Meteorite Impact in 1178 AD

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Evidence Of Tunguska-Type Impacts Over The Pacific Basin Around The Year 1178 AD
Emilio Spedicato

In year 1178 A.D., as related by Clube and Napier in their book The Cosmic Serpent, a strange event was observed to affect the Moon, which may be explained by a large impact on the hidden face, originating the Giordano Bruno crater. A number of observations suggest that catastrophic cometary or meteoritic impacts around the same time also affected the Pacific basin: Maori legends of great fires destroying forests and the moa bird, to be associated to the recently found Tapanui craters; dynastic changes and migrations throughout Polynesia; very intense El Niño activity with flooding of the coastal Peruvian regions; demise of the local Moche civilizations, and the birth of the Incas civilization higher in the Andes; the emigration of the Aztects from the Pacific coast to the interior in the most well protected area from tsunams; unusually intense typhoon activity in the Chinese-Japanese see; unusually strong floods in Northern China with diversion of the course of the Huang Ho; unusually cold wheather in the Mongolian plateau, probably a main reason for the Mongolians invading nearby areas; a great sign in the sky seen by the boy Gengis Khan forecasting his future of world master; the number of comets seen in the sky as recorded by Chinese astronomers was unusually higher.

The fifth argument (for a large meteorite impact in the Pacific in 1178 AD) comes from Central America, relating to the origin of the Aztec civilization and to some extent explaining the Aztec obsession with human sacrifice.

When Cortes reached central Mexico, he met there the stronghold of the Aztecs, who were living in a rather small region west of the great Popocatepl — Ixtacihuatl volcanic range, in a bowl shaped region of circa 2.000 square kilometers, completely surrounded by mountains, the local rivers sending their waters not to the ocean but to a marshy lake at the center of the region, lake Texcoco (now almost completely dried up). In the middle of the lake, on a number of small islets, the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was build, counting at Cortes time possibly over one million people (in one of his letters to Charles 5th, the Spanish emperor, Cortes, claimed that over 400,000 persons in the city had died of the epidemics, smallpox, brought by the Spaniards; due to the ferocity of the fighting possibly more people died of wounds and several thousands survived the destruction).

It appears from geography that the Aztecs had chosen to live and in particular to build their capital in a region whose main feature, from the point of view of the presently discussed scenario, was to be well protected, thanks to its elevation and to the surrounding mountain ranges, by a possible rise of the ocean, or a possible tsunami.

Now it is known from several sources, particularly from one of the few surviving codices, namely the so called codex Ramirez, that the Aztecs were not native of central Mexico, but had reached that region only a few centuries before Cortes's arrival. Their original place, named Aztlan, was located on the Pacific coast, probably near the present city of Mazatlan, some 300 km. north — west of Guadalajara. According to studies by Vaillant and Brundage, their migration started around the middle of the 12th century, Brundage actually proposing the date 1168, which is amazingly close to the date we are considering (and since this date is an estimate, one cannot exclude that the correct year was indeed 1178).

Why did the Aztecs move from a coastal region to a high land? We conjecture that, similarly to what happened to the coastal region of Peru, also the Pacific coastal region of Mexico was affected by a huge tsunami. The surviving people were immensely scared and took refuge up to the Mexican plateau in the marshes of Lake Texcoco. Probably they interpreted the catastrophe in religious terms as a punishment by their gods for not being sufficiently pious. Thus they adopted a policy of strong piety, meaning in their religion a policy of human sacrifices, which scandalized the Spaniards, but whose roots can probably be traced in the reenactment of past catastrophical events in the solar system...