Worlds in Collision

Immanuel Velikovsky (1895 –1979) was a Russian-born American independent scholar of Jewish origins, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950.
His books use comparative mythology and ancient literary sources to argue that Earth has suffered catastrophic close-contacts with other planets (principally Venus and Mars) in ancient times.
Some of Velikovsky's specific postulated catastrophes included:
• A tentative suggestion that Earth had once been a satellite of a "proto-Saturn" body, before its current solar orbit.
• That the Deluge (Noah's Flood) had been caused by proto-Saturn's entering a nova state, and ejecting much of its mass into space.
• A suggestion that the planet Mercury was involved in the Tower of Babel catastrophe.
• Jupiter had been the culprit for the catastrophe that saw the destruction of the "Cities of the Plain" (Sodom and Gomorrah)
• Periodic close contacts with a cometary Venus (which had been ejected from Jupiter) had caused the Exodus events (c.1500 BCE) and Joshua's subsequent "sun standing still" (Joshua 10:12 & 13) incident.
• Periodic close contacts with Mars had caused havoc in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE.