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CHAPTER SEVEN
The scientific evidence and ongoing search for Planet X will be dealt with later in this chapter, but first we must review a mass of evidence that traces the history of that planet from the early days of the Solar System right up to the legendary Flood, which I will date to 13,000 years ago. Our quest for Nibiru/Planet X begins with an extraordinary source - a 4,000 year old Babylonian text known as the Enuma Elish.
In 1876, George Smith of the British Museum
published his translation of this sacred Babylonian epic, pieced
together from broken clay tablets such as that shown in Figure 1.
Smith had already caused international headlines with his earlier
translation of a Flood text which paralleled the Biblical tale. The
Enuma Elish caused an equal stir, for it appeared to represent a
creation myth that was far more detailed than the brief Biblical
account of Genesis 1.
The educated scholar, however, realizes that the
Babylonians were heirs to the Sumerian culture,
and that the vast majority of Babylonian myths are politicized
versions of Sumerian originals. The key question is this: if the
very UN-Sumerian ritual and political aspects are stripped away from
the Enuma Elish, does the tale indeed represent an earlier Sumerian
document with valid scientific credentials?
The Babylonian epic begins: Enuma Elish la nabu shamamu - “When on high the heaven had not been named”.
It then lists the “Gods” which were begotten by AP.SU (the Sun),” with descriptions that match the planets of the Solar System in amazing detail. Then, “in the heart of the deep”, a new and more powerful God, called Marduk, was created:
Marduk is interpreted by Sitchin as a wandering planet, thrust into the Solar System by an unknown cosmic event, perhaps ejected from a similarly unstable solar-planetary system. its course, first via Neptune, then Uranus, indicates a clockwise direction, contrary to the counter-clockwise rotation of the other planets around the Sun.
This factor will later prove highly significant. The combined gravitational effect of the other planets diverted Marduk into the heart of the newly developing Solar System - towards a collision with a watery planet named Tiamat. Tiamat and Marduk, the wisest of the “Gods”, advanced against one another; they pressed on to single combat, they approached for battle armed with a “blazing flame” and having acquired various “winds” or satellites, Marduk “towards the raging Tiamat set his face”.
The Lord spread out his net to enfold
her; the Evil Wind, the rearmost, he unleashed at her face. As she
opened her mouth, Tiamat, to devour him he drove in the Evil Wind so
that she closed not her lips. The fierce storm Winds then charged
her belly; her body became distended; her mouth had opened wide. He
shot there through an arrow, it tore her belly; it cut through her
insides, tore into her womb. Having thus subdued her, her
life-breath he extinguished.
The planet Tiamat was thus “extinguished”, but the act of creation was not yet finished. Marduk became caught in the orbit of the Sun, forever to return to the place of the celestial battle with Tiamat. On the first encounter, Marduk’ s satellite winds had smashed into Tiamat, but one orbital period later, Marduk itself “returned to Tiamat, whom he had subdued” and the two planets did collide The Lord paused to view her lifeless body. To divide the monster he then artfully planned.
Then, as a mussel, he split her
into two parts. The Lord trod upon Tiamat’ s hinder part; with his
weapon the connected skull he cut loose: he severed the channels of
her blood; and caused the North Wind to bear it to places that have
been unknown. Zecharia Sitchin identifies the upper part (the
“skull”) of the watery Tiamat as the future Earth, shunted by one of Marduk’s satellites into a new orbit, along with its largest
satellite Kingu (meaning “Great Emissary”). The final act of
creation then occurred on the second return of Marduk to the
celestial battle-site. This time Marduk collided with the remaining
half of Tiamat.
He failed to mention that the Muslims’ holy book, the Koran, also parallels the Enuma Elish.
Scientists are reluctant to admit that a 4,000 year old text could explain the origins of the Solar System - for that would raise the uncomfortable question of how the Babylonians could have acquired the knowledge - but nevertheless the Enuma Elish does explain virtually all the anomalies of the Solar System that puzzle modern astronomers. The best example is literally under our feet - planet Earth herself.
For thousands of years, we have taken it for granted
that our planet has its land mass concentrated on one side of the
globe, with the deep cavity of the Pacific Ocean bed on the other
side. Now, as a result of late twentieth century space probes, there
is a growing realization that the continent-ocean distinction is
unique to the Earth among the Solar System planets.
Even if this crust is taken into account, Earth still has less than half of the crust it ought to have relative to other planets.” And just to confuse things even more, the oceanic crust dates to no more than 200 million years old, whereas the continental crust dates to 4 billion years! Why is the oceanic crust relatively fresh and what force caused the continental crust to “dive”? Scientists have produced incredibly contrived theories to explain these mysterious anomalies. For instance, it is thought that the young age of the oceanic crust must be caused by it periodically diving into a “subduction zone” in the mantle below, where it is then somehow recycled.
The Enuma Elish, on the other hand, can explain everything perfectly, for it describes Earth as half of a planet that was catastrophically split into two - the surviving half of the watery planet Tiamat. The process of continental drift makes a lot more sense when seen in this manner as a catastrophic after-effect.
