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Meteor strike.

Scotland’s Catastrophic Comet Conspiracy

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In 1945, one of Britain’s social and intellectual elite, William Comyns Beaumont, a hyper-eccentric catastrophist published the most bizarre conspiracy theory of all time in which “Plato's legendary Atlantis thrived in Scotland before being destroyed by a comet impact” and in “ancient times Scotland’s capital city Edinburgh was the real Jerusalem.”

William Comyns Beaumont, also known as Comyns Beaumont, (1873–1956). (Author provided)

William Comyns Beaumont, also known as Comyns Beaumont, (1873–1956). (Author provided)

Movies such as Armageddon and Deep Impact have engrained the concept of Earth being obliterated by rogue space rocks in the modern human psyche. But aside from being illustrated in medieval ecclesiastical art, before 1925 the thought of such cosmic catastrophes never really crossed people’s minds.

In 1925, Beaumont published The Riddle of the Earth in which he associated mass extinctions with cosmic impact catastrophes. As a scientific lecturer and respected journalist for the British newspaper the Daily Mail, he antagonized both the astronomical and geological institutions by claiming: 

“a collection of bodies came from the direction of the present north-east, and fell mainly upon a certain position of the Northern Hemisphere, occasioned vast earthquakes, and deposited not only certain mountain ranges but also volcanoes, causing among other matters the sinking of some land and the uprising of others." 

In 1946, he published a massive trilogy entitled The Riddle of Prehistoric Britain, the content of which was nothing short of “mind-blowing” at the time.

The Riddle of Prehistoric Britain, William Comyns Beaumont, 1946.

The Riddle of Prehistoric Britain, William Comyns Beaumont, 1946. (twelvearound1)

According to Beaumont, Plato’s ancient account of the Atlantis disaster about 9000 years ago reported a comet collision with earth  "beyond the Pillars of Hercules" in the year 1322 BC. He identified the southern part of present day Scotland as the epicentre and maintained the native Celts of Britain had colonized Europe, the Middle East, and South America and that all mythologies and religions were built around this catastrophic double-comet impact and resulting floods.

Fueled by underlying British Israeli tendencies, Beaumont's trilogy breathlessly blended early history, mythology, geology, and ancient astronomical records crafting an entirely revised history of the world, complete with its own complex cosmology. 

Convinced Atlantis was Britain he proclaimed that prior to 584 BC Caledonia (Scotland) was the original holy land and asked his readers to visualize groups of survivors migrating southwards from Atlantis and founding colonies named after their homeland districts of Israel, Egypt, and Greece - which to him were all originally located in Britain.

The Greatest Conspiracy of All Time

Beaumont searched maps of Scotland, Ireland, England, and Scandinavia for place names which sounded loosely Biblical. He then selected elements from myths which reflected the stories of the gods and heroes of ancient Israel, Babylonia, and Greece, and concluded these cultures must have existed in Britain.

The Faroe Islands were originally the 'Pharaoh's Islands' and the ancient Greek's Mount Olympus, the throne of the gods, was actually Ben Nevis - Scotland’s Highest mountain. Ur of the Chaldees was located near the Stones of Stenness in the Orkney Islands and in England; York was Babylon, Lincoln was Antioch and London was Damascus. He claimed the survivors of Atlantis ventured southwest founding nations after their home-lands in Scotland.

Beaumont’s reinterpretation of the Holy Land situated the original Biblical locations in Britain. (Author provided)

Beaumont’s reinterpretation of the Holy Land situated the original Biblical locations in Britain. (Author provided)

Plato’s account of the destruction of Atlantis and the Biblical flood were one and the same event to Beaumont, and he shamelessly transplanted Biblical characters and events from the Middle East to Britain. Abraham became a former Atlantean who migrated to and settled near the Avebury Stone Circle in England, which Beaumont identified as “Mizpah, Thebes, the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus, an astronomical temple to Saturn and the image of a destructive comet.” 

Reconstruction of Avebury Stone Circle, Wiltshire, England. (Author provided)

Reconstruction of Avebury Stone Circle, Wiltshire, England. (Author provided)

Having found several old descriptions and maps of religious buildings and landscape features in and around Jerusalem, Beaumont discovered that they matched the geography of Edinburgh in Scotland “ far better” than the city in Palestine. The Dung Gate in Edinburgh was the King’s Stables Gate in Jerusalem and Edinburgh Castle, on an impregnable rock of three precipitous sides, was the Citadel. Both cities had streets called Water Gate and The Mount of Olives was actually Arthur’s Seat - a hill outside of Edinburgh. St. Giles Cathedral on Edinburgh's Royal Mile was once the location of Solomon’s Temple and Edinburgh's port of Joppa shared the same name as the ancient port in Jerusalem.

In the second and third parts of his trilogy Beaumont closely identified the geography of Somerset with that of the Holy Land. Glastonbury was Bethel, the birthplace of Christianity and the location of the ancient Garden of Eden. Glastonbury Tor hill was formerly known as Mount Tabor, and it was to here that Joseph of Arimathea sailed from Jerusalem (Edinburgh).

