Important Note!: UBtheNEWS employed a "Class Descriptions" system for guiding people to the more impressive corroborations. This system is explained below and the material produced for it this system is still provided because it still has value. UBtheNEWS is, however, in the process of transitioning out of the Class Descriptions system. As the work of documenting corroborations continues to develop, the frequency of multiple discoveries or advances supporting various statements in The Urantia Book, and to varying degrees, has rendered the original classification system inadequate. A new system of guidance to help visitors be efficient with their time on this site is currently being developed. In the meantime, the information below continues to be reasonably helpful with finding and insightful about UBtheNEWS reports.

Thank you for your patience during this transition period.

Class Descriptions

Each report is put into one of four classifications: Class A, B, C, or D. These classifications are designed to help visitors efficiently identify the relative impressiveness of each of the reports. The Class Descriptions give an explanation for a report’s classification and provide some insights into the nature of the corroboration(s). Classifying reports is, of course, subjective and imprecise by its nature. Nonetheless, various considerations can be identified to provide some understanding of why the choice was made to place a report into a given Class. The following types of questions guide this process:

1. How many correlations can be made between The Urantia Book’s statements about the topic and new scientific understandings and/or discoveries that have developed?
2. How precise are the statements made by The Urantia Book?
3. How precise is the science/scholarly understanding of the subject?
4. How precise are the correlations?
5. Did The Urantia Book make an original assertion; did it say something that was not being given any consideration at the time of its publication?
6. Did some portion of the scholarly community either agree with or speculate about the assertion(s) made by The Urantia Book?
7. Did The Urantia Book make an assertion that contradicted the majority of scholarly opinion at the time of publication?
8. Is the topic now generally considered to be a settled topic within the scholarly community?
9. Is the subject matter easily understood by a person who does not have expertise in the field?
10. How long did it take science to catch up to the assertion(s) made by The Urantia Book?

The general guidelines for each Class are as follows:

Class A reports have numerous correlations associated with them. The science on the subject is a reasonably settled matter; there is very little, if any, controversy regarding the science or the discovery. The subject matter involves something that was not particularly predictable. It took significant scientific progress for the corroborations to occur. The subject area is not so complicated or technical that it requires an advanced degree in the relevant field in order to appreciate the corroborations.

Class B reports include subjects with only one or few corroborations. They may not be completely settled areas of science, but nonetheless have a significant discovery or scientific advancement that strongly supports an assertion made by The Urantia Book. This class includes issues that are imprecise by their nature, and yet exhibit an emerging trend that is reversing previously held scholarly opinions on the subject. Even though imprecise, if numerous discoveries support the corroboration, the topic may be placed in this class. If the corroborations are strong, topics that are complicated or technical are acceptable as Class B reports.

Class C reports are reasonably solid examples of science or a discovery that has caught up to The Urantia Book, but for one reason or another, they are not especially impressive. Typically, these reports involve a single assertion made by The Urantia Book. It is difficult for topics related to astrophysics or (sub)atomic physics to rise higher than this classification no matter how otherwise impressive the corroboration may be, because such topics are remote from human experience and involve scientifically sophisticated subject matter. This classification is appropriate for topics where corroborations exist, but the science is not yet a settled matter within the scholarly community.

Class D reports include topics that are intriguing and worthy of mention, but are not clear examples of science or discovery catching up to The Urantia Book. Included in this classification are examples where The Urantia Book avoided supporting science that was widely accepted in 1955 and has since been discredited. The topics may be intriguing but somewhat unimpressive due to the nature of the assertion, the quality of the corroboration, and/or because the issue remains unsettled within the scholarly community. This classification may involve topics where the corroboration was established before publication, but after the plates for printing the book were completed (conservatively dated by the end of 1949). This classification may also include subjects where the corroboration occurred before 1950, but the vast majority of the scholarly community was not aware of or accepting of this information, even if no contrary assertions were being embraced at the time.

Class A Reports

Adam and Eve: Numerous genetics reports provide support for The Urantia Book’s story about Adam and Eve. This was considered a Class A report when only the Bruce Lahn-led research into Microcephalin was available because of the numerous correlations to Microcephalin haplogroup D. Parallels to the initial Microcephalin research are now bolstered by a follow up study showing a correlation to the use of nontonal languages. Additionally, strong correlations to two Y chromosome studies are now documented in this report. This Class A report keeps getting better.

Garden of Eden: The Urantia Book says that the Garden of Eden was a peninsula that jutted out from the eastern Mediterranean coast and that this peninsula sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea 33,000 years ago. Many details are given about the size and shape of the peninsula. When The Urantia Book was published in 1955, we did not have a clear picture of the topography of the bottom of the Mediterranean, which is about 4,000 feet deep in this area. There were only sporadic depth readings at specific points. We now have detailed topographic maps of the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea that reveal a formation that matches The Urantia Book's description of the Garden of Eden in every detail. Nothing else along the coast even comes close to matching the description. Additionally, this formation is precisely at the convergence of three very active tectonic plates and tectonic plate theory was not invented until about a decade after The Urantia Book was published.

