Podcast # 6: Planet X – Fact or Fiction?
Scott: My name is Scott Paton. I am talking today with Allan Colston. He is the author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. This is a book dealing with prophecy.
For those listeners who may be new to this topic, today’s podcast is the sixth in the series, and is titled “Planet X – Fact or Fiction?” Hello Allan and welcome.
Thanks Scott. It’s good to talk to you again.
Scott: So what exactly is Planet X?
So… Planet X….. What exactly is it? Good question Well to give you a straight answer Scott, Planet X is a creation of the mind. And the person whose mind created it, was an American author by the name of Zecharia Sitchin.
Sitchin was an interesting man. He was born in 1920 in Azerbaijan, one of the former Soviet Socialist Republics. He died in New York on October 9, 2010. During his lifetime, Sitchin became famous for a series of books proposing a novel explanation for the origin of humans, which he attributed to ancient astronauts.
So you could say that he followed in the footsteps of another famous author who also advanced the idea of ancient astronauts, and that was the Swiss author Erich von Daniken.
Although Sitchin was born in what was then the Soviet Union, he was raised in Palestine. He received a degree in economics from the University of London, and was an editor and journalist in Israel, before moving to New York in 1952.
It was while he was working as an executive for a shipping company that he had the chance to visit various archaeological sites in southern Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq. He was so fascinated by the ancient Sumerian culture, that he taught himself how to read their writing.
Scott: What do we know about Sumerian writing?
The Sumerian language was the earliest known written language, and spanned a period of about five hundred years, from about 3,500 to 3,000 BC. The Sumerians used a wedge-shaped tool that was pressed into wet clay, and it was this technique which gave rise to the name Cuneiform – meaning wedge- shaped.
Once they dried, these Cuneiform tablets were preserved, and some of them survived up to the present day, allowing scholars to decipher them.
Like von Daniken, who was actually a Hotelier by profession, Sitchin was not a trained scholar. He was a layman who taught himself how to interpret these clay tablets. And once he had satisfied himself that he understood what they were saying, he began to write a series of books about the Sumerians and their times
He published his first book in 1976. It was called “The 12th Planet”, and in it Sitchin came up with an amazing theory. In fact this theory has proved to be far more sensational than anything dreamed up previously by von Daniken.
Scott: What was his theory?
According to Sitchin, there exists in our solar system a planet that the Sumerians called Nibiru. In the distant past this planet collided catastrophically with another planet which the Sumerians called Tiamat.
Sitchin explained that Tiamat was located between Mars and Jupiter, and that Tiamat was struck by one of Nibiru’s moons, causing the planet to split into two parts.
Sitchin wrote that in its next orbit around the sun, one of the moons of Nibiru struck one of the two halves that remained of Tiamat, and that this collision created the asteroid belt that exists between Mars and Jupiter today, as well as the Oort cloud that has spawned so many comets throughout our recorded history.
But this was not all, Sitchin stated that the other part of the original planet Tiamat was pushed into a new orbit, and became today’s planet earth.
Scott: So how did the ancient Sumerians know about all this?
Good question Scott. And this is where Sitchin really launched his amazing theory. For according to Sitchin, the planet Nibiru (which Sitchin called the 12th Planet) was the home of a technologically advanced human-like extra-terrestrial race called the Annunaki.
Sitchin claimed that, based on his interpretation of the ancient Cuneiform tablets, the Annunaki arrived on earth from Nibiru around 450,000 years ago. He said they were looking for minerals, especially gold, which they were able to find and mine in Africa.
Sitchin said that the Gods of antiquity were actually the rank-and-file workers of a colonial expedition sent to earth from the planet Nibiru. But because these Annunaki were dissatisfied with their working conditions here on earth, they rebelled. So they decided to create a race of primitive workers who would do the mining work for them.
They did this by means of genetic engineering, by crossing extra-terrestrial genes with those of primitive man. It was this cross breed, Sitchin claimed, that was the origin of the human species that scientists today refer to as Homo Sapiens.
So according to Sitchin, modern humans are the descendants of slaves who were created for the express purpose of serving their colonial masters from the planet Nibiru.
Scott: Do people actually believe this?
Whether there is any truth to this is uncertain. What is certain is that people all over the world have been buying Sitchin’s books by the millions. Since the release of his first book in 1976, Sitchin went on to write seven other books, as part of a series he called “Earth Chronicles”.
These books have now been published in more than 25 languages, and have even been translated into Braille.
But however provocative his ideas, Sitchin now has a devoted following of readers. Even his critics admit that he has been the most ardent supporter of the ancient astronaut theory for the last 25 years.
Prior to his death, he was awarded a life-time achievement award, and his work is considered to have influenced various Hollywood productions, such as the 1994 movie Stargate, as well as the villains in the film Cowboys and Aliens.
Scott: What do academic scholars have to say about Sitchin?
They have had a lot to say Scott, and as you can imagine, none of it is very complimentary. As you would expect, highly trained scholars do not take kindly to laymen who claim to see things in ancient clay tablets that they cannot find.
Chief among Sitchin’s academic critics is the ancient language scholar Michael Heiser. Heiser is an established authority on Sumerian Cuneiform scripts, and is highly critical of Sitchin because of his flagrant errors. Heiser has even gone as far as to create his own website, which he calls SitchinIsWrong.com.