The ancient Sumerians were well aware of this fact; as Zecharia Sitchin has pointed out, the term which they used for the Earth was KI, meaning “to cut off, to sever, to hollow out”. Twenty years after Zecharia Sitchin offered the Sumerian solution to the Earth’s origin, scientists have got no further in suggesting any alternative explanations. In fact, the evidence continues to support what Sitchin said.
Recent improvements in geological dating have demonstrated a mystifying absence of crustal rocks from the Earth’s earliest era, the so-called Hadean era between 4.6-3.96 billion years ago. Writing in the esteemed scientific journal Nature, J. Vervoort has recently described “early large-scale chemical depletion of the mantle (presumably resulting from the extraction of continental crust)”, whilst fellow-researcher, Richard Carlson wrote:
According to the Enuma Elish, as deciphered by Zecharia Sitchin, the Moon (Kingu) was originally the main satellite of Tiamat, and was thus at the heart of the celestial battle. Its scars of battle can thus be explained. The origin of the Moon, as a satellite of a larger planet than Earth, also explains one of the greatest riddles of the Solar System. As surprising as it might seem, scientists are bitterly divided on the question of how the Earth came to acquire such a large Moon.
Relative to other planet-satellite relationships, Earth’s Moon is far too large, and this has caused a particular problem with most theories on its origin. Its sheer size argues against the possibility of “capture” by the Earth’s gravity. The fission theory (by which the Moon was ejected by the Earth in an over-spin condition) also fails to explain how such a large mass of material could have been ejected, and has hence led to a hybrid theory whereby a Mars-sized impactor planet might have struck the Earth with a glancing blow.
The fission theory is still favoured as the
least-bad solution, but if the Moon was ejected from the larger
planet Tiamat, then the size constraint on the fission hypothesis is
eliminated.
It is thus no coincidence that the Sumerians always counted the Moon alongside the planets as a separate celestial body. The Enuma Elish also explains a number of apparent contradictions in the composition of the Earth and Moon. Advocates of the fission theory have noted certain common properties in the Earth and Moon crusts, such as tungsten deficiency, which are highly unlikely to be coincidental.
Other studies, however, have shown significant
differences in the crust and mantle, whilst radioactive elements
found close to the Moon’s surface are only found deep down within
the Earth. The inevitable conclusion is that the Moon comprises a
combination of terrestrial material and material from an external
source, generally assumed to be an impactor planet. That is exactly
the scenario described by the Babylonian epic!
One theory supposes that, instead of forming a planet, these planetesimals collided too fast and shattered. Unfortunately, there is no underlying scientific theory to support such a contrived explanation. On the other hand, there is scientific evidence to support such a contrived explanation. On the other hand there is scientific evidence to suggest that the asteroids are the remains of a cataclysmic collision.
Apart from the fact that this appears intuitively obvious, there is an astronomical equation known as Bode’s Law which predicts the existence of a planet at the exact distance where the Asteroid Belt orbits the Sun. When the first asteroids were discovered at the beginning of the nineteenth century, an exploded planet was indeed regarded as the obvious explanation.
In the twentieth century, however, astronomers have
backed away from the catastrophic explanation due to a perceived
lack of asteroidal mass to account for a suitably sized planet. As
Zecharia Sitchin has pointed out, the Enuma Elish solves the problem
by locating the missing mass in the cleaved planet, Earth herself!
Some comets return to Earth only once every few thousand years with the longest orbit being that of Kohoutek which is estimated at 75,000 years. They are regarded as the “rebellious members” of the Solar System on account of their orbiting the Sun in many diverse planes, and in the opposite direction to the counterclockwise movement of the planets. Like the asteroids, it was once believed that the comets were evidence of an exploded planet.
Science then regressed into increasingly contrived
theories on how they were left-overs from the formation of the Solar
System. According to the text books, the comets were somehow flung
out by the gravity of the forming planets, generating a swarm known
as the Oort cloud in the depths of space. beyond the planet Pluto.
After being “stored” in the Oort cloud reservoir, some comets then
for no apparent reason “occasionally found themselves on
trajectories back into the inner solar system”.
Van Flandern questions fundamental aspects of the prevailing wisdom, which fail to explain why some comets orbit the Sun 1,000 times farther than Pluto, and why they all orbit in the same clockwise direction. The current theories also fail to properly explain how such an improbable thing as the Oort cloud could ever have formed.
Van Flandern explores the only possible alternative to the Oort cloud hypothesis an exploded planet - and notes that mathematical modelling proves the comets to have a common point of origin. He concludes that: [The] comets originated in the energetic break-up of a body orbiting the Sun in or near the present location of the Asteroid Belt... Exactly as described by the Enuma Elish!
As Zecharia Sitchin has shown, the direction followed by the planet Marduk did indeed take it in the opposite direction to the orbit of the planets. It was on the first passing of Marduk, as described earlier, that Tiamat’s satellites were “broken up” and numerous small planetary bodies (Gods) were thrust by the impact into new orbits, “turning their backs around” to follow the clockwise direction of Marduk itself.
