Joe Rogan Experience #1124 - Robert Schoch
Joe Rogan (host), Robert Schoch (guest)
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Robert Schoch, Joe Rogan Experience #1124 - Robert Schoch explores solar Catastrophe, Ancient Egypt, and the Hidden Origins of Civilization Geologist Robert Schoch argues that key Egyptian monuments, especially the Sphinx and related temples, are far older than mainstream Egyptology claims and likely predate 9700 BC. He bases this on geological weathering patterns, seismic surveys revealing unexplored chambers, and architectural evidence of later “refacing” over much older cores.
Solar Catastrophe, Ancient Egypt, and the Hidden Origins of Civilization
Geologist Robert Schoch argues that key Egyptian monuments, especially the Sphinx and related temples, are far older than mainstream Egyptology claims and likely predate 9700 BC. He bases this on geological weathering patterns, seismic surveys revealing unexplored chambers, and architectural evidence of later “refacing” over much older cores.
Schoch links the end of the last Ice Age to a massive solar outburst—coronal mass ejections and extreme plasma events—rather than (or in addition to) comet impacts, proposing this triggered global flooding, intense lightning, radiation spikes, and a “solar-induced dark age” (SIDA) lasting thousands of years.
He connects global petroglyphs, aurora-like plasma forms, and traditions like Egypt’s Zep Tepi to this period, suggesting a prior advanced cycle of civilization that was largely destroyed, with later cultures (including dynastic Egypt) rebuilding on and refurbishing far older structures.
Schoch describes strong institutional resistance from Egyptologists, efforts to marginalize or shut down unconventional research, and his attempts to formalize this line of study through academic institutes and nonprofit organizations while calling for serious investigation of unexplored chambers beneath the Sphinx and elsewhere.
Key Takeaways
Geological weathering on the Sphinx enclosure indicates a much older age than 2500 BC.
The Sphinx and its enclosure walls show deep, rounded precipitation erosion and vertical fissures consistent with heavy rainfall, not desert wind and sand—implying exposure to a wetter climate that ended by roughly 9700 BC.
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The Sphinx likely has a re-carved head and an unexplored chamber beneath its paw.
Schoch notes the head is geologically younger and too small for the body, suggesting an earlier lioness form (Mehet). ...
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A massive solar outburst may have triggered the abrupt end of the Ice Age.
Isotope data, vitrified rocks, “impact” markers like microspherules and shocked quartz, and global petroglyphs resembling plasma discharge forms point to extreme solar activity causing rapid warming, flooding, and intense radiation around 9700 BC.
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Civilization may follow cycles: rise, solar-induced collapse, and reemergence.
Schoch’s SIDA model posits an advanced pre-Ice Age civilization largely destroyed by solar events, followed by a 6,000-year dark age and then the reemergence of complex societies (including dynastic Egypt) rebuilding on older sacred sites.
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Major Egyptian monuments likely incorporate much older cores beneath later refurbishments.
Evidence from the Sphinx/Valley temples, the Red Pyramid, and the Great Pyramid’s “sacred mound” suggests Fourth Dynasty builders were restoring or encasing existing megalithic structures, not creating everything from scratch.
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Ancient machining and stoneworking skills exceed what standard narratives allow.
Perfectly symmetrical hard-stone vessels, deep core-drilled holes, saw cut marks in granite, and exquisitely carved statues indicate high-precision techniques—possibly involving powered tools—whose methods are undocumented and poorly explained by hand-tool models.
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Modern technological society is highly vulnerable to a new solar outburst.
Events on the scale of the 1859 Carrington Event—or larger—could destroy satellites, fry power grids, and destabilize nuclear infrastructure, suggesting we should study past solar catastrophes not just for history, but for practical preparedness.
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Notable Quotes
“You always have to follow the evidence wherever it goes, and that's always been my rule of thumb, that not everything is always the way people say it is, even if they're ‘authorities.’”
— Robert Schoch
“This was not weathered by wind and sand. This was not desert erosion and weathering that I saw on the Sphinx… That can only be caused by precipitation.”
— Robert Schoch
“What we had ending the Younger Dryas, ending the last Ice Age was a huge eruption from the sun, a huge solar outburst… It would be like northern lights on steroids.”
