Charles Hutchins Hapgood (May 17, 1904 – December 21, 1982) was an American college professor and author who became one of the best known advocates of the

pseudo-scientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

claim of a rapid and recent

pole shift The cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis is a pseudo-scientific claim that there have been recent, geologically rapid shifts in the axis of rotation of Earth, causing calamities such as floods and tectonic events or relatively rapid climate chang ...

with catastrophic results.

Biography

Hapgood was the son of

Hutchins Hapgood Hutchins Harry Hapgood (1869–1944) was an American journalist, author and anarchist. Life and career Hapgood was born to Charles Hutchins Hapgood (1836–1917) and Fanny Louise (Powers) Hapgood (1846–1922) and grew up in Alton, Illinois, ...

(1869–1944) and

Neith Boyce Neith Boyce (March 21, 1872 – December 2, 1951) was an American novelist, journalist, and theatre artist. Much of Boyce’s earlier work was published with help from her parents, Mary and Henry Harrison Boyce. Neith Boyce later co-founded the ...

(1872–1951). Hapgood received a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1929 in medieval and modern

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

. His Ph.D. work on the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

was interrupted by the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. He taught for a year in

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

and directed a community center in

Provincetown Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Provincet ...

, also serving as the executive secretary of

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

's Crafts Commission. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Hapgood was employed by the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI, which became the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

in 1942) and the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

, and also served as a liaison officer between the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

and the Office of the Secretary of the War. After the war, Hapgood taught at

Keystone College Keystone College is a private college in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Although the college's official mailing address is La Plume, Pennsylvania in Lackawanna County, much of the campus is in Factoryville in Wyoming County. It was founded in 1868. E ...

(1945–1947),

Springfield College Springfield College is a private college in Springfield, Massachusetts. It confers undergraduate and graduate degrees. It is known as the birthplace of basketball because the sport was invented there in 1891 by Canadian-American instructor J ...

(1947–1952),

Keene State College Keene State College is a public liberal arts college in Keene, New Hampshire. It is part of the University System of New Hampshire and the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. Founded in 1909 as a teacher's college (originally, Keene Norma ...

(1956–1966) and

New England College New England College (NEC) is a private liberal arts college in Henniker, New Hampshire. As of Fall 2020 New England College's enrollment was 4,327 students (1,776 undergraduate and 2,551 graduate). The college is regionally accredited by the Ne ...

(1966–1967), lecturing in world and American history, anthropology, economics, and the history of science. Hapgood married Tamsin Hughes in 1941 and divorced in 1955. He was struck by a car in

Greenfield, Massachusetts Greenfield is a city in and the county seat of Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. Greenfield was first settled in 1686. The population was 17,768 at the 2020 census. Greenfield is home to Greenfield Community College, the Pioneer Val ...

, and died on December 21, 1982.

Polar shift

While at Springfield College, a student's question about the Lost Continent of Mu prompted a class project to investigate the lost continent of

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...

, leading Hapgood to investigate possible ways that massive earth changes could occur and exposing him to the literature of

Hugh Auchincloss Brown Hugh Auchincloss Brown (23 December 1879 – 19 November 1975) was an electrical engineer who advanced a theory of catastrophic pole shift. Brown claimed that massive accumulation of ice at the poles caused recurring tipping of the axis in cycles ...

. In 1958, Hapgood published ''The Earth's Shifting Crust''. It denied the existence of

continental drift Continental drift is the hypothesis that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed into the science of pla ...

, an idea that was not supported by mainstream science for another decade. The book included a foreword by

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

. In ''Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings'' (1966) and ''The Path of the Pole'' (1970), Hapgood proposed the hypothesis that the Earth's axis has shifted numerous times during geological history. ''The Path of the Pole'' was meant as a replacement for ''The Earth's Shifting Crust'' after corrections were suggested to him. Hapgood writes in ''Voices of Spirit'' (1975): "In later discussions we discussed the theories of my book 'Earth's Shifting Crust', and he insteinsuggested that one of them was wrong; as a result of this I revised my book, which subsequently was republished as 'The Path of the Pole'. My own further research confirmed the truth of his observation, which involved technicalities of geophysics." In ''Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings'' he supported the suggestion made by Arlington Mallery that a part of the

Piri Reis map The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. Approximately one third of the map survives; it shows the western coasts of Europe and North Africa and the coast of Brazil with reasonable accu ...

was a depiction of the area of

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

known as

Queen Maud Land Queen Maud Land ( no, Dronning Maud Land) is a roughly region of Antarctica claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20° west and the Australian Antarctic Territory 45° east. In addit ...

