5.
Do you deny that NASA built a South Pole Telescope (SPT) to
1. What is the origin of the prediction that
the world will end in
December 2012?
The story started with claims that Nibiru, a
supposed planet discovered by the
Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. Zecharia
Sitchin, who writes fiction about the ancient
Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, claimed in several books (e.g.,
The Twelfth Planet, published in 1976) that he has found and
translated Sumerian documents that identify the planet Nibiru,
orbiting the Sun every 3600 years. These Sumerian fables include
stories of “ancient astronauts” visiting Earth from a civilization of
aliens called the Anunnaki. Then Nancy Lieder, a self-declared
psychic who claims she is channeling aliens, wrote on her website
Zetatalk that the inhabitants of a fictional planet around the star Zeta
Reticuli warned her that the Earth was in danger from Planet X or
Nibiru. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but
when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to
December 2012. Only recently have these two fables been linked to
the end of the Mayan long-count at the winter solstice in 2012 –
hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.
2. The Sumerians were the first great civilization, and they made
many accurate astronomical predictions, including
the existence of the planets Uranus, Neptune and
Pluto. So why should we not believe their predictions
about Nibiru?
Nibiru is a name in Babylonian astrology sometimes associated with
the god Marduk. Nibiru appears as a minor character in the
Babylonian creation poem Enuma Elish as recorded in the library of
Assurbanipal, King of Assyria (668-627 BCE). Sumer flourished
much earlier, from about the 23rd century to the 17th century BCE.
The claims that Nibiru is a planet and was known to the Sumerians
are contradicted by scholars who (unlike Zecharia Sitchin) study and
translate the written records of ancient Mesopotamia. Sumer was
indeed a great civilization, important for the development of
agriculture, water management, urban life, and especially writing.
However, they left very few records dealing with astronomy.
Certainly they did not know about the existence of Uranus, Neptune
or Pluto. They also had no understanding that the planets orbited the
Sun, an idea that first developed in ancient Greece two millennia after
the end of Sumer. Claims that Sumerians had a sophisticated
astronomy, or that they even had a god named Nibiru, are the product
of Sitchin’s imagination.
3. How can you deny the existence of Nibiru when NASA
discovered it in 1983 and the story appeared in
leading newspapers? At that time you called it Planet
X, and later it was named Xena or Eris.
IRAS (the NASA Infrared Astronomy Satellite, which carried out a
sky survey for 10 months in 1983) discovered many infrared sources,
but none of them was Nibiru or Planet X or any other objects in the
outer solar system. There is a good discussion from Caltech to be
found at
(spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/tchester/iras/no_tenth_planet_yet.html).
Briefly, IRAS cataloged 350,000 infrared sources, and initially many
of these sources were unidentified (which was the point, of course, of
making such a survey). All of these observations have been followed
up by subsequent studies with more powerful instruments both on the
ground and in space. The rumor about a “tenth planet” erupted in
1984 after a scientific paper was published in Astrophysical Journal
Letters titled “Unidentified point sources in the IRAS minisurvey”,
which discussed several infrared sources with “no counterparts”. But
these “mystery objects” were subsequently found to be distant
galaxies (except one, which was a wisp of “infrared cirrus”), as
published in 1987. No IRAS source has ever turned out to be a
planet. A good discussion of this whole issue is to be found on Phil
Plait’s website
(www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/science.html#iras). The
bottom line is that Nibiru is a myth, with no basis in fact. To an
astronomer, persistent claims about a planet that is “nearby” but
“invisible” are just plain silly.
4. Maybe we should be asking about Planet X or Eris, not Nibiru.
Why does NASA keep secret the orbit of Eris?
“Planet X” is an oxymoron when applied to a real object. The term
has been used by astronomers over the past century for a possible or
suspected object. Once the object is found, it is given a real name, as
was done with Pluto and Eris, both of which were at some time
referred to as Planet X. If a new object turns out to be not real, or not
a planet, then you won’t hear about it again. If it is real, it is not
called Planet X.
Eris is one of several dwarf planets recently found by astronomers in
the outer solar system, all of them on normal orbits that will never
bring them near Earth. Like Pluto, Eris is smaller than our Moon. It is
very far away, and its orbit never brings it closer than about 4 billion
miles. There is no secret about Eris and its orbit, as you can easily
verify by googling it or looking it up in Wikipedia.
track Nibiru? Why else would they build a telescope
at the South Pole?
There is a telescope at the South Pole, but it was not built by NASA
and not used to study Nibiru. The South Pole Telescope was
supported by the National Science Foundation, and it is a radio
telescope, not an optical instrument. It cannot take images or photos.
You can look it up on Wikipedia. The Antarctic is a great place for
astronomical infrared and short-wave-radio observations, and it also
has the advantage that objects can be observed continuously without
the interference of the day-night cycle.
I should add that it is impossible to imagine a geometry in which an
object can be seen only from the South Pole. Even if it were due
south of the Earth, it could be seen from the entire southern
hemisphere.
6. There are many photos and videos of Nibiru on the Internet.
Isn’t that proof that it exists?
The great majority of the photos and videos on the Internet are of
some feature near the Sun (apparently supporting the claim that
Nibiru has been hiding behind the Sun for the past several years.)
These are actually false images of the Sun caused by internal
reflections in the lens, often called lens flare. You can identify them
easily by the fact that they appear diametrically opposite the real
solar image, as if reflected across the center of the image. This is
especially obvious in videos, where as the camera moves, the false
image dances about always exactly opposite the real image. Similar
lens flare is a source of many UFO photos taken at night with strong
light sources such as streetlights in the frame. I am surprised that
people don’t recognize this common photo artifact. I am also amazed
that these photos showing something nearly as large and bright as the
Sun (a “second sun”) are accepted together with claims made on
some of the same websites that Nibiru is too faint to be seen or
photographed except with large telescopes.
One widely reported telescopic photo (www.greatdreams.com/nibiru-
possible.jpg) shows two views of an expanding gas cloud far beyond
the solar system, which is not moving; you can see this from the fact
that the stars are the same in both pictures. A sharp-eyed reader of
this website identified these photos as a gas shell around the star
V838 Mon. Wikipedia has a nice write-up and a beautiful photo of it
from Hubble. Another high school student was initially impressed by
posted images of a red blob that were said to be of Nibiru. Then he
worked out in his Photoshop class how to make just such pictures
starting from scratch.
One video posted in summer 2008 on Youtube
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDKtkWIx00A) shows a guy standing
in his kitchen claiming that one of the objects discovered by a NASA
x-ray telescope is Nibiru. What is his evidence? That since this false-
color x-ray image released by NASA is blue, this must really be a
nearby planet with an ocean. This would be hilarious if it were not
used to frighten people.
7. Can you explain the fact that the area at (5h 53m 27s, -6 10’
58”) has been blackened out in Google Sky and
Microsoft Telescope? People suggest that these have
been blackened out because those are the co-ordinates
where Nibiru is located at present.
Several people have asked me about this blank rectangle in Orion in
Google Sky, which is a presentation of images from the Sloan Digital
Survey. This can’t be a “hiding place” for Nibiru, since it is a part of
the sky that could be seen from almost everywhere on the Earth in the
winter of 2007-08 when much of the talk about Nibiru began. That
would contradict the claims that Nibiru was hiding behind the Sun or
that it could be seen only from the southern hemisphere. But I too
was curious about this blank rectangle, so I asked a friend who is a
senior scientist at Google. He replied that he “found out that the
missing data is due to a processing error in the image stitching
program we use to display the Sloan survey images. The team assures
me that in the next run through, this will be fixed!”
8. If the government knew about Nibiru, wouldn’t they keep it a
secret to avoid panic? Isn’t it the government’s job to
keep the population at ease?
There are many objectives of government, but they do not include
keeping the population at ease. My experience is that sometimes parts
of the government do just the opposite, as in the frequent references
to various terrorist threats or warnings about driving accidents on
long holiday weekends, which are no more dangerous than any other
time. There is a long history of associating bad things with political
opponents (older readers will remember the “missile gap” in the 1960
election, younger ones will note the many current references to who
is or is not keeping the U.S. safe from terrorists). Further, social
scientists have pointed out that many of our concepts of public panic
are the product of Hollywood, while in the real world people have a
good record of helping each other in a time of danger. I think
everyone also recognizes that keeping bad news secret usually
backfires, making the issue even worse when the facts finally come
out. And in the case of Nibiru, these facts would come out very soon
indeed.
Even if they wanted to, the government could not keep Nibiru a
secret. If it were real, it would be tracked by thousands of
astronomers, amateurs as well a professional. These astronomers are
spread all over the world. I know the astronomy community, and
these scientists would not keep a secret even if ordered to. You just
can’t hide a planet on its way to the inner solar system!
9. Why does the Mayan calendar say the world will end in 2012?
I have heard that they have been pretty accurate in
the past with other planetary predictions. How can
you be sure you know more than they did?
Calendars exist for keeping track of the passage of time, not for
predicting the future. The Mayan astronomers were clever, and they
developed a very complex calendar. Ancient calendars are interesting
to historians, but of they cannot match the ability we have today to
keep track of time, or the precision of the calendars currently in use.
The main point, however, is that calendars, whether contemporary or
ancient, cannot predict the future of our planet or warn of things to
happen on a specific date such as 2012.
I note that my desk calendar ends much sooner, on December 31
2009, but I do not interpret this as a prediction of Armageddon. It is
just the beginning of a new year.
10. What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the earth’s crust
does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a
matter of days if not hours? Does this have something
to do to do with our solar system dipping beneath the
galactic equator?
A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. It has never
happened and never will. There are slow movements of the
continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of
millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of
the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a
bait-and-shift to fool people. They claim a relationship between the
rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change
irregularly with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years
on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t
cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely
to happen in the next few millennia, anyway. But they falsely claim
that a magnetic reversal is coming soon (in 2012) and that this is the
same as, or will trigger, a reversal of rotational poles. The bottom line
is: (a) Rotation direction and magnetic polarity are not related. (b)
There is no reason to expect a reversal of magnetic polarity any time
soon, or to anticipate any bad effects on life when it does eventually
happen. © A sudden shift in rotational pole with disastrous
consequences is impossible. Also, none of this has anything to do
