The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence

by Andy Lloyd

  But the resonance effect implies a self-regulating principle at work, one that would alter the planetary orbits over time as they harmonize with one another. As such, if resonance turned out to be a common feature of planetary systems, we could no longer surmise a regularity for the early solar system, based upon its current appearance.

  Would this be so surprising? After all, other findings from extrasolar planets have already sufficiently rocked the boat for us to question many previously held assumptions.28

  One reason why inner solar system bodies are more haphazardly orientated with respect to each other is because the system becomes increasingly complex. The further out from the sun you go, the more the complexity eases, making it likely, given everything else we know, that the scattered disc objects we are examining are resonant with something massive and unseen.

  In which case, we can attempt to find a correlation between what we know about Sedna and 2000 CR105, and what we think we know about the Dark Star. Sedna's orbit is in the region of 10,800 years and 2000 CR105's orbit is about 3,300 years. So, Sedna's orbit is approximately three times that of 2000 CR105. Given that these are approximate values, it is possible that within experimental error the two share resonance. However, better data is needed to say for sure.

  Zecharia Sitchin wrote about Nibiru's orbit being 3,600 years, and this has always been taken somewhat at face value. However, there is no piece of Sumerian writing that says 'Nibiru is a planet orbiting the sun whose orbital period is 3,600 years'. His “12th Planet Theory” looked at ancient Mesopotamian myth, and proposed that the cosmogony was based upon real 'creation' events in the solar system. By doing so, one could imply the existence of an undiscovered planet that offered the key to our understanding of the solar system.29

  Sitchin then had to address the issue of its orbit and proposed that it correlated with the Sumerian "Sar" of 3,600, an important component of their unusual and complex sexigesimal numbering system. Well, there is not a great deal of difference between this figure of 3,600 years - which Sitchin has always taken great pains to describe as approximately representing Nibiru's orbital period - and 2000 CR105's 3,300 years. Is there any connection?

  We can't know for sure, until more of these objects are discovered and their orbits carefully described. But it would be very interesting indeed if future discoveries of these strange extended scattered disc objects in our solar system showed a statistical correlation of their orbital periods.

  One wonders whether their orbits might all be related, with the Babylonian Sar being the basic numerical factor underpinning their relationship! This would make sense of the importance of this number to the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians. From this, we would be able to infer the existence of a distant massive perturbing planet in our solar system, shepherding its widely dispersed flock of planetesimals. So even if we have yet to 'see' the Dark Star, we soon might be able to imply its existence from these companions.

  References

  1 Z. Sitchin "The Case of the French Astronomer" http://www.sitchin.com

  2 H.T. Wilkins "Mysteries of South America" p32 Rider & Co, London 1945

  3 Tim Radford “Evidence of 3,000 BC Calamity” 16th December 2004, The Guardian

  4 A. Gilbert & M. Cotterell “The Mayan Prophecies” Appendix 4: 'The Sunspot Cycle' p288-300, Element 1995

  5 “Klemperer Rosettes”, with thanks to Theo Kermanidis http://burtleburtle.net/bob/physics/kempler.html

  6 J. Bagby “Evidence for a Tenth Planet or Massive Solar Companion beyond Uranus” 1982.

  7 D. Whitehouse “Spacecraft pulled by mystery force” BBC, 10th September 1998

  8 J. Anderson quoted in “Scientist thinks Tenth Planet may exist”, with thanks to Rick Savard http://www.totse.com/en/technology/space_astronomy_nasa/10planet.html

  9 UFO Magazine “Pioneer Discoveries in Outer Space” Jan/Feb. 1999, Quest Publications International Ltd

  10 B. Akins “Pioneer Home: Mission Status”

  http:// spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNStat.html

  11 C. Sagan “Pale Blue Dot” p143-144, 152 Headline Book Publishing 1995

  12 UFO Magazine “Pioneer 10: Still Doing the Business” Jan./ Feb. 2000, Quest Publications International Ltd

  13 http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/05/21/gravity.mystery/index.html

