Planet X: the facts, the myths

The `Evidence’	The Facts
- There could be such a thing as a Planet X around.	No, that's impossible. Planet X is said to have a highly elliptical orbit. But such orbits are unstable. Soon, the planet would get a circular orbit and become part of the 'normal' solar system - or it would fly off into deep space. There just is no other way.
- Sumerian mythology tells of a collision between two planets.	No, it doesn’t. In one particular Sumerian creation story, Earth is created after a violent conflict between Tiamat and Nibiru. But neither of them is a planet: they’re gods, the two of them. It was the writer Zecharia Sitchin who introduced the planets, not the Sumerians.
- The Sumerians knew of a planet they called `Nibiru'.	Wrong. `Nibiru' is just the ancient word for `ferry boat'. In some Babylonian texts, the word `nibiru' is used to describe the movement of the planet Jupiter - which was also called `Marduk'. So neither Nibiru nor Marduk refers to some weird planet. It just means: Jupiter! Nothing more, nothing less.
- The Sumerians knew very much about cosmology. That’s why you should take it serious when they say there is a Planet X around.	Wrong. Indeed, the Sumerians had the same amount of brain as we have. But they weren’t interested in astronomy at all. That came later, with the Babylonian civilization. And even then, the Babylonians believed Earth was a disk, with the Sun revolving around it! Just look at it this way: the Greek, the Chinese and the Maya knew lot more about cosmology than the Babylonians and the Sumerians– and they never mentioned a tenth planet!
- The Sumerians had a pictorial word, `shar', that means `planet', `orbit' and `3,600'. This must refer to the fact that Planet X has an orbit time of 3,600 years.	Far from it. 'Shar' means '3,600' alright. But in another language, Akkadian, there was a pictorial 'sharru' which meant 'Marduk' or 'supreme ruler' -- and nót `planet'. The mixing up of two completely different languages, once again, comes from Sitchin.
- The Babylonians frequently used the letter `X'. This means: `planet of the crossing'.	No, it doesn't. The Babylonians used X much like we do: to mark things. In specific, they used X's to mark their kettle. But the X doesn't refer to anything that has to do with planets.
- Planet X must have slammed into our world: that’s why the once-joined continents are split up and floating away from each other.	Total nonsense. The force that pushes the continents apart doesn't come from outer space – but from deep underneath the Earth’s crust. In the Atlantic, new seabed is constantly being formed, and this pushes the continents apart.
- Still, something huge did slam into our planet – modern science agrees on that.	Yes, but that particular event took place 4,5 billion years ago. In those days, a huge heavenly body cleft our planet in two, creating the Moon. But there weren’t even single-celled bacteria around at that time. Let alone Sumerians with clay tablets to write about the event.
- But the Sumerians were in contact with an alien race. They told them all about Planet X.	There is not a shred of evidence to support such hocus-pocus. Think of it this way: if the ancient Sumerians indeed were such good friends with an alien race, then why didn’t they even have the technology to prevent their culture from being run over again and again by invading neighbors? The Sumerians were pretty simple, rudimentary farmers that lived off of the land.
- But still, there's the `Berlin Seal' (also known as the `Akkadian Seal'). On it, you clearly see more planets than there are in our solar system:	But what you see isn't a map of the solar system at all. It's decoration, probably. Or a picture of Venus, as seen from our planet, and surrounded by stars. The ancient Babylonians made funny little drawings like this all the time. And they all looked different. So it's just coincidence this one resembles a solar system. We do know for sure that it isn't a map, because the Babylonians believed the Earth was the center of the solar system. No Babylonian would have placed the Sun in the center. Besides, the `map' is full of errors. The planets are out of proportions and Saturn has no ring. And obviously, there are too many `planets'.
- Joshua tells of a `long day’ – while the West Coast Indians have stories of a `long night’. That’s a clear indication the planet stopped rotating for a while when Planet X last came by.	No, that is impossible. Planets cannot just stop rotating for a while and then start again. Physics forbids it. And hey, if you'd read enough ancient writings, you would find `evidence’ for almost anything!
- Still, around 3,600 years ago, something awful did happen. There's a lot of evidence telling us that the world was struck by disaster.	Yes, but a volcano and not Planet X was the culprit. Around 1628 BC, the Greek volcano of Thera erupted, causing darkness even in China and a sudden, sharp climate drop all over the world. That's bad enough, but eruptions like these happen all the time. What's more, Thera was still a relatively small volcano, as you can read elsewhere on this site. It is worth noting that none of the ancient texts about the Thera disaster mentions anything about unusual events in the sky.
- Many astronomers believe Planet X exists. And for good reason: there’s some mysterious object tugging at the orbits of Neptune and the outer asteroids.	Not anymore they do. Indeed, for almost 150 years, astronomers assumed there could very well be another planet out there. But by now, we know that the astronomers were wrong. They simply didn't have the orbits of the outer planets correct, because they lacked the tools. By now, we know there is nothing strange about the orbits of the outer planets. And since then, the calculations add up fine.
- There's good geological evidence for Planet X. Once in a while, Earth is struck by mass extinctions. These extinctions show a very regular pattern, suggesting the planet is struck by disaster periodically.	Not true. Indeed, in 1984, two renowned palaeologists claimed the discovery of an `extinction pattern'. Every 26 to 30 million years, there's a `wave' of extinctions. But they withdrew that theory later. When you look over a longer period of time, there's no pattern to be found at all. Besides, the palaeologists weren't thinking of Planet X -- but of a twin Sun called Nemesis.
- NASA has photographed Planet X in 1983	No, they haven’t. In 1983, the IRAS satellite spotted something unexplained that turned out to be a new type of very distant galaxy. But for lack of anything better, the press concluded that NASA had spotted a tenth planet.
- The Russians have photographed Planet X in their `Norlock’-project.	That’s a hoax. There’s no such thing as a secret project called Norlock. The hoax was set up by someone claiming to be an anonymous Russian scientist who had `finally decided to share this important information with the world.’ Yeah, sure.
- This is Planet X:	Nope. It's Io, moon of Jupiter. The picture was taken by the Hubble Telescope in June 1997.
- This is Planet X:	Nope. It's a hoax: the resolution of the planet differs from the resolution of the surrounding galaxy.
- This is Planet X:	Nope. It's exactly what it looks like: a bad space photo with a vague dot in it, thousands of times too faint to be a nearby planet. It's a distant star, probably.
- Planet X is definitely closing in. You can tell by looking at the volcanic activity. Over the last few years, this has been increasing.	Total rubbish. Even if there were a huge Planet X heading our way, it wouldn’t affect our volcanoes. The gravitational effect of Planet X would be only a tiny fraction of the gravity of Jupiter. And that, in turn, is just a tiny fraction of the gravitational pull the Sun and the Moon exert on our planet every moment of the day. Indeed, volcanic activity slightly increased over the years 1970-2000. But that may be coincidence, or, more likely, the result of more accurate equipment.


Ultimate Evidence? - On the Internet, there's a picture circulating that's supposedly `secret evidence' from Russia, proving Planet X is an inhabited world. The makers took the original photo (top left), enlarged it, and upgraded it with `solarize' and `find edges'. And look... Suddenly, you see all kinds of spaceships orbiting the planet! (top right) I followed exactly the same procedure, using a photo of one Robert Bridson, math student at Stanford University (below, left). After enlarging and solarizing the photograph, it became clear that mr. Bridsons left ear actually is inhabited by intelligent beings, since there clearly is a spaceship taking off from it (below, right).