Gobekli Tepe: The Gobekli Tepe archaeological site in Turkey, which dates back to approximately 12,000 years ago, while mysterious to scholars, is especially consistent with the history of humanity provided in The Urantia Book for that region. The numerous carved stone structures placed on a hill were intentionally buried about 8,000 years ago. The 12,000 year old carved stones reflect a degree of cultural development and organization that is especially inconsistent with the prevailing theories, which suggest that around 12,000 years ago human beings were just beginning to evolve from being hunter-gatherers to herder-farmers. The archaeological evidence at Gobekli Tepe is not only are consistent with The Urantia Book’s assertion that a superior culture lived in this region 12,000 years ago and more, but also is consistent with its depiction of how this superior and peaceful civilization was eventually driven out by an inferior and more barbaric tribes. Because this site is especially consistent with specific historic information uniquely portrayed in The Urantia Book about human conflicts in this area that occurred so long ago, because the site itself is especially inconsistent with prevailing theories about the development of primitive cultures but consistent with The Urantia Book, and because of the close, and therefore mutually supportive, relationship this has with the Adam and Eve Report and the Garden of Eden Report, this is a Class A Report.

Class B Reports

Creating Fire: This report focuses on when human beings (Homo erectus) were first able to create fire. The Urantia Book says that flint was used to make fire nearly 1,000,000 years ago and indicates that this occurred in the region of Mesopotamia. In 2004 excavations at an archaeological site in Israel provided strong evidence that fire was being created with flint around 800,000 years ago, which pushes the date back by hundreds of thousands of years and is in the Mesopotamia region, unlike other sites in Europe and China that only suggest the possibility that human beings were able to create fire about 500,000 years ago. More definitive evidence for the creation of fire exists from 200,000 years ago. By any analysis of when human beings were first able to create fire, this new discovery pushes the date back by hundreds of thousands of years. Because the 2004 discovery supports the time, location, and methodology and substantially pushes the back the date for the creation of fire, this is a Class B report.

Early Migration to the Americas: At the time The Urantia Book was published in 1955 and for decades afterwards, the predominant theory regarding when human beings migrated to the American continents was that this occurred about 11,500 years ago by way of a Bering Strait land bridge. By the late 1980's and early 1990's this position started to lose a lot of support because of various sites discovered in North and South America that indicated the presence of human habitation dating back 40,000 to 60,000 years. The oldest site that indicates human presence is in Brazil, which is also the farthest distance from Alaska of the ancient sites that have been discovered. Because researchers in this field have not yet developed a collective and definitive position on the issue of when migration across the Bering Strait land bridge occurred and other theories about migration by boat have some support, this report is placed in Class B.

Inner Ionosphere: The Urantia Book states that there is an “inner ionosphere” below the stratosphere. Though such a region is not yet classified by scientists, in the late 1980's and early 1990's substantial documentation was produced of a luminescent phenomenon that shoots out of the top of thunderclouds and typically rises no higher than the lower part of the stratosphere. Luminescence in the atmosphere is generally indicative of ionic activity. Scientists are still having a hard time explaining this phenomenon, which bodes well for The Urantia Book's assertion.

What is especially intriguing about this report is that there were articles published by Harlan Stetson in the first half of the twentieth century that so closely parallel The Urantia Book's statements about earth's atmosphere (line by line for a couple of paragraphs) that there is a very strong indication that Stetson's work was used by the authors of The Urantia Book as a guide for the presentation of its depiction of this material. Though Stetson refers to the ionosphere as being above the stratosphere (consistent with the then and current position by the vast majority of scientists in this field), The Urantia Book departs from this obvious source material by denominating a new region below the stratosphere. Because of this departure, the documentation of this phenomenon, called “blue jets,” is especially intriguing. It is anticipated that this report will be updated before long and placed in the Class A category as additional research in this field develops an explanation for the presence of this newly discovered type of atmospheric luminescence.

Magnetic Sensitivity: The Urantia Book makes a very broad statement, asserting that all animals have a sensitivity to the earth’s magnetic field. When it was published in 1955, biologists had considered the possibility of migratory animals nagivating by way of sensitivity to this field, but the vast majority of them had concluded that the earth’s magnetic field was too weak to be detected by a biological mechanism. Today, many, though certainly not all, animals have been shown to have such a sensitivity and various mechanisms have been discovered to support this ability.

Pangaea to Plate Tectonics: Continental drift was not widely accepted by science until the theories of sea floor spreading and plate tectonics were developed within about a decade after The Urantia Book was published. But continental drift was around as a theory long before The Urantia Book was published. The Urantia Book refers to continental drift extensively. It makes other statements that are consistent with sea floor spreading and plate tectonics, though it does not get overly specific about these now widely accepted models of geologic activity.

