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NOTE: This article or series has not been updated recently. As such, it may possibly contain some outdated information, and/or ideas and beliefs which I no longer embrace, or which have changed to some degree.



Recently, a person sent me a private message regarding some
information they had obtained regarding the alleged "Tenth
Planet", which some people refer to as "Planet X", and which
is also known in some circles by its Sumerian name "Nibiru";
that is, the "Planet of the Crossing". This person suggested
that Nibiru might fulfill the role of the prophetic deathstar
"Wormwood", which I discuss in my article "Comet Hale-Bopp,
Chernobyl and the DeathStar Wormwood", and which finds its
origin in the eight chapter of the Book of Revelation, as we
see here:

"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star
from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the
third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third
part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the
waters, because they were made bitter."
Revelation 8:10-11, KJV

I first became aware of the Planet X / Nibiru controversy in
the mid to late 1990's. Being a skeptic of anything that is
not firmly founded upon, proven by, or at least in agreement
with the Word of God, or perhaps is even in contradiction to
it, I do have my share of reservations regarding this whole
scenario surrounding writer Zecharia Sitchin, (author of the
1976 book "The Twelfth Planet" and other books), Nibiru, the
proper interpretation of the Sumerian writings, etc.

For those of you who may not be familiar with this subject,
the people who embrace Sitchin's writings believe that the
Sumerians, (the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, or what
is now known as Iraq, the "land between two rivers"), wrote
about Nibiru, and its passages through our Solar System, in
a collection of clay tablets which were discovered by modern
archeologists. Due to Nibiru's elongated orbital path, its
passage through our neighborhood is said to occur once every
3,600 years. It is also claimed that each time that Nibiru
passes within the vicinity of our planet, (actually meaning
millions of miles), it is responsible for great calamities
which befall the Earth; that is, earthquakes, tectonic plate
shifts, climate changes, sea level changes, widespread
death, etc.

In fact, according to Mr. Sitchin's interpretation of the
Sumerian/Akkadian tablets known as the "Enuma Elish", also
referred to as the "Babylonian Epic of Creation", during an
earlier incursion into our Solar System approximately four
billion years ago, (if you accept that date), Planet X, or
Nibiru, collided with another planet, which the Sumerians
referred to as "Tiamat". Sitchin believes that this gigantic
collision resulted in the formation of the Asteroid Belt.
Undoubtedly, some catastrophe of tremendous proportions is
responsible for the formation of the Asteroid Belt, but none
of us know with any certainty what that event may have been.
Some people are convinced that this colossal crash resulted
in the Earth and the Moon being heavily scarred by debris
from this collision. Interestingly enough, in a commentary
entitled "Neptune Attacks!", which appeared in the April 7,
2001 edition of the magazine "New Scientist", author Ivan
Semeniak wrote:

----- Begin Quote -----

There is new evidence that a sudden barrage of deadly debris
crashed against the Earth and the Moon 3.9 billion years ago
. . . What triggered this onslaught? Something in the
structure of the Solar System must have changed.

----- End Quote -----

Zecharia Sitchin seems to hold a slightly different view. In
a June 2002 interview with yowusa.com reporter Steve Russell,
Sitchin states that he believes that the Earth and the Moon
were actually created as a result of this space collision:

----- Begin Quote -----

A long text known as Enuma Elish describes how Nibiru
arrived at an early Solar System and collided with an olden
planet, causing its crash to form the Earth and the Moon.

----- End Quote -----

Zecharia Sitchin also promotes the belief that we modern-day
humans are the results of genetic engineering conducted by a
giant race of ancient alien astronauts from Nibiru, known as
the Anunnaki, which Sitchin interprets as meaning "those who
from heaven to Earth came". Sitchin seems to believe that the
Anunnaki are the same as the Biblical Nephilim or Elohim. As
I point out in my articles, such as "Nephilim: The Giants Of
Genesis", "Elohim" is a Hebrew word used in Genesis, as well
as elsewhere in the Bible, to denote God; whereas the Hebrew
"Nephilim" refers to the Fallen Angels, or "Fallen Ones", who
rebelled against God in Genesis chapter six, came down to the
Earth, and had intercourse with human women, resulting in the
birth of half-human offspring who were giant in stature.

