Modern scholars generally define myth as a form of sacred history which attempts to describe the origin of the world and various cultural institutions. If, as seems to be the case, myth also preserves clues for reconstructing the recent history of our solar system, its study becomes all the more important. Comparative mythology highlights striking cross-cultural similarities which strongly suggest that the core of most if not all ancient mythology has planetary origins. This begs the question: How is it that planets which appear as mere tiny specks in the night sky could have held such a profound fascination for our ancestors?

According to the prevailing dogma, the Nebular Hypothesis, planets and stars accreted from the dust cloud after the Big Bang billions of years ago. In this dubious model it is assumed that these bodies have occupied more-or-less steady and unchanging orbits ever since. Anyone who challenges this ideological assumption is quickly reminded of the 'fact' that the only forces at work are gravity and inertia. Any contrary viewpoint thus requires 'mysterious' forces. But these mysterious forces, as it turns out, are not so mysterious after all.

When the role of plasma and electromagnetism is acknowledged whole new vistas open-up, and this broader perspective allows us to view ancient mythology with more respect and less contempt. Is so much ancient myth merely the work of ignorant, superstitious savages, or do our ancestors have something far more profound to tell us?

Could it be that our ancestors viewed skies very different from what we see today, and that they witnessed spectacular discharge and catastrophic events in recent millennia! Phenomena that make today's auroras and natural disasters look trivial by comparison?

So many bizarre mythological details don't make any sense in the real world, such as flying and fire-breathing dragons, and countless others. It is easy to dismiss them as the product of creative imagination, but this attitude runs up against an insuperable difficulty - these seemingly impossible motifs can be found around the globe. It is very difficult to understand how creative imagination could explain such consistent and recurring motifs, as a number of leading anthropologists and mythologists have acknowledged.

The planet Mars, of course, is associated with war, and the month of March is named after it. He was the fearless warrior who wielded thunderbolts, and he is venerated by many differing cultures across the globe, where the themes vary little.

Consider the following parallels:

'Scarface' was the name of a legendary Blackfoot Indian warrior, also called 'Star Boy'. The Pawnee warrior, Morning Star, can also be identified as the planet Mars. Greek mythology describes various heroes and rogues being struck down by a thunderbolt. For example, when Ares, the planet Mars, was wounded in battle, he roared with the din of a thousand warriors and rushed to Zeus to show off his scars. Hindu myths also speak of a deep scar on the head of the warrior Indra, their god of the cosmic thunderbolt.

Pictured right is the Aztec god Xipe, sporting a scarred face.

Pictured right is a thunderstorm on Saturn that has remained fixed since 2004, much to the further puzzlement of the scientific community. Meteorologists do not fully understand terrestial lightning, let alone the 'surprise' of lightning on other planets, and Saturn produces stupendous displays!

The spiraling shape of dragons and serpents in mythology are strikingly similar to plasma instabilities in the laboratory and in space, a fact which reminds us of the metamorphosing and life-like qualities of plasma phenomena. It should be little surprise, then, that we see similar configurations of electrified plasma in megalightning on Saturn today.

So much ancient rock art from around the globe shows striking similarities to plasma phenomena, and much of it remains inexplicable otherwise. What are the ancients, with their strained voices echoing across the centuries, trying to tell us?

From around 50,000 BC rock art focussed on hunting, animal, and fertility symbols, as might be expected, but this suddenly changed. Between roughly 12,000 BC and 2000 BC it found a more abstract form which is uncannily reminiscent of reproducible plasma phenomena. Dragons, serpents, and spirals et al are recurring motifs throughout this period.

The following PDFs are excellent technical papers on the relationship between petroglyphs and plasma phenomena.

Plasma phenomena in antiquity

“The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass--which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught--but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and in the monopoly of learning.  Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: it endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes the deeper fear that their whole, laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse.  The academic backwoodsmen have been the curse of genius from Aristarchus to Darwin and Freud; they stretch, a solid and hostile phalanx of pedantic mediocrities, across the centuries.” (Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers [New York, 1959], p. 427.)