Between 1946 and 1949, Beaumont went inter-stellar and astonished the world with a range of extraordinary revelations, besides Jesus having been crucified outside Edinburgh; the comet that collided with Earth in 1322 BC and caused Noah’s flood, was actually Satan. The ancient Egyptians were in fact from Ireland. Hell is located in western Scotland. Ancient Athens was in reality, Bath, England. The Greek hero Achilles was brought up on the Isle of Skye. And he also famously believed Shakespeare’s plays were written by Francis Bacon and accepted the existence of giants based on British folklore.

Who Executed the World’s Greatest Conspiracy, and Why?

Beaumont was convinced the evil genius behind the greatest conspiracy of all time was Constantine the Great, who was “ a Yorkshireman whose mother Helena was the daughter of the British ruler Old King Cole.” Beaumont wrote that Constantine "had definite motives for transferring the arena of Jewish history and that of Christ to another region altogether. He used Christianity as a valuable political asset, selected the East as his Empire, and with the aid of Eusebius, Jerome and others, invented the present Palestine.”

Colossal head of Constantine, from a seated statue: a youthful, classicizing, other-worldly official image

Colossal head of Constantine, from a seated statue: a youthful, classicizing, other-worldly official image (Metropolitan Museum of Art) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Beaumont suggested Constantine had tricked his mother into thinking she found the True Cross in Palestine, then actively censored all the writings of every ancient and contemporary chronicler and destroyed all texts that placed the sacred geography of the Holy Land in Britain. Yeah right…

The Golspie Stone and Noah’s Flood

Supporting his theory that a double-comet destroyed Atlantis Beaumont decoded a Pictish symbol stone which was recovered from a churchyard in Golspie, Sutherland on the north-east coast of Scotland - The Golspie Stone.

Left: The Golspie Stone Photograph by R. J. Henery Right: Creative reproduction by Marianna Collessie

Left: The Golspie Stone Photograph by R. J. Henery (Pictish Stone Database) Right: Creative reproduction by Marianna Collessie, (Stoneline Designs).

Beaumont was convinced the pair of linked circles corresponded to the double-comet impact event of 1322 BC speaking of them;

"a zodiacal record of the Flood and the period when Hercules cast down his pillars, is a stele of archaic design... Its engraved symbols were erected by survivors, doubtless Caledonian Druids, in order to convey the story of the tenebrous event...the Golspie Stone is probably more than 3,200 years old.”

At that time, nobody knew how to read Pictish symbols accurately and Beamont presented his wild interpretations safe in the knowledge that until somebody actually cracked the Pictish code, his ideas were as valid as the next person’s. Leaving out key calculations upon which his conclusions were built he greatly undermined more discerning readers in a way similar to Dan Brown, in that they both lean on the fact that 'most readers won’t check the technical stuff anyway’.

Conclusions

Theories such as Beaumont’s only serve to distract from the real mysteries of the Golspie Stone, which is unique in that it displays almost every Pictish Symbol, which are the family motifs of different Pictish families/tribes. Golspie beach was a favored landing spot of Viking invaders and Golspie was an important meeting area where the southern and northern Picts gathered to discuss military strategies and guerrilla tactics in their wars to defend their kingdom from the Vikings.

Beaumont was the Dan Brown of his day, in that he masterfully knitted together comparative mythology from around the world to produce a gripping alternative history. At that time, Beaumont's thesis was received much in same way as the modern concept of extra-terrestrials intervening in human culture, pioneered by the prominent ufologist William Francis Brinsley Le Poer Trench, 8th Earl of Clancarty, 7th Marquess of Heusden, and commercialised by Erich von Däniken.

I think we must forgive Beaumont for having gone off-piste with his whole “ Atlantis was in Scotland” and “ the Holy Land was actually Britain” concept, and his interpretation of the Golspie Stone. It would be wrong for us to let these indiscretions shadow our appreciation for one of the most colorful esoteric scientists that has ever lived. And accompanied with a pinch of salt, you would do your creative imagination no injustice reading the further works of William Comyns Beaumont, the creator of Scotland’s catastrophic comet conspiracy.

Top image: Meteor strike. (Public Domain)

By Ashley Cowie

Ashley Cowie is an author, researcher, explorer, film-maker and blogger about lost cultures and kingdoms, ancient crafts and arts, the origins of legends and myths, architecture, iconography, artefacts and treasures. Visit- https://ashleycowie.com

 

Comments

He was a supporter off the British-Israeli conspiracy to transplant the Holy Land to the UK. He claimed Constantine launched this 'conspiracy'.

I don't understand: how does a conspiracy come into this theory?

Ha! Good point. He was a big batting journalist who 'worked' himself into social circles.

How did he get classed as part of intellectual elite...? Just by being himself!

Proof that brains does not equal sanity

Too bad that this comment will either be censored or heavily trolled but here ya go anyway...

44-56-56 N 117-09-20W Set elevation to approximately 4300 miles altitude. Exact coordinates to THE impact....this one created all of the northern and canadian rockies...Did I mention that this also created the moon? Notice the 400 MILE diameter volcano at the "four corners".....made the colorado rocky mts.

I made a vid but took it down because youtube heavily censors it...I fully expect this comment to be censored as well. Earth has about six months left......

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Ashley

Ashley is a Scottish historian, author, and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems in accessible and exciting ways.

He was raised in Wick, a small fishing village in the county of Caithness on the north east coast of... Read More

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