with the galactic equator or any of the other nonsense about
alignments that appears on many of the conspiracy theory websites.
11. When most of the planets align in 2012 and planet Earth is in
the center of the Milky Way, what will the effects of
this be on planet Earth? Could it cause a pole shift,
and if so what could we expect?
There is no planet alignment in 2012 or any other time in the next
several decades. As to the Earth being in the center of the Milky
Way, I don’t know what this phrase means. If you are referring to the
Milky Way Galaxy, we are rather far toward the edge of this spiral
galaxy, some 30,000 light years from the center. We circle the
galactic center in a period of 225-250 million years, always keeping
approximately the same distance. Concerning a pole shift, I also don’t
know what this means. If it means some sudden change in the
position of the pole (that is, the rotation axis of the Earth), then that is
impossible, as noted in the answer to Question 10. What many
websites do discuss is the alignment of the Earth and Sun with the
center of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sagittarius. This
happens every December, with no bad consequences, and there is no
reason to expect 2012 to be different from any other year.
12. When the sun and the Earth line up on the galactic plane at
the same time with the black whole being in the center
couldn’t that cause something to happen, due to the
fact that the black hole has such a strong gravitational
pull.
There is a giant black hole in the center of our Milky Way galaxy,
and like any concentration of mass it exerts gravitational force on the
rest of the Galaxy. However, the galactic center is very far away,
approximately 30,000 light years, so it has negligible effects on the
solar system or the Earth. There are no special forces from the
galactic plane or the galactic center. The only important force that
acts on the Earth is the gravitation of the Sun and Moon. As far as the
influence of the galactic plane, there is nothing special about this
location. The last time the Earth was in the galactic plane was several
million years ago. Claims that we are about to cross the galactic plane
are untrue.
13. I am scared about the fact that the Earth will enter the Dark
Rift in the Milky Way. What will this do? Will the
Earth be swallowed up?
The “dark rift” is a popular name for the broad and diffuse dust
clouds in the
inner arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, which block our view of the
galactic
center. The entire “galactic alignment” scare is pretty crazy. Late in
December the Sun is always approximately in the direction of the
center of
the Galaxy as seen from the Earth, but so what? Apparently the con-
men who are trying to scare you have decided to use these
meaningless phrases about “alignments” and the “dark rift” and
“photon belt” precisely because they are not understood by the
public. It is too bad, but there is no law against lying on the Internet
or anywhere else except in a court of law. As far as the safety of the
Earth is concerned, the important threats are from global warming
and loss of biological diversity, and perhaps someday from collision
with an asteroid or comet, not the pseudoscientific claims about 2012.
14. I have heard that the Earth’s magnetic field will flip in 2012
just when the strongest level of solar storms in history
is predicted to take place. Will this kill us or destroy
our civilization?
Near solar maximum (which happens every 11 years approximately),
there are many more solar flares and coronal mass ejections than near
solar minimum. Flares and mass ejections are no danger for humans
or other life on Earth. They could endanger astronauts in deep space
or on the Moon, and this is something that NASA must learn to deal
with, but it is not a problem for you or me. Large outbursts can
interrupt radio transmission, cause bright displays of the aurora
(Northern and Southern Lights), and damage the electronics of some
satellites in space. Today many satellites are designed to deal with
this possibility, for example by switching off some of their more
delicate circuits and going into a “safe” mode for a few hours. In
extreme cases solar activity can also disrupt electrical transmissions
on the ground, possibly leading to electrical blackouts, but this is
rare.
The last solar maximum occurred in 2001, so the next one was
predicted for around 2012, 11 years later. However, the most recent
solar minimum was unusual, with a period of a couple of years with
almost no sunspots or other indications of solar activity, so scientists
now guess that the next maximum will be delayed, perhaps to 2013.
However, the details of the solar cycle remain basically
unpredictable.
You are correct that the Earth’s magnetic field protects us by creating
a large region in space, called the Earth’s magnetosphere, within
which most of the material ejected from the Sun is captured or
deflected, but there is no reason to expect a reversal of magnetic
polarity any time soon. These magnetic reversals happen only once in
400,000 years on average.
15. I am confused about a report on the Fox News website that in
2012 a “Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S.
for Months”. They referred to a report from the
National Academy of Sciences that was commissioned
and paid for by NASA. If nothing is going to happen
as a result of the event in 2012, why would NASA
allow such nonsense to be reported?
NASA is pleased with the National Research Council report on
heliophysics. As you note, this report includes a worst-case analysis
of what could happen today if there were a repetition of the biggest
solar storm ever recorded (in 1859). The problem is the way such
information can be used out of context. There is no reason to expect
such a large solar storm in the near future, certainly not in 2012
specifically. Your reference to “the event in 2012” illustrates this
problem. There is no prediction of an “event in 2012”. We don’t even
know if the next solar maximum will take place in that year. The
whole 2012 disaster scenario is a hoax, fueled by ads for the
Hollywood science-fiction disaster film “2012”. I can only hope that
most people are able to distinguish Hollywood film plots from
reality.
16. All my school friends are telling me that we are all going to
die in the year 2012 due to a meteor hitting earth. Is
this true?
Your friends are wrong. The Earth has always been subject to
impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The
last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the
extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying
out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-
Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that
there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the
dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted
every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website
(neo.jpl.nasa.gov), so you can see for yourself that nothing is
predicted to hit in 2012.
17. If Nibiru is a hoax, why doesn’t NASA issue a denial? How
can you permit these stores to circulate and frighten
people? Why doesn’t the U.S. government do
something about it!
If you go to the NASA home page, nasa.gov, you will see many
stories that expose the Nibiru-2012 hoax. Try searching nasa.com
under “Nibiru” or “2012”. There is not much more that NASA can
do. These hoaxes have nothing to do with NASA and are not based
on NASA data, so we as an agency are not directly involved. But
scientists, both within NASA and outside, recognize that this hoax
with its effort to frighten people is a distraction from more important matter how many new celestial bodies are found in our solar system,
science concerns, such as global warming and loss of biological there will always be a need for a mysterious Planet X.”
diversity. We live in a country where there is freedom of speech, and
that includes freedom to lie. You should be glad there are no censors.
But if you will just use common sense I am sure you can recognize
the lies. As we approach 2012, the lies will be come even more
obvious.
18. Can you prove to me that Nibiru is a hoax? There are so
many reports that something terrible will happen in
2012. I need proof because the government and NASA
are keeping so much from us.
It is not logical to ask for proof that the 2012 doomsday is a hoax.
Your questions should be to the doomsday advocates to prove that
what they are saying is true, not to NASA to prove it is false. If
someone claimed on the Internet that there were 50-foot tall purple
elephants walking through Cleveland, would anyone expect NASA to
prove this wrong? The burden of proof falls on those who make wild
claims. Remember the often-quoted comment from Carl Sagan that
extraordinary claims demand extraordinary levels of evidence if they
are to be believed.
However, I think that astronomers have reached the point where we
can offer extremely strong arguments that Nibiru does not exist. A
large planet (or a brown dwarf) in our solar system would have been
known to astronomers for many years, both indirectly from its
gravitational perturbations on other objects and by direct detection in
the infrared. The NASA Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) carried
out the first all-sky survey in 1983, and several subsequent surveys
would also have seen Nibiru if it were there. Further, if a large mass
passed through the inner solar system every 3600 years, we would
see its disruptive effects on the orbits of the inner planets, and we
don’t.
You don’t need to take my word for it. Just use common sense. Have
you seen Nibiru? In 2008 many websites said it would be visible to
the naked eye in spring 2009. If a large planet or brown dwarf were
headed for the inner solar system in 2012, it would already be tracked
by hundreds of thousands of astronomers, professional and amateur,
all over the world. Do you know any amateur astronomers who are
watching it? Have you seen any photos or discussion of it in the big
popular astronomy magazines like Sky & Telescope? Just think about
it. No one could hide Nibiru if it existed.
19. What about the scary ads for the new film 2012? They tell us
to look at these Internet sites to verify the doomsday
threat.
The pseudoscientific claims about Nibiru and a doomsday in 2012,
together with distrust of the government, are being amplified by
publicity for the new film from Columbia Pictures titled 2012, to be
released in November 2009. The film’s trailer, appearing in theaters
and on their website , shows a tidal wave breaking over the
Himalayas, with only the following words: “How would the
governments of our planet prepare 6 billion people for the end of the
world? [long pause] They wouldn’t. [long pause] Find out the Truth.
Google search 2012”.
The film publicity includes creation of a faux scientific website
(www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org/) for “The Institute for Human
Continuity”, which is entirely fictitious. According to this website,
the IHC is dedicated to scientific research and public preparedness.
Its mission is the survival of mankind. The website explains that the
Institute was founded 1978 by international leaders of government,
business, and science. They say that in 2004, IHC scientists
confirmed with 94% certainty that the world would be destroyed in
2012. This website encourages people to register for a lottery to
select those who will be saved; a colleague submitted the name of her
cat, which was accepted. I learned from Wikipedia that creating this
sort of fake website is a new advertising technique called “Viral
Marketing”, by analogy with computer viruses.
20. Is it possible that the influx of questions you describe is part
of some kind of campaign for a book or movie, in the
hopes that the volume of denials is taken as more
“evidence” that there is a conspiracy?
I ask myself the same questions every day, as the volume of mail I
receive about Nibiru (along with various alignments and pole shifts)
keeps increasing — now more than 20 per week. Clearly there is
money to be made from people’s fear about an approaching
doomsday. Some of this hype is apparently advertising for the
science fiction disaster movie 2012 (see Question 19). Many websites
are selling books and tapes about Nibiru or even “survival kits”. It is
all very sad, that with so many real issues (such as global warming
and financial collapse) people are being taken in by these lies. In the
final chapter of a new astronomy book (The Hunt for Planet X) by
Govert Shilling, he writes: “There is plenty to do for the debunkers –
the archaeologists and astronomers who take a long and skeptical
look at the tidal wave of Nibiru nonsense and explain with scientific
precision what is wrong with this cosmic fairy-tale. They will have
their work cut out in the next few years. And on December 22, 2012
there will be a new pseudoscientific cock-and-bull story doing the
rounds and the whole circus will start all over again. Because no