More specifically, Zecharia Sitchin states that an Anunnaki
scientist by the name of Enki, meaning "Lord Earth", created
humankind as a slave race to serve the Anunnaki, by splicing
Anunnaki genes with earthly hominid genes, as we see by this
quote taken from that same interview:

----- Begin Quote -----

. . . some 300,000 years ago engaged in genetic engineering
to bring about Homo-sapiens by mixing their genes with those
of the evolved hominids . . . The leader of the first
expedition to Earth, a great scientist who led the genetic
engineering achievement, was called EN.KI ("Lord Earth").

----- End Quote -----

Thus, while serious men of science view the accounts of the
Anunnaki as Sumerian myths, Sitchin accepts them, and other
Sumerian accounts, as factual and truthful real events from
the ancient past. This is one of the reasons why the academic
community is so hesitant to embrace Sitchin's work.

While I will be commenting on Sitchin's beliefs later on in
this series, I would like to briefly offer my view regarding
the so-called Epic of Creation. Considering the magnitude of
the evidence, which seems to point to the extremely violent
creation of the Asteroid Belt, it is difficult for me to
grasp how Nibiru could crash into Tiamat, resulting in the
decimation of the same, and the formation of the Asteroid
Belt, and then go merrily on its way, unscathed by such an
explosive event, to return every 3,600 years. At the very
least, wouldn't Nibiru have been knocked off course by such
a powerful impact?

Of course, this scenario is based upon the assumption that
the Asteroid Belt was indeed created in this fashion. Maybe
it is really just the debris of molten rock that was left
after the Solar System formed. Perhaps there really was no
interplanetary collision between Nibiru and Tiamat, or any
other planetary bodies in our Solar System for that matter.

An interesting challenge would be to try to calculate the
size of Tiamat, or whatever planet may have existed at that
time, based upon the total combined volume and mass of all
of the matter that is now incorporated in the Asteroid Belt.
Of course, since the Earth and the Moon are also claimed to
have resulted from this impact so long ago, their volume and
mass would have to be included as well. Would the resulting
theoretical planet be smaller than Nibiru; or larger than
Nibiru; or about the same size? What, if any, effects would
this have had on the outcome of the alleged impact? If it
turns out that this theoretical planet would have been much
larger than Nibiru, then obviously, it would be even more
difficult to prove how Nibiru could have survived such a
collision, while the larger planet was totally destroyed.

But what is important for our current discussion is the fact
that Zecharia Sitchin, the person who wrote to me and others
like them, believe that Planet X is near to making another
pass through our Solar System; and they are convinced that
the effects of this coming passage have already begun to be
felt in a variety of ways; such as through perturbations in
the Outer Planets, an increased level of solar activity, a
rise in tectonic plate movement, abnormal weather patterns,
the melting of glaciers and polar ice shelves, etc. They are
convinced that these negative developments will continue to
augment as Nibiru approaches our planet; and that they will
also be accompanied by tidal waves, intense tropical storms,
and meteor showers, or worse, as the space debris captured
by Nibiru's gravitational field is cast down to the Earth.

Not only that, but Nibiru adherents are convinced that the
American Government, and other governments, have been fully
aware of the existence of this invader from the far reaches
of Space for quite some time; and these governments know of
the potential dangers that such an incursion presents to our
planet. In addition to the previous Earth changes, followers
of Sitchin's writings also predict a sudden polar shift that
will result in the death of the vast majority of the Earth's
population. In short, if any of these claims are true, many
will perish as a direct result of the effects of Nibiru's
passage, or as a result of the dire conditions which will
exist on the Earth after Planet X has passed through our
neighborhood of Space.

In offering proof of the U.S. Government's knowledge of the
existence of Nibiru, they point to a number of news reports
and scientific journal reports which have been published
during the past three decades. For example, in the April 7,
2001 edition of "Science News", in an article entitled "A
Comet's Odd Orbit Hints At Hidden Planet", the author opens
the astonishing piece with the line "Far beyond the solar
system's nine known planets, a body as massive as Mars may
once have been part of our planetary system -- and it might
still be there".

