I first became acquainted with Velikovsky's work in 1968. I was cooling my heels in a book store in San Diego CA, while the missus finished shopping. A paperback version of Worlds in Collision caught my eye. I read the PR stuff on the cover and quickly decided that the author was a kook. Yet... I read a bit in the book proper and began to change my opinion. A little deeper and the bookstore was one sale up.

I found Velikovsky mostly believable and entirely intriguing. I'm and electrical engineer and didn't encounter any problems with the physics. There were some spots that Velikovsky read more into a situation than I think I would but his reasoning seemed overall sound.

I did get temporarily wounded in spirit. Velikovsky was replacing acts of God with planetary machinations. It took me about a year to arrive at the question, "Who are we to dictate what tools God uses?" Somebody gets zapped with lightning - we say "act of God," and insurance adjusters and courts of law vouchsafe the opinion. Enough said on that.

In 1972 I got orders to Naval Missile Center at Point Mugu CA. (I was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy). The chief petty officer (E7) who ran my electronic warfare shop had me in awe. His background in the business was way ahead of mine and I felt I needed some way to reach a meeting of the minds in a non-outgunned manner.

After a week of stroking my chin I had it. "Chief, how about reading a bit of this (Worlds in Collision) and let me know what you think." "Sure thing, sir." Next morning he didn't wait for me to ask. "This is great stuff, sir! I'm half-way through the book.."

All of a sudden he had the majority of our troops reading the book (I got more copies), and we would discuss Velikovsky over the first coffee each morning. Some of the older hands, with school age children, reported that their kids were joining in the fun and were bugging their teachers with pesky Velikovskyish questions that were very difficult to handle from the uniformitarian viewpoint. (My belated apologies.)

One morning my no-nonsense boss, Commander R.G. Newbegin IV, who flew A-3 Sky Warriors, walked in on one of our morning discussions and said, "Let me see that book." Oh boy! (Actually I thought something else.) I'd had it now. This was going to put the kibosh on our fun and games. I gave him the book and he left without further word. A week later he returned the book and uttered one statement, "Anybody who flies airplanes at low altitudes in the mountains of the south-western United States and sees the magnitude of obvious recent geological upheaval has to know that Velikovsky is on the right track."