Ancient texts do not discuss the existence of a
tenth planet.
Zechariah
Sitchin bases his
entire theory of
the existence of
a tenth planet on
ancient texts,
including
Image of the Berlin Seal, which Sumerian and
doesn't show Planet X biblical writings.
However, he is
known to misinterpret Sumerian, sometimes
grossly. His key finding is based on a seal that
shows a diagram that looks like the solar system,
with the Sun at the center. It appears to have eleven
planets around it. Since Sumerians counted the Sun
and Moon as planets, Sitchin says the extra one
must be some unknown planet. He also says it has
aliens on it who communicated with the ancient
Sumerians.
But there are two major problems with this. Well,
three, if you count having alien visitations as a
problem (and I certainly do). But ignoring that,
there are still two biggies. Sitchin claims that the
picture shows Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. But the
Sumerians didn't have telescopes, and therefore
could only have known of them if aliens told them
about their existence. But if aliens told them about
those planets, why not about the moons of Jupiter
and Saturn, or Saturn's rings? The seal doesn't show
any of these features. And the Sumerians thought
the Moon and Sun were planets, when they aren't.
Certainly aliens would know that the Sun and Moon
are not planets! Sitchin is picking and choosing
things in the picture to support his arguments, and
ignoring things that don't support it. That isn't
science, it's fantasy. It's also wrong.
Worse, his interpretation of the picture is wrong.
The Sumerians have an unambiguous symbol for
the Sun: a circle with four triangles around it like
rays, and squiggly lines between the triangles. That
is emphatically not the symbol in the seal. The
symbol used is that of a bright star, but not the Sun.
So even Sitchin's basic premise is wrong. Michael
Heiser, a Sumerian scholar, outlines all this on his
website.
Conclusion: Sitchin's ideas are wrong, and so there
is no reason to even introduce the idea of a tenth
planet that passes by the Earth.
There is no astronomical indication of the
existence of another large planet in the
inner solar system.
In my opinion, this is the biggest problem with the
Planet X myth. Simply put: where is it? We don't
see it optically, and we
don't see any effects
gravitationally.
Look at Jupiter. Literally!
It's about ten times the
diameter of the Earth, and
it's on average about 750
million kilometers (450
million miles) away. It is
easily visible to the naked Image of Jupiter in the
eye, and in fact is usually night sky (click to
the fourth or fifth brightest enlarge), from
object in the sky (the Sun, Astronomy Picture of
Moon, and Venus are the Day
brighter, and Mars can
sometimes be brighter than Jupiter).
Yet, for Planet X to be here in less then a decade, it
can't be farther than a billion or so kilometers away.
Even at that distance, it would be one of the
brightest objects in the sky. Even if it were too faint
to be seen with the naked eye, it would still be seen
easily even if it were billions of kilometers away.
Remember, tiny Pluto is 5 billion kilometers out,
and can be easily detected using modern equipment,
and Pluto is way smaller than Planet X is supposed
to be. There is simply no way a big planet so close
to Earth could have escaped astronomers'
detection-- even amateur astronomers, who even
Lieder and Hazlewood must realize have no reason
to lie-- all these decades.
Also, a giant planet has giant gravity. Neptune was
discovered because of its gravitational effects on
Saturn and Uranus. Planet X, if it were anywhere
near the inner solar system (and in truth, even a
long way out), would pull on those planets. This
pull would affect their orbits, and we'd see that. We
don't. Some of the Planet X proponents talk about
how the outer planets' orbits are indeed affected, but
they are relying on very old data. In fact, the planets
are exactly where they should be given the nine
planets we know about.
A lot of PXPs talk about a couple of scientific
papers published which talk about perturbations in
comet orbits indicating a possible tenth planet. I
have read both papers, and found them to be
interesting, but unlikely. They are more speculation
than hard science, in my opinion. But even if they
are correct, they would indicate a planet that is way,
way farther out than Hazlewood and Lieder claim
for Planet X, and in fact would indicate there is no
massive planet closer to the inner solar system. As
usual, by pointing out scientific evidence they think
supports their position, the PXPs are actually
highlighting evidence against them.
Another favorite claim of Mark Hazlewood is that
NASA found the tenth planet back in 1983, and
even announced it. This is patently untrue. What
really happened was that a satellite used to make
astronomical observations in infrared light found
several objects that were previously unidentified.
During a press conference, the astronomers made a
list of potential sources, including (but not limited
to) a tenth planet. Of course, the headline in the
Washington Post zeroed in on the planet possibility,
but science is generally not done by headlines. Sure
enough, follow-up observations made later showed
clearly that most of the objects were distant
galaxies, and another was a gas cloud in our own
Galaxy. No planet.
Of course, Hazlewood and his ilk claim that NASA
got wise and quickly covered up the discovery of
the tenth planet, but let's face it, that claim is pretty
dumb. This was a NASA press conference in the
first place, and if they were this ultra-competent
super-secret organization that Hazlewood makes
them out to be, or even if they were middling-
competent bureaucrats, the press conference
wouldn't have been held in the first place! And at
the very least, the astronomers involved would have
been briefed not to reveal anything secret. The
PXPs want it both ways: they want NASA to be so
good they can change journal articles, web pages,
astronomical catalogs and more with iron-clad
authority, but so bumbling they couldn't keep two
astronomers and a DC reporter shut up. Puhleeze!
Conclusion: Planet X has no physical effects, has
never been seen, and therefore doesn't exist.
The Sun is not acting in any way abnormally.
The PXPs love to scream every time the Sun
undergoes an eruption, whether it's a flare or
coronal mass ejection (or CME for short). They say
that the peak in the 11 year solar cycle was two to
three years ago, and therefore the Sun should be
quiet now. Any eruption is therefore evidence of
effects from Planet X.
This is wrong. The Sun did indeed peak in the year
2000, but these peaks are not sudden; they grow and
fade slowly, over years. In fact, each peak actually
has two sub-peaks; solar activity rises, then
declines, then rises again a year or so later, as can
be seen in the plot shown (click on it to bring up a
bigger version of the image). We are just now
finishing up the second peak, and as you can see we
should expect plenty of activity on the Sun. I talked
to a couple of solar astronomers, and they both told
me that the flares and CMEs in the second peak
tend to be more violent than in the first, so we
actually expect more energetic activity in the
second peak, that is, now.
The PXPs neglect to mention the history of the Sun,
and just want you to think about what's happening
right now. By doing that, it makes it seem like the
Sun is undergoing all sorts of undulations, when in
fact it's doing exactly what is expected of it. The
Sun is in no way acting abnormally, despite their
claims.
Conclusion: the Sun is acting normally, and its
behavior does not support the existence of Planet X.
There are not more earthquakes than normal.
This claim is similar to the one about the Sun. The
PXPs say that earthquakes are on the rise, which
indicates effects by Planet X. Every time there is a
large earthquake, the PXPs say this is evidence for
Planet X.
This is wrong. The table displayed here (click on it
to bring up a bigger version of the image) shows
earthquake activity over the past 13 years. The
quakes are divided by strength (vertically) and year
(horizontally). The data are complete for 2002,
meaning every earthquake measured is there.
If Planet X is nearly here, then you'd expect to see
an increase of major earthquake activity over time,
with 2002 having the most. Surprise! It doesn't. In
fact, 2002 is usually average or even below average
in the number of major earthquakes for a given
magnitude that occurred.
You may notice that the actual total number of
earthquakes does appear to increase with time, but
that is not because there are more earthquakes. It's
because we're getting better at detecting them! As
instruments become more sensitive, more
earthquakes are detected. Note that the increase is
mostly in the number of small quakes, which are
usually harder to detect. Better instrumentation
naturally detects smaller quakes more easily,
increasing the total number found without changing
the number of big quakes found, because those are
easy to detect and we catch them all with less
sensitive equipment. Supporting this is the last line
of the graph, which shows only a few very weak
earthquakes in the 0-1 range. There are probably
more of those than any other earthquake, but are far
harder to detect unambiguously (a car driving by
might look just like a magnitude 0.1 earthquake to a
seismograph). The United States Geological Survey
has a webpage describing exactly this finding. So, if
Planet X is real and affecting us, it must be
suppressing earthquakes, not causing them.
There were two big earthquakes in January 2003,
both over 7 on the Richter scale. The PXPs went
nuts about them. But look at the plot! Two
magnitude 7 earthquakes in one month means you'd
expect 24 in a year, right? Well, you can see that 24
magnitude 7 earthquakes per year is just about right
given the earthquake history. So once again, by
bringing this data to everyone's attention, the Planet
X people are shooting themselves in the foot.
Conclusion: there no more earthquakes than usual,
and therefore earthquakes cannot be used to