The article in question deals with astronomers' study of the
comet designated "2000 CR/105". This comet had caught their
attention due to its very elliptical orbit; an orbit that is
so long, that according to the April 5, 2001 edition of "Sky
& Telescope News", it results in the comet only visiting the
edge of our Solar System about every 3,300 years. In the
report published in "Science News", they noted that "Such an
oblong orbit is usually a sign that an object has come under
the gravitational influence of a massive body". In "Icarus",
another journal, this same team of astronomers concluded
that "the comet's orbit could be the handiwork of an as-yet
unseen planet that would have to lie some 200 AU from the
Sun". An AU, or Astronomical Unit, is the distance from the
Sun to the Earth, or about 93,000,000 miles. Thus, we are
talking about 93 million times 200.

The highly-regarded journal "Science" likewise followed the
story. In a piece entitled "Comet's Course Hints at Mystery
Planet", the April 6, 2001 edition of "Science" stated in
part:

----- Begin Quote -----

A Supercomet following an unexpectedly far-flung path around
the sun suggests that an unidentified planet once lurked in
the outermost reaches of the solar system, an international
team of astronomers reports. What's more, the mysterious
object may still be there.

----- End Quote -----

Going back even further in time, according to one website
that I visited which goes by the name of "Details Here", on
December 30, 1983, the chief scientist of NASA's Infra-Red
Astronomical Satellite telescope, or IRAS, announced to six
American newspapers that they had detected a tenth planet.
The web page in question provided rather scant details. For
example, there were no publication names; there weren't any
direct quotes from the article, and much less from the lead
scientist himself who remained unidentified; and there were
no external links so that I could even attempt to verify the
information.

Well, I tend to be a rather persevering kind of fellow; so,
curious about this news release, I continued to dig around
on the same site while I worked on this series; until a few
days later, I finally found the following quote, attributed
to one Gerry Neugebauer. The website states that this quote
is taken from the Washington Post:

----- Begin Quote -----

A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet
Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part
of this solar system has been found in the direction of the
constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope . . . "All I
can tell you is that we don't know what it is", said Gerry
Neugebauer, chief IRAS scientist.

----- End Quote -----

The creator of this site obviously wanted to make sure that
anyone who visits this page will make a direct connection to
Nibiru. So, directly above this quote, there's an image with
the title "The Meaning Of 12th Planet", which plainly shows
a large reddish-colored Nibiru right after the planet Pluto.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Zecharia Sitchin's
1976 book, "The Twelfth Planet", a brief explanation would
probably be helpful. According to Mr. Sitchin, the ancient
Sumerians counted the Sun and the Moon as member numbers one
and five of our Solar System respectively. Thus, after we've
taken the remaining planets into consideration, that leaves
Nibiru designated as planet number twelve.

Now, here is where the deception enters the equation. On the
first web page that I mentioned, as well as on the page where
the image is found, the site's author clearly states that the
NASA team has announced that they have discovered Planet X.
For example, here is one of the website author's statements
regarding the discovery, as well as the cover-up which they
allege took place immediately afterwards:

----- Begin Quote -----

NASA discovered and excitedly disclosed having found Planet
X. It was December 30th, 1983 that announcement was made by
the chief scientist of the IRAS satellite to 6 dailies. I've
got all the headlines in my book. Shortly thereafter, the
media controllers got wind of the disclosure and clamped
down by having them retract the statements.

----- End Quote -----

Now, allow me to give you a quick test in the form of a true
or false question. A minute ago, you read a quote attributed
to NASA chief IRAS scientist Gerry Neugebauer. In that quote,
Neugebauer states that they had discovered Planet X; true or
false? If you answered "true", you are mistaken. In fact, not
only did Neugebauer not use the word "planet" in that quote,
but he specifically stated that they "don't know what it is".

Of course, being such a short quote, it's quite possible that
we may be missing an important part of the story. Therefore,
I decided to surf the web in the hope of finding a full copy
of the Washington Post news article. Not only did I find it,
but upon visiting a few professional astronomy sites, I also
obtained some background information, as well as information
regarding what developments occurred after the news article
had been published.