On this website Heiser analyses Sitchin’s claims, and then demolishes them one by one. Not content with his own research, Heiser invites visitors to his website to find out the facts for themselves, by showing them exactly how and where to do this.
He also challenges Sitchin, or any of his followers, to produce a single line of cuneiform text that supports his ideas about the Anunnaki. As he says:
“I just want to see one line of one text that says things like the Anunnaki inhabit a planet called Nibiru, or that the term Anunnaki means “people of the fiery rockets”, that sort of thing.” So far nobody has.
Another vocal critic is the American cultural critic William Thompson who complains that what Sitchin sees in the clay tablets is exactly what he needs to support his theory.
He writes, and I quote:
“Sitchin has constructed what appears to be a convincing argument, but when he gets close to single images on ancient tablets, he falls back into the literalism of ‘Here is an image of the gods in rockets’.
“Ancient Sumer is made to look like a movie set. The gods can cross galactic distances, but by the time they get to earth they need launching pads for their rocket ships. This literalization of the imagination doesn’t make any sense, but every time it doesn’t, you hear Sitchin say ‘There can be no doubt, but…”
Scott: And what do astronomers have to say about all this?
Astronomers of today have little time for Sitchin’s theory of rogue planets careering through the solar system, creating and destroying other planets as they do so.
Since the well researched and documented theories of Immanual Velikovsky have been rejected by science, there is little hope that the poorly researched and even wilder theories of Sitchin would receive any attention in serious scientific journals.
One of the most prolific critics of his work is Leroy Ellenberger. Ellenberger points out that the idea of an ancient civilization developing on a planet that spends over 99% of its time in deep space beyond Pluto is patently absurd.
And the explanation proposed by Sitchin, that the planet Nibiru could be heated from within through a process of radioactive decay is equally absurd, and doesn’t address the obvious problem of total darkness in deep space.
But the aspect of Sitchin’s work that attracts the most criticism from astronomers, is his contention that the Planet Nibiru continues to orbit around our sun, and that it takes 3,600 years to complete a single orbit.
For starters, astronomers say that no planet with such an irregular orbit could maintain that orbit for very long. It would either be flung out of the solar system altogether, or become an inner planet.
“The scenario outlined by Sitchin, (says one astronomer) with Nibiru returning to the inner solar system regularly every 3,600 years, implies an orbit extending twelve times farther beyond the sun than Pluto.
“Elementary perturbation theory indicates that, under the most favorable circumstances of avoiding close encounters with other planets, no body with such an eccentric orbit would keep the same period for two consecutive passages.
“Within twelve orbits the object would be either ejected or converted to a short period object. Thus, the failed search for a trans-Plutonian planet by Tom Van Flandern of the U.S. Naval Observatory, which Sitchin uses to bolster his thesis, is no support at all..”
Scott: So, Allan, how does this relate to prophecy?
Well Scott, there are a growing number of people who think that Sitchin’s planet Nibiru is about to make another pass around the sun in December 2012. And when it does, it will cause catastrophic damage to the earth.
And because this mysterious planet has continued to defy persistent efforts to observe it, it has come to be referred to as Planet X – with X being the unknown object.
This was a question that Sitchin himself was continually being asked while he was alive. In fact, on his website (www.sitchin.com), which is still maintained by his nephew, the following item has been posted.
“A number of Zecharia Sitchin’s fans have been asking about the date December 21, 2012, and what it might signify in relation to his writings. If Zecharia had been asked this question, he would have answered “read my book” entitled “The End of Days“.
His nephew goes on to say:
“It is gratifying that Wikipedia lists one of the possible reasons for the significance of the date as the passing of Nibiru, a planet that would not be named without Zecharia’s work.
“However, since I’m not Zecharia, I’ll give away a bit of the puzzle and say that neither cataclysmic events on December 21, 2012, nor Niburu, come into play as a concern in 2012. For more details read the book.”
Scott: Do we know what the book says?
Yes Scott we do. In his book “The End of Days” Sitchin writes:
“If that is what happened, it would explain the “early”tes) arrival of Niburu in 556 BC – and suggest that its next arrival will be AD 2,900″.
And here is the clincher…
“For those who associate the prophesied cataclysmic events with the return of Niburu – (Planet X to some) – the time is not at hand.”
While he undoubtedly created the furore which now surrounds Planet X, by coming up with the notion of Niburu in the first place, at least Sitchin did not support the hysteria that now surrounds the possible re-appearance of Niburu in December of this year.
So, to sum up then, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of Niburu, or Planet X, or of any other planet with an eccentric orbit extending far beyond Pluto. And as we have seen, Sitchin has clearly written that Niburu is not about to come anywhere near earth at this time.
So we can rest assured that, whatever else may happen this year, we do not need to concern ourselves with a close encounter from this rogue planet.
I would just like to end this Podcast by reminding listeners that in my book “The Last Days of Tolemac”, I outline where our world is headed, and what we really do need to worry about in the coming years.
And just a reminder for those people who would like to read my book, it can be reached here
Scott: Thanks Allan. You have been listening to Allan Colston, author of the book “The Last Days of Tolemac”. Do join us for our next Podcast, which will be titled “2012 and the Mayan Calendar”.