support the existence of Planet X.
There has been a lot of weird weather lately.
Another big claim is that there has been a lot of
unusual weather going on; tornadoes, droughts,
storms, etc. Like earthquakes and solar flares, every
time it rains it seems like it must be due to Planet X.
First off, surprise! The weather isn't all that weird.
We are coming off of an El Nino, which is a
weather pattern that disrupts climates across the
world. Also, we are now into springtime, when
things like tornadoes are common. Seeing tornadoes
in Texas and Oklahoma is not only not unusual, but
is expected!
There have been some records broken this year, but
there are weather records broken every year. This is
exactly the same sort of bad logic used in the
earthquake argument, and is just as wrong. Even a
cursory web search yields lots of pages about the
odd weather we get as El Nino departs.
And even if it were true, how could the weather
possibly be to tied to an incoming planet? If you
assume electromagnetic forces, we'd see huge
changes in our aurora before we'd see changes in
the weather, and we see no such changes. If it were
gravitational, then there would be countless other,
far larger effects. Long before the weather were
disrupted, we'd see changes in the Moon's orbit that
were so big they would be unmistakable. They
would certainly throw off the timings of eclipses,
and we'll see on May 15th that there will be a lunar
eclipse right on schedule.
Conclusion: the weather isn't any weirder than it
usually is at the end of an El Nino, so the claims of
weird weather are wrong.
Brown dwarfs are not at all the way Planet X
people describe.
A brown dwarf is an object that is something bigger
than a planet, but smaller than a star. An object with
more than about 0.077 times the Sun's mass (about
80 times Jupiter's mass) will ignite nuclear fusion in
the core, making it a full-blown star. The lower
mass limit is somewhat less clear, but we can safely
say that Jupiter is below it. Even if we call Jupiter a
brown dwarf, it is still far larger than what Nancy
Lieder and Mark Hazlewood say is the mass and
diameter of Planet X. Nancy says it's 4 times the
radius of Earth (Jupiter is 11 times Earth's radius)
and about 20 times as massive (Jupiter is 310 times
as massive as the Earth). Hazlewood's claims are
similar. Neither of them describe anything even
close to a brown dwarf.
Also, even an old, dim brown dwarf puts out light.
A typical dim brown dwarf would still be a very
bright object if it were anywhere near the inner
solar system, or even located way out beyond Pluto.
I even show my math! Remember too that a brown
dwarf will still reflect sunlight (like Jupiter and the
other planets do), making it even brighter. So if
Planet X were a brown dwarf, it would have been
obvious in the sky years ago.
Using the term to describe Planet X is simply
wrong. I suspect they might use the term to sound
more scientific, but again, as always, they wind up
making themselves look foolish.
Conclusion: Nancy Lieder and Mark Hazlewood do
not understand brown dwarfs at all, and saying
Planet X is a brown dwarf is actually further
evidence that they don't know what they are talking
about, and that Planet X doesn't exist.
Observatories are not being closed suspiciously.
Many of the PXPs (notably Mr. Hazlewood) have
been claiming that observatories around the world
are being closed "suspiciously" (ever noticed how
nothing can just happen in a conspiracy theory?).
They claim to have a long list of them, though I
have yet to see them actually post such a list. They
do mention such observatories as Griffith in Los
Angeles. Why are they closing? Because, claim the
PXPs, they don't want the public to see Planet X
through these observatories. If the public demands
to see this planet through the powerful telescopes,
then the jig, as they say, is up. So the government is
closing them down.
But this makes no sense whatsoever. First, as I have
shown, Planet X, if it existed, would be a pretty
bright object. If we believe Nancy Lieder, then it
should be so bright it would be visible even if you
wear sunglasses. Mark Hazlewood claims it's still
far away, but even if it were years away, it would be
easily spotted in a telescope of very modest size;
certainly in the range of thousands of amateur
instruments. So closing public observatories makes
no sense.
Moreover, the only way to keep this quiet would be
to close all telescopes with public access. Every
single one. Yet there are hundreds of observatories
still open. I recently used some 'scopes at the
Buehler Observatory in Fort Lauderdale, for
example, when it was open for public night. Chabot
Space and Science Center in Oakland, California,
has several telescopes the public can use. The list
goes on for hundreds of observatories that are not
only open, but actively showing the skies to the
public.
I expect PXPs will then claim that the observatories
remaining open simply won't show Planet X to the
public. Then why close any at all? Again, it makes
no sense. Either all observatories get closed, or none
does. They might claim that only observatories with
big enough 'scopes were shut down, but that's not
true. Plenty of observatories with pretty big 'scopes
remain open.
Conclusion: Observatories are indeed closing, but
only for renovation. Plenty of observatories with
public access and large telescopes remain open.
Therefore there is no government conspiracy to
close telescopes down to prevent people from
seeing Planet X.
The pictures that have been posted are either
outright fakes or being misinterpreted.
Nancy Lieder has several
pictures on her website
which claim to be of
Planet X. She is wrong.
Many of her pictures are
clear fakes, like this one,
which is so easy to
Planet X? Nope, an reproduce in photo-
admitted hoax! manipulation software
like Photoshop that
people have actually gone out and done it. In fact,
the person who made the fake linked above has
admitted it, and has even shown how he did it!
Some are such simple misinterpretations that it's
hard to believe people don't understand what they
are seeing. There are several examples of what have
been called "second suns", which supposedly show
Planet X as a reddish disk near the Sun. Here's a
good one from Ms. Lieder's site. But it's clearly an
internal reflection; the sunlight bouncing off the
lenses inside the camera. The giveaway is how it
moves from picture to picture as the camera itself is
moved and rotated. A regular contributor to the Bad
Astronomy Bulletin Board who goes by the name
"Deepspacegirl" has a website which shows a
similar picture taken in 2002! Obviously, it's not
Planet X.
Some of Ms. Lieder's acolytes have gone out and
taken digital images of the night sky through
telescopes, and claimed to have found Planet X.
They are wrong. Digital images are not as simply
processed as a roll of film, and in fact takes weeks
of training to understand the details. I studied digital
cameras for years working on Hubble data, and
have a pretty good insight into this. The basic
problem with Ms. Lieder's images is in how the
calibration data were processed. Unlike a point-and-
shoot camera, an astronomical detector needs lots of
pictures taken under controlled circumstances so
that you can understand what is real in the image
and what isn't. I bet you can see where this is going.
When charged particles hit an electronic detector,
they leave a bright spot in the image. These kinds of
particles are produced by the Sun, and can hit the
detector in the camera. They are also produced by
naturally radioactive elements, many of which can
be found as impurities in the metal of the camera
assembly. They are a nuisance, so you have to
understand how to take care of them.
Badly processed Correctly processed
image, showing lots of image. Voila, "Planet
cosmic ray hits X" is gone.
From IMOpenminded's website
Shockingly, Ms. Lieder doesn't understand how to
do this, nor do her acolytes. They consistently and
persistently leave in these hot spots, and then claim
they are Planet X. Seriously! They are not a gigantic
planet about to kill us all, but instead are dinky little
protons who have had the unfortunate fate of
slamming into the electronic chip on the back end
of a telescope. Correctly processing the images
would make those spots disappear, as has been
shown by others. This would be somewhat more
difficult with a whole planet.
By the way, Ms. Lieder has claimed on numerous
occasions that Planet X would be naked-eye visible
months before its passage, yet she also claims it
appears as a faint dot in the images she herself
supplies. Which is it? She says lots of contradictory
things, which is yet another good reason to
disbelieve what she is saying (another example, not
to be indelicate, is that she said (through her
channeled aliens) that the then-missing Washington
intern Chandra Levy was alive and well and living
in Mexico. Ms. Levy's remains were found shortly
thereafter in Washington, DC).
Remember, we are dealing with people with zero
experience in astronomy, let alone astronomical
imaging. They are easily fooled; don't forget that
Mr. Hazlewood mistook a Hubble image of Jupter's
moon Io for an image of Planet X! So you might
want to think twice before believing what they say.
They don't want you to think twice; from the
evidence I have seen, they don't want you to think at
all.
Conclusion: fake pictures and real ones that are
misinterpreted do not support the existence of
Planet X.
I am not a government disinformation agent.
Just about every purveyor of Planet X has said at
some time that I am a liar, or deluded, or a paid
NASA or NSA or CIA disinformation agent. James
McCanney told a bare-faced lie on the radio, saying
I have a "mansion" and a "luxurious office" (it's a
lie because he doesn't know what kind of home or
office I have, therefore he knows he cannot make
any conclusions about them, and therefore he lied).
I laughed out loud when I first heard him say this; I
was sitting in my "luxurious" 10x12 foot office that
I shared with a coworker. It was so cramped we
couldn't both push our chairs back at the same time.

