The Truth About Nibiru

Introduction

So December 21 is less than six months away. As a result we have been seeing a slight resurgence in Nibiru threads. I can only assume that as we get closer to the date that we'll start seeing even more. Instead of repeating the same information every thread I think it's time we finally compile all the reasons why there is no Nibiru. I'm going to attempt to cover as many false claims as I can in these initial posts but there's so much nonsense out there that I'm bound to miss some things. So if you think of something I didn't cover either let me know and I'll add a section for it or you can add the information itself.

Sitchin, and the Origins of Nibiru

Now I'm sure most of us are familiar with the work of Zechariah Sitchin and his claims regarding Nibiru. For the uninitiated here is a brief overview. In 1976 Sitchin published a book titled The 12th Planet which addressed the ancient alien hypothesis originally popularized by Erich von Daniken in 1968 with his publication of Chariots of the Gods. Much like von Daniken Sitchin started with the premise that ancient gods were actually aliens that came to Earth. Pretty much after this their research diverges greatly. While von Daniken looked at artifacts from many different cultures Sitchin focused on the area of Mesopotamia. He took a great interest in the Akkadians, the Babylonians, and especially the Sumerians. He claimed that the Sumerian gods, the Annunaki, were actually aliens from the planet Nibiru whose orbit brings it close to Earth every 3,600 years.

Now what was Sitchin's evidence for these claims? First was the word nibiru itself. It translates to crossing. Sitchin believed this referred to the planet crossing Earth's orbit. The second piece of evidence was Cylinder Seal VA243.



According to Sitchin not only did this depict one of the Annunaki but it also depicted the Sumerians view of our solar system. If you look in the upper left corner you can see what appears to be the Sun surrounded by a number of planets. Sitchin claimed that the Sumerians believed that the Moon was another planet and then it showed the nine planets that were known of in Sitchin's day and then also Nibiru.

So how accurate were Sitchin's claims? Let's first look at his analysis of the word nibiru. He is right that it does mean “crossing” however it is not a Sumerian word. The earliest it appears is in the Akkadian lexicon. For them it meant a point of crossing, specifically like a river crossing. It had no astronomical meaning behind it. It was then later used by the Babylonians to mean the highest point of the ecliptic. This is the location the Sun is in at its zenith on the summer solstice. Occasionally it would also refer to a planet in this position. For example, if we look at the Babylonian almanac MUL.APIN we see nibiru refer to Jupiter. It does not refer to a “12th Planet.”

Next we switch our focus to Cylinder Seal VA243. This is the core of Sitchin's argument for the existence of Nibiru. If you go on Sitchin's word it's pretty good evidence. We have a Sumerian artifact that clearly shows the Sun with planets orbiting it. There's only one problem, the symbol for Sun does not appear on this cylinder seal. Furthermore, Sitchin claimed that the Sumerians believed the Moon was another planet. This just isn't true. In fact the Sumerians had a separate symbol for the Moon and it too does not appear on this cylinder seal. The only symbol that appears on this seal is the symbol for star/planet.



This image shows the Sumerian symbols for star/planet, Moon, Sun (From Left to Right). As you can clearly see the second and third symbols don't appear anywhere on Cylinder Seal VA243. Only a night sky full of stars.

While this debunks the basis for all Nibiru claims we will continue with some of the other more common claims.

Further Reading:
Association Assyriophile de France. Akkadian Dictionary.
Heiser, M.S. The Myth of a 12th Planet: A Brief Analysis of Cylinder Seal VA 243
Roth, M.T. (2011). The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Sitchin, Z. (2007). The 12th Planet. Harper Publishing. New York.

Planet X

This section really refers to two completely different objects but thanks to having the same name they have become the same in the minds of conspiracy theorists. The first is a legitimate astronomical term. Nibiruphiles point to this research to support their belief in the second object. This other object is the creation of Nancy Lieder. It is essentially the exact same thing as Nibiru but with a different name.

Now let's explore why the former Planet X has nothing to do with the latter Planet X. On September 23, 1846 Neptune was discovered by Johann Gottfried Galle. Almost immediately astronomers noticed that the estimated mass of Neptune did not explain the orbits of the gas giants. As a result it was theorized that there was another planet lurking on the edges of the solar system.

Skip forward to the first decade of the 20th century and a wealthy Bostonian by the name of Percival Lowell enters the picture. He decided to make it his life mission to explain the orbits of the gas giants and discover, what he dubbed, Planet X. Note that the X in Planet X does not refer to the number ten but stands for unknown. To achieve this goal he built the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ.