  Thanks to Rick Savard

  14 D.S. Allan & J.B. Delair “When the Earth Nearly Died” p16, Gateway Books, Bath 1995

  15. J. Bone “Ice Age Forest Gives a Global Warning” The Times 25/2/00, with thanks to David Pearson

  16 S. Ida, J. Larwood & A. Burkett “Evidence for Early Stellar Encounters in the Orbital Distribution of Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt Objects” The Astrophysical Journal, 528: pp351-6, (2000)

  17 A. Morbidelli & H. Levison "Scenarios for the origin of the Orbits of the Trans-Neptunian Objects 2000 CR105 and 2003 VB12 (Sedna)", submitted to Astronomical Journal 2/4/2004 http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~hal/CR105.html

  18 J. Foust "Bizarre new planets puzzle astronomers" Spaceflight Now, 10th January 2000

  19 Associated Press "We Prefer Not to Call It a Failed Star. We Call It a Specially Challenged Brown Dwarf" 9th January 2001 http://www.aci.net/kalliste/

  20 "Planetary Correctness" Associated Press, 9th January 2001 http://www.aci.net/kalliste/

  21 Correspondence from Theo Kermanidis, 2nd Feb. 2002, citing data at http://www-hpcc.astro.washington.edu/stawarz/orbres.html

  http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/a_histo.html

  22 Correspondence from Matthew Holman, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 10th Feb. 2002

  23 B. Gladman "Evidence for an Extended Scattered Disk?" http://www.obs-nice.fr/gladman/cr105.html

  24 J. Kelly Beatty “Bigorbit Object Confounds Dynamicists” 5th April 2001, with thanks to Frank Cordell and Theo Kermanidis http://www.skypub.com/news/news.shtml#bigorbit

  25 A. Stern "Chiron: Interloper from the Kuiper Disk?" pp26-33 Astronomy August 1994

  26 Correspondence from Matthew Holman, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 12th Feb 2002

  27 M. Baigent "Ancient Traces" p203 Penguin 1998

  28 G. Marcy & P. Butler "Hunting Planets Beyond" pp43-7 Astronomy March 2000

  29 Zecharia Sitchin “The Twelfth Planet” Avon 1976

  17. The Dark Star and Mass Extinctions

  Not so long ago, I was sent a short story by H.G. Wells entitled, “The Star”. The story highlights a tradition of catastrophism associated with a returning star moving through the solar system.1 Before receiving this transcript, I was not even aware that H.G. Wells had written about the return of Planet X. The story was written in 1899, and presumably reflects the centennial doom-mongering that anticipates the start of a new century. It describes the unexpected appearance of the Star, a planet from deep space, which collides with Neptune, and then swings towards the Earth when passing Jupiter:

  “But near its destined path, as yet only slightly perturbed, spun the mighty planet Jupiter and his moons sweeping splendid round the sun. Every moment now the attraction between the fiery star and the greatest of the planets grew stronger. And the result of that attraction? Inevitably, Jupiter would be deflected from its orbit into an elliptical path, and the burning star, swung by his attraction wide of its sun-ward rush, would describe a curved path and perhaps collide with, and certainly pass very close to, our Earth. Earthquakes, volcanic outbreaks, cyclones, sea waves, floods, and a steady rise in temperature to I know not what limit - so prophesied the master mathematician”.1

  The story takes on an ever threatening tone, one that becomes Biblical in mythological proportions. Indeed, the advent of the Star's approach brings about a great Flood, perhaps allowing H.G. Wells the literary license to provide his own explanation for the Universal Flood Myth. There is also an allusion to the Earth standing still, reflecting the consideration at that time that there may be truth in the myths of such events across the world: “And then came a wonder. It seemed to those who in Eu
rope watched for the rising of the star that the world must have ceased its rotation. In a thousand open spaces of down and upland the people who had fled the thither from the floods and the falling houses and sliding slopes of hill watched for that rising in vain. Hour followed hour through a terrible suspense, and the star rose not. Once again men set their eyes upon the old constellations they had counted lost to them forever. In England it was hot and clear overhead, though the ground quivered perpetually, but in the tropics, Sirius and Capella and Aldebaran showed through a veil of steam. And when at last the great star rose near ten hours late, the sun rose close upon it, and in the centre of its white heat was a disc of black”.1