Studies of meteorites have also
concluded that these cometary fragments were once part of a larger
planet. In 1948, Brown and Patterson conducted an exhaustive survey
and stated that: The conclusion appears irrefutable that meteorites
at one time were an integral part of a planet. That conclusion has
not been refuted since.
And then there are the moons of Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and Jupiter, which all show signs of unnatural evolution, whilst Charon, the tiny moon of Pluto, can only be explained by impact theory. It is obvious that the Solar System bears the legacy of a very violent past.
Tom Van Flandern summarizes the case for
catastrophism (and hence the Enuma
Elish) as follows: The planetary break-up hypothesis explains the
observations easily and well. Conventional models require the
invention of numerous new explanations for numerous new
observations.
The planet Earth is believed to be 4.6 billion years old, but the
fossil record shows a complete lack of’ ‘life” in the first 600
million years. Then, around 4 billion years ago, simple one-celled
life forms began to appear (exactly how this happened is one of the
hottest disputes in modern science). These one-celled creatures were
surprisingly sophisticated and, within another 500 million years,
multi-celled organisms, with highly evolved genetic material, began
to appear.
That view, initially treated with skepticism, is now widely accepted, although the current consensus prefers a comet or meteorite impact as the likely source. In 1989, a team from Stanford University concluded that life on Earth had evolved in a very short window of time, between 4-3.8 billion years ago.
Was the collision with Nibiru and its satellite the cause? The ancient texts describe the planet Nibiru as watery, and thus suitable for the prior development of life as we know it. Nibiru is also described as glowing and “brilliant”, with a “shining crown” - a likely reference to an internal source of heat, which would allow a temperate climate even when far from the Sun’s rays.
The mystery of the origin of life on Earth is equalled by the mystery of its subsequent evolution. It has recently become clear that catastrophism has played a major role in the mutation or extinction of different species. A recently published book by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin suggests that on five occasions a major catastrophe has wiped out more than 65 per cent of all living species! In addition, Leakey and Lewin make reference to ten or more lesser extinction’s.
The most recent of the Big Five was the event, dated to 65 million years ago, which killed off the dinosaurs. Scientific evidence now supports the theory, first put forward in 1979 by the Nobel prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, that the 200 million year reign of the dinosaurs was ended by a huge meteorite impact.
Images taken by the American space shuttle have identified huge concentric circles, approximately 110-190 miles in diameter, beneath the sea in the Gulf of Mexico. The size of this ringed depression indicates an impact twenty times more powerful than all of the world’s nuclear weapons. Measurements of rock density and the presence of iridium in the cretaceous/tertiary boundary in the rock strata, have enabled the crater to be dated to 65 million years ago.
Leakey and Lewin also date significant extinction’s to 440, 365, 225
and 210 million years ago. In the most dramatic of these events, 95
per cent of marine species were killed at the end of the so-called
Permian period, 225 million years ago. There is much controversy as
to why these extinction’s occurred - suggestions include changing
sea levels, global climatic change, tidal waves and forest fires.
This supports the theory that an impact from space caused the extinction at the end of the Devonian period 365 million years ago. The emerging cataclysm theory dovetails neatly with Darwinian laws of evolution. As discussed in chapter 2, evolutionary progress, via mutation, depends on the geographical separation of small populations.
In their aforementioned hook, Leakey and Lewin review the recent evidence which suggests that the first simple life forms existed for billions of years (six sevenths of Earth’s history) with little change; then, 530 million years ago, life suddenly exploded with vast diversity. Other writers have also noted this so-called Cambrian explosion. which witnessed “the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet".
At this time, a wide range of complex multi-cellular organisms suddenly appeared without any precursor species being evident in the fossil record. It is curious to note that the vast majority of the Cambrian organisms disappeared within a relatively short period of a few million years. whilst those that survived are believed to have evolved into today’s species.
Were these former organisms ill-suited to the Earth’s
environment, and if so why did they suddenly appear at all? Was the
Earth seeded for the second time, 530 million years ago, just as it
was 4 billion years ago? And, in view of the identical genetic code,
were both seedings from the same source?
Might a
similar event be to blame for the legendary Flood?
As for his means of escape, the Bible describes an “ark” or boat, Mesopotamian records describe a submersible vessel, and the Aztec version refers to a hollowed-out log. According to the Aztec legend, men were saved by turning into fish. Ancient texts from the Near East speak of the Flood as a major catastrophe - not a local or trivial event, but a great time divider.
The Assyrian king Ashurbanipal left us with the following inscription to illustrate the point:
Most scientists believe the Biblical Flood to be a myth. Why is this? The deep schism between Science and Religion has caused many scientists to be deeply skeptical of anything which appears in the Bible. This is unfortunate, because the Bible contains a robust, albeit abbreviated, historical record - a record that has sadly been undermined by the drastic religious editing which it has received.
The Flood is a prime example of how an actual physical event can be disguised by a heavy emphasis on monotheistic symbolism. How can we believe that God brought the Flood to punish mankind for his evil sins - for if God was a spiritual being, he would never have needed to use a Flood? Fortunately, the reliability of this particular story can be gleaned from other ancient texts which parallel the Bible.
