Three such impact events happened within the twentieth century alone. The most famous of these was the Tunguska event wherein a small comet or comet fragment exploded in the atmosphere over Russian Siberia with an explosive power equal to a nuclear bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.[7] This explosion flattened trees over an area of 830 square miles. (Eyewitness accounts of this event will be discussed in Part 3, Chapter 15 “Decoding the Mayan Flood Myth.”) The same event happening over any major metropolitan area today would kill millions and be devastating to the region.
Both the seismic cycle and impact cycle offer clear cause-and-effect relationships between cyclical events and the downfall of small-scale civilizations. But how could the solar cycle be associated with the rise and fall of civilizations?
One possible connection between solar cycles and the rise and fall of civilizations is the effect the sun has on climate and precipitation. For instance, one researcher found that Iron Age settlements expanded during periods of high solar activity.[8] This was believed to have been the result of changing levels of rainfall caused by variations in solar output. As rainfall increased these Iron Age settlements could grow and expand. When rainfall decreased and droughts occurred these settlements would naturally contract again. Interestingly, the highest levels of activity in these settlements were recorded between 700-450 BC and 300-50 BC. Each of these time periods lasted exactly 250 years.
A link between disease outbreaks and solar cycles has also recently been discovered that could offer another possible connection between solar cycles and the downfall of civilizations. It was found that pandemic outbreaks of Influenza A only occurred during periods of increased solar activity.[9] This was initially hypothesized to have resulted from solar-induced climate change which altered the arrival times of disease-carrying birds.[10] Later research showed it was more likely related to biological vitamin D production that fluctuated with solar activity.[11]
Vitamin D is primarily produced in humans from exposure to sunlight. Research has noted that vitamin D has been shown to generate positive responses in “the immune, cardio-vascular, muscle, pancreas, and brain systems, as well as positive involvement in ageing and control of the cell cycle and thus of cancer disease process.”[12] Production of vitamin D was shown to be highest during periods of decreased solar activity and lowest during periods of increased solar activity. Thus during increased solar activity the body, due to this lack of vitamin D production, was especially susceptible to infections such as Influenza A. It is likely other diseases would increase similarly due to the same effects.
(Solar activity should not be confused with sunlight. Solar activity refers to the magnetic cycles of the Sun which result in sunspots and solar flares. Increased solar activity decreases vitamin D production whereas increased exposure to sunlight increases vitamin D production. This is also why more people catch colds during Winter than other times since sunlight exposure is decreased due to the shorter days.)
Other recent research has shown a connection between solar cycles and the human brain including both mental diseases and creativity. The researchers noted that people born during “radiation peaks in solar cycles…[were] associated with a higher incidence of mental disorders, suggesting the sensitivity of ectodermal embryonic tissues to UVR [ultraviolet radiation.]”[13] Other research noted that an increase in first admissions to a psychiatric hospital were associated with increased solar activity.[14] (Perhaps this was due to hallucinations, which appear to increase due to solar activity as well.[15]) Still other research showed bursts of human creativity were strongly correlated with solar cycles.[16] As history has shown it only takes one madman or one genius to cause a civilization to reach new lows or new highs. Thus the Sun could be playing a decisive role in this process.
Russian researcher A. L. Chizhevsky found many more links between human civilization and solar cycles. He found that solar cycles were associated with insect infestations as well as disease epidemics. Insect infestations can, of course, lead to famines and disease outbreaks can likewise bring a civilization to its knees. But these were not the only solar connections Chizhevsky found to the rise and fall of civilizations. According to Wikipedia:
“Chizhevsky proposed that not only did geomagnetic storms resulting from sunspot-related solar flares affect electrical usage, plane crashes, epidemics and grasshopper infestations, but human mental life and activity. Increased negative ionization in the atmosphere increased human mass excitability. Chizhevsky proposed that human history is influenced by the eleven year peaks in sunspot activity, triggering humans en masse to act upon existing grievances and complaints through revolts, revolutions, civil wars and wars between nations.”[17]
The preceding examples make logical connections between solar cycles, disease outbreaks, insect infestations, rainfall patterns, and mental health (both positive and negative), all of which can have impacts on the rise and fall of civilizations. Yet economists have also noted a connection between stock prices and celestial cycles that do not have such logical, clear-cut, cause-and-effect explanations.
Much research has been conducted trying to find a link between solar cycles and the stock market without success. Yet one line of research found statistically significant correlations between stock prices and, of all things, planetary alignments. Stranger still, these correlations seemed strongest when the planetary alignments occurred while also aligned with the galactic center of our Milky Way galaxy.
Edward Dewey, founder of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles noted in 1969:
“since 1897 there has been a correspondence between stock price movements and the times of conjunctions and oppositions of certain planets (the ones nearest the sun) when these conjunctions and oppositions
