitational Forces
The Galactic Plane
Our solar system exists as just one of many inside of the Milky Way galaxy. The planets of our solar system revolve around our star, the sun. And just as the sun is the hub of our planetary system, scientists now believe that a star is at the center of our galaxy as well. Well not a live star; a dead one. A black hole, to be more precise. The current belief is that a giant black hole resides at the center of most, if not all, galaxies. A super massive black hole, thought to have a mass of approximately 4.1 million solar masses, exists at the very center of our Milky Way galaxy.[4]
As with all black holes, this one spins at an enormous velocity. Most astrophysicists believe that black holes are rotating at their maximum speed. As a black hole spins faster and faster, its mass fans out, going from a spherical shape to a flat one. As the super massive black holes fan out into a flat disc, they expand; their arms of super dense gravitational and magnetic fields span out across the width of the galaxy itself.
Theoretically, this line of dense gravitational field could be as thin as a coin. It is believed that the solar systems inside the galaxy, revolving around the center of the galaxy, must pass through this “galactic plane.” This plane is an extension of the black hole itself, stretching out its radial wave throughout the width of the galaxy. It is a super dense gravitational field that stretches across the entire galaxy, and interacts with every solar system that resides in this galaxy.
This gravitational plane most likely is dense enough to gather up any independent objects floating throughout the galaxy, such as space dust, meteorites of varying sizes, entire asteroid fields, possibly even planetary sized bodies. All of these objects would be caught up in this gravitational field, much like rocks caught in a gold miner’s pan.
As our solar system moves through the Milky Way galaxy, it periodically crosses this Galactic Plane. As each planet smacks into this dense field, its movement would be interfered with. Much like a ball running into a wall, a planet would shudder as it encounters this dense gravity field. This shudder would be more than enough to alter the planet’s tilt on its axis. Even a small alteration of a planet’s tilt would cause a global geographic pole shift, as the planet’s outer crust would roll over its core, re-adjusting its weight until a new equilibrium was reached.
To the planet itself, this would be a minor nuisance. The crust would shift until a new balance in space is reached, and the planet would go on like it had before. But to anything existing on the planet, this wobble and corresponding pole shift would cause a devastating catastrophe that could possibly destroy all life on that planet.
To most of the planets in this galaxy, the cyclic crossing of this Galactic Plane means nothing more than a change in the location of their northern and southern poles. But to the planet Earth, it would mean a total disruption of the life that occupies it.
While the crossing of this plane may result in a pole shift, being far from the plane may also be dangerous to our solar system.
That’s because, as dangerous as being inside a dense gravitational area of the Milky Way Galaxy is, it may actually protect us from asteroids and comets.
Think of it as being inside a speedboat rushing through the water. The boat takes the brunt of the force of the water, protecting anyone inside the boat from those forces. Now imagine the boat suddenly disappears, leaving you vulnerable to all the force the water creates at that velocity. It’s the same principle as our solar system stretches out beyond the protection of the dense gravity provided by the spiral arm of the Milky Way.
Whether close to the Galactic Plane, or far from it, it seems that the dangers to our solar system, and therefore our planet, keep increasing.
Cosmic Gravitational Waves
Another recently new discovery that has the possibility of causing a geographic pole shift is a cosmic gravitational wave associated with a gamma ray burst.
First discovered in the 1960s, gamma ray bursts are intense flashes of gamma rays (short for gamma radiation, a high frequency and high energy form of electromagnetic radiation) associated with energetic explosions that occur in deep space. Gamma ray bursts are classified into two types: a long burst and a short burst. Long bursts are classified as anything over two seconds; short bursts as anything under two seconds. A typical burst lasts anywhere between twenty to forty seconds.
These bursts of explosive energy have a few different causes. The long ones are widely thought to be caused by the death of massive stars, 50 to 100 times larger than the sun.
When these huge stars collapse in on themselves, creating either a neutron star, a quark star, or a black hole, the resulting explosion (called a supernova) creates a burst of gamma radiation.
The short bursts are harder to pin down, but the surrounding theories are that these bursts are caused by either the collisions of neutron stars, or neutron stars colliding with black holes.
Whatever the reasons, these gamma ray bursts have been seen and recorded since the 1970s and while the cause of them may not be completely known, we know that they do exist.