As mentioned in chapter 1,
the Atra-Hasis epic clarifies the
role of the Biblical “God ” as “they” rather than “He”. Furthermore,
this account, inscribed in detail on tablets such as that shown in
(Figure 21), states that “they” did not bring it about deliberately.
Instead, it was resolved in the council of the Gods that the coming
Flood, which the Gods were powerless to prevent, should be kept
secret from mankind.
Despite being pressurized into taking an oath of secrecy, Enki decides to warn one
loyal follower and his family of the coming deluge. The chosen man
is a priest from the city of Shuruppak (the city of Enki’s sister
Ninharsag), whose name in the Akkadian language is Atra-Hasis,
meaning “Exceedingly Wise”. It is worth noting that exactly the same
meaning is applied to the hero Utnapishtim in the Flood account of
The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Is there any tangible evidence that a huge deluge ever took place? Over the years there have been many false alarms, as archaeologists have found evidence of floods, which then turned out to be localized events. But would we really expect archaeologists to find signs of The Flood when they are excavating the sites of post-Flood cities’!
In fact, it is other fields of science that have provided the significant clues.
And those clues all point to a global catastrophe approximately 13.000 years ago. Whilst not counting as one of Leakey and Lewin’s Big Five, the global extinction’s which occurred 13,000 years ago were dramatic enough. In the Americas, scientists have dated to the period 11,000-9,000 BC the demise of around fifty major mammal species. In contrast, the preceding 300,000 years witnessed an extinction rate of only one species in every 15,000 years.
A similar pattern of mass extinction’s c. 11,000 BC is found across Europe, Asia and Australasia. In northern Alaska, gold mining activities have uncovered the bodies of thousands of dead animals from beneath the frozen ground. Experts have been unable to explain why these animals, acclimatized to temperate regions, should be found in Alaska. Further examination reveals that the dead animals lie in a scene of utter carnage.
Their bodies
are found in a layer of fine sand, and lie twisted and torn
in a confused mixture with trees and other fauna. One
expert from the University of New Mexico has observed
that:
Whole herds of animals were apparently killed together, overcome by some common
power... Such piles of bodies of animals or men simply do
not occur by any natural means.
Once again, we find the animal bodies mixed with uprooted trees and vegetation, amid signs of an unexpected and sudden catastrophe. The mammoths died suddenly, in intense cold, and in great numbers. Death came so quickly that the swallowed vegetation is yet undigested... Considerable evidence points to substantial climatic change and major flooding c. 11,000-10,000 BC, possibly marking the end of an ice age:
More recently, in January 1993, the highly esteemed journal Science also cited evidence for the “Earth’s greatest flood at the end of the last ice age”. The general consensus is that the end of that ice age, marked by a sudden and dramatic climatic change, occurred around 12,000 years ago.
The full evidence, however, suggests that this was not a Flood caused by a simple melting of the polar ice cap, but something far more dramatic. In the Andes mountains of South America, geologists have found traces of marine sediments at a height of 12,150 feet! In the same region, some ruins at Tiwanaku (altitude 13,000 feet) have been found swamped under six feet of mud from an unknown source of flooding.
Nearby, the waters of Lake
Titicaca are slightly saline and studies have shown that its fish
and crustacea are predominantly oceanic rather than fresh-water
types. Furthermore, in 1980, the Bolivian archaeologist Hugo Boero
Rojo found extensive ruins, similar to the earliest Tiwanakan
culture, 60 feet beneath the waters of Titicaca, close to the coast
of Puerto Acosta. All of these facts argue against the theory that
the waters of Titicaca were lifted at the same time as the Andes
mountains 100 million years ago. On the contrary, the source of the Titicacan sea waters must have been a much more recent event.
There is no doubt that coincidental with the [extinction’s] there were volcanic eruptions of tremendous proportions. What force could have induced tectonic upheaval at the same time as raising the sea waters above the Andes? The melting of the Earth’s ice caps is not a satisfactory explanation, and in any case, what caused the ice caps to melt so suddenly?
No, we are instead faced with a sudden and violent event
that swept trees and animals from one end of the globe to another.
The unavoidable conclusion is that the Earth was moved by an
extremely powerful external force.
The failure to recognize the Flood cataclysm thus lies in the failure of scientists to find any plausible cause of the devastation which we have just examined. However, the deciphering of the Enuma Elish and the evidence concerning Nibiru/Planet X, do now offer a possible cause for the Flood.
Zecharia Sitchin has suggested that Nibiru, having been caught in a solar orbit, caused the Flood by destabilizing the Earth’s ice caps. The Sumerian scribes indeed stated, repeatedly, that the Flood was caused by the planet Nibiru. Its effect was so powerful that the Earth was described as shaking to its very foundations.
One text, quoted by Sitchin, identifies Nibiru quite clearly:
Is it scientifically feasible that Nibiru was the cause of the great Flood. raising the Earth’s waters above both the Andes and Mount Ararat (where Noah eventually landed)?