Very briefly, in 1983, while using the IRAS telescope, Gerry
Neugebauer and his team, which also included Dr. James Houck
of Cornell University's Center for Radio Physics and Space
Research, discovered several bright point sources which did
not correspond to anything seen on optical images that were
taken of the same areas. Remember; the IRAS is not a typical
optical telescope, such as a refractor or a reflector, that
most amateur astronomers use. It takes what are called far
infra-red images of celestial phenomenon.

At any rate, astronomers perform what are known as "optical
associations", whereby they compare the optical observations
with the IRAS observations. Among other things, this assists
them in detecting motion in the point sources. As a result,
they were able to determine that most of the sources had not
moved, and were therefore extra-solar bodies; that is, they
are not a part of our Solar System. This is a very important
point; because part of the Nibiru mythos, is that not only
is Planet X a part of our Solar System, but it's approaching
the Earth. In the Washington Post article, Neugebauer made it
very clear that whatever it was that they had observed, "It's
not incoming mail. I want to douse that idea with as much
cold water as I can."

The IRAS Science Team published a report regarding nine of
the sources that they had imaged with the IRAS, in the March
1, 1984 edition of Astrophysical Journal Letters. Entitled
"Unidentified Point Sources in the IRAS Minisurvey", in the
paper, they speculated that the sources might possibly be a
distant galaxy that was emitting considerably more infrared
radiation relative to optical radiation than was usual. The
scientists also considered that the point sources might be a
cool object located in the outer Solar System, or perhaps a
brown dwarf star located just outside of our Solar System.
It was also possible that the sources were something totally
different.

In short, as Gerry Neugebauer pointed out in the Washington
Post article, they were uncertain regarding what the sources
were; at least at that time. Sadly, as we all know, the mass
media profits from sensationalism; and when they got word of
the technical paper at a Washington, D.C. press conference,
they ran with it. In addition to the previous quote that I
shared with you, the Washington Post also reported:

----- Begin Quote -----

So mysterious is the object that astronomers do not know if
it is a planet, a giant comet, a 'protostar' that never got
hot enough to become a star, a distant galaxy so young that
it is still in the process of forming its first stars, or a
galaxy so shrouded in dust that none of the light cast by
its stars ever gets through.

----- End Quote -----

It is right after the previous sentence that they quote Gerry
Neugebauer stating that the IRAS Science Team wasn't certain
what the point sources were. The mass media is rather clever
when it comes to mixing sensationalism with the truth; as the
article in question clearly shows. While they do inform their
readers that the scientists don't know what they have imaged,
they also fill the article with all kinds of sensationalistic
sentences from beginning to end. The result is that the truth
becomes even more distorted after a story has circulated for
a while.

Well, in the case of the 1983 incident, the truth finally was
revealed; but the mass media was not interested in publishing
it, because it had no sensationalistic flair to it. According
to the IPAC website, which is NASA's Infrared Processing and
Analysis Center located at Cal Tech, after taking some deeper
images of the point sources, it was determined that most of
the nine objects were in fact a new type of distant galaxies
called Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies, or ULIRG's. ULIRG's
are galaxies in which there is a burst of stars being born.
The IPAC website states that the cocoons of dust in which
these young stars are enshrouded generate copious amounts of
infra-red radiation, which is what was detected by the IRAS
telescope.

The remaining point sources were determined to be dense gas
clouds, or wisps of Galactic infra-red cirrus, in our Milky
Way Galaxy. In the years that followed, these findings were
reported in Nature, Astronomical Journal, and Astrophysical
Journal Letters; but as I said, the mass media ignored it.
These New Age Nibiru websites apparently ignored this new
information as well; preferring instead to simply say that
the U.S. Government, or NASA, or somebody, purposely buried
the truth regarding Nibiru's discovery and coming arrival.
In other words, the pro-Nibiru sites only provide partial
information that seemingly supports their Planet X claims.

Another interesting point I discovered on the IPAC website,
is that "Nearly everyone on the IRAS Science Team who looked
at the early IRAS data found at least one source that they
initially thought could be 'the tenth planet'." It may be for
this reason, that in that same Washington Post news article,
while Dr. James Houck didn't directly say that the IRAS team
had found Planet X, he did make some comments which left the
reader with the impression that he was hoping that they had.
To build upon this idea, the Washington Post article used the
following sensationalistic sentence:

----- Begin Quote -----

The most fascinating explanation of this mystery body, which
is so cold it casts no light and has never been seen by
optical telescopes on Earth or in space, is that it is a
giant gaseous planet, as large as Jupiter and as close to
Earth as 50 billion miles.

