As the earth plunged still deeper into the comet's tail, hydrocarbon gasses enveloped the earth, and when contacting the earths oxygen became ignited by the falling meteorites, exploding in fireball bursts in the lower atmosphere. Unlighted streams of pure petroleum poured onto the planet, sinking into the surface, floating on the seas, and making great asphalt tar pits in many places. From Siberia thru the Caucasus to the Arabian desert, huge spills of naptha burned for years, their dark billowing smoke lending a shroud for human despair.

Crude Oil Volcanism

"The phenomenon of 'blood' raining from the sky has also been observed in limited areas and on a small scale...One of these occasions, according to Pliny, was during the consulship of Manius Acilius and Gaius Porcius. Babylonians, too, recorded red dust and rain falling from the sky; instances of 'bloody rain' have been recorded in divers countries. The red dust, soluble in water, falling from the sky in water drops, does not originate in clouds, but must come for volcanic eruptions or from cosmic spaces. The fall of meteorite dust is a phenomenon generally know to take place mainly after the passage of meteorites; this dust is found on the snow of mountains and in polar regions."

Linking the events in Exodus to the earth passing through the tail of a comet, the author continues "Following the red dust, a 'small dust,' like 'ashes of the furnace,' fell 'in all the land of Egypt' (Exo 9:8), and then a shower of meteorites flew toward the earth. Our planet entered deeper into the tail of the comet. the dust was a forerunner of the gravel. There fell 'a very grievous hail, such as has not been in Egypt since its foundations' (Exo 9:18). Stones of 'barad,' here translated 'hail,' is, as in most places where mentioned in the Scriptures, the term for meteorites. We are also informed by Midrashic and Talmudic sources that the stones which fell on Egypt were hot; this fits only meteorites, not a hail of ice. In the Scriptures it is said that these stones fell 'mingled with fire' (Exo 9:24)... and that their fall was accompanied by 'loud noises' (kolot), rendered as 'thunderings'..."

"The Mexican Annals of Cuauhtitlan describe how a cosmic catastrophe was accompanied by a hail of stones; in the oral tradition of the Indians, too, the motif is repeated time and again: In some ancient epoch the sky 'rained, not water, but fire and red-hot stones,' which is not different from the Hebrew tradition.

"Crude petroleum is composed of two elements, carbon and hydrogen...The tails of comets are composed mainly of carbon and hydrogen gases. Lacking oxygen, they do not burn in flight, but the inflammable gases, passing through an atmosphere containing oxygen, will be set on fire. If carbon and hydrogen gases, or vapor of a composition of these two elements, enter the atmosphere in huge masses, a part of them will burn, binding all the oxygen available at the moment; the rest will escape combusion, but in swift transition will become liquid. Falling on the ground, the substance, if liquid, would sink into the pores of the sand and into clefts between the rocks; falling on water, it would remain floating if the fire in the air is extinguished before new supplies of oxygen arrive from other regions." Could a comet have passed very close to the earth and deposited all that crude oil in the middle east during the time of the Exodus?

The following are oral and written traditions from all over the world that lend credence to the above hypothesis:

1. Popul-Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas, narrates: "It was ruin and destruction...the sea was piled up...it was a great inundation...people were drowned in a sticky substance raining from the sky...The face of the earth grew dark and the gloomy rain endured days and nights...And then there was a great din of fire above their heads."
2. The Manuscript Quiche from the people of Mexico: "There descended from the sky a rain of bitumen and of a sticky substance...The earth was obscured and it rained day and night. And men ran hither and thither and were as if seized by madness; they tried to climb to the roofs, and the houses crashed down; they tried to climb the trees, and the trees cast them far away; and when they tried to escape in caves and caverns, these were suddenly closed."
3. The Annals of Cuauhtitlan speaks of an "age which ended in the rain of fire."
4. In Siberia, the Voguls record: "God sent a sea of fire upon the earth...The cause of the fire they call 'the fire-water.'"
5. In the East Indies, the aboriginal tribes state that "water of fire" rained from the sky; "with very few exceptions, all men died."
6. The Papyrus Ipuwer: "Gates, columns, and walls are consumed by fire. The sky is in confusion." The fire almost "exterminated mankind."
7. Midrash Tanhuma, Midrash Psikta Raboti, Midrash Wa-Yosha "state that naphtha, together with hot stones, poured down upon Egypt. 'The Egyptians refused to let the Israelites go, and He poured out naphtha over them, burning blains [blisters].' It was a 'stream of hot naphtha.' Naphtha is petroleum in Aramaic and Hebrew.

(Worlds in Collision, Immanuel Velikovsky)

Repeat of Sodom and Gomorrah

Probably an earthquake caused an eruption of gas, oil, sulfur, salt, and bitumen to rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah. The Dead Sea is right on a fault line where earthquakes occur.

There is ample evidence of subterranean deposits of a petroleum-based substance called bitumen, similar to asphalt, in the region south of the Dead Sea. Such material normally contains a high percentage of sulfur. It has been postulated by geologist Frederick Clapp that pressure from an earthquake could have caused the bitumen deposits to be forced out of the earth through a fault line.

"God then cast a thunderbolt upon the city, and set it on fire, with its inhabitants; and laid waste the country with the like burning"

It happened in the summer of 1830 BC All indications suggest earthquake, precursors of which were felt for at least a month. The walls are covered with cracks, bitumen pits lay down, and the sea level suddenly dropped a few meters.