. He used that to propose that a 15° pole shift occurred around 9,600 BC (approx. 11,600 years ago) and that a part of the Antarctic was ice-free at that time and that an

ice-age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

civilization could have mapped the coast. He concludes that "Antarctica was mapped when these parts were free of ice" and took the view that an Antarctic warm period coincided with the last ice age in the Northern hemisphere and that the Piri Reis and other maps were based on "ancient" maps derived from ice-age originals. Later research concerning the

paleoclimatology Paleoclimatology (British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the reconstruction of ancient climate is important to ...

and

ice sheets In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at La ...

of Antarctica have discredited the interpretations by Hapgood that an Antarctic warm period coincided with the last glacial period in the Northern Hemisphere and that any part of it had been ice-free at and prior to 9,600 BC (approx. 11,600 years ago). Hapgood also examined a 1531 map by French mathematician and cartographer

Oronce Finé Oronce Finé (or Fine; Latin: ''Orontius Finnaeus'' or ''Finaeus''; it, Oronzio Fineo; 20 December 1494 – 8 August 1555) was a French mathematician, cartographer, editor and book illustrator. Life Born in Briançon, the son and grandson of p ...

(aka ''Oronteus Finaeus''). In ''Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings'', he reproduces letters that he states he received from the chief of a U.S. Air Force cartography section stationed at

Westover AFB Westover Air Reserve Base is an Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) installation located in the Massachusetts communities of Chicopee and Ludlow, near the city of Springfield, Massachusetts. Established at the outset of World War II, today West ...

in 1961. These letters say that at Hapgood's request, they had studied both Piri Reis and Oronce Finé maps during their off-duty hours, concluding that both were compiled from original source maps of Antarctica at a time when it was relatively free of ice, supporting Hapgood's findings. Hapgood concluded that advanced cartographic knowledge appears on the Piri Reis map and the Oronteus Finaeus map, and must be the result of some unknown ancient civilization that developed advanced scientific knowledge before other civilizations such as Greece. According to historians Paul Hoye and Paul Lunde, while Hapgood's work garnered some enthusiasm and praise for its thoroughness, his revolutionary hypotheses largely met with skepticism and were ignored by most scholars. In the book ''The Piri Reis Map of 1513'' Gregory C. McIntosh examines Hapgood's claims for both maps and states that "they fall short of proving or even strongly suggesting that the Piri Reis map and the Fine map depict the actual outline of Antarctica." Hapgood's ideas on catastrophe have been presented in other works by librarians Rose and

Rand Flem-Ath Rand Flem-Ath (born c. 1949 as Rand Fleming) is a Canadian librarian and author

and author and former journalist

Graham Hancock Graham Bruce Hancock (born 2 August 1950) is a British writer who promotes pseudoscientific theories involving ancient civilizations and lost lands. Hancock speculates that an advanced ice age civilization was destroyed in a cataclysm, but th ...

, each basing portions of their works on Hapgood's evidence for catastrophe at the end of the

Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...

. Hapgood's ideas also figure prominently in the 2009 sci-fi/disaster movie ''

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

.''

Acámbaro figures

Hapgood and

Erle Stanley Gardner Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970) was an American lawyer and author. He is best known for the Perry Mason series of crime fiction, detective stories, but he wrote numerous other novels and shorter pieces and also a series of ...

thought the collection of clay artifacts known as the Acámbaro figures were created thousands of years ago. The date estimate as well as the notion the artifacts were made by some undiscovered culture was rejected by

archeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...

s and

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

s. The figurines, which most archaeologists dismiss as an elaborate hoax, depict oddities such as dinosaurs coexisting with men and horned humans. In the introduction to later editions of Hapgood's 1973 book, ''Mystery in Acámbaro'', David Hatcher Childress wrote that Hapgood and Gardner thought the figurines were genuine and were evidence that orthodox understandings of

dinosaur extinction Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutiona ...

were wrong.

