The Great Deluge: Fact or Fiction

Now is the time to choose a consensus, scientific hypothesis for all mankind that sweeps away the myths, legends, fringe arguments, and pseudoscience about this worldwide catastrophe.

Important quotes from renowned scientists and theorists known for their fringe, but well supported scientific claims involving the ancient past:
Quote by D.S. Allan & J.B. Delair from their book, “Cataclysm!”:
“ … the calamity profoundly affected all forms of terrestrial life, early Man included, … Accordingly, almost every nation of antiquity perpetuated the memory of it in tradition, ceremony, religio-social attitudes, art and epic literature, and all regarded it as a major historical datum. Today, if it is remembered at all, it is known as the Great Flood or the Noachian Deluge. … it is sensible to support or retain a theory only if it ‘works’, provided that, in drawing diverse fragments of knowledge in defensible patterns, it enables useful predictions to be made about the shape of further discoveries.” Allan and Delair support their case with a displaced axis by a close encounter, but differ with no change in Earth’s oblateness and no presence of a Laurentide Ice Cap.

Quote by Graham Hancock from one of his blogs http://grahamhancock.com/ancient-cataclysm-hancock/:
“The earth was hit by a comet around 12,800 years ago with globally cataclysmic effects that brought on an epoch of devastating, cold, darkness and floods known by geologists as the Younger Dryas. … The epicenter of the impact was on the North American ice cap but other large fragments of the same object also hit the Northern European ice cap.” The comet impact is NASA’s latest hypothesis, but fails to address all the elements of the flood stories.

Quote by Walt Brown, PhD, from his book, “In the Beginning”:
“A gigantic flood may be the most common of all legends – ever. Almost every ancient culture has legends telling of a traumatic flood in which only a few humans survived in a large boat. … More than 230 flood legends contain many common elements, suggesting they have a common historical source that left vivid impressions on survivors of that catastrophe.” Brown supports his case with the ‘hydroplate theory’ that jettisons unbelievable amounts of mucky, subterranean waters into the atmosphere that causes both the Biblical Noah story and the ‘fast freeze’ of megafauna found in the Arctic. Brown has no celestial intruder in his version of the flood.