Everyday observation demonstrates that the combined gravitational effects of the Sun and the Moon are sufficient to pull the Earth’s oceans sideways, creating a global bulge which equates to the high tides. Although these tides amount to only thirty feet in height, they do demonstrate an important principle -a bulging effect that could be highly exaggerated by the close passing of another planet.
The Biblical record of the Flood states that “the valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the Earth laid bare”,”” suggesting that this is exactly what happened. The orbit of Nibiru, as interpreted by Zecharia Sitchin, normally brings it to a point in the Asteroid Belt some 166 million miles from Earth at its closest point.
At this proximity it would certainly be visible from Earth (as confirmed in a text describing Anu and Antu’s visit to Earth) but would it be close enough to have caused the Flood? In my view, the answer is no. But before we discard Sitchin’s theory, let us consider another possibility. It is an established scientific fact that the orbits of planetary bodies are affected by the proximity of neighbouring planets.
Therefore, when Nibiru pays its regular return
visits to the inner Solar System, it would interact with the other
planets and follow a slightly different course each time. Is it
possible that Nibiru, instead of hitting its perihelion near the
Asteroid Belt, could have been forced much closer to the Earth?
As a consequence, Ishtar Nenus attempted to become “queen of heaven” in a “glorious dwelling place with Anu/Nibiru”. And the Moon (Sin) was also “violently besieged”. The text concludes that Nibiru saved the darkened Moon and made it “shine forth in the heavens” once more, whilst Ishtar/Venus failed in her bid for glory.
A close reading suggests that this text, in a similar manner to the Enuma Elish, is describing a celestial event rather than a battle of the Gods. Further corroboration exists in a statement by the Babylonian historian-priest Berossus in the third century BC. I, Berossus, interpreter of Belus, affirm that all the Earth inherits will be consigned to flame when the five planets assemble in Cancer. so arranged in one row that a straight line may pass through their spheres.
When the same gathering takes place in Capricorn, then we are in danger of the Deluge. David Fasold, in his wide-ranging study of the Flood, quotes a fascinating clue which has been handed down in Chinese traditions.
A pictograph translated by the Chinese scholars C. Kang and E. Nelson states enigmatically,
Fasold interprets this as eight survivors, but it strikes me as eight planets, including Nibiru and Venus.
The reference to “united” suggests an alignment of the planets in one line, as stated by Berossus, and as alluded to in the Mesopotamian reference to the “storming of the Celestial Bar”. Some writers have suggested a close passing of the planet Venus as the cause of the Flood, and it is curious in this context that the orbit of Venus was so closely studied and recorded by the Maya as well as by the Sumerian astronomers.
The idea of a Venus “fly-by’’ is perhaps driven by the many anomalies of that planet in particular, its recently formed surface, its unexplained internal heat, and its unusual retrograde (clockwise) rotation. The Venus fly-by idea does, however, suffer from one fatal flaw - what could have caused it to suddenly shift from its orbit?
We thus possess a number of clues which suggest that Nibiru occasionally makes an exceptionally close pass to both the Earth and Venus. Could this theory offer a scientific basis to explain the Flood? Compared to the theory of Zecharia Sitchin, Nibiru would, under this scenario, be much, much closer than the 166 million miles distance of the Asteroid Belt.
At its conjunction with Earth, Venus is only 25 million miles distant. If, for the sake of argument, Nibiru had passed equidistant between the two planets, it could thus have approached Earth at a distance of 12.5 million miles - close enough for a planet three times the size of Earth to have a dramatic effect. How was the Flood actually triggered? Most studies assume that the Flood was a tidal wave and have therefore searched the Earth itself for the cause.
According to one theory, the Antarctic ice sheet periodically breaks loose and slips into the sea. Another theory takes note of the Biblical reference to “all the springs of the great deep burst forth" and thus suggests an outgassing of new oceanic water through rifts on the ocean bed. If, however, we search for an external, celestial cause of the Flood, a much more plausible theory emerges.
Scientists believe that the close proximity of two planets causes a “space charge sheath”, which involves tremendous electromagnetic forces. The passing of Nibiru, three times the size of Earth, would thus have caused significant tectonic upheaval, accounting for the evidence of volcanism that accompanied the Flood. Its side-effects may well have included the melting or slippage of the ice cap, and the oceanic outgassing.
As
for the Flood itself, the Earth’s waters would have been pulled to
one side by gravitational attraction, causing an enormous bulge
towards Nibiru as it passed Earth during the encounter. Finally, as
Nibiru departed, the waters would have cascaded back to Earth,
dumping a broken mass of trees and dead bodies in one location -
exactly as described earlier.
A close encounter with Nibiru would also have had dramatic effects on the planet Venus. Venus is a unique planet in the Solar System in having a retrograde or clockwise rotation. The speed of that rotation is also unusual, requiring no less than 243 days to rotate once on its own axis. Most planets take one day or less, with the exception of Pluto (6.4) and Mercury (5.6).
