Science has long speculated that the earth's center rotates at a different speed from the crust. The big question really has been "What holds the earth's crust in equilibrium with the center?" Visionary writer and inventor Carl Peterson may have discovered the answer. In looking for the reasons "magnetic north" lies far from the North Pole, Peterson has stumbled upon a scientific explanation that also fits with past polar shifts; and offers probable causes, timing, and local effects of the next shift. His theory complements and completes a Charles Hapgood theory endorsed by Albert Einstein, in which the poles, aided by massive ice build up, are eventually thrown by centrifugal force to the equator.

If the center rotates at a different speed from the crust, there is good reason to believe that this is the cause for the static electricity apparent on the earth's surface. If that is true, then North Pole on the crust must have an opposite magnetic charge from north in the earth's core.

The obvious conclusion is that "magnetic north" is not a specific designated point on the globe, but rather an "average" location determined by the confluence of the magnetic north of the massive earth center, and what must be in reality the weaker "magnetic south" of the earth's crust, which in fact rests at the North Pole.

If the earth's center has a pronounced "wobble" as it spins, slipping and sliding as it were beneath the crust, it is then the intense magnetic attraction between the two that defines the speed of the earth crust rotation. In other words, the crust spins at exactly the same speed as the wobble, or interior "precession". This effect can be demonstrated with a gyroscope or simple child's top. The top can have a high exterior spin rate, and at the same time a slowly wandering wobble.

The magnetic characteristics of the crust are then probably electromagnetic in nature, fully dependent upon the core for activation. If so, it will require a relatively weak catalyst to break this bond, sending the ice at the poles on a journey once again down (or up) to the equator.

Science knows that the ice on the polar land masses continues to build up rapidly. Warmer polar temperatures actually deposit more ice and snow, now more than two miles deep in some places.

A whole raft of prophesies and predictions (Cayce, Nostradamus, Hopi and Mayan Indians) point towards an event like this happening soon.

In his book "Earth Changes" Peterson goes one step further in actually detailing a step by step scenario of the next polar shift. Are there ways to avoid the next shift? Probably not. Are there ways to survive it? Undoubtedly, being in the right place at the right time with the right gear can make a huge difference.