  It would be tempting to read a lot into this story by H.G. Wells. He was a first class science fiction writer, and there was a lot of speculation at the turn of the century that a planet might lurk beyond Neptune. As we have seen in an earlier chapter, the hunt of this planet led to the discovery of Pluto some three decades after “The Star” was written. The story shows how Catastrophism has long been associated with the return of a hidden body of colossal proportions. Can it have any basis in reality?

  The possible existence of a hidden planet orbiting the sun is quite often associated with catastrophe on planet Earth. Indeed, the popular consensus that Nibiru ― a mythological planet as yet unaccounted for by scientists ― is about to appear in our skies, may be intrinsically wrapped up with our common dread of cataclysm. In the same way that many incorrectly anticipated an apocalyptic event prior to the turn of the Millennium, advocates of the Imminent Return hypothesis believe that we are about to face our gravest test since the Flood (which may, or may not, have actually taken place).

  Although I believe in the existence of a hidden Planet X, in the guise of a sub-brown dwarf or 'Dark Star', I have been one of the strongest critics of the Imminent Return hypothesis. Yet, there is some merit to the idea that Planet X may be associated with catastrophe, and it is almost certainly connected to rapid climate changes at various points in the Earth's past. In this chapter I will outline a new hypothesis, which seeks to correlate the orbital behavior of this hidden Dark Star with catastrophic events as recorded by geologists and paleontologists.

  A Statistical Threat

  To explore this idea, we must immediately get to grips with a problem of timescale. I am often confronted with e-mails that state that Planet X could not have appeared in our skies on such-and-such a date, because there was no massive catastrophe associated with its arrival. The implication is that every time the Dark Star system was to brush past the planetary zone, the Earth (and presumably some other planets too) would be subject to fundamental change. So, if the Dark Star exhibits an orbit analogous with Sitchin's 3,600 years2, the implication is that Nibiru causes devastation on a highly regular basis...extremely often, when viewed on a geological scale.

  However, I don't accept this argument: it does not fit with the evidence at our disposal. The planetary surfaces in the solar system which are very ancient, like the Moon and some parts of the Martian landscape, show a high incidence of bombardment in the very distant past, during the early period of the solar system's history. Bombardments on this scale are not noted after that time.

  One can reasonably conclude that although occasional comets and asteroids do strike the Earth, and the other inner planets too, there is not a regular catastrophic bombardment. Otherwise, more youthful planetary landscapes would also show the kind of cratering patterns obvious to us all when we look up at the rather ancient surface of our Moon. Also, there would be a rather higher incidence of asteroids with Earth-crossing orbits, known as NEOs.

  The inner solar system would be a more highly populated environment because far more objects would have been captured into tight orbits around the sun over time. As such, I don't think that associating Planet X Catastrophism with frequent cometary bombardments throughout history is likely to be a particularly fruitful study.

  Of course, others differ in their opinions on this subject, but I prefer to find other mechanisms whereby the Dark Star might affect the Earth. The results are less explosive, it is true, but we can readily find ways to account for sudden and dramatic climate changes, for instance. Comet and asteroid bombardments certainly occur, it is true, but I am not certain that a direct correlation between them and Planet X is going to be found, beyond just a greater statistical likelihood of a collision during the Dark Star's perihelion passage.

  In other words, when the Dark Star moves past the EKB, a greater number of comets may move through the planetary solar system. That doesn't necessarily mean that we're on collision course with any of them, any more than we would be with 'normal' comets. There would just be more comets for a while, slightly increasing the risk of our crossing paths with one. So whereas observers might report a greater number of comets in the heavens at that time, our world may not face any greater risk of catastrophe.

