The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence

by Andy Lloyd

  There are many theories as to why there were so many impacts over such a short period in the history of the solar system. No one knows for sure. But it is quite legitimate to speculate that another cosmic body invaded the solar system at that time, causing mayhem. And the bigger the body, the more likely it is that we can explain the sheer magnitude of the calamity that befell the inner planets around the sun.

  If we were to try and describe what happened at that time in non-scientific terms, how would we go about doing so? What would this invading Dark Star with its own system of planets have looked like as it crashed through our sun’s territory?

  Young brown dwarfs shine with a red flame, despite their name. Theoretical observers on Earth might see this red star’s corona or ‘halo’, which would be subject to the driving force of the Solar Wind, and would thus be swept back from the sun. Perhaps this would give the brown dwarf the appearance of a bright red fire-bird in the sky, its swept-back corona appearing as wings.

  Like the mythical Phoenix, the normally invisible brown dwarf binary would have been re-born to enjoy a fleeting movement through the heavens, before returning to the darkness of the comet cloud. Unless this planetary Phoenix approached too close to one of the other planets, life would go on in the solar system as if nothing had ever happened. If it did cause cosmic calamities, then anomalies would have been created that remain, even today, mysteries. Like the fact that Uranus spins on its side, or that Pluto’s orbit is eccentric, or even that the Earth has water!

  For several years, I have undertaken studies to prove the existence of a ‘Dark Star’ orbiting the sun from a dual perspective: mythological and scientific. The two studies are deemed to be mutually exclusive by mainstream academics, making my research unacceptable at their level, but I believe that there is increasing overlap between the two disciplines for anyone who cares to look. Certainly, the scientific evidence for a binary companion is becoming more voluminous, and these startling new findings will form the basis for some of this book.

  Zecharia Sitchin

  The mythological aspects of this study expand upon research conducted by Zecharia Sitchin 25 years ago regarding the writings of the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia.22 He offered an intellectual argument for the existence of a mysterious planet termed ‘Nibiru’ that was observed from Earth during historical times and venerated by many cultures. Its meaning is ‘the Ferry’, implying its nature as a crossing point between two places.23 This is a rather enigmatic name, and one that I don’t think Zecharia Sitchin ever satisfactorily explained, but the meaning should become clear during the course of this book.

  Sitchin equated Nibiru with the Babylonian god Marduk from the Creation Myth called the ‘Enuma Elish’. I think this Marduk was the Dark Star, the sun’s binary companion. Marduk was the ambitious young hothead of a god who decided to take all the other gods on in a titanic struggle for cosmic dominance. He is the ‘Son of the sun’, a phrase that finds a real meaning in the binary Dark Star. This planet was described by the Babylonians as a ‘red star...that bisects the heavens’,24 and as the ‘Celestial Lord’ greater than all the other planets.

  How could the ancients have known of such a planet if it had not passed through the solar system during historical times? They had no advanced telescopes to seek out distant planets among the comets, and were reliant upon either their own historical observations, or the receipt of information about this ‘Nibiru’ from elsewhere. This is where Zecharia Sitchin becomes highly controversial. He claims that Nibiru is the home of the gods of Mesopotamia, in a flesh-and-blood sense.

  His maverick ideas have been almost universally dismissed by the academic establishment. However, I believe that the core ideas presented by Zecharia Sitchin are correct, but in need of some technical modifications. This book sets out to argue that case.

  A massive planet in a comet-like orbit is actually consistent with modern science, and could offer conditions on its moons conducive to life, but not in the way originally envisioned by Sitchin. Even so, his claim of an undiscovered planet is fundamentally sound, and I believe that it is awaiting discovery. And what a monumental day that will be! The future discovery of the Dark Star will provide us with a greater potential for life than Mars ever could. If Sitchin is right, it may also give us new insight into our own origins.

  This book will provide extensive evidence to suggest that the Dark Star’s presence among the comets is a reality. It will look closely at the nature of ‘Nibiru’, and show how it can be rationalized scientifically. It brings both myth and science together as a cohesive whole.