Elwood Babbitt

Hapgood spent ten years working with

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...

Elwood Babbitt (1921-2001), attempting to make contact with notable figures from the past. Babbitt, a retired carpenter and World War II veteran, had studied trance mediumship at

Edgar Cayce Edgar Cayce (; 18 March 1877 – 3 January 1945) was an American clairvoyant who claimed to channel his higher self while in a trance-like state. His words were recorded by his friend, Al Layne; his wife, Gertrude Evans, and later by his s ...

Association for Research and Enlightenment The Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), also known as Edgar Cayce's A.R.E., is a non-profit organization founded in 1931 by clairvoyant Edgar Cayce to explore spirituality, holistic health, and other psychic topics, as well as pr ...

. Hapgood audiotaped and transcribed a number of Babbitt's "trance lectures" which purported to come from

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

, and the Hindu god

Vishnu Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism. Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" within t ...

, using the material to publish his final three books:''Voices of Spirit, Through the Psychic Experience of Elwood Babbitt'' (1975), ''Talks with Christ and His Teachers Through the Psychic Gift of Elwood Babbitt'' (1981), and ''The God Within: a Testament of Vishnu, a Handbook for the Spiritual Renaissance'' (1982). During this time Babbitt and Hapgood's cousin, Beth Hapgood worked closely with the nearby Brotherhood of the Spirit New Age commune. After Charles Hapgood's death, Beth Hapgood assembled a final volume of Babbitt's trance lectures, ''Dare the Vision and Endure'' (1997).

Bibliography

*Hapgood, Charles Hutchins; ''Earth's Shifting Crust: A Key to Some Basic Problems of Earth Science'' (1958, foreword by

) *Hapgood, Charles Hutchins; ''Great Mysteries of the Earth'' (1960) *Hapgood, Charles Hutchins; ''Piri Reis map of 1513'' (1962) *Hapgood, Charles Hutchins; ''Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age''; 1966; 1997 Paperback Reprint Edition,

Adventures Unlimited Press David Hatcher Childress (born June 1, 1957) is a French-born American author, and the owner of Adventures Unlimited Press, a publishing house established in 1984 specializing in books on unusual topics such as ancient mysteries, unexplained pheno ...

, *Hapgood, Charles Hutchins; ''The Path of the Pole''; 1968; 1999 Paperback edition, Adventures Unlimited Press, *Hapgood, Charles Hutchins; ''Mystery in Acambaro: An Account of the Ceramic Collection of the Late Waldemar Juisrud in Acumbaro'', GTU, Self Published: Mexico, 1972. *Hapgood, Charles Hutchins; ''Voices of spirit : through the psychic experience of Elwood Babbitt'', 1975,

Delacorte Press Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and ...

, *Babbitt, Elwood D., with Charles Hapgood (editor); ''Talks with Christ and his teachers : through the psychic gift of Elwood Babbitt'', 1981 *Babbitt, Elwood D., with Charles Hapgood (editor); ''God Within, A Testament of Vishnu'' *Hapgood, Charles Hutchins; ''Mystery in Acambaro: Did Dinosaurs Survive Until Recently?'', 2000, Adventures Unlimited Press, .

References

External links

*Cuoghi, D., 2002
''Mysteries of the Piri Reis Map ''
*Hoye, P. F., with P. Lunde, 1980

vol. 31, no. 1 pp. 18–31. *Heinrich, Paul, 1996

TalkOrigins Archive The TalkOrigins Archive is a website that presents mainstream science perspectives on the antievolution claims of young-earth, old-earth, and "intelligent design" creationists. With sections on evolution, creationism, geology, astronomy and homi ...

. *Mewhinney, S. 1999
''Charting Imaginary Worlds: Pole Shifts, Ice Sheets, and Ancient Sea Kings''
* Charles H. Hapgood Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hapgood, Charles Hutchins Harvard University alumni 1904 births 1982 deaths Catastrophism Pedestrian road incident deaths Pole shift theory and theorists Pseudo-scholarship Road incident deaths in Massachusetts Pseudoarchaeologists Pseudohistorians New England College faculty Keene State College faculty 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers