nibiru collision from wiki

This article is about the doomsday scenario. For the planet proposed by Zecharia Sitchin, see Nibiru (Sitchin). For the object from Babylonian mythology, see Nibiru (mythology). For similar ideas, see Astronomical objects proposed in religion, astrology and ufology. For other uses, see Nibiru.

Artist's conception of Nemesis, a hypothetical brown dwarf companion to the Sun often confused with Nibiru.Since 1995, an evolving cultural phenomenon has envisioned a disastrous collision or similar encounter between the Earth and a large planetary object, variously referred to as Nibiru, Planet X, or Wormwood, within the next few years. The idea was first proposed by Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk.[1] Lieder describes herself as a contactee with the ability to channel messages from extra-terrestrials called Zetas (from the Zeta Reticuli star system; see Betty and Barney Hill) through an implant in her brain. She states that she was chosen to warn mankind the object would sweep through the Solar System in May 2003 (later revised to around 2010), causing a pole shift that would destroy most of humanity. This idea has subsequently spread beyond Lieder's website and has been embraced by numerous internet doomsday groups, most of which tie the collision to the 2012 doomsday prediction. The idea that a planet-sized object could possibly collide with Earth in the near future is not supported by any scientific evidence and has been roundly rejected as pseudoscience by astronomers and planetary scientists.

Contents
[hide]
1 Origins
2 Names
3 Scientific criticism
4 Criticism by Sitchin
5 Public reaction
6 Film
7 References
8 External links



Origins
Pseudoscientific concepts

Claims
Earth's immanent collision with a giant planetoid
Related scientific disciplines
Astronomy, archaeology
Year proposed
1995
Original proponents
Nancy Leider
Subsequent proponents
Marshall Masters, Jaysen Rand, Burak Eldem, Mark Hazlewood, Pana Wave
The Nibiru collision idea originated with Nancy Lieder, a onetime employee of C2C Consulting in Foster City, California who now lives in Wisconsin.[2] She says that as a girl she was contacted by gray extraterrestrials called Zetas, who placed her on a table and examined her.[3] She also says she was implanted with a communications device in her twenties, which the Zetas use to channel themselves through her.[4] In 1995, she founded the website ZetaTalk as a repository for "the vast amount of information being relayed by the Zetas in answer to questions posed to their emissary, Nancy."[5] The site is written entirely in the Zetas' voice, with most sentences in the first person plural and Lieder referred to in the third person.

Lieder first came to notice on internet newsgroups during the build-up to Comet Hale-Bopp's 1997 perihelion.[1] She stated, speaking as the Zetas, that "The Hale-Bopp comet does not exist. It is a fraud, perpetrated by those who would have the teeming masses quiescent until it is too late. Hale-Bopp is nothing more than a distant star, and will draw no closer."[6] The event from which the masses were to be distracted was the imminent arrival of a large planetary object, "Planet X", which would soon pass by Earth and destroy civilisation.[1] After Hale-Bopp's perihelion revealed it as one of the brightest and longest-observed comets of the last century,[7] Lieder downplayed its impact, saying that the comet was neither as bright nor as large as had been predicted.[8] The first two sentences of her initial statement were subsequently removed from her site, though they can still be found in Google's archives.[6]

Lieder described Planet X as roughly 4 times the size of the Earth,[9] and said that its perigee would occur on May 27, 2003, resulting in the Earth's rotation ceasing for exactly 5.9 terrestrial days.[10] Then the Earth's pole would destabilise in a pole shift (a physical pole shift; i.e. the Earth's pole physically moving, not to be confused with a geomagnetic reversal) caused by magnetic attraction between the Earth's core and the magnetism of the passing planet, resulting in the core's magnetic disruption and subsequent displacement of the Earth's crust.[11]

After the 2003 date passed without incident, Lieder said that it was merely a "White Lie ... to fool the establishment,"[12] and said that to disclose the true date would give those in power enough time to declare martial law and trap people in cities during the shift, leading to their deaths.[13] She still insists that the Zetas tell her that Planet X is coming and that a more specific passage timeline will be forthcoming after Obama takes office,[14] possibly mid-2010.[15][16]

Lieder's Planet X idea first spread beyond her website in 2001, when Mark Hazlewood, a former member of the ZetaTalk community, took her ideas and published them in a book: Blindsided: Planet X Passes in 2003. Lieder would later accuse him of being a confidence trickster.[17] Hazlewood also still maintains that Planet X is due, and published a new book, Delicate Earth, in 2006.[18] Japanese cult the Pana Wave Laboratory, which famously blocked off roads and rivers with white cloths to protect itself from electromagnetic attacks, also warned that the world would end in May 2003 after the approach of a tenth planet.[19]

Today, several internet sites still proclaim that "Planet X" or "Nibiru" is en route to Earth, often citing its arrival year as 2012, which is the end of the current cycle (baktun) in the long count in the Mayan calendar. Authors such as Burak Eldem, Jaysen Rand and Marshall Masters have propagated 2012 as Nibiru's arrival date.[20][21][22] The whistleblowers' website projectcamelot.org says it in possession of an anonymous letter from a Norwegian politician that states "Planet X is coming" and describes a secret plan to construct a series of globe-spanning 2012 survival bases.[23]


Names
This object is most commonly referred to as Nibiru, a name derived from the works of ancient astronaut proponent Zecharia Sitchin. According to Sitchin's personal (and academically dismissed)[24] reading of Sumerian religious texts, a giant planet (Nibiru or Marduk) with a 3600-year orbit occasionally passes by Earth and allows its sentient inhabitants to interact with humanity. These beings, which Sitchin identifies with the Annunaki of Sumerian myth, would become humanity's first gods.[25] However, Sitchin disagrees that an apocalypse is immanent (see below), and it was Lieder who initially made the connection.[26] Another widely used name for the object is Wormwood, after a passage from the Book of Revelation that describes a star named Wormwood falling from the skies.[21]

This object has also been linked by name to a number of hypothetical and actual Solar System objects. Lieder originally referred to as "Planet X"; the same Planet X once searched for by astronomers to account for discrepancies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.[26] However, in 1992 astronomer Myles Standish showed that these discrepancies were illusory, and today astronomers accept that Planet X does not exist.[27][28] Others say it is identical with Nemesis,[29] the hypothetical brown or red dwarf companion to the Sun proposed by Richard A. Muller to explain a purported regularity in mass extinctions observed in the fossil record. In his hypothesis, now widely discounted by scientists,[30] Muller argued that, as the object passed through the cometary Oort cloud every few million years, its gravity would perturb the orbits of those distant objects, causing a swarm of comets to enter the inner Solar System, leading to a higher probability of a major impact which would trigger a mass extinction.[31] However, Nemesis, if it exists, would have an orbit thousands of times longer than that proposed for Nibiru, and would never itself come anywhere near Earth.[32] Still others refer to it as Eris;[33] however, Eris is a dwarf planet only slightly larger than Pluto[34] with a well-determined orbit that never takes it closer than 5.5 billion km from the Earth.[35] Astronomer Mike Brown, who discovered Eris, believes the confusion results from both the real Eris and the imaginary Nibiru having extremely elliptical orbits.[36]


Scientific criticism

V838 Mon, a star with an expanding gas shell passed off as "photographic evidence" of NibiruThe Nibiru collision idea fails on several basic scientific grounds. For instance, such an object so close to Earth would be easily visible to the naked eye (Jupiter and Saturn are both visible to the naked eye, and are dimmer than Nibiru would be at their distances), and would be creating noticeable effects in the orbits of the outer planets.[37] If this object's orbit were as described, it would only have lasted in the Solar System for a million years or so before Jupiter expelled it. Also, there is no way another object's magnetic field could have such an effect on Earth.[38] Lieder's assertions that the approach of Nibiru would cause the Earth's rotation to stop or its axis to shift violate the laws of physics; the energy required to do either would be enough to destroy the Earth completely.[39]

Many believers in the imminent approach of Planet X/Nibiru/Wormwood accuse NASA of deliberately covering up visual evidence of its existence.[40] One such accusation involves the IRAS infrared space observatory, launched in 1983. The satellite briefly made headlines due to an "unknown object" that was at first described as "possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this Solar System".[41] This newspaper article has been cited by proponents of the collision idea, beginning with Leider herself, as evidence for the existence of Nibiru.[42] However, further analysis revealed that of several unidentified objects, nine were distant galaxies and the tenth was "intergalactic cirrus"; none were found to be Solar System bodies.[43]

Another accusation frequently made by websites predicting the collision is that the US government built the South Pole Telescope to track Nibiru's trajectory, and that the object has been imaged optically.[44] However, the SPT is a radio telescope, and cannot take photographs. Its South Pole location was chosen due to the low-humidity environment, and there is no way an approaching object could be seen only from the South Pole.[45] The "picture" of Nibiru posted on Youtube was revealed to in fact be a Hubble image of the expanding gas shell around the star V838 Mon.[44]


Criticism by Sitchin
Zecharia Sitchin himself has criticized this doomsday scenario's association with his planet Nibiru. In 2007, partly in response to Lieder's proclamations, he published a book, The End of Days, which set the time for the last passing of Nibiru by Earth at roughly 600 BC, which would mean it would be unlikely to return in less than 1000 years.[46] In 2008, Sitchin gave a 2-hour lecture on his ideas, which denied any direct connection between his Nibiru and the supposed 2012 end date.[47]


Public reaction
Mike Brown now says that Nibiru is the most common pseudoscientific topic he is asked about.[38] David Morrison, an astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center. says he receives 20-25 emails a week about the impending arrival of Nibiru; some frightened, others angry and naming him as part of the conspiracy to keep the truth of the impending apocalypse from the public.[40] "Planetary scientists are being driven to distraction by Nibiru," notes science writer Govert Schilling, "And it is not surprising; you devote so much time, energy and creativity to fascinating scientific research, and find yourself on the tracks of the most amazing and interesting things, and all the public at large is concerned about is some crackpot theory about clay tablets, god-astronauts and a planet that doesn't exist."[48] Morrison states that he hopes that the non-arrival of Nibiru could serve as a teaching moment for the public, instructing them on rational thought and baloney detection, but doubts that will happen.[40]


Film
A viral campaign for Sony Pictures' 2009 film 2012, directed by Roland Emmerich, which depicts the end of the world in that year, features a supposed warning from the "Institute for Human Continuity" that lists the arrival of Planet X as one of its doomsday scenarios.[49] Mike Brown attributes a spike in concerned emails and phone calls he received from the public to this site.[36]


