Nov 7, 2025 04:42 PM
https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2025/11/phant...ht-in-1752
EXCERPTS: . . . However, the Julian system was not perfectly accurate. Over time, the calendar drifted slowly out of alignment with the solar year. This proved to be a problem, especially for the Christians who depended on the calendar to determine the date of Easter...
[...] To solve this, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582. The new system refined the leap year rules. [...] This subtle change brought the calendar closer to the true length of a solar year. But the reform came with a drastic step; to bring the calendar back into alignment, 10 days were skipped. So the day after Thursday 4 October, 1582 was not Friday 5 October, but Friday 15 October. The 10 intervening days simply vanished.
The adoption of the Gregorian calendar was not uniform across Europe. The British Empire did not switch until 1752, by which time the drift had grown to 11 days. So, in the UK, Wednesday 2 September, 1752 was immediately followed by Thursday 14 September, 1752. This is the calendar system we continue to use today.
But there is a problem. If you count backward from the introduction of the Gregorian reforms of 1582 to the introduction of the Julian Calendar in 45 BC, and do your sums, it turns out that we should actually have been 13 days adrift from the solar year, not 10. So what happened to the missing three days?
[...] Initially proposed in the 1980s and 1990s by German historian Heribert Illig, the Phantom Time Hypothesis suggests that about three centuries of history – from 614 CE to 911 CE – never happened. According to Illig, these centuries were fabricated, and our calendar was simply advanced without the actual passage of time. Like a super-sized version of the 11 days in 1752.
[...] The Phantom Time Hypothesis, like many conspiracy theories, is superficially fascinating and perhaps even compelling, but faces numerous challenges when you get into the details.
[...] The Chinese calendar, independent of the European one, also records astronomical events such as eclipses and comets. These too correspond with the accepted historical dates in Western calendars further undermining the hypothesis.
Despite the weight of evidence against it, the Phantom Time Hypothesis has its adherents. Illig himself has remained defiant in the face of criticism, perceiving skepticism of his views as a personal attack rather than scholarly debate. This pattern is common in fringe theories, where proponents dismiss contradictory evidence as conspiracy or bias.
So, while it is tempting to imagine that entire centuries of human history could be a fabrication, the evidence tells us otherwise. History remains largely intact, and the Phantom Time Hypothesis remains just that – a hypothesis, without credible foundation... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: . . . However, the Julian system was not perfectly accurate. Over time, the calendar drifted slowly out of alignment with the solar year. This proved to be a problem, especially for the Christians who depended on the calendar to determine the date of Easter...
[...] To solve this, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582. The new system refined the leap year rules. [...] This subtle change brought the calendar closer to the true length of a solar year. But the reform came with a drastic step; to bring the calendar back into alignment, 10 days were skipped. So the day after Thursday 4 October, 1582 was not Friday 5 October, but Friday 15 October. The 10 intervening days simply vanished.
The adoption of the Gregorian calendar was not uniform across Europe. The British Empire did not switch until 1752, by which time the drift had grown to 11 days. So, in the UK, Wednesday 2 September, 1752 was immediately followed by Thursday 14 September, 1752. This is the calendar system we continue to use today.
But there is a problem. If you count backward from the introduction of the Gregorian reforms of 1582 to the introduction of the Julian Calendar in 45 BC, and do your sums, it turns out that we should actually have been 13 days adrift from the solar year, not 10. So what happened to the missing three days?
[...] Initially proposed in the 1980s and 1990s by German historian Heribert Illig, the Phantom Time Hypothesis suggests that about three centuries of history – from 614 CE to 911 CE – never happened. According to Illig, these centuries were fabricated, and our calendar was simply advanced without the actual passage of time. Like a super-sized version of the 11 days in 1752.
[...] The Phantom Time Hypothesis, like many conspiracy theories, is superficially fascinating and perhaps even compelling, but faces numerous challenges when you get into the details.
[...] The Chinese calendar, independent of the European one, also records astronomical events such as eclipses and comets. These too correspond with the accepted historical dates in Western calendars further undermining the hypothesis.
Despite the weight of evidence against it, the Phantom Time Hypothesis has its adherents. Illig himself has remained defiant in the face of criticism, perceiving skepticism of his views as a personal attack rather than scholarly debate. This pattern is common in fringe theories, where proponents dismiss contradictory evidence as conspiracy or bias.
So, while it is tempting to imagine that entire centuries of human history could be a fabrication, the evidence tells us otherwise. History remains largely intact, and the Phantom Time Hypothesis remains just that – a hypothesis, without credible foundation... (MORE - missing details)