The combination of these two quirks suggests that, in the words of astronomer Tom Van Flandern:
The Enuma Elish indeed confirms that Nibiru/Marduk had a clockwise rotation, opposite to that of the other planets. Such an encounter would also explain the extreme level of internal heat on Venus - a complete mystery to astronomers. Is the turbulence on Venus a legacy from its origin or a relatively recent phenomenon’!
One scientist, Dr Stuart Greenwood,
has demonstrated that the cloud cover on Venus has been increasing
dramatically over the past few thousand years. Using ancient
astronomical records from the Maya and Babylonians, Greenwood has
shown that the period of invisibility of Venus at its “superior
conjunction” (when it cannot be seen behind the Sun) has shortened
significantly from 90 days to the present 50 days. Greenwood
concludes that Venus must have recently possessed an atmosphere that
contained significantly less cloud cover. This strongly suggests
that it is currently “on the rebound” from a recent encounter with
Nibiru.
The Aztec legend makes an interesting comparison with a Greek legend, according to which a “blazing star” almost destroyed the world, flooded it and was afterwards transformed into Venus! There may well be some historical basis for the Maya’s apparently irrational fear that Venus could inflict death at a certain point in its orbit.
Science and legend thus come together
to provide further support that the Flood was a historic event,
caused by an external source that also affected Venus. The planet
Nibiru is the missing link that can offer the long sought after
scientific corroboration of the Flood legends.
The answer would appear to be yes, since the planet figures prominently in the records of the Sumerian civilization which began six thousand years ago. The Sumerians called the Gods’ planet NIBIRU, the “Planet of the Crossing”,” and to understand the significance of that name we must return to the ancient Babylonian epic of creation.
According to the Enuma Elish, Nibiru was forever destined to return to the place of the celestial battle, where it had crossed the path of Tiamat - it was for this reason that it became known as the “Planet of the Crossing”. In fact, in the earliest pictographic writing systems, Nibiru was represented by the sign of the cross.
The religious significance of the cross, sacred to Buddhism as well as to Christendom, thus owes its origin to the celestial event which created the Earth and the heavens. The Sumerian texts seem to claim that the chief God, AN, actually lived on Nibiru, from where he would make periodic visits to Earth, accompanied by his spouse, Antu. Sumerian records describe in detail the great pomp and ceremony that accompanied one such visit.
Zecharia Sitchin has
suggested that it occurred in the fourth millennium BC, when the
Gods decided to grant civilization and kingship to mankind. On the
seventeenth day of their visit, Anu and Antu were entertained in the
city of Uruk, just prior to their departure. The assembled Gods
washed their hands in golden basins, and a grand banquet was served
from seven golden trays. A priest then climbed to the top of the
ziggurat-temple to watch for the appearance of Nibiru.
In the morning, the Gods accompanied Anu and Antu to the “holy quay”, the “place of the barque of Anu”, where they received an elaborate ceremonial send-off. The ancient belief in Nibiru is evidenced not only in the textual records, but also in the numerous depictions of a circular disc with two huge wings (Figure 22).
This symbol of the “winged disc” was revered by the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians and other later empires for thousands of years. Its presence adorned the temples and palaces of Gods and kings, and it was often depicted symbolically hovering over ancient battle scenes. The significance of the wings has baffled scholars, who have tried to impose their preconceptions of a solar religion on these ancient civilizations.
However, it does make sense in the context of a
planet, whose ruler was the ultimate authority of human kingship on
Earth. If anyone believes that the Sumerian and Babylonian texts are
elaborate inventions, and all similarities to the Solar System
entirely coincidental, then they should reflect on one other piece
of evidence deciphered by Zecharia Sitchin. It is an Akkadian
cylinder seal from the third millennium BC, now on display at the
State Museum in East Berlin (reference VA 243).
With the exception of Pluto, which
is shown in its original position as satellite of Saturn, the
ancient depiction shows the planets as they existed following the
collision of Nibiru and Tiamat. Between Mars and Jupiter, however,
lies a large globe, around three times the size of Earth, which does
not correlate with any known planet. It cannot possibly be
coincidental that the Enuma Elish accurately identifies the position
of this planet or God.
Zecharia
Sitchin has clearly identified the heaven, and thus the perihelion,
as the Asteroid Belt. The great lordly abode, on the other hand, was
sometimes called “the Deep", a term used also for the position of
Pluto, and signifying a most distant position. The Mesopotamian
texts indeed described Marduk/Nibiru as the “monitor” of the
planets, with an orbit which was “loftier” or “grander" than the
other planets, such that “he scans the hidden knowledge... he sees
all the quarters of the universe”.
The Enuma Elish attributes the
elliptical and irregular orbit of the comets to the break-up of
Tiamat. Is it possible for a large planet to also possess such a
strange orbit? The answer must be yes, but under extreme
circumstances, and we should note that whatever accounted for the
entry of Nibiru into the Solar System four billion years ago was, in
itself, an extremely unusual event.
Based on this, and other
corroborating evidence, Sitchin has concluded that the orbit of
Nibiru is approximately 3,600 Earth-years. This would explain why it
has not been seen in recent times.
