Book Review: Forgotten Civilization - New Discoveries On The Solar-Induced Dark Age, by Robert Schoch with Catherine Ulissey

Robert Schoch is an example of a well-credentialed scientist with tenure at a prestigious university who is willing to walk right along the fringes of science and engage in wild speculation. He has degrees from Yale and George Washington University and is a faculty member at Boston University. GWU and Boston U are both "near-Ivy" universities, meaning that although they are not in the Ivy League, they are at a similar level of quality and prestige. Yale, of course, is in the Ivy League. Schoch, I think, troubles the scientific community because he is willing to challenge existing paradigms yet is difficult to dismiss out of hand because of his credentials and tenure.

Schoch gained international prominence when he published scientific papers and appeared in a documentary in the early 1990s about the Great Sphinx, dating it to pre-dynastic Egypt. His work was based on studies of erosion in the Sphinx enclosure, which is carved out of bedrock. His claims caused an uproar in the egyptology community and his views remain debated to this day. Egyptologists typically date the Sphinx to early dynastic times and dispute his findings on the basis of traditional archeology. Other geologists have studied the Great Sphinx and its enclosure but the findings so far have not resulted in a consensus. Schoch later pushed the date back even further, which brings us to the subject of this review.

In his book Forgotten Civilization, Schoch presents his ideas about the beginnings of human civilization on an alternate timeline to the current consensus. The book has ideas contributed by his wife, Catherine Ulissey, who does not have scientific training. His main thesis is that solar activity has had a much greater influence on the natural history of the earth, and therefore upon the development of civilization, than is accepted by most scientists. Schoch believes that civilization has arisen on earth before the current phase, which is usually dated to about 4000 BCE (6000 years ago). He identifies the end of the last ice age as the actual beginning of an earlier phase of civilization, which he believes was interrupted by cataclysm.

To support his hypothesis, Schoch presents evidence from Gobekli Tepe in modern day Turkey, a megalithic site that dates to over 11,000 years ago. Mainstream archeologists have had difficulty explaining how such advanced and extensive construction could have existed that long ago and prefer to call it a settlement or community. Schoch suggests they are seeing civilization but refusing to call it by that word. Gobekli Tepe seems have been buried deliberately. Schoch claims this was most likely done to protect it from solar activity, specifically plasma storms caused by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the sun.

It's an interesting hypothesis, though worrisome. We know the sun can generate powerful enough CMEs that they have sometimes damaged electronics. Schoch believes that the sun can generate even more powerful CMEs than those in recorded history. It is a matter of luck if they head in the direction of the earth or off in some other direction. If he is right, then it is a matter of time until the advanced, electronic civilization we have created is destroyed in a single day. I hope he's wrong.

Shoch's ideas about solar storms are based on a number of peer-reviewed scientific studies, but he also rambles a bit in his book and reveals just far he is willing to go with speculation. He conducts research on telepathy and telekinesis and presents hypotheses for how both could work. Only I think I might call them conjectures more than hypotheses. He also seems to believe in homeopathic medicine, and that viruses can come from outer space, and insinuates that this might be where the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic came from.

I don't know if Schoch has simply gotten to the point in his career where he is confident enough to say anything that is on his mind or if he has always been this way.

The book is interesting and readable and includes numerous anecdotes about Schoch's travel and has a series of color plates in the middle. I found it worth reading although I don't believe everything in it.