Reviews of When the Sky Fell: In Search of Atlantis

How is it, Hapgood asked, that during much of the last ice age a large part of North America was under mile-thick glaciers, but a third of Antarctica was not? Hapgood suggested that perhaps the continents were then in different places relative to the poles - that the earth's crust had shifted over the molten layers beneath it. But if Antarctica was once further north and partly ice-free, was it also inhabitable? The Flem-Aths add up the clues and come to a startling conclusion: Antarctica was Atlantis!
Quest (Winter 1995)

Written in a scholarly but easy to understand manner, if offers a simple hypothesis. Antarctica is Atlantis... This is more than just science. It is an entire history lesson dating to the dawn of man's ability to remember events.
Ocala Star-Banner (10 December 1995)

By studying ancient maps, Plato's clues to the location of Atlantis and similarities between myths from around the world, they conclude that a civilisation of intelligent seafarers did exist 12,000 years ago. ...This is a brave attempt to bridge the gap between fact and fantasy...
Huddersfield Daily Examiner (7 October 1995)

... a convincing case for Atlantis... the Flem-Aths examine other mysteries such as mass extinctions in certain areas of the world, perfectly preserved mammoths discovered in the Siberian ice, the true age of the Sphinx and remarkably accurate maps of the Americas and ice-free Antarctica that date from long before European explorers ever reached those shores. ...It is a compelling argument...
Birmingham Post (5 August 1995)

So how convincing is the authors' argument? Well more plausible than Eric von Daniken's theory that civilisation was born from aliens. ...The authors' most interesting theory lies in mythology. If we accept that the exploits of the gods and goddesses of ancient times were simply exaggerated tales of the real deeds of former kings, queens and rulers, then clearly myths become a signpost to the past.
Manchester Evening News (21 July 1995)

The Flem-Aths' contribution to Atlantis research is their rediscovery and interpretation to the 1665 Athanasius Kircher map of Atlantis, brought from Egypt by the Romans, which identifies Atlantis as being the present-day continent of Antarctica. The Flem-Aths point out that the map, which corresponds in remarkable detail to the present-day Antarctica, was published almost three centuries before scientists knew the true ice-free shape of the frozen continent. ...The book is a lively and topical Atlantis update, blending science, mythology, and ancient history to shed fresh light on this most enduring of mysteries.
Vancouver Sun (22 April 1995)

...even the most skeptical reader will admit after reading this book it is difficult to deny the existence of a lost continent, Atlantis, buried under the Antarctic ice...condense[s] centuries of Atlantis fact and myth into a landmark work of scholarship.
Ottawa Citizen (9 April 1995)

With the help of 31 maps that span the centuries, this scholarly but readable text posits a geographical catastrophe about 9600 B.C. that may explain mysteries from the frozen mastodons of Siberia to the apparent water erosion of the Sphinx.
Toronto Sun (26 February 1995)

Their research cuts through our "accepted knowledge" of history like a laser beam through ice. Thought provoking.
Richard W. Noone author of 5/5/2000 Ice.

The Flem-Aths are perhaps the most persuasive and daring of the contemporary "Atlantologists." ...A spectrum of relevant disciplines - geology, paleoclimatology, cartography, astronomy, comparative religion - all contribute to the puzzle, and Hapgood's earth crust displacement theory seems to provide the MODUS OPERANDI that accounts for the whole, huge, world-wide scenario in a single stroke.
John Anthony West - Afterword

What the Flem-Aths have done is to place squarely on the map of scientific speculation the notion that Antarctica could have been Atlantis, and the secrets of the legendary lost civilization may lie beneath its ice. If they prove correct - or even partly correct - they will have changed our whole view of human history.
Colin Wilson - Introduction

I am astonished and delighted by your article which arrived here today. Believe it or not, it is the first truly scientific exploration of my work that has ever been done.
Charles Hapgood - ( A Letter from Charles Hapgood) 3 August 1977