  But before we start to piece the puzzle together we must first explore many of the ideas expressed in this first chapter in more depth. We will start with the ideas of Zecharia Sitchin, and then look at the general history of the hunt for Planet X. This will provide an excellent grounding from which to proceed.

  References

  1 P. Moore “Patrick Moore on Mars” Chapter 11, Cassell 1998

  2 I. Wright & M. Grady “Focus: Life on Mars” Astronomy Now Oct. 1996, pp39-46

  3 ‘Horizon’ BBC2, “Snowball Earth” Shown on 22nd February 2001

  4 M. Milstein “Astronomy” p38-43 “Diving into Europa’s Ocean” Oct. 1997

  5 D. Kalk “Alien Haven” pp32-5 New Scientist Sept. 1999

  6 S. Battersby “One Hour on Titan, Forever Bathed in Glory” New Scientist, 22/1/05, pp6-8

  7 Redding.com, Seattle (AP) “Mysteries of distant moons await earthly oceanographers” 15/2/04, http://www.redding.com/news/ national/stories/20040215nat048.shtml

  8 T. Radford “Titan, Mystery Moon where it Rains Liquid Methane” The Guardian, 22/1/05, p6

  9 C. Sagan “Pale Blue Dot” p140-141, p127 Headline Book Publishing 1995

  10 J. Kelly Beatty “Bigorbit Object Confounds Dynamicists” http://www.skypub.com/news/news.shtml#bigorbit

  5th April 2001

  11 A. Quillen, D. Trilling & E. Blackman “The Impact of a Close Stellar Encounter on the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt” arXiv:astroph/0401372vl, 2004

  12 J.B.Murray Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 309, 31-34 (1999)

  13 J.J. Matese, P.G. Whitman and D.P. Whitmire, Icarus, 141, 354-336 (1999)

  14 The Economist Newspaper Ltd. “X Marks the Spot” http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/16-10-99/st7748.html

  7th October 1999

  15 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_957000/ 957518.stm

  5/10/2000 “Mystery of free-floating 'planets'”

  16 A. Lloyd “Winged Disc: The Dark Star Theory”, 2001, http:/ /www.darkstar1.co.uk

  © 7th February 2000

  17 K. Leutwyler “Bright X-rays, Dim Dwarfs” 17/7/2000 http://www.sciam.com/exhibit/2000/071700dwarf/

  18 C. Sagan “Pale Blue Dot” p392 Headline Book Publishing 1995

  19 Correspondence from M. Marley, 28/1/00

  20 Associated Press “We Prefer Not to Call It a Failed Star. We Call It a Specially Challenged Brown Dwarf” http://www.aci.net/kalliste/

  9th January 2001

  21 J.G. Hills “The Passage of a 'Nemesis'-like object through the Planetary System” The Astronomical Journal, 90, Number 9, pp1876-1882, September 1985

  22 Z. Sitchin “The Twelfth Planet" Avon 1976

  23 G. de Santillana & H. von Dechend “Hamlet’s Mill” App. 39, pp430-451, http://www.apollonius.net/trees.html Thanks to Robertino Solarion

  24 B. Van der Waerden “Science Awakening II” pp66-68 Oxford University Press 1974

  6. The Sumerian 'Nibiru'

  The essence of the Dark Star Theory is that certain ancient myths regarding our solar system are accurate, and that modern science is fast catching up with them. Those myths have become vague and misinterpreted over time, but they point in the direction of a series of specific astronomical events that have shaped the world we live in today.

  The ancient myths in question originate from the first historical civilization, known as Sumer, which crystallized dramatically in Me
sopotamia 6000 years ago. Its ruined ancient cities now rest in what is now Iraq, and this area is rightly referred to as the ‘cradle of civilization’. Its origins are mysterious, not least because the development of Sumer seemed to appear out of nowhere. Scholars are in disagreement as to whether the Sumerians migrated to the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, or whether they were an indigenous people.1 But changes in the geography of the region played a part, as the waters of this region receded back to the Persian Gulf, leaving a ‘fertile crescent’ from which the Sumerians created a ‘garden paradise’.