The assertion that I am some kind of spook is silly.

Think about it: I am a professional astronomer, with
a traceable history of doing relatively good science
(I have a dozen or so journal articles with my name
on them). How much money do you think I could
make if I started a cult about Planet X? I could
make as much money just as easily by writing a
book and getting on talk shows. I could name my
price to Fox TV. So there is no monetary incentive
for me to debunk Planet X, unless I truly believe it
isn't real. If you think the government would give
me more money than Fox TV, then you are beyond
any logic I can provide you.

Ironically, and in fact, all the Planet X purveyors

are known liars, or at least deceptive. Since they
have no evidence I am a disinformation agent, and
yet they still call me that, they are knowingly lying.
They may believe it's true, but they have no
evidence of it, and so cannot honestly state that
claim as truth.

Hazlewood has claimed on many occasions that I

spend time fighting him because he is "on to
something". That's a silly statement. Imagine
yelling a racial slur at someone on the street. Don't
you think they would get angry, and perhaps even
argue about it? Wouldn't you, if someone attacked
something you loved for no reason and without any
merit to their arguments?

The claims that I am deluded are just as silly. I

actually have evidence that what I say is correct,
and also show exactly where Lieder and the others
are wrong. All they can do against me is cry about a
government conspiracy with no evidence
whatsoever. So do you agree with someone with
lots of evidence, or someone with none whatsoever,
just hearsay, deception, and/or outright lies?

Conclusion: There is no evidence that I am

anything but who I say I am: a professional
astronomer who loves astronomy, and doesn't like
hearing the Planet X purveyors misleading others
about it. Slurs (and let's face it, slander) against me
do not support the existence of Planet X.

The Grand Conclusion

Planet X doesn't exist, and we are in no danger from

a giant planet, rogue or otherwise. Lieder,
Hazlewood and the rest of that group are wrong.
They may be consciously lying, or have a tenuous
grasp on reality, but in the end it doesn't matter:
they are still wrong.
What is Planet X (Nibiru?) astronomer if he knew about Planet X. The answer
is always
Does Planet X exist? Yes, as an idea only. Planet X yes, and the astronomer abruptly leaves. An
has always admission by an
been the name for the unknown planet. Neptune astronomer who was obviously frightened to talk
was Planet X about it and
for a time. Pluto was Planet X for many years. After ran! Actually anyone with a basic knowledge of
Pluto was astronomy has
discovered, the search continued. Planet X was a heard of Planet X and the astronomer was probably
hot topic in the thinking
70's and 80's. This is the real Planet X, just a name "Oh, no, not another one of those Planet X people".
given to an
idea, such as the missing link or the unknown
soldier.
The Great Conspiracy