Now we skip forward to February 18, 1930. At this point Lowell had been dead for a number of years but the staff at Lowell Observatory was continuing his search. On this day Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, declaring to his supervisor, “Doctor Slipher, I have found your Planet X.” At the time it seemed like he had. The location of Pluto was just scant degrees off of two of Lowell's own hypotheses for the location of the Planet. However, it soon became evident that Pluto was not the cause for the orbits.

Following the discovery of Pluto astronomers kept up the search but as years passed and more data came in more and more astronomers gave up the hunt. By 1989 only the most diehard believers remained searching. In this year the data that would eventually explain the orbits of the gas giants was obtained. This was the year that Voyager 2 did its flyby of Neptune and as a result its mass was recalculated. The final results of the Voyager 2 data were published in May 1993. Using the newly calculated mass of Neptune it was shown that the orbits of the gas giants were properly explained and the need for Planet X disappeared.

Nancy Lieder then came onto the scene in 1995 when she started claiming that the upcoming passing of Comet Hale Bopp was merely a cover for the coming of Planet X. She claimed that aliens from Zeta Reticuli had told her this and that Planet X was going to collide with Earth. When Hale Bopp ended up being one of the brightest comets of the last century Lieder then claimed that Planet X was actually coming in 2003. Then when 2003 passed with no Planet X she claimed that she was merely trying to fool the elites and that the actual date was 2012. Well, here we are in 2012 and there's still no sign of Lieder's Planet X.

As you can see these two Planet X's are two separate objects. That has not stopped Nibiruphiles however from trying to use the work of men like Robert Harrington to support their completely different object. It should be noted that Robert Harrington died four months before the paper that disproved Planet X was published. That is why it appears he was searching for Planet X right up to the end of his life.

Further Reading:
Schilling, G. (2009). The Hunt for Planet X: Discovering the Outer Solar System. Springer. New York.
Standage, T. (2000). The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting. Walker Publishing. New York.
Standish, M. (1993). “Planet X – No dynamical evidence in the optical observations.” Astronomical Journal. 105 (5), 2000-2006.
ZetaTalk

Nemesis

I guess the next logical place to go is a discussion of the Nemesis hypothesis. This is once again a very specific scientific hypothesis that Nibiru fans have somehow twisted into supporting their beliefs. We'll see very quickly that this is a persistent theme in Nibiru “evidence.”

The Nemesis hypothesis emerged out of a paper written by two paleontologists, David Raup and Jack Sepkoski, claiming there was a periodicity to mass extinctions. A number of astronomers quickly came up with a similar explanation. This was the Nemesis hypothesis. What this postulates is that there is a star deep in the Oort Cloud that dislodges comets and sends them hurtling towards the inner solar system. Every 26 million years Nemesis would pass through a certain patch of space that would send a comet right at Earth. Now it's worth pointing out right here that Nemesis bears no resemblance to Sitchin's Nibiru. Nibiru was supposed to be a planet that enters the solar system every 3,600 years not a star the sends a comet towards the Earth every 26 million years. Despite these incongruities we'll continue to examine why Nemesis hypothesis has been widely abandoned.

As was mentioned above Nemesis hypothesis was based on the paper of Raup or Sepkoski. Over the years support for their claims has been found lacking. Most recently a paper in 2011 reinvestigated the claims of the paper and they reported that there was absolutely evidence for a periodicity of mass extinctions. There has also been a lack of astronomical evidence. Since the hypothesis was originally published there has been a number of sky surveys. These include a search for Nemesis in 1986 by Leuschner Observatory, IRAS, 2MASS, PAN-STARRS, and things aren't looking good with the WISE data either.

Further Reading:
Bailer-Jones, C.A.L. (2011). “Evidence for a variation – but no periodicity – in the terrestrial impact cratering rate.”EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011, held 2-7 October 2011 in Nantes, France. 153.
Morrison, D. (2011). “Scientists today no longer think an object like Nemesis could exist.” NASA Ask an Astrobiologist.
Raup, D.M. & Sepkoski, J.J. (1984). “Periodicity of Extinctions in the Geologic Past”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 81 (3), 801-805.
Whitmire, D.P. & Jackson, A.A. (1984) “Are periodic mass extinctions driven by a distant solar companion”. Nature. 308 (5961), 713-715.