----- End Quote -----

In the remainder of the article, they quoted Dr. Houck a few
more times in order to support their earlier sentence. Please
notice that Houck never says that they have definitely found
a tenth planet. He never fully commits himself to that in any
of his words:

----- Begin Quote -----

If it is really that close, it would be a part of our Solar
System . . . If it is that close, I don't know how the
world's planetary scientists would even begin to classify it
. . . This suggests it's not a comet, because a comet would
not be as large as the one we've observed, and a comet would
probably have moved . . . A planet may have moved if it were
as close as 50 billion miles, but it could still be a more
distant planet, and not have moved in six months time.

----- End Quote -----

As you can see, neither Neugebauer or Houck ever clearly said
"Yes, we've definitely found Planet X, the tenth planet". In
announcing the discovery, they were professional and cautious.
As I mentioned before, the article concluded with a statement
from Gerry Neugebauer, the IRAS team leader, who clearly said
that the unknown object was not moving towards the Earth. As
such, it could not be the fabled Nibiru, or Planet X. Despite
these facts, the pro-Nibiru sites took this information and
twisted it, so that it appeared as if the IRAS discovery was
proof of Nibiru's existence. The IRAS team discovered ULIRG's
and gas clouds, and not a tenth planet called Nibiru.

The idea of discovering a tenth planet in our Solar System is
nothing new. There have been a number of individuals over the
decades who have sought to find it, or who have thought that
they may have found it, or perhaps had observed it effects on
other celestial objects, such as comets, and planets in our
own Solar System.

The Planet X hypothesis originated with astronomer Percival
Lowell during the early 20th century. Lowell believed that a
large gas giant located on the fringes of our Solar System
was responsible for what he assumed to be perturbations in
the orbits of the planets Neptune and Uranus. While modern
scientific measurements have proven this to be wrong, at the
time, Lowell designated this undiscovered body as Planet X.
The "X" was meant to symbolize the word "unknown", and not
the Roman numeral ten. Due in large part to Lowell's work,
in 1930, fourteen years after Lowell's death, Clyde Tombaugh
discovered the tiny planet Pluto, now referred to as a Dwarf
Planet.

In more recent years, the mass media has sometimes resorted
to erroneously using the phrase "tenth planet" when certain
astronomical events have been announced. Such was the case
when two Trans-Neptunian Objects were discovered; Quaoar in
2002, and Sedna in 2004. Even more recently, in 2005, both
the mass media and NASA briefly referred to the Scattered
Disk Object, Eris, as the tenth planet. We will be talking
more about Eris later on in this series. However, what I am
trying to emphasize here, is that when astronomers discuss a
hypothetical tenth planet, and New Agers talk about Planet X,
it doesn't necessarily mean that they are talking about the
same thing; and that is where part of the deception lies.

While Percival Lowell coined the phrase "Planet X" to denote
a theoretical planet which he believed may have existed just
beyond the orbit of Neptune and Uranus, when astronomers use
the phrase "the tenth planet" today, they actually mean any
planet which may potentially be discovered within our Solar
System. This new discovery would naturally have acquired the
status of tenth planet, since Pluto was the 9th planet until
its demotion in August of 2006. Again, we will be discussing
Pluto's fall from grace later on in this series.

However, when these New Age websites talk about Planet X, or
the tenth planet, they are usually talking about Nibiru. They
are talking about a mythological planet described in ancient
Sumerian clay tablets, which, according to Zecharia Sitchin's
followers, is inhabited by a giant race of lizard-like space-
faring aliens; that is, the Anunnaki, who allegedly came to
the Earth, and started the modern human race through genetic
engineering some 300,000 years ago. And lest I forget, it is
also claimed that these war-prone aliens employed the use of
nuclear weapons, which resulted in the destruction of their
space port located in the Sinai Peninsula. Is it any wonder
then that the astronomy community wishes to disassociate
themselves from such Planet X nonsense?