While a gamma ray burst hitting Earth directly could cause a massive extinction event, it most likely wouldn’t cause a pole shift, and the chances of the earth being hit directly by a gamma ray burst originating close enough to do this kind of damage are extremely small.
There is, however, another event associated with a gamma ray burst that could potentially affect Earth in a very real and destructive way. In fact, it may have already done so.
On December 26, 2004 an earthquake measuring 9.3 on the Richter Scale occurred in the Indian Ocean, just off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The tsunami caused by the quake devastated the coastal regions of numerous countries, leaving over 240,000 people dead or missing. The massive destruction caused by the tsunami became worldwide news, and the shocking and surreal videos of the waves crashing inland have been seen by everyone with a television or computer. Billions of people are vastly aware of this devastating and destructive event.
What most people are unaware of, however, is that less than two days later, 44.6 hours to be exact, gamma ray telescopes orbiting Earth recorded the brightest gamma ray burst to date. This burst was 100 times more intense than any previous gamma ray burst ever recorded and it even temporarily changed the shape of Earth’s ionosphere, distorting the transmissions of long-wavelength radio signals.
This gamma ray burst in itself would not have any link to the earthquake, but something else associated with it might: a gravitational wave.
Gravitational waves are ripples of gravitational radiation that travel through space-time, carrying energy away from an explosive event like a supernova and out through space. These waves have long been theorized by astronomers and physicists based on Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Proof of their existence has been confirmed by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015.
Dr. Paul LaViolette postulated in his 1983 Ph.D. dissertation that gravity waves accompanying gamma ray bursts, notably from Galactic Core explosions, might be expected to travel at the forefront of this “superwave.”
In the course of their flight through space, gamma rays would be deflected by gravitational fields and would be scattered by dust and any cosmic ray particles they encountered, so they would be expected to travel slightly slower than their associated gravitational wave burst which would pass through space unimpeded.
Basically, this means that a gravitational wave would be expected to reach us sooner than its corresponding wave of gamma rays despite originating from the same point at the same time. Also, the creation of gravitational waves may occur sooner in the process of an exploding supernova than the creation of a gamma ray burst.
Either way, gravitational waves should be expected to travel in concordance with gamma ray bursts, only distancing themselves as they travel. And according to Dr. LaViolette, such gravitational waves could possibly induce substantial tidal forces on the earth powerful enough to induce earthquakes and even cause polar axis torquing effects. In other words, a geographic pole shift.
So, the earthquake and the resulting tsunami that occurred on December 26, 2004, may have been the direct result of the effects of a gravitational wave that emanated from the same location as the gamma ray burst recorded just 44.6 hours later.
Indeed the gravitational wave would have preceded the gamma ray burst, which was slowed on its journey through space. And after a 45,000 light-year journey (the distance between us and the emanation of the gamma ray burst) an arrival delay of 44.6 hours would not be entirely unexpected. As a matter of fact, it amounts to a delay of just one part in nine million.
If the gravitational wave traveled at the speed of light (c), the gamma ray burst would have averaged a speed of 0.99999989 c….just 0.11 millionths slower. Under those parameters, it is entirely, if not completely, likely that a gravitational wave traveling in tandem with the gamma ray burst recorded on December 27, 2004 at 21 hours 36 minutes (Universal Time) would have hit Earth at about the same time as the Sumatra earthquake.
The odds of those two “Class I” events occurring just 44.6 hours apart of one another are astronomical. The odds that both of them occurred coincidentally are even more so. The only other scenario is that the associated gravitational wave had a hand in causing the earthquake.
The idea that a gravitational wave can cause earthquakes on Earth is not a new one. Scientists have been postulating that if a gravitational wave can distort the space between matter even on a small scale, then its cumulative effect on the earth’s core, with its dense mass, and its mantle, could result in a movement of the crust.
And with this knowledge, cosmic gravitational waves can be added to the list of potential causes of a geographic pole shift.
[1] Forward to Earth’s Shifting Crust, Charles Hapgood, 1958 [2] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160408-climate-change-shifts-earth-poles-water-loss/ [3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/7429335/Search-on-for-Death-Star-that-throws-out-deadly-comets.html [4] Andrew King 09-15-2003 “Black Holes, Galaxy Formation, and the MBH-A Relation” The Astrophysical Journal