Page 226 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock
P. 226

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS



                   Recondite influences


                   The sun’s gravitational domain, in the inner circles of which the earth is
                   held captive, is now known to extend more than fifteen trillion miles into
                   space, almost halfway to the nearest star.  Its pull upon our planet is
                                                                       5
                   therefore immense. Also affecting us is the gravity of the other planets
                   with which we share the solar system. Each of these exerts an attraction
                   which tends to draw the earth out of its regular orbit around the sun. The
                   planets are of different sizes, however, and revolve around the sun at
                   different speeds. The combined gravitational influence they are able to
                   exert thus changes over time in complex but predictable ways, and the
                   orbit changes its shape constantly in response. Since the orbit is an
                   ellipse these changes affect its degree of elongation, known technically
                   as its ‘eccentricity’. This varies from a low value close to zero (when the
                   orbit approaches the form of a perfect circle) to a high value of about six
                   per cent when it is at its most elongated and elliptical.
                                                                                  6
                     There are other forms of planetary  influence too. Thus, though no
                   explanation has yet been forthcoming, it is known that shortwave radio
                   frequencies are disturbed when Jupiter, Saturn and Mars line up.  And in
                                                                                                7
                   this connection evidence has also emerged
                      of a strange and unexpected correlation between the positions of Jupiter, Saturn
                      and Mars, in their orbits around the sun, and violent electrical disturbances in the
                      earth’s upper atmosphere. This would seem to indicate that the planets and the
                      sun share in a cosmic-electrical balance  mechanism  that extends a  billion  miles
                      from the centre of our solar system. Such an electrical balance is not accounted
                      for in current astrophysical theories.
                                                         8


























                   5  The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch, pp. 288-9. Fifteen trillion miles is equivalent to
                   fifteen thousand billion miles.
                     Ice Ages, pp. 80-1.
                   6
                   7  Earth in Upheaval, p. 266.
                   8  New York Times, 15 April 1951.


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