Sodom comet paper to be retracted two years after editor’s note acknowledging concerns

In September 2021 the journal ' Scientific Reports ' published an article by American researchers in which they claimed that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam in the Middle East was destroyed by the explosion of a celestial body, possibly a meteorite. For years, Tall el-Hammam, which mysteriously disappeared 3,650 years ago, has been at the center of an intense archaeological and historical debate. Some experts have suggested that it could be t…

The news went around the world. “A giant meteorite could have destroyed the Biblical city of Sodom,” the magazine Forbes called. A team of American scientists had just presented evidence that “a cosmic explosion in the air” destroyed 3,600 years ago Tall el-Hammam, a population in the Jordan River valley, in today’s Jordan. Researchers showed images of the “layer of destruction” found in the archaeological site, with melted metals suggesting tha…

Sodom comet paper to be retracted two years after editor’s note acknowledging concerns

The authors’ reconstruction of what the blast’s impact area may have been. Source Scientific Reports will retract a controversial paper claiming to present evidence an ancient city in the Middle East was destroyed by an exploding celestial body – an event the authors suggested could have inspired the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah.  The decision comes two years after Scientific Reports, a Springer Nature title, published an editor’s note…