As we have already seen, in their attempts to convince non-
believers that Nibiru is real, some Planet X supporters will
resort to different means of persuasion. They will purposely
cloud the issue, and use the power of suggestion, by mixing
real scientific data, news stories, images, etc. with a lot
of their New Age psycho-babble, so that people will see what
they want them to see. Sadly, they also attempt to use God's
Word to add Scriptural authority to their wayward positions.
I saw these subtle techniques used on a number of the Nibiru
websites that I visited while conducting research for this
series. They are trying to attach scientific and Scriptural
validity to Sitchin's highly questionable interpretations of
the Sumerian clay tablets. They are trying to make it appear
as if "Planet X", "Nibiru" and "Tenth Planet" are synonymous
terms, when they most definitely are not. Can you see that?

One thing that bothered me as I looked into this issue, is
the number of dead links that I encountered. Hoping to find
proof of what these people are saying, it was disappointing
to be repeatedly faced with a 404 error; that is, a missing
document error. It seems to me that if Nibiru promoters are
that serious about proving their point, they would do their
best to provide us with real, concrete evidence, which does
not leave any room for doubt; and they would make sure that
any links they provide are still valid. A case in point is
another experience I had on the "Details Here" website. In
presenting their evidence for the existence of Nibiru, they
mentioned a press release which supposedly was posted on the
popular Discovery Channel website in July, 2001. This news
article related the discovery of a large Kuiper Belt Object,
or KBO, called 2001 KX76, orbiting in the region near Pluto.

As I explain in a few of my other space-related and alien/UFO
articles, the Kuiper Belt is located in a distant region of
Space which extends about thirty to fifty Astronomical Units
from the Sun. It begins roughly at the orbit of Neptune. The
Kuiper Belt is populated by hundreds of frozen objects, maybe
more. A few of these objects are the size of the planet Pluto
while many others are considerably smaller. A few are larger
than Pluto as well. New objects are being discovered in the
Kuiper Belt all the time, so no one knows what the future may
hold. Short-period comets, that is, those with orbital cycles
of two hundred years or less, such as Comet Halley, are also
believed to originate in the Kuiper Belt as well.

Some of you who are involved in the field of astronomy are
undoubtedly aware of the controversy which has surrounded
Pluto, Kuiper Belt Objects and Dwarf Planets. Some planetary
scientists argue that Pluto should remain classified as the
ninth planet, while others sustain that it is in reality just
a large Kuiper Belt Object. This controversy arose in part as
a result of the evolving discovery in the early 1990's, that
Pluto's orbit lays within the boundaries of the Kuiper Belt.
As more Kuiper Belt Objects were discovered, it cast doubt
on Pluto's status as a true planet.

About a century earlier, the asteroid Ceres faced a similar
challenge. At the time of its discovery, it was heralded as
a new planet; but as time passed, more objects were found
which had orbits similar to that of Ceres. Eventually, these
were all demoted to the status of asteroids. An interesting
side note to this story, is that for a short time following
the discovery of the first four asteroids, and before they
were demoted to the status of asteroid, the planet Saturn
was considered to be the tenth planet.

The 2005 discovery of Eris; plus the realization that other
large objects might soon be discovered which would further
challenge Pluto's status as the ninth planet, only served to
hasten Pluto's demotion. Eris is a little larger than Pluto,
and is actually referred to as an SDO; that is, a Scattered
Disk Object, and not as a KBO. It orbits our Sun in an even
more remote area of Space referred to as the Scattered Disc,
which lies just beyond the Kuiper Belt. Astronomers believe
that objects found in the Scattered Disk were scattered out
from the Kuiper Belt, due to their gravitational interaction
with the planet Neptune. Thus we have Kuiper Belt Objects,
which are viewed as a subset of Trans-Neptunian Objects, and
we have Scattered Disk Objects, which are also a category of
Trans-Neptunian Objects, or TNO's.

We will continue our discussion concerning Nibiru, Planet X,
Zecharia Sitchin, Wormwood, etc., in part two of this series.
I trust that you will join me.

⇒ Go To The Next Part . . .

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