A cataclysm rocked our planet 12,800 years ago, causing mass extinctions of large animals such as the mammoth and sloth bears, and all but wiping out our own race. An entire episode in the human story was rubbed out, a chapter not of unsophisticated hunter-gatherers but of advanced technology.

All the signs are that remnants of this civilisation struggled on, sustained by a few individuals who knew the secrets of the former age. To their primitive contemporaries, it appeared that they possessed magical, holy powers — they were what I call the Magicians of the Gods.

These Magicians left a message for us — not a metaphorical, spiritual message, but a direct and urgent warning. What happened before can happen again; what destroyed their world can destroy ours.

Even more puzzling is the position of the stars — not quite where they would have been in the sky 12,000 years ago . . . but exactly where they are today. It is as though these mysterious, impossibly learned builders constructed their temple as though it existed in the present day.

The Magicians of the Gods were trying to get a message to us, here in the 21st century, writes Graham Hancock. We need to listen The Magicians of the Gods had a message for our times, and it is not one we can afford to ignore.