Whenever there is discussion of Planet X, there will be

Hypothetical Planets conspiracy theories
also. I found this very curious. Zetatalk does a
The Planet X this site is about is a fantasy Planet X, considerable amount of
also called America bashing, as do many supporters. Why is
the 12th planet or Nibiru. This was first proposed in Zetatalk so political?
the book Why would aliens be so into our politics that they would
The 12th Planet by Zecharia Sitchin. He studied the comment on our
ancient presidential election? The answer is quite simple, an
Sumerians and based on their writings and seals felt answer is needed
to explain why science shows how silly Zetatalk really
they had
is.
advanced knowledge about the solar system. Taking
the stories They talk of the New World Order, the elite and many
of their gods and other myths as actual fact, he other names for
determined that "them", those hidden evil people that are covering up
they were in contact with an alien race living on a Planet X to save
12th planet in themselves and leave everyone else to die when the pole
our solar system that comes into the inner solar shift happens.
system every
3600 years. Yes, there are only 9 planets, but to Nancy started this with the NASA conspiracy of Hale
make the Bopp in 1995 as
a cover-up for Planet X. This story was extremely stupid
Akkadian Seal seem like advanced knowledge of
at the time
our solar and 7 years later we have to wonder why something that
system, the sun and moon were also called planets. still has not
been seen would need a cover-up in 1995?
See: Tom Van Flandern on Sitchin's interpretations
The conspiracy theory is rolled out every time that the
Note: Zecharia Sitchin DOES NOT support the idea Planet X
of his message starts to fail. The explanation for the false
Nibiru returning in 2003. claims not
matching the known and verified science of man is that
Zetatalk took the Sitchins information and added a it is part of
the conspiracy.
lot of silly
things, including a May 2003 date for the return of Mark Hazlewood spends a considerable amount of time
Planet X or on the conspiracy.
the 12th planet. It is sometimes referred to as a This is primarily due to him being cut-off from the
comet. It is source of Planet X in
supposed to be an inhabited brown dwarf star, 2003 - Zetatalk and Nancy Lieder. Without her fertile
covered with imagination
oceans! We are told it is in orbit between our Sun all Hazlewood can do is rant about the evil government
and the conspiracy. Strangely
Sun's dead twin sun. This orbit brings it through our this has drawn support from many conspiracy oriented
solar people who otherwise
wouldn't believe something as wacky as the Planet X in
system every 3600 years. Hard to believe? Read the
2003 scam.
descriptions yourself!
Many Planet X discussion groups have a great deal of
Zetatalk Planet X Viewing conspiracy
theory posts, and the internet if full of conspiracy
I have seen several believers in Planet X say they theories. In the
asked an
case of Planet X, the great conspiracy works as a catch
all to explain Recent NASA plans to cut radar mapping of near earth
the inconsistencies, contradictions and incorrect asteroids with
information the Arecibo radio telescope was proclaimed as a pointer.
supporting the existence of their Planet X For some
reason the wild assumption was made that Arecibo was
Could KX76 be Planet X? being shutdown.
In reality this was simply a plan to cut the budget of one
In a word, NO. Asteriod 2001 KX76 is simply that, an program to map
asteriod. Zetatalk the surface of close asteroids. NASA no longer plans to
immediately claimed it was a disinformation and was in cancel this
the area of their program.
coordinates. Mark Hazlewood actually proclaimed that
this was Planet X I expect any time to see contracts for professional
and pointed readers to KX76 news stories for a "picture football or basketball
of Planet X". This players ending in 2003 to be a sign of the coming pole
is a pretty good indication of the level of research behind shift.
these strange
claims.
Is there evidence that proves we
It was pointed out that KX76 is on the opposite side of have not had a pole shift?
the sky (and solar
system) from the Zeta coordinates. The story then There is a great deal of geological evidence that the earth
became that KX76 is has not had a
a distraction, to get people looking in the opposite pole shift in the recent past. Ice core samples from the
direction. Haven't we north and south polar
heard that before? area show undisturbed ice for over 100,000 years.

Yes, the stories on Planet X do seem to be flexible. Icecore 1

Icecore 2
More evidence, Russia admits The Hawaiian Islands are also proof. The Hawaiian
problem! Island chain is still being
created by the Pacific Plate sliding over a hotspot, an
When I first heard of this, I wondered what the Russians area where heat from
had to say about the earth's core is escaping through the mantle and crust.
Planet X. I checked out the link and still wondered. It As the Pacific
must have been the Plate drifts westward, the hotspot stays in place forming
wrong story. Then I saw others discussing it and realized new islands. There
it was the same are 70 million years of history recorded in the islands,
story. It was a story about Russia's economic problems including a change
that may come to in direction 43 million years ago. If the crust had been
a head in 2003 when debt payments increase. It also sliding around as the
talks about the Zeta's claim, the islands would not show a 70 million
population problem in Russia, something I had never year movement of the
heard of. Apparently Pacific Plate.
the birth rate is down, the population is dying younger
and immigration is Hotspots
slowing. This is a huge concern and is already impacting
their economy. Hawaiian Islands
Still don't see a connection to Planet X? It basically
comes down to the Note: A recent paper suggests that hotspots may move.
date 2003 and one phrase "massive population This might indicate
shrinkage". a different direction for the motion of the plates than had
been predicted,
Eureka! Of course! however we still have 70 million years of history in the
Hawaiian Islands hotspot.
REUTERS REPORT

News Stories on the Russian Population Problem

Russian Population Takes Its Biggest Plunge Yet

Russia's Demographic "Crisis"