The existence of Neptune, for instance, was originally deduced by irregularities in the orbit of Uranus. Similarly, Pluto was found following observations that an unknown gravitational force was affecting the orbit of Neptune. Following the same principle, astronomers have become convinced that unaccounted-for irregularities in the orbits of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (and to a lesser extent Jupiter and Saturn), imply the existence of a further, undiscovered planet.
Astronomers are so certain of this planet’s existence that they have already named it “Planet X” - the Tenth Planet. Despite recent attempts to debunk the evidence, the theory of Planet X is alive and well. In 1978, the theory of Planet X took a giant leap forward, following decades of stagnation.
The discovery of Pluto’s satellite, Charon, enabled accurate measurements of Pluto’s mass to be taken, and it turned out to be far less than expected. This allowed the deviations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune to be mathematically confirmed, to a high degree of certainty. Two astronomers from the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC consequently resurrected the idea of Planet X.
However, these astronomers, Robert Harrington and Tom Van Flandern, went much further, using mathematical models to suggest that Planet X had ejected Pluto and Charon from their previous positions as satellites of Neptune. They proposed that the intruder planet was 3-4 times the size of the Earth, and that it probably would have been captured in orbit around the Sun “in a highly eccentric and inclined solar orbit with a long period".
It almost seems as if they used the Enuma Elish for their script!
In 1982, NASA themselves officially recognized the possibility of Planet X, with an announcement that “some kind of mystery object is really there far beyond the outermost planets. One year later, the newly launched IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite) spotted a large mysterious object in the depths of space.
The Washington Post summarized an interview with the chief IRAS scientist from JPL, California, as follows:
Subsequent years saw little new information in the search for Planet X. However, scientists were evidently convinced that it existed, for they continued to carry out mathematical modelling of its characteristics. Their conclusions confirmed the theory that Planet X was three to four times the size of Earth and suggested that it had an orbit inclined to the ecliptic by a massive 30 degrees; also that its position was three times further from the Sun than Pluto. In 1987, NASA made an official announcement to recognize the possible existence of Planet X.
The American journal Newsweek reported that:
As the 1980s drew to a close, two things happened. First, the scientific journals began to witness a Planet X debunking campaign and, secondly NASA began to put more and more resources into expensive space-based telescopes. The debunking campaign was led by scientists such as K. Croswell, M. Littman, E. Standish Junior and D. Hughes. Their arguments ranged from the illogical to the bizarre.
All of these criticisms focussed solely on the mathematical anomalies and ignored the other evidence which supported the existence of Planet X. In his 1993 update, Tom Van Flandern stressed that Planet X was still the only explanation for the strange origin of the Neptune satellite system and the unusual features of Pluto and Charon.
He also put forward important new evidence on deviations
in several cometary orbits. Van Flandern emphasized that the
perturbations in both the cometary and planetary orbits became
progressively greater the further one went out into the Solar
System, strongly suggesting a single body possibly twice as far from
the Sun as Pluto.
Whilst the astronomers were hunting for Planet X, the American government began to pump unprecedented funds into the hugely expensive Hubble telescope. This space-based telescope was finally launched on April 20th 1990, only to be found defective. In November 1993, its vision was corrected by a giant “contact lens”, fitted in space at a cost of $700 million.
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency was building
its Infrared Space Observatory, which it successfully launched in
November 1995. Unlike Hubble, which is an optical telescope, the
ESA’s telescope is designed to detect infrared radiation. It can
thus peek into the darkest depths of space, with a reputed ability
to spot the heat from a snowman at a distance of 60 miles !
However, moving a telescope
from Earth to Jupiter will make such marginal difference relative to
42 light years of space-distance (around one six thousandth of one
per cent difference to be precise) that we must all scratch our
heads and wonder why NASA wish to spend $1,000 million dollars or
more in this way. On the other hand, if the search is not for
planets 42 light years away, but for a distant planet within our own
Solar System, then the plan begins to make sense.
As we discussed earlier, the
planet Nibiru brings the total number of celestial bodies in our
Solar System to twelve (counting the Sun and the Moon) and according
to the Sumerians, the decision-making council of the Gods also
consisted of twelve “olden” Gods. The symbolic importance of this
number has remained to this day in the division of the skies into
twelve constellations, a division which split the Earth’s precessional cycle into twelve periods of 2,160 years. It would seem
that the Gods’ obsession with twelve, with astronomy generally, and
with Nibiru in particular, had an almost religious significance, and
it is possible to conclude from this that the Gods were not
strangers to the Solar System but residents from within.
The number seven also appears in
other religions and in the apocrypha. The Koran and the
Book of
Enoch both describe a journey through seven heavens, by Muhammad and
Enoch respectively, whilst to this day, Muslim pilgrims must walk
seven times around the Ka’bah in Mecca. Our modern cultures have
also absorbed expressions such as the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient
World” (even though we could name a lot more) and the “Seven Deadly
Sins” (even though we could probably name a few more of those too!).
Theologians would claim that the answer lies in the Biblical seven days of creation, but the origin of the Biblical “days” is almost certainly the seven tablets on which the Enuma Elish was written. This is evident from the contrast between the first six Babylonian tablets describing Marduk’s acts of creation and the seventh tablet which is dedicated to a general exaltation of the God (and thus a parallel to the Biblical seventh day when God rested).
