At the time of the arrival of the alien astronauts or Anunnaki, the climate of the Earth was moist and stable, not running to the extremes in temperature as it is today. This was due to the enormous amount of moisture being held in the Earth’s atmosphere, a veritable cloud canopy. This condition is described in the Book of Genesis as the "separation of waters."

It is in this moist climate that the Annunaki arrived to exploit the Earth’s resources. They were a sapient reptile race and found conditions here very congenial to their existence for it approximated those on their home planet.

[Comment: We know from Sitchin that prior to the arrival of the Planet Nibiru, the Earth was in a different orbit around the Sun. After the collision of one of Nibiru’s moonlets with the Earth in the area of what is now the Pacific Ocean, Earth/Tiamat was hurtled out of its previous orbit into its current one. Obviously, then, when these Nibiruans first arrived, they found a climate much different than what we have experienced in more modern times.]

It is no accident that all the early settlements were founded at the mouth of large river systems, where moisture was abundant. Besides the Tigris and Euphrates, other civilizations sprang up in the Nile delta and in the Indus River system. They were actually offshoots of the main colony in Mesopotamia.

THE MEANING OF THE SEPARATION OF WATERS

According to the account of the creation of Earth in the Book of Genesis, at one time the waters were all commingled together. Then they were divided:

"God said, ’Let there be an expanse in the middle of the water to form a division between the waters,’ and it was so. God made the expanse, and it divided the water below it from the water above it."

The separation of the waters with half remaining on the surface of the Earth and half going into the upper atmosphere is also mentioned in the Book of Jubilees. One of the lost books of the Bible, Jubilees, was originally written in Hebrew as an extensive retelling of Genesis and Exodus. It has been found in Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Ethiopic as well; however, the Ethiopic text is the only one that has survived in a form that is virtually complete. The Book of Jubilees makes it clear that as much moisture remained in the atmosphere as was found in the world oceans:

"And on the second day he made the firmament in the midst of the water. And the waters were divided on that day. One half of them went up above, and one half of them went down beneath the firmament."

Clearly, it is asserted that as much moisture was held in the sky, presumably as a dense cloud cover, and was contained in the seas below. Berossus in his history of Babylonia, fragments of which have been preserved by Polyhistor, related that at the time of creation "the whole universe consisted of moisture" and that Zeus "separated heaven and earth from one another."

This condition was universally noted. Many ancient cultures refer to a time in the far past when there was no sun as we know it today. In the Popul Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Quiche Maya, it is stated that there was a time when it was cloudy and twilight was upon the face of the Earth. There was no sun yet to be seen for "the sky and the earth existed but the face of the sun and the moon were covered." The dense cloud cover or vapor canopy would mean that blue sky was seen by the ancients until after the Deluge.

[Comment: Both Boulay and Sitchin seem to be under the mistaken impression that only one Deluge has occurred in our planetary history. If, however, we accept the theories of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky in Worlds In Collision, there have been a series of "Deluges," which were the direct results of a series of Polar Axial Displacements. Thus, this reference in the Popul Vuh undoubtedly is referring to only one of these cataclysms. You are referred to The Polar Pivotal Axis.]

One of the oldest pieces of Sumerian mythology, if not the oldest yet known, seems to echo the description of the Popul Vuh. It is paraphrased as follows:

"The reptiles verily descend. The Earth is resplendent as a well-watered garden. At that time Enki and Eridu had not appeared. Daylight did not shine. Moonlight had not emerged."

A stable cloud canopy also meant that the Earth had to be watered by a different regime than it is today. The Book of Genesis bears this out:

"God had not yet sent rain upon the Earth . . . instead a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the soil."

It was not until the cloud cover collapsed with the event known as the Deluge that man saw sunlight and blue sky. Verification of this is also found in Genesis which states that the Lord introduced the rainbow after the Deluge. Rainbows are the result of the prismatic effect of the bending of the rays of the sun through water droplets. Rainbows can only occur after rain and require the direct action of sunlight.

THE ANTEDILUVIAN VAPOR CANOPY OF THE EARTH

The theory that the Earth had a primordial vapor canopy was developed by Donald Patten in his book The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch. He surmises that it was in some ways like that surrounding Venus today. The canopy of Venus consists primarily of carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons, with some water vapor. The Earth’s primordial vapor canopy, on the other hand, was composed mostly of water vapor, some carbon dioxide, and virtually no hydrocarbons. This cloud cover condensed out at the time of the Deluge. Patten believes that plant life was luxuriant in that early period because of the proportions of carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere and the capture of long wave radiation which resulted in the "greenhouse effect."

This greenhouse effect meant that temperatures would tend to be uniform between night and day as well as between summer and winter. There had to be little circulation of the atmosphere, and this absence of cyclonic activity precluded the formation of storms and other forms of precipitation.