Other "pointers" to 2003 are frequently posted as a sign

of the coming
pole shift. 2003 government budgets, 2003 NASA plans.
What would happen if the rotation axis of storm lasting hundreds or thousands of years. I can't
imagine what it would be like living through such times
the Earth changed? when death could fall out of the sky at any moment.
How the ding dang would something like this ever
Sorry to be so gloomy. It's all pretty hypothetical
happen! The spin axis of Earth, and its spin energy are
anyway. There are lots of other things of greater
extremely robust and it would require a close encounter
likelihood that are bound to happen to the Earth in the
with another planet-sized body to torque the Earth into a
next hundred thousand years that would be more local,
substantially different orientation. Such and encounter
but still lethal.
would last a week for a deep encounter, and the tectonic
upheavals would be tremendous, horrible, etc
A change in the rotation axis of the Earth, or its spin rate
etc. The surface of the Earth would become molten as
would be catastrophic. The number of the seasons would
the tremendous tidal energies are dissipated. NO ONE
change and their duration. If the rotation axis became
would possibly survive it and the biosphere+atmosphere
parallel to the orbital plane, as for Uranus, we could
would be transfigured.
have winter in the Northern hemisphere for 6 months
followed by summer. The Sun would set on the entire
Currently, the Earth is spinning about 1000 miles per
Northern hemisphere and not rise again for 6
hour at the equator. A LOT less towards the poles. An
months. Less extreme axial tilts would produce a
appreciable change in rotation direction would produce
different pattern of seasons at each earth latitude.
winds with speeds of thousands of miles per hour
EVERYWHERE. Anything not anchored to bedrock
Growing seasons and all of the natural cycles of the
would be torn out of the soil and mixed with a world-
biosphere would be catastrophically affected, and if the
enveloping hurricane of activity. The Earth would
change happened in a year or so, no living things,
remain engulfed in thick clouds of dirt, dust and debris
especially plants, would survive unmolested. There
for decades. I cannot imagine anything surviving such a
would not be enough time for plants to genetically alter
catastrophy, because the solid Earth would be wracked
their growing cycles. Large diebacks of plant ecosystems
by earthquakes the likes of which have never been
would occur followed by the animals that feed on the
experienced by living organisms in over 3 billion years
plants, and then the carnivores...etc etc.
or more. There would be no spot on the Earth not
affected by 100 - 500 mile per hour winds and
If the length of the day changed appreciably, we would
earthquakes of magnitude +7 and MUCH HIGHER.
still operate on the basis of the 24 hour cycle because
that is genetically programmed into us, but for
Any scenario that includes such a catastrophy would
organisms that rely on the 24 hour day to set their
have to presume the complete destruction of the
reproductive cycles and feeding cycles, they may be
biosphere as a given. The only survivors would be
adversely affected.
bacteria. The tidal forced exerted upon the Earth would
be enough to raise the surface of the earth several miles
Still, to seriously affect the Earth's rotation axis and spin,
or more, and the tidal energy would probably be enough
you would need a catastrophic force
in a close encounter to liquify large portions of the crust.
(collision etc) whose physical affect would in itself be
enough to exterminate much of the biosphere. Any
The polar ice caps would be melted by any change in the
changes in the seasons would be the least of the concerns
mean global temperature, and the changing wind
of the biosphere compared to surviving the cause of the
patterns and tectonic activity would provide a more than
change itself!
adequate source of heating. After they melted, and the
sea level rose by 30 feet, they would eventually reform
when the Earth settled down to its new spin orientation Didn't Einstein support Velikovsky's
assuming the temperature of the atmosphere returned to theories?
current levels. I don't really see that that would happen
for many centuries afterwards because it takes time for Albert Einstein and Immanuel Velikovsky were
the Earth to cool after such a cataclysmic change. friends for many years.
Perhaps millions of years would be needed to quell the In 1946 Velikovsky discussed his idea's of an
vulcanism that must surely result from such a encounter with Venus in the
realignment. The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere last few thousands years causing a pole shift
and the consequent Greenhouse Heating would probably accounting for much of ancient
stay with the Earth for millennia. legend. He left Einstein a draft of his book Worlds in
Collisions.
If the collision was a direct one with a body, say, as
large as the asteroid Ceres ( 450 kilometers) this would Below is the letter of response from Einstein. The two
produce a crater larger than the continent of North remained friends
America, and probably be enough of an impulse to cause for years after this. Einstein was interested in the
the axis of the Earth to precess with a very large historical record
amplitude over thousands of years. I can't be too specific that might include a catastrophic event of
because the details depend on the geometry and energy extraterrestrial origin
of the impact. Most solar system bodies are 1) orbiting (comet, asteroid, ect) but from his knowledge of
the Sun in the same sense as the Earth is rotation, so physics he knew that a
such impacts probably would not greatly affect the spin a pole shift and encounter with Venus in the last few
direction, but might increase the spin rate so that a day thousand years
might be several hours shorter than the standard 24 were both impossible.
hours. If the impact is a grazing collision, portions of the
Earth's mass would be ejected into space to orbit the July 8, 1946
Earth, be lost from the Earth's gravitational field, or
Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky
eventually rain back upon the Earth as a lethal meteor
 526 West 113 Str. ecliptic in the southern
New York City skies at this point in its orbit. On Harrington’s early
Dear Mr. Velikovsky: death the scope was
immediately called back --- as one observer noted,
I have read the whole book about the planet Venus. “almost before he was
cold”. "
There is much of interest in the book which proves Neil Freer is an English professor who has written
that several books about
in fact catastrophes have taken place which must the works of Zecharia Sitchin.
be Zetatalk takes this a step further saying:
attributed to extraterrestrial causes. However it is "A Phil Schneider assassination is evident, as is the
evident to every sensible physicist that these catast- death of
Robert Harrington".
rophes can have nothing to do with the planet Zetatalk Cover-Up
Venus and In Blindsided, Mark Hazlewood says:
that also the direction of the inclination of the "What obvious message do you think was sent to
terrestrial axis towards the ecliptic could not have Stitchin, Van Flandern
under- and anyone else in the know, when Harrington
gone a considerable change without the total suddenly met with an early
destruction death at the same time the scope was being pulled
of the earth's entire crust. It were best in my back? Sometimes an
opinion early death is meant to accomplish more than just
if you would in this way revise your books, which keeping one person quiet. "
contain Yes, more conspiracy theory on the cover-up of
truly valuable material. If you cannot decide on Planet X. The easy
this, explanation why no astronomer or scientist will
then what is valuable in your deliberations will support the silly
become Zeta planet.
ineffective, and it would be difficult finding a Zetatalk recently added a new page on Harrington
sensible with a rambling
publisher who would take the risk of such a heavy conspiracy theory and the usual reference of "his
setback cohorts sang whatever
upon himself. tune the CIA wanted" to justify why astronomers no
longer feel that
I tell you this in writing and return to you your a Planet X exists.
manu- script, since I will not be free on the ZetaTalk: Harrington
considered days. The truth of the matter is that Robert Harrington
died January 23, 1993
With friendly greetings, also to your daughter, of esophageal cancer. Nothing mysterious or sinister
Your about this. There is
Albert Einstein also no evidence of a telescope being dispatched to
Black Birch, New
Zealand. The United States Naval Observatory
already had an observatory
Robert Harrington and Planet X at Black Birch.
Dr. Robert S. Harrington was an astronomer with In his book Genesis Revisited, Sitchin says:
the United States "On January 16, 1990, Dr. Harrington reported at
Naval Observatory. He had multiple theories on the American
Planet X over the years Astronomical Society meeting in Arlington, Virginia,
including The Location of Planet X 1988 and The that the U.S. Naval
Search for Planet X 1991. Observatory team has narrowed its search for the
He based his theories on the movements of the outer tenth planet to the
planets and a southern skies and has announced the dispatch of a
possible influence from an unknown body in the team of astronomers
solar system. to the Black Birch Astronomic Observatory in New
These published and publicly available papers by the Zealand."
Naval Observatory Note: this was 3 years before Harrington's death.
astronomer are even referred to by some Planet X Harrington in his 1991 paper The Search for Planet
proponents as "NASA X wrote about the
internal documents"! search already being underway and it would continue
Oddly, it is his death that the Planet X crowd refer to from New Zealand.
more often than his Why New Zealand? Harrington's latest calculations
theories. This seems to stem from a white paper showed that if
written by Neil Freer Planet X existed it would be in the region of
titled The Alien Question: An Expanded Perspective. Centaurus and Hydra, a
In this white paper Freer wrote: region which is too far south for Tombaugh to have
"It is interesting that Harrington dispatched an searched in the 1930s.
appropriate telescope to This is also NOT the location of the Zeta Planet X.
Black Birch, New Zealand to get a visual Not even close.
confirmation, based on the data Are we looking at dishonesty here? Or simply more
leading to the expectation that it would be below the poor research? That is
difficult to say. What is obvious is that the Planet X
crowd does like to take
the truth and twist it to suit their needs.
The Great 2012 Doomsday Scare
11.09.09
NASA
Scenes from the motion picture Scenes from the motion
picture "2012." Courtesy Columbia Pictures. This guest
article on 2012 was written by E. C. Krupp, Director of
Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and is reprinted
with permission from Sky & Telescope Magazine. The
publisher and the author reserve all rights. All opinions
are the author's own.
The year 2012 is acting like a badly behaved celebrity.
Frightful rumors and gossip are spreading. Already more
than a half dozen books are marketing, to eager fans,
astronomical fears about 2012 End Times. Opening in
theaters on Friday, Nov. 13, will be 2012, a $200-million
disaster movie that seems designed to break all records
for disaster spectacles -- with cracking continents,
plunging asteroids, burning cities, and a tsunami
throwing an aircraft carrier through the White House.
The movie's ominous slogan: "Find out the truth." Two
other major movies about the 2012 doomsday are also
reported to be in the works.
Anyone who cruises the internet or all-night talk radio
knows why. The ancient Maya of Mexico and
Guatemala kept a calendar that is about to roll up the red
carpet of time, swing the solar system into
transcendental alignment with the heart of the Milky
Way, and turn Earth into a bowling pin for a rogue
planet heading down our alley for a strike.
None of it is true. People you know, however, are likely
becoming a bit afraid that modern astronomy and Maya
secrets are indeed conspiring to bring our doom. If
people know you’re an astronomer, they will soon be
asking you all about it.
Here is what you need to know.
Birth of a Notion
We"ve had similar scares in the recent past, but none
quite like this. The last time the world got all worked up
over the mystical turning of a calendar was the false
Millennium of Jan. 1, 2000. Never mind the actual Y2K
computer-date bug. True-believer authors (and their
imitators) published scary and/or hopeful books about
the moment's prophetic potential to catch an immense
cosmic wave and change everything for either good or
ill. Borrowing a forecast from Nostradamus, the 16th-
century French riddler, author Charles Berlitz predicted
catastrophe in his 1981 book Doomsday 1999. Berlitz
(fresh off books on Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle),
warned that 1999 could inflict flood, famine, pollution
and a shift of Earth's magnetic poles. He also spotlighted
the planetary alignment of May 5, 2000, and warned that
it could bring solar flares, severe earthquakes, "land
changes" and "seismic explosions."
In the 1990s an entire "Earth Changes" movement
swelled into being as the end of the century neared, with
all sorts of Millennial expectations -- earthquakes,
plagues, polar axis shifts, continents sliding into the sea,
Atlantis rising and more. In England, the Sun tabloid
predicted a "marvelous millennium of joy, peace,
prosperity."
When Jan. 1, 2000, came and went with nothing worse
than ski-lift passes printing the date as 1900, the focus
shifted to "5/5/2000" several months later. Most
believers in the power of planetary alignments forgot the
failure of earlier lineups to induce disaster. The "Jupiter
Effect" cataclysm predicted for March 10, 1982 (named
for the 1974 book about it by John Gribbin and Stephen
Plagemann) commanded headlines but never
materialized.
Throughout history, end-of-the-world movements
missing their mark number in the "hundreds of
thousands at the very least, says Richard Landes,
historian at Boston University and director of its Center
for Millennial Studies. But people eager for the world to
end are not to be denied, and this time, of course, all will
be different.
The Rollover
What exactly is the Maya calendar about to do? On Dec.
21, 2012, it will display the equivalent of a string of
zeros, like the odometer turning over on your car, with
the close of something like a millennium. In Maya
calendrics, however, it's not the end of a thousand years.
It's the end of Baktun 13. The Maya calendar was based
on multiple cycles of time, and the baktun was one of
them. A baktun is 144,000 days: a little more than 394
years.
Scholars have deciphered how the Maya calendar
worked from historical texts and ancient inscriptions,
and they have accurately correlated so-called Maya
Long Count dates with the equivalent dates in our
calendar. Just as we number our years counting from a
historically and culturally significant event (the
presumed birth year of Christ), Maya times were
numbered from a date endowed with religious and
cosmic significance: the creation date of the present
world order. A Long Count date is the tally of days from
that mythic startup. Most experts think the start point
corresponds to Aug. 11, 3114 B.C.
Most of the Maya calendar intervals accumulate as
multiples of 20. An interval of 7,200 days (360 × 20)
was known as a katun. It takes 20 katuns to complete a
baktun (20 × 7,200 = 144,000 days). Although some
ancient inscriptions turn 13 baktuns into an important
reset milestone, others imply that the calendar simply
keeps running. For instance, it takes 20 baktuns to make
a pictun.
No one paid much attention to the end of Baktun 13 until
fairly recently. In 1975 Frank Waters, a romantic and
speculative author, devoted a brief section to the subject
in his book Mexico Mystique. He identified the 13-
baktun interval as a "Mayan Great Cycle," overestimated
its duration as 5,200 years, and equated five such cycles
with five legendary eras, each of which ends in the
world’s destruction and rebirth. There is no genuine
Maya tradition behind any of this.
Waters also miscalculated the date when the calendar
would supposedly pull down the shades. "The end of the
Great Cycle . . . will occur Dec. 24, 2011 A.D.," he
announced, when the world "will be destroyed by
catastrophic earthquakes." Exact date aside, the
doomsday ball was now rolling.

