The End of Eden

- Explores the violent effect of debris from comet 12P/Pons-Brooks on peaceful cultures such as the Olmec of Mexico and the Megalithic people who built Stonehenge

- Shows how this comet's appearance was taken as a significant religious event that still has repercussions today

In the year 2024, the comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is due to pass near Earth again for the first time in 3,500 years. In 1500 B.C., Earth passed through this comet's tail, and in the decade following, cultures the world over began to exhibit significant aggressive tendencies. Civilizations in India, the Middle East, China, Japan, Europe, and Central America suddenly abandoned their peaceful ways and devoted themselves with uncharacteristic fervor to making war on their neighbors and fighting among themselves.

But this was not the only effect that is linked to this celestial event. Sudden outbreaks of monotheism--the worship of a single god, and a new idea at the time--occurred simultaneously in locales spread widely throughout the world. Most of these monotheistic religions represented their god symbolically as a circle with a series of lines extending below--resembling a simple drawing of a comet.

In The End of Eden, Graham Phillips chronicles the sudden shifts in social demeanor and religious philosophy that swept the world in the wake of 12P/Pons-Brooks. He argues that there is no other explanation for these changes other than the presence of this massive comet in the skies above Earth. He contends that debris in the comet's tail contaminated the atmosphere with a chemical known to cause aggressive behavior, and that after little more than a decade, worldwide hostility abruptly abated. He also explores how the appearance of a celestial body that outshone the moon would have been interpreted as a significant religious event--the premier appearance of a powerful new god to supplant the deities previously worshipped around the world.