References
^ a b c "Where do these ideas come from?". planet-x.150m.com. http://www.planet-x.150m.com/where.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ "What Is Known About Nancy Lieder". Skeptical Mind. http://www.skepticalmind.com/nancy.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ "first meeting". zetatalk.com. http://www.zetatalk.com/visitatn/v25.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ "Communications". zetatalk.com. http://zetatalk.com/transfor/t18.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ "ZetaTalk". zetatalk.com. http://zetatalk.com/. Retrieved on 2009-06-21.
^ a b "The Planet X Saga: Nancy Leider". badastronomy.com. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/lieder.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ Kidger, M.R.; Hurst, G; James, N. (2004). "The Visual Light Curve Of C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) From Discovery To Late 1997". Earth, Moon, and Planets 78 (1–3): 169–177. doi:10.1023/A:1006228113533. http://www.springerlink.com/content/h72381014307x661/.
^ "Hale Bopp". zetatalk.com. http://www.zetatalk.com/halebopp/hb000001.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ "Planet X: Distance, Speed, thus SIZE". zetatalk.com. http://www.zetatalk.com/usenet/use90652.htm. Retrieved on 2009-05-11.
^ "Pole Shift Date of May 27, 2003". zettalk.com. http://www.zetatalk.com/index/psdate1.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ "ZetaTalk: Pole Shift". zetatalk.com. http://www.zetatalk.com/poleshft/p21.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ "Pole Shift in 2003 Date". zetatalk. 2003. http://www.zetatalk.com/index/psdate.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ "ZetaTalk: White Lie". zetatalk.com. 2003. http://www.zetatalk.com/index/psdate2.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ "Zetatalk live chat". Godlike Productions. 2008. http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message606175/pg1. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ "ZetaTalk: GodlikeProduction Live". zetatalk.com. 21 June 2008. http://zetatalk.com/index/zeta459.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ "ZetaTalk: GodlikeProduction Live". 2008. http://www.zetatalk.com/index/zeta463.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ "Mark Hazlewood Scam". Zetatalk. http://www.zetatalk.com/index/hazelwod.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ Mark Hazlewood (2006). "Planet X Inbound". planetxinbound.com. http://www.planetxinbound.com/index.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ Benjamin Dorman (2005). "Pana Wave The New Aum Shinrikyô or Another Moral Panic?". Caliber. doi:10.1525/nr.2005.8.3.83. http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/nr.2005.8.3.83?cookieSet=1&journalCode=nr. Retrieved on 2009-05-09.
^ Burak Eldem. "About the Books". burakeldem.com. http://en.burakeldem.com/content/view/13/27/. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ a b "The Return of Planet-X Forecast as our 2009/2012 cosmic timetable approaches". returnofplanet-x.com. http://www.returnofplanet-x.com/forecast.asp. Retrieved on 2009-05-05.
^ "Underground 2012 Survival Bases — Project Camelot Founders Bill Ryan and Kerry Cassidy". yowusa.com. 2007. http://www.yowusa.com/. Retrieved on 2008-02-13.
^ "Letter from "Norwegian politician"". Project Camelot. http://projectcamelot.org/norway.html. Retrieved on 2008-02-14.
^ Michael S. Heiser. "Stchin Is Wrong". http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/sitchinerrors.htm. Retrieved on 2009-06-27.
^ Zecharia Sithin (1976). The 12th Planet. Harper. pp. 120.
^ a b "Planet X". zetatalk.com. 1996. http://www.zetatalk.com/science/s58.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-30.
^ Myles Standish (1992-07-16). "Planet X - No dynamical evidence in the optical observations". Astronomical Journal volume= 105 (5): 200-2006. http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1993AJ....105.2000S. Retrieved on 2009-04-30.
^ John Standage (2000). The Neptune File. Pengin. p. 168.
^ "2012 Warning". 2012warning.com. http://www.2012warning.com/nibiru.htm. Retrieved on 2009-05-04.
^ Robert Roy Britt (2001). "Nemesis: Does the Sun have a companion?". space.com. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/nemesis_010320-1.html. Retrieved on 2009-07-02.
^ J. G. Hills (1984-10-18). "Dynamical constraints on the mass and perihelion distance of Nemesis and the stability of its orbit". Nature (Nature Publishing Group) 311: 636–638. doi:10.1038/311636a0. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v311/n5987/abs/311636a0.html. Retrieved on 2008-03-25.
^ Ian O'Neill (2009). "Constraining the Orbits of Planet X and Nemesis". Universe Today. http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/15/constraining-the-orbits-of-planet-x-and-nemesis/. Retrieved on 2009-05-04.
^ Cristian Negureanu (2007). "NASA AND PLANET ERIS/NIBIRU". UFO Digest. http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0707/eris-nibiru.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ Mike Brown (2007). "Dysnomia, the moon of Eris". CalTech. http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/moon/index.html. Retrieved on 2007-06-14.
^ "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 136199 Eris (2003 UB313)". 2008-10-04 last obs. http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=Eris. Retrieved on 2009-01-21.
^ a b Mike Brown (2009). "Sony Pictures and the End of the World". Mike Brown's Planets. http://www.mikebrownsplanets.com/2009/06/sony-pictures-and-end-of-world.html. Retrieved on 2009-06-07.
^ Phil Plait (2003). "The Planet X Saga: Science". badastronomy.com. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/science.html#orbits. Retrieved on 2009-04-02. (this page relates to the initial supposed 2003 arrival, but holds just as well for 2012)
^ a b Mike Brown (2008). "I do not ♥ pseudo-science". Mike Brown's planets. http://www.mikebrownsplanets.com/2008/02/i-do-not-pseudo-science.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-12.
^ "It causes a pole shift? A what?". planet-x.150m.com. http://www.planet-x.150m.com/poleshift.html.
^ a b c David Morrison (2008). "Armageddon from Planet Nibiru in 2012? Not so fast". discovery.com. http://dsc.discovery.com/space/my-take/nibiru-armageddon-david-morrison.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-02.
^ Thomas O'Toole (1983-12-30). "Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered". Washington Post: p. A1. http://spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/tchester/iras/washington_post_mystery_object.html. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
^ Phil Plait (2002). "The IRAS Incident". badastronomy.com. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/science.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-09.
^ J. R. Houck, D. P. Schneider, D. E. Danielson, et al. (1985). "Unidentified IRAS sources: Ultra-High Luminosity Galaxies". The Astrophysical Journal 290: 5–8. doi:10.1086/184431. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1985ApJ...290L...5H&db_key=AST&high=3ccf23290006822. Retrieved on 2008-07-14.
^ a b David Morrison. "The Myth of Nibiru and the End of the World in 2012". Skepical Enquirer. http://www.csicop.org/si/2008-05/morrison.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-28.
^ David Morrison (2008). "Ask An Astrobiologist". NASA. http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/question/?id=4380. Retrieved on 2009-04-23.
^ Zacharia Sitchin (2007). The End of Days. William Morrow. pp. 401.
^ "Will the end come in 2012? publisher=Sitchin.com". http://www.sitchin.com/. Retrieved on 2009-06-23.
^ Govert Schilling. The Hunt For Planet X: New Worlds and the Fate of Pluto. Copernicus Books. pp. 111.
^ "IHC: Education/Awareness". Sony Pictures. 2009. http://www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org/?hs308=email#/initiatives/earth/education/planetX. Retrieved on 2009-06-08.

External links
ZetaTalk
History of ZetaTalk
Bad Astronomy on ZetaTalk's astronomical errors
Video of Lieder and Hazlewood
Jay Martell on Planet X/Nibiru
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