Another book in 1975 also spotlighted the Maya
calendric roundup. Dennis and Terence McKenna
discussed it in The Invisible Landscape: Mind,
Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. That book at least got
the Baktun-13 end date right: Dec. 21, 2012. It also
noted that the date is the winter solstice, when the Sun
will be "in the constellation Sagittarius, only about 3
degrees from the Galactic Center, which, also
coincidentally, is within 2 degrees of the ecliptic." The
McKennas continued, "Because the winter solstice node
is precessing, it is moving closer and closer to the point
on the ecliptic where it will eclipse the galactic center."
In reality this event will never happen, but it hardly
matters. The McKennas linked the whole arrangement
with the concept of renewal and called 2012 a moment
of "potential transformative opportunity."
Broader interest in 2012 caught on beginning in 1987. In
The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, José
Argüelles (an "artist, poet, and visionary historian"
according to the dust jacket) linked the 13-baktun period
with an impalpable "beam" from the center of the Milky
Way Galaxy. According to Argüelles, the Maya knew
when we entered this beam and when we would leave it,
and set their 13-baktun cycle to mark our passage
through it accordingly. The beam, he asserted, operates
as "invisible galactic life threads" that link people, the
planet, the Sun, and the center of the Galaxy. Neither
Maya tradition nor modern astronomy supports a belief
in any such beam. It stemmed instead from Argüelles’s
personal philosophy, which emphasizes "the principle of
harmonic resonance." Argüelles also concluded that the
planets are "orbiting harmonic gyroscopes" that “play a
role in the coordination of the beam," which advances
the development of anything with DNA. The year 2012,
therefore, will bring a rosy version of the apocalypse.
If this sounds a bit familiar, you're right. In 1987
Argüelles and his followers predicted, with worldwide
fanfare, that Aug. 16–17 of that year would bring a
Maya-Galactic "Harmonic Convergence." That event
turned into a global phenomenon, with thousands
gathering at Earth’s “acupuncture points” to create a
"synchronized and unified bio-electromagnetic collective
battery." Unfortunately, the date passed with nothing
more than colorful newspaper stories and a Doonesbury
satire. (A character explains earnestly that that the
alignment could bring either "mass unification of divine
and earth-plane selves," or perhaps nuclear annihilation.
"Either way there will probably be a crafts fair.")
Galactic Guessing Games
Fast-forward to 1995. That year John Major Jenkins
packaged several of these themes into Maya
Cosmogenesis 2012. According to Jenkins, the winter-
solstice point and the centerline of the Galaxy will line
up exactly on Dec. 21. Arguing that this motivated the
Maya to contrive the calendar to end on that date,
Jenkins concludes that it will be "a tremendous
transformation and opportunity for spiritual growth, a
transition from one world age to another."
In fact, astronomy cannot pinpoint such a "galactic
alignment" to within a year, much less a day. The
alignment depends on the rather arbitrary modern
definition of the galactic equator, and/or the visual
appearance of the Milky Way. There is no precise
definition of the Milky Way's edges -- they are very
vague and depend on the clarity of your view. (Jenkins
says that he personally established the Milky Way’s
edges by viewing it from 11,000 feet, far above
anywhere the Maya lived.) So to give a precise visual
position for its centerline is not meaningful.
Jenkins did acknowledge that the winter-solstice Sun
actually crosses the center of the Milky Way anytime
between 1980 and 2016. Elsewhere he expands this
approach zone to a 900-year period, and settles for an
imprecise alignment to which Dec. 21, 2012, is
arbitrarily and circularly assigned. Real astronomy does
not support any match between the Baktun-13 end date
and a galactic alignment. The advocates both admit and
ignore this discrepancy.
It's almost a sidelight that the winter-solstice sun will
never actually "eclipse" the galaxy's true center, the
pointlike radio source marking the Milky Way's central
black hole. Moreover, the winter-solstice sun won’t even
pass closest to it on the sky for another 200 years. What
did the Maya themselves think about End Times? There
is no evidence that they saw the calendar and a world
age ending in either transcendence or catastrophe on
December 21, 2012. Some Maya Long Count texts refer
to dates many baktuns past 13 and even into the next
pictun and beyond. For instance, an inscription
commissioned in the 7th century A.D. by King Pacal of
Palenque predicts that an anniversary of his accession
would be commemorated on Oct. 15, 4772.
In all of the Long Count texts discovered, transcribed,
and translated, only one mentions the key date in 2012:
Monument 6 at Tortuguero, a Maya site in the Mexican
state of Tabasco. The text is damaged, but what remains
does not imply the end of time.
The Secret NASA Conspiracy
Some advocates for the 2012 catastrophe say that what
will actually cause the devastation is an alignment of
planets. There is no planet alignment on the winter
solstice in 2012. Nonetheless, advocates of doom
connect the fictional alignment to astrological
predictions or groundless claims about a reversal of
Earth's magnetic field and unprecedented solar storms.
Many internet postings and guests on all-night
apocalyptic radio have elaborated on these themes.
In particular, several threads of irrational thought have
created an internet phantom, the secret planet Nibiru. It's
the bowling ball, and Earth is the pin. There is no such
planet, though it is often equated with Eris, a plutoid
orbiting safely and permanently beyond Pluto. Some
insist, however, that a NASA conspiracy is in play and
that Nibiru, looming in on the approach, can already be
seen in broad daylight from the Southern Hemisphere. It
was supposed to become visible from the Northern
Hemisphere, too, by last May, but like a fickle blind
date, it stood up those awaiting it.
Others on the Web, confused about the supposed
alignment of the winter-solstice sun with the Milky
Way's center, have declared that the Sun is now
plummeting to the Milky Way’s center and dragging
Earth with it. The predicted result? Earth’s polar axis
will shift. Most of what's claimed for 2012 relies on
wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance
of astronomy, and a level of paranoia worthy of Night of
the Living Dead.
So maybe the Maya were on to us after all. The clock is
ticking. And it’s the end of the world as we know it.