The Garden of Eden Report supports putting this in the Class B category because of that topic’s relationship to plate tectonics.

Vikings: This is a Class B report because:

1. It pertains to several assertions in The Urantia Book that have now been amply verified and accepted by the vast majority of scholars. Specifically, when contact with the Native American population by the white race of Europeans occurred.
2. When The Urantia Book was published in 1955 only a small minority of scholars had strong opinions in support of The Urantia Book's position. Notwithstanding that writings from around 1300 A.D. asserted that the Vikings landed in North America just before 1000 A.D., these “sagas” were highly suspect because they were not firsthand accounts, having been passed down by oral tradition for hundreds of years before being penned and because no artifacts or other physical evidence had been discovered at time of The Urantia Book's publication.
3. Today numerous archeological finds exist, which verify The Urantia Book's assertions and which are accepted by the vast majority of scholars on this subject as proof of the issues at hand.
4. This corroboration interrelates with the Early Migration to the Americas Report. More than one aspect of the history of the Native American population provided in The Urantia Book, which was generally rejected when it was published, now finds support with the majority of scholars.

Class C Reports

Chromosome Count: When The Urantia Book was published in 1955, scientists believed that human beings have forty-eitht chromosomes. Prior to 1955 there had been some speculation about whether there might be forty-six chromosomes, but this was universally rejected. The revision to forty-six chromosomes was made one year after The Urantia Book’s publication. This revision was necessary for properly interpreting The Urantia Book’s assertion that there are forty-eight units of pattern control in the sex cells of human beings. Because Chromosome Count relates to a single corroboration of fact regarding a matter where the researchers almost had it right the first time, this is a Class C report.

Early Migration to Britain: Funding for and renewed interest in excavating some of Britain’s oldest archaeological sites ripened around the new millennium. This development has already produced significant results that push the occupation of Britain by primitive man back 200,000 years. Though consistent with and corroborative of information provided on this subject by The Urantia Book, these newly confirmed dates for the early human habitation of Britain still do not go nearly as far back as what it asserts. Additionally, The Urantia Book states that there are three or four sites that can confirm its assertions; this has not yet occurred. The new discoveries were a surprise to scholars and, coming decades after publication, lend credibility to The Urantia Book. This report is initially being prepared as a Class C report with the expectation that the ongoing efforts by the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project will soon produce additional discoveries that will elevate this to a Class B report.

Galaxies: Who's Counting: The Urantia Book says that in the “not-distant future” our instruments will see no less than 375 million galaxies. The Hubble Space Telescope, launched (and then repaired) in the early 1990's has made this statement more than true. Estimates of the number of observable galaxies now range over 100 billion. Even though this statement has come true, it is placed in the Class C category because this prediction is not considered to be a particularly unlikely prediction.

Tycho's Nova: On the one hand, The Urantia Book gives some very specific information about Tycho's Nova, and it required significant technological advances and the development of complex scientific analysis to corroborate The Urantia Book's assertion. It took decades after The Urantia Book's publication in 1955 for astronomers to catch up, and there was not speculation in the scientific community either way about Tycho's Nova having a double star origin prior to 1955.

On the other hand, this is a single-issue topic. The Urantia Book makes just one statement on this specific subject. Additionally, there can be no direct observation of the assertion that a double star system gave rise to the supernova; once a supernova occurs the opportunity to observe it is gone and Tycho's Nova occurred hundreds of years ago, long before we had the technology to directly observe whether it originated as a double star. Therefore, forensic analysis is required to make assertions about its origin.

Class D Reports

Mercury's Rotation: This is a Class D topic because The Urantia Book merely avoided supporting science that was incorrect when the book was first published in 1955. Typically, this type of issue would not justify the writing of a report; there really is not a corroboration associated with this topic. However, there has been a longstanding dispute both among Urantia Book readers and nonreaders as to whether this constitutes an example of an erroneous statement in The Urantia Book. This controversy has developed because of a misreading of the relevant sentences on the subject and issues related to the definition of terminology. The report was primarily prepared to help put an end to these misunderstandings by providing a thorough analysis of the subject and, therefore, this report only qualifies as a Class D topic.

Shroud of Turin: The Shroud of Turin Report is a Class D topic because, taken by itself, the quality of credibility that this report gives The Urantia Book is very slight, even negligible. However, what the Shroud of Turin Report lacks by way of credibility it makes up for with intrigue. This report lends more credibility to the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin than the other way around. Scientific analysis of the image on the Shroud of Turin that developed after The Urantia Book was published in 1955 does have a peculiar and fascinating relationship to its account of what happened to Jesus’ body after he was placed in the burial chamber.

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