Although the surface of the Earth was shielded from the direct rays of the Sun, plant life was rich and abundant due to the proportion of carbon dioxide to that of water vapor in the atmosphere. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was probably many times higher than it is today. Two climatologists, Owen Toon and Steve Olson, in their article on "The Warm Earth," in Science, (October 1985) maintain that the early atmosphere of the Earth may have contained as much as a thousand times more carbon dioxide than it does today.

In those days people obtained much of their water from underground sources, as stated in Genesis 5:

"God had not sent rain upon the Earth... instead, a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the soil."

Water was also provided by the rivers which descended from the mountains, fed by natural springs. The heavily saturated atmosphere also condensed at nightfall, thus producing a heavy dew which provided a certain amount of moisture.

This also made night conditions unbearable for Man when the heavy dew was precipitated. It may explain why caves were in wide use by early man in Europe between 60,000 and 10,000 BC. Presumably they were used for shelter as protection from wild animals, but also, by building bonfires at their entrances, they provided relief from the oppressive climatic conditions.

With a canopy of water vapor, humidity even in the daytime would have been at near maximum, and temperatures would have hovered consistently at the dewpoint. With the coming of night, temperatures would have dropped slightly and dewpoint would be quickly reached. At this time, a thick somewhat clammy and uncomfortable layer of dew would begin to form. By building a bonfire at the mouth of the cave, primitive man could thereby maintain the temperature above dewpoint all night and thereby increase his comfort.

[Comment: This is an extremely provocative and unusual hypothesis, and to my knowledge it is unique to Boulay’s book.]

DESICCATION OF THE LAND

During this early period the climate was benign all over the world. The stable and moist atmosphere was ideal for the huge vegetarian dinosaurs and other large reptile forms. Had the antediluvian climate remained the same, who knows what reptilian forms would have evolved.

[Comment: It is most notable that Boulay is assuming that dinosaurs and man coexisted. This is the same sort of revolutionary theory proposed by Dr. Velikovsky, one that has been widely attacked by the scientific establishment.]

In their analysis of the reasons why dinosaurs and reptiles became extinct, Allaby and Lovelock in their book The Great Extinction, suggested that if the climate had remained unchanged until the present day, there is no reason to suppose that the reptiles would have declined. They maintain that furthermore,

"Mammals might still be living in nocturnal obscurity and had intelligent beings evolved - let us say beings with advanced technologies - they might well have scaly skins and probably long tails."

Physical conditions, however, began to change dramatically. The land began to dry out. Since there was no cyclonic activity to produce rain, moisture had to be gotten from the ground or from spring-fed river systems. A limited amount of moisture was also provided by the heavily saturated atmosphere which condensed at night fall.

The changing climate was no longer friendly to the alien saurians. Mammals had become better adapted to the changes and were slowly replacing the reptiles as the dominant form on Earth. The lush vegetation was declining and the Anunnaki were beginning to suffer.

A Sumerian myth called The Dispute between Cattle and Grain describes how the Anunnaki originally lived off the land:

"They knew not the eating of bread, knew not the dressing of garments. Ate plants with their mouth like sheep, drank water from the ditch."

Since conditions on Earth had changed, the Anunnaki could not feed themselves. The myth describes how two goddesses were created in the space ship to help the Anunnaki to obtain food - the Cattle Goddess Lahat and the Grain Goddess Ashnan. The Anunnaki could not learn to feed themselves for some reason which is not given, and the experiment proved unsuccessful. This is why the myth states further, that Man was created.

At this time, the Anunnaki were vegetarian, and it was not until later when food became scarce that they turned to eating flesh. This is reflected in the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch, which describes how the Nefilim began to eat the flesh of animals, all the time pleading the scarcity of vegetable food.

Both religious and secular sources indicate that Man, and the serpent-gods living among them, were vegetarian and not meat eaters. According to Genesis, Man did not eat flesh until after the Deluge. This was not true of the Nefilim and Anunnaki who turned to eating the flesh of animals and eventually that of humans.

The desiccation of the earth may have been partly caused by the numerous catastrophes of the period. Earthquakes and other natural catastrophes in the antediluvian period are often alluded to in the religious literature as well as the Sumerian myths.

EARTHQUAKES AND OTHER CATASTROPHES

Earthquakes and other natural catastrophes were not unknown to early man for they are mentioned in many ancient sources, both religious and secular. The Haggadah, the source of Hebrew oral tradition, refers to a period of calamities that occurred in the generation of Enosh, the second after Adam, when the Earth was beset by "four revolutions in nature," presumably a reference to major earthquakes, perhaps caused by a shift of the Earth on its axis.

Other ancient sources reveal that, in the days of Enosh, there were severe disruptions in the water supply, and that "the mountains became barren," and so many people died that the corpses rotted where they lay and were not buried.