Tyche

The next logical claim to debunk is Tyche. The Tyche hypothesis is the child of the Nemesis hypothesis. When it was shown that there was no periodicity to mass extinctions a small group of astronomers still thought they could explain the orbits of long-period comets with an object on the outer reaches of the solar system. The result was Tyche. This is a hypothetical planet that would sit about 25,000 AU away and not come closer.

So once again we have an object that doesn't match any of Nibiru's characteristics. Yet Nibiru believers, for whatever reason, feel this supports their worldview.

Further Reading:
Matese, J.J. & Whitmire, D.P. (2011). “Persistent evidence of a jovian mass solar companion in the Oort Cloud.” Icarus. 211 (2), 926-938.

Washington Post Article

While I haven't seen this one thrown around recently it is still a perennial favorite. On January 31, 1983 the Washington Post published an article about an upcoming scientific paper. It stated that in the IRAS data there was an unknown object. Among the many possibilities was a new planet in the solar system. Despite the article stating that this object was “not incoming mail” the Nibiru crowd once again jumped on this article as proof of their beliefs. One key reason they give for this is that there was never any follow up.

Now let's look at what the actual article said. Instead of there being one unknown object there were actually ten. Much like in the Washington Post article a number of possibilities were thrown out. Once again however these objects were never seen as threats.

The Nibiru believers were also wrong about there never being any kind of follow up. The first follow up article was published in 1985. This article identified nine of the ten objects as distant, ultra-luminous, young galaxies. This was in fact one of the possibilities in the first paper. The second follow up came in 1987. This identified the final object as an infrared cirrus. So once again the claims of Nibiruphiles have been shown to be out and out false.

Further Reading:
Houck, J.R., Soifer, B.T., Neugebauer, G., Beichman, C.A., Aumann, H.H., Clegg, P.E. … & Walker, R.G. (1984). “Unidentified point sources in the IRAS minisurvey.” Astrophysical Journal, Part 2 - Letters to the Editor. 278, L63-L66.
Houck, J.R., Schneider, D.P., Danielson, G.E., Neugebauer, G., Soifer, B.T., Beichman, C.A., & Lonsdale, C.J. (1985). “Unidentified IRAS sources - Ultrahigh-luminosity galaxies.” Astrophysical Journal, Part 2 - Letters to the Editor. 290, L5-L8.
O'Toole, T. (1983). “Possibly as Large as Jupiter; Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered.” Washington Post.
Soifer, B.T., Neugebauer, G., & Houck, J.R. (1987). “The IRAS view of the extragalactic sky.” IN: Annual review of astronomy and astrophysics. 25, 187-230.

Google Sky

This is the final section I can think of right now and I'm not really sure how to approach it. I guess first I can discuss the black boxes. Throughout Google Sky there are a number of blacked out areas that are supposedly proof of Nibiru. Now let's ignore the facts that the images on Google Sky are years, if not decades, old and that if they were covering something up you could easily look at those coordinates in the night sky. What we are really seeing with these black boxes is a processing error in the image stitching program that is used. There's nothing more insidious than that.

The next part of this is the hard part. There have been a number of objects found on the infrared setting of Google Sky that people have claimed are Nibiru. It would take a long time to go through all of the objects that are supposedly Nibiru so instead I will post the most commonly misidentified object and then give you the tools necessary to check the identification of any object you want.



This is the object most identified as Nibiru. It is located at 09h47m57.406s +13d16'43.56”. Now if we actually look up these coordinates we find that there is a known object at this location It is called IRC +10216 or, more commonly, CW Leonis. It is a carbon star that mainly puts off infrared light and has the highest flux of any object outside the solar system. It is actually a well studied system.

Now how did I find this out? Simple. The IRAS website. All you need to do is punch in the coordinates and it will come back with whatever signatures are in that area. Hopefully this will save us a lot of false Nibiru identifications.

Conclusion

So there you have it. That's every reason I can think of for people to believe in Nibiru. Now that's not to say there's not planets out in the Oort Cloud or that we won't be impacted by some celestial object. However, what it does show is that there is nothing out there that matches the characteristics of Nibiru. There are no planets or stars that will be crossing Earth's orbit by the end of the year.

As I said at the beginning I'm sure there are some things I missed. If anyone wants to add anything go ahead or tell me if you want me to add anything. Hopefully this will help quell some of the fear and anxiety some people may be feeling and it will quash the fearmongering. There's a lot of nonsense out there associated with 2012 and Nibiru is some of the worst. I hope I have illustrated this fact in these posts.

I'm still reading, but S&