Funny that you started your letter by stating that "the planets were formed by collisions of pieces of matter spun out…." According to the Hollow Earth Theory put forth by Marshall B. Gardner in his 1913 book "A Journey to the Earth's Interior" what scientists leave out in their equation of the formation of the Earth is centrifugal force. Gardner's theory is that planets formed from nebula. He claims that the different nebulas we see in the night sky are planets forming. According to his theory the heavier elements were pulled inward by gravity to form a center core, the inner sun.

Lighter material was spun outward by centrifugal force. At the point where centrifugal force and gravity meet the forces were equal and an outer crust formed. Today that's the earth's crust and mantle. Gravity however, controlled the very heavy matter. This heavier matter, which makes up the center core, continues to pull tighter and tighter as it ever moves inward. The pressure inside the center core is massive. This pressure causes friction … friction causes heat. Heat causes light. Therefore a center sun. He claims that between the solid outer shell and the inner sun is atmosphere. He also claimed that on the underside of the crust, or mantle "Was a landscape not unlike that on the outside." That, in a nutshell, (no pun intended) is the theory.

Lets look at some of sciences latest findings about our mysterious Earth:

In 1994 California Institute of Technology geophysicist Brad Hager reported to the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting, "The boundary between Earth's molten-iron core and the underlying rock mantle may be an upside down version of the planet's surface." Almost word for word - except for the molten part - what Gardner claims in his 1913 book.

As one Associated Press science reporter put it, "The new research which Hager and other scientists will outline this week at the… meeting further complicates the traditional simplistic picture that Earth's thin crust surrounds a thick, solid rock mantle, which in turn surrounds a molten-iron core".

Establishment scientists had to scramble to "adjust" these new findings to fit their theory. They rushed a book into the popular market, "Naked Earth: The New Geophysics" by Shawna Vogal to "fit" the new findings to the accepted theory.

Not so the Hollow Earth Theory. The 1994 findings of "continents, mountains and valleys" on the underside of the mantle are a major part of Gardner's 1913 theory. This part of his theory stands firm.

Here's another. According to reports published July 1996 in The New York Times and other newspapers around the country:

"Dr. Xiaodong Song and Dr. Paul Richards, seismologists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades NJ have discovered that "the Earth's core is spinning freely and slightly faster than the rest of the planet"… According to the scientists the "moon size" inner core is moving fast enough to lap the surface once every 400 years…" The scientists were also quoted as saying, "this makes it [the center core] virtually a planet within a planet". However if, as even establishment scientists would agree, the core is molten and hot then it must give off light. That's more like "a small sun within a planet," just as Gardner visualized.

Today the only difference between Gardner's Hollow Earth Theory and the accepted Theory is that the establishment theorizes there is a molten outer core between the inner core (sun) and the crust. Gardner says there is an atmosphere there.

However, by using only known scientific facts in the equation anyone with an open mind can realize either theory could be right. And those who have been studying the subject for any length of time will realize that, while the accepted theory has changed numerous times since 1913, Gardner's Hollow Earth Theory has never changed … just a long series of new scientific findings to support it. Hollow? Solid? Somewhere in between? No one knows for sure. After all, bottom line - it's all just theory.

Respectfully yours,
Dennis Crenshaw