  Catastrophism has come a long way. There was a time when scientists considered the world to be a very stable place, with an evolutionary progression that was slow and steady. This reflected an old-fashioned view of the world embedded in religious and cultural tradition: the World has always been this way.

  But we now think that many cataclysms have occurred down the Ages, and that evolution is more of a 'stop-go' affair than one of slow, incremental change. We know that continents drift across the face of the Earth, bringing about the creation of mountain ranges as landmasses lock horns. Further, we know that significant extinction events have blighted our planet, even worse than the heinous acts of mass extinction we are currently responsible for.

  Our awareness has been raised about how fragile our world can be, and also how changeable when seen through the eyes of a geologist. We have moved from a theological world-view, that led us to believe that the world was created to meet our needs, to a more terrifying reality. We live in a world whose stability is not guaranteed. Our environment has changed many times in the past, sometimes in orders of magnitude worse than the global warming we have created through the emergence of our industrial power.

  We now recognize that our world can also be devastatingly affected by external influence. The chances of this are very remote, occurring on a timescale that boggles the mind. This reflects the sheer size of the solar system, and the almost negligible proportion of it that is actually occupied by planets, asteroids and comets.

  The planetary solar system consists mostly of open, empty space. Even if two objects orbiting the sun have paths that cross each other, the possibility of a collision is extremely remote. So, catastrophic events only become apparent over geological timescales, when the small statistical danger posed by an Earth-crossing asteroid or comet is actually encountered after countless misses.

  So it follows that the regular reappearance of a planetary body that might somehow pose a threat to us would not, indeed could not, always be associated with a cataclysm, even if it passed directly through the solar system..

  Only a passing object the size of an actual star could be guaranteed to cause environmental devastation on Earth, and although it is probable that stars have themselves brushed past the solar system in the past3, the likelihood of a future similar event is minute. As the size of the stellar object decreases, its relative danger threshold quickly falls away.

  Large brown dwarfs passing through the planetary zone might pose a problem. Small brown dwarfs probably wouldn't. The danger threshold appears to be 10-20 Jupiter masses.4

  Regular size planets, or even gas giants, passing through the solar system would no more cause a problem to us than the occasional alignment of the known planets. That's how enormous, and mostly empty, the solar system is.

  This is why I maintain that for a Planet X to have brought about environmental change on Earth during any of its perihelion passages, it must be nothing less than a brown dwarf, or else it would simply not be massive enough to be remotely effective on a catastrophic scale. According to the scientist Jack Hills, it is quite possibl
e for a small brown dwarf to move through the solar system with impunity. His calculations have shown that it need not affect the orbits of the other planets4, although this might change with multiple transits as the statistical likelihood of interference with any given planet increases.

  I am quite certain that the Dark Star could move through the solar system itself, and leave the place roughly as it found it. However, the evidence from the outer solar system implies that it does not approach closer than about 70AU.

  The Extinction Cycle

  In 1984, the paleontologists Raup and Sepkoski argued that there is a cyclical pattern to the extinction events recorded in the fossil record.5 The pattern implied a 26 to 30 million year cycle, itself indicative of an extraterrestrial cause. There are no known terrestrial causes for such massive and regular extinctions. Could Planet X be to blame, perhaps through showering Earth with comets as it achieves perihelion?

  If the cycle of these extinction events is to be believed (and it remains controversial among scientists), then any direct extraterrestrial cause must be coincident with that enormous timescale. So it would not be satisfactory, then, to associate a 26 million-year extinction cycle with a planet whose orbit is measured in thousands of years only. The Dark Star's relatively short orbit (Zecharia Sitchin's 'Sar' of 3,600 years, or even a multiple-Sar orbital period of, say, 10,800 years) could only produce a random pattern of extinction events distributed thinly over this timescale.