— Robert Schoch
“We’ve essentially had an earlier cycle of civilization that was snuffed out, or brought to its knees, by the end of the last Ice Age.”
— Robert Schoch
“If we had a Carrington-level event now… it would fry our grid lines, knock out all the huge transformers, probably knock out all the satellites. It would really bring us to our knees as a technological society.”
— Robert Schoch
Questions Answered in This Episode
If Schoch’s redating of the Sphinx is correct, what other iconic sites might similarly conceal much older cores or phases of construction?
Geologist Robert Schoch argues that key Egyptian monuments, especially the Sphinx and related temples, are far older than mainstream Egyptology claims and likely predate 9700 BC. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What kinds of concrete evidence—beyond geology and seismic data—would finally force mainstream Egyptology to revise its timelines?
Schoch links the end of the last Ice Age to a massive solar outburst—coronal mass ejections and extreme plasma events—rather than (or in addition to) comet impacts, proposing this triggered global flooding, intense lightning, radiation spikes, and a “solar-induced dark age” (SIDA) lasting thousands of years.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How could we rigorously test the solar-outburst hypothesis against impact/comet models for the end of the Younger Dryas?
He connects global petroglyphs, aurora-like plasma forms, and traditions like Egypt’s Zep Tepi to this period, suggesting a prior advanced cycle of civilization that was largely destroyed, with later cultures (including dynastic Egypt) rebuilding on and refurbishing far older structures.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What specific engineering or organizational knowledge would be required to recreate structures like Gobekli Tepe or the Great Pyramid today?
Schoch describes strong institutional resistance from Egyptologists, efforts to marginalize or shut down unconventional research, and his attempts to formalize this line of study through academic institutes and nonprofit organizations while calling for serious investigation of unexplored chambers beneath the Sphinx and elsewhere.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Given our current dependence on electronics and nuclear power, what practical steps could modern societies take to mitigate the risk of a major solar event like the ones Schoch describes?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
Ready? Five, four, three, two, one. Mr. Schoch, first of all, thank you very, very, very much for being here.
Oh-
I've been following your work for a long time now, and, uh, I'm, I'm very appreciative of you and very appreciative of everything you've done. And I've been fascinated by the subject of ancient Egypt, so I'm, um, I really, I'm really psyched, very psyched to have you here.
Well, thank you. It's a real pleasure to be here. I've, I've heard a lot about your show. I've heard a lot about you. My, um, of course the late John Anthony West, I think was on with you a couple of times, maybe?
Yeah, yeah.
He was very proud that I guess you did the only full Skype interview with him. (laughs)
Yeah, that's the only one I've ever done is with him.
Yeah, he used to like to talk about that, so...
(laughs) Well, I just had to talk to him, and, you know, he was in Upstate New York at the time, and it was just, he really didn't have any plans to come down here. And, um, I just, I was very fortunate to one day get him in studio, though. It was really nice.
Yeah, yeah.
So, it's been wonderful.
Well, his work, um, that DVD series that he did, Magical Egypt-
It was re- it was amazing.
Yeah.
And I'd seen your work before that in that Mysteries of the Sphinx thing that was narrated by Charlton Heston.
Charlton Heston, NBC 1993.
Yeah.
I think in many ways it was the Mystery of the Sphinx that really broke everything open, brought everything to the public attention. I've had many people tell me... I'm not trying to brag or anything, I'm just saying factually-
Mm-hmm.
... that this really opened up a new field, if we could put it that way, a new, um, you know, way of looking at things in the popular, among the popular, um, public.
Yeah.
You know, press, the popular media, the... But people around the world, versus the academic scholarly journals and the back and forth, that type of thing. You have to remember, I'm a faculty member. I'm at Boston University, I'm an academic. Uh, and many of the academics have pooh-poohed, should we say, over the years, bringing things to the public. But I think it's been important to do.
Now, what we're talking about for the people that are uninformed is the idea that some of the structures in ancient Egypt are far older than conventional wisdom or conventional modern-day archeology, modern-day Egyptologists, they would like us to believe that all of this spawned from a very specific time period. And people like John Anthony West and yourself and some other folks like Graham Hancock are proposing that it's entirely possible that there were many different eras of construction in Egypt, and that there are some structures that are far, far older than we think.
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