The 7-day week splits the solar year into 52 weeks and thereby unlocks the door to another mystical number from both Egyptian and Mayan tradition. According to an ancient papyrus found in a tomb in Thebes, Thoth the Egyptian God of magic, used to challenge mortals to a mysterious “Game of 52”, which they usually lost!
The number also appears in the Maya’s enigmatic Sacred Round of 52 cycles (18,980 days), when their sacred year of 260 days would coincide exactly with their solar year of 365 days. But what is the ultimate origin of the sacred number “7”? Why did the Babylonians write their creation epic on seven tablets?
Whilst the seven stars of
the Pleiades
may ultimately be significant, Zecharia Sitchin
has put forward a very interesting alternative
theory, based on a literal acceptance of the
ancient texts. Having already identified the association of twelve
Gods with twelve planets, he was intrigued by continual references
to the God Enlil, known as the Chief God of the Earth, but also
somewhat cryptically as “Lord of 7”. This gave Sitchin the idea that
Earth was somehow the seventh planet, and he quickly realized that
Earth was indeed the seventh planet encountered by the Gods as they
travelled from Nibiru into the heart of the Solar System.
One segment shows two triangular shapes, linked by a line alongside which there are seven dots. One of the triangles then contains another four dots. Recognizing the seven/four split as an ancient division between the outer and inner planets of the Solar System, Sitchin studied the disc a little more closely.
Along the sides of each segment of the disc were repeated signs, which were meaningless in Akkadian, but sprang to life when they were read as Sumerian word syllables. Zecharia Sitchin found references to “Enlil”, to geographical features such as “sky” and “mountains”, and to actions such as “observing” and “descending”. One reference was to “deity NI.NI, supervisor of descent”.
There
were also numbers which would represent a mathematically
perfect glide approach for a space shuttle landing. Sitchin was left
in no doubt that the disc represented “a route map,
marking the way by which the God Enlil went by the planets,
accompanied by some operating instructions”. This disc seems to
confirm that Nibiru was the home of the Gods and Earth the seventh
planet counting inwards.
Realizing that the Babylonians had named the planet Nibiru as Marduk in honour of their national God, Zecharia Sitchin was able to decipher the names of the stations and the names of Marduk (which the text provides in both Akkadian and Sumerian).
At this point it is worth quoting Sitchin in full:
Does all of the above evidence indicate that Nibiru was truly the home of the Gods, or did they revere that planet because of its central role in forming the Solar System as we know it?
Zecharia Sitchin has claimed that Anu really did rule a society on Nibiru, but let us consider whether that is a likely scenario. For instance, does Nibiru have a hospitable climate? Its orbit takes it so far from the Sun that sunlight would be perhaps only one sixtieth of that on the Earth; however, it is scientifically possible for planets to generate large amounts of heat internally.
As mentioned earlier, Nibiru was indeed described as having ample heat (as well as water). Based on the few clues which we have, Nibiru’s climate might be compared to a warm Jacuzzi beneath a starry twilight - perhaps not as daunting as one might imagine, but nevertheless a raw deal compared to the luscious Earth.
Why then would Anu, the ruler of the Gods, wish to live there? Could Zecharia Sitchin have misinterpreted the ancient texts? Two alternative possibilities spring to mind.
My point is this. Did the Gods come to Earth not from Nibiru but via Nibiru? Was Nibiru used as a convenient travelling spaceship, racing across the Solar System, without any fuel, at a speed of around 10,000 miles per hour? The possibility is strengthened by the reference in the Babylonian re-creation of the journey. It is at the sixth station, Mars, where the journey switched to “The Traveller’s Ship”.
This is exactly what one would expect if Nibiru itself was the spaceship until it reached its perihelion between Jupiter and Mars. Why switch ships otherwise? Taking the argument one step further, it is highly unlikely that these Gods evolved on Nibiru, for two reasons.
On Earth, in
contrast, the cataclysms only occurred at intervals of millions of
years, and could thus have acted for the most part as a positive
evolutionary force.
It is quite possible that its inhabitants emigrated hundreds of millions of years ago specifically because of the environmental changes. Alternatively, intelligence may have originally evolved on Earth. If we step back and reconsider the science of the Solar System, we find that the Earth might well be based in a rather unique corner of the universe. The periodic cataclysmic returns of Nibiru into the centre of the Solar System may have had very significant implications for the speed of evolution on Earth.
The recurring sequence of partial
extinction’s would, according to the laws of Darwinism, have led to
an accelerated development of those organisms which survived. If
ever there was a place for intelligence to evolve, the Solar System
must rank among the top contenders.
Their well-referenced work includes a mass of anomalous material,
such as manufactured items and human remains found in rock strata
hundreds of millions of years old. The regular cataclysms described
in this chapter shed some light on how such finds came to be
embedded in solid rock. Cremo and Thompson’s work deserves serious
attention. It may shed light not directly on mankind’ s ancestry,
but on that of our creators.
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