  Sumer seemed to burst into life, fully-fledged about 6000 years ago. The first Sumerian cities were highly organized affairs with centralized governments and social class structures. Each city was populated by up to 10,000 people, rising to 50,000 by 2700 BCE. Agriculture still took up the time of the majority of workers, but this created a stable enough supply of food for the cities to allow its other citizens to work as masons, bakers, weavers and other tradesmen, overseen by a municipal bureaucracy. The age of the specialist craftsman was born.2

  One should not underestimate the achievements of the Sumerians during this period, which predated the rise of Dynastic Egypt. They produced ‘superb painted pottery’ and ‘magnificent’ stonework, were the ‘first inspired builders of monumental architecture’ and produced exquisite epic poems.1 Their creation myths formed the basis for many of the accounts in the Old Testament, through the migration of the Sumerian patriarch Abraham to Egypt. Yet Sumer was just one step removed from the Stone Age. The Danish-American Sumerologist Thorkild Jacobsen considers the transition to be linked to the invention of writing, almost ‘overnight’.3 He expressed his wonder at how the blueprint of an advanced society could have been achieved so suddenly. Perhaps, then, it should not surprise us that so many scholars puzzle over how ancient Sumer came into existence, and probe into the mystery of where its people came from.

  The impact on the world of this emergent civilization cannot be underestimated. Despite being only one step removed from its Neolithic hunter-gatherer predecessor, Sumer managed to put into place most of the fundamental aspects of a civilized society as we would recognize it today.

  Sumerian ‘Firsts’

  The Sumerians can be accredited with inventing writing, political and religious infrastructure, and the building of complex buildings, such as Ziggurats, high-rise buildings and archways. They also invented metal-work, involving smelting, refining and alloying; the use of bitumen as a fuel and for waterproofing, caulking, painting, cementing and moulding. They had advanced understanding of medicine and surgery as well as veterinary science. Their agriculture was well developed, including extensive irrigation by canals. Their astronomical knowledge was remarkable, and they were the first to establish a calendar. They had a formal system of education, where schools taught not just language and writing, but botany, zoology, geography, mathematics and theology. They were civilized enough to develop a complex legal system. Last, but by no means least, they developed a refined and complex system of mathematics, called the sexagesimal system.4

  The sexagesimal system does not appear to be an obvious choice of mathematical method for a fledgling society emerging from primitive times. It is a complicated form of base 12, and this seems to reflect an early categorization of the zodiac by the Sumerians into 12 houses. Their calendar was based on 12 lunar months with an intercalary month inserted periodically to adjust the calendar back to the solar cycle.

  Records of the Sumerian zodiacal system stem from at least 3800BC, the time of Sargon of Akkad, a remote period long before the emergence of pre-dynastic Egypt. In 1903, Plunket described the then emergent knowledge of the Akkadian and Sumerian astrological works:

  “That the constellations of the Zodiac were from a remote age recognized by the dwellers in Mesopotamia is scarcely to be doubted. We find on the boundary stones in the British Museum representations of several of their figures. The Bull, the Tortoise (in lieu of the Crab), a female figure with wings, the Scorpion, the Archer, and the Goat-fish, are all portrayed, not only on boundary stones, but also on cylinder seals and gems.”5

  The Sumerians thus created the Zodiac, an arbitrary division of the constellations that lie on the ecliptic, an invisible line drawn across the heavens along which the sun appears to traverse. These same 12 houses of the Zodiac crop up throughout history, and we still have them today, although some alteration has occurred to several of them. This is remarkable, not just from the perspective of the Zodiac actually having been developed by the first civilization to emerge from Neolithic times, but that this contribution to astronomy has stayed with us for the next 6000 years.

  The scientific knowledge required to explain the advanced knowledge of the Sumerians far exceed what they should have been capable of, if one is to presume a linear evolutionary development of knowledge. Like all of the remarkable achievements of the ancient Sumerians, their knowledge appeared as if out of nowhere, including astronomical knowledge of the Precession of the Equinoxes. This particular scientific understanding rests on careful scrutiny of the sun’s apparent backward shift along the ecliptic, and through the Zodiacal houses, over time.