Such a shift would have an effect on the calendar as well, especially the length of the year. In the First Book of Enoch there are several admonitions to the people against errors in the compilation of the length of the year. Enoch tells Methuselah that "the year is completed in 364 days" and not to note this correction would upset all the order of the days of celebration. It would thus appear that, at least for a while, the length of the year was 364 instead of 365 days. [Comment: This point is discussed at great length by Dr. Velikovsky in Worlds In Collision.]

Even the Greek writer Herodotus, in his Histories, refers to ancient perturbations of the Earth. He was informed by the Egyptian priests at the ancient city of Heliopolis that in the preceding 10,000 years, "the sun had removed from its proper course four times." It seems that the axis of the Earth had been displaced four times, for the sun was said by them to have changed its usual position, twice rising in the west, and twice in the east.

Curiously enough, the statement of Herodotus agrees with the ancient religious sources which speak of four major disturbances during the days of Enosh. The sun’s eccentric behavior is also found in the Hebrew oral tradition which affirms that in the era before the Deluge "the laws of nature were suspended, the sun rose in the west and set in the east."

The century just before the Deluge must have been one of many natural catastrophes which were a forerunner of the major one to come.

[Comment: Perhaps this "Deluge" to which Boulay seems to attribute such great significance was indeed a "major catastrophe" of monumental proportions, compared to an ordinary, routine Polar Axis Shift, if one dares to call such an Axis Shift ordinary and routine.]

THE 120-YEAR PERIOD IN GENESIS

There is a curious statement in Genesis 6 which just precedes the account of the Deluge, that refers to a period of 120 years. For generations, scholars have interpreted the verse by the Lord to mean that man was granted a lifespan of 120 years. The account of Genesis says,

"My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."

This interpretation as relating to man’s lifespan seems odd, however, in view of the fact that the text deals with God’s intent to destroy Mankind in the coming Deluge. If so, then why offer Man long life?

Subsequent statements in Genesis do not support such an arbitrary lifespan. After the Deluge, the descendants of Noah lived longer than the limit of 120 years. Shem lived to be 600, his son Arphaxad to be 483, and his son Salah to be 433, and so on, down to Abraham who died at the ripe old age of 175. Isaac then lived to be 180, and Jacob 147, and it was not until generations later with Moses, who died at 120, that the so-called prophecy appeared to come true. Furthermore, since the days of Moses there has been a steady decline in man’s lifespan until today when 80+ is considered to be the average.

Obviously, the statement in Genesis does not apply to lifespans but to something else, whose meaning was omitted during the early formative years of the Old Testament. Moreover, the location of this fragment immediately before the account of the Deluge strongly suggests that it is somehow related to the universal catastrophe.

This testimony is brought out in many of the ancient religious documents. Ancient Rabbinical literature, for example, relates how Noah had been informed of the coming catastrophe 120 years before and told to exhort the people to amend their ways. In other words, the 120 years was one of probation, when Man was given the choice of avoiding destruction by changing his ways.

A similar warning is pronounced in the Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch, also called the Second Book of Enoch, but here the warning is given to Methuselah instead of Noah, who is told to warn the people to mend their ways in view of the fact "that the destruction of the Earth draws near."

Methuselah was also informed that the Earth "will change its seasons," in anticipation of the time of destruction. Apparently, there would be severe disturbances on Earth during this interim period of 120 years.

During this interval, conditions on the Earth were unsettled and numerous disturbances anticipated the major destruction to come. The skies of the period must have been terrifying, for the solar system was playing a game of celestial ping-pong.

The Second Book of Enoch tells of a period of chaos just before the Deluge when society broke down, and when peoples and nations waged war against each other. references to such unrest is not limited to the religious documents but is also found in the Sumerian cuneiform literature.

In the Atrahasis Epic, the Babylonian account of the Deluge, Man is afflicted with plagues and other pestilence just before the disaster. Interruptions in the flow of waters from the mountains caused the Mesopotamian plains to become salty and unproductive. This reduction of fresh water allowed the Persian Gulf to back up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. As a result the waters became brackish, and as the epic describes it,

"The fountains were stopped, so that the flood could not rise at the source. The field diminished its product. The wide-open plain brought forth salt; her bosom revolted, so that no plant came forth, no grain sprouted."

The Eden of the Bible had become a brackish desolate plain. According to the epic, living conditions had become unbearable - there was mass starvation, disease became rampant, and the survivors had to resort to cannibalism.

A dwindling food supply was not the only problem; there was one of overpopulation as well. Using the genealogy of the Book of Genesis as a source of demographics, it can be shown that there was a high population density in that area.

Assuming there were twenty children per family, a very conservative figure considering the long life of the inhabitants and the system of polygamy, and counting only ten generations from Adam to Noah, the extraordinary total of over a billion people can be deduced.

While this number may be mathematically correct, logically it represents an impossible census for the number of people existing at the time of the onset of the Deluge. More likely, it suggests that there was an extremely high mortality rate among humans.