  This movement is slow, shifting only one degree during the lifetime of a human being. It is only over a period of about 2150 years that the sun is able to shift fully from one Zodiacal house to another, presaging the Dawn of a New Age. Such knowledge is not acquired through study of astronomy during one lifetime, but becomes apparent only after many, many generations. One would expect such knowledge to emerge later on during Mankind’s development, not to be accepted science right from the start of our first civilization!

  So we can see that the Sumerians had an exceptional grasp of astronomy and cosmology.

  Like so many of the Sumerian ‘firsts’, this points to an inheritance of knowledge from a period before Sumer emerged. The texts they have left us imply something quite extraordinary, however. They tell us that their science and laws were given to them by the gods.

  The Sumerians left us vast quantities of written material, in their particular style of ‘cuneiform’ script. Much of this material was written on clay tablets, then preserved by baking. Furthermore, they developed the use of ‘cylinder seals’ for imprinting these tablets. The Sumerians were great keepers of records, and left us a legacy of written work, including the famous ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, the story of one of their semi-divine rulers.

  Their cultural legacy was handed down to the later Mesopotamian civilizations of Akkad, Assyria and Babylon, as well as Persia, Egypt and, arguably, India. In their many accounts of their past and present, they were quite clear about how their advanced knowledge was attained. It came from the ‘gods’, who, it is said, lived among them, and who bequeathed them the gift of civilization.

  Given the remarkable culture that formed the spring-board for so much of mankind’s development in the following millennia, how is it that so few people are even aware of the historical existence of the Sumerians? After all, the ancient Egyptian culture has gained a strong foothold in the popular psyche. Part of the solution is historical. Western culture has traditionally considered itself to have been developed from scratch by the Romans and Greeks.

  Our ancient languages were Latin and Greek, and these cultures were the European super-states of their time. They represent the modern Western ideal of cultural dominance and imperialism. Furthermore, the Church developed through the Romans, and all official learning through the Dark Ages, Middle Ages, the Reformation and beyond was directly controlled by this institution, using Latin as its holy language. The idea of European and North American intellectual dominance is ingrained within modern scholarship.

  So, although the Greeks clearly obtained a great many of their religious and intellectual ideas from the Egyptians, we still consider the Greeks as the original philosophers and cultural creators. We marvel at the technical abilities of the Egyptians, yet choose to ignore the impact they had on the development of Western cultu
re. The Mesopotamian civilizations are one step further removed still. The Biblical passages dealing with the Babylonians tend to have been from the perspective of a subjugated people, the Hebrews, who were held captive in Babylon in the 6th century BC. As such, the Babylonian (hence Assyrian, Akkadian and Sumerian) culture is generally seen in a more negative light. The far older Sumerian culture didn’t stand much of a chance of establishing its true place in history when it was unearthed over the last two centuries.

  Part of the problem was the growing realization amongst scholars that the creation stories in the Old Testament found an earlier equivalent in the Mesopotamian literature, rendering the Genesis account in the Bible as a later development of Sumerian and Akkadian culture. This was deeply offensive to many Christian and Hebrew scholars, who continue to ignore these controversial findings.

  When Assyriologists began to work through very ancient clay tablets that had been unearthed from the Akkadian cities 150 years ago, it became clear that Akkad had been derived from an older culture with a wedge-shaped writing that was unlike anything yet discovered. These very ancient writings revealed the secrets of the sudden development of Sumerian civilization from nowhere. The Sumerians claimed that they had been taught all they knew by a group of powerful gods who lived among them, whom they called the Anunnaki.

  The Sumerians served their masters and described in detail their very Earth-like activities. In many respects, the Anunnaki were just like us, but more powerful and remarkably knowledgeable. All of the crystallizing development was accounted for by direct intervention of these enigmatic ‘gods’. Furthermore, these gods, or Anunnaki, were subject to death like mortal humans, implying a temporal existence. Yet, scholars have wrapped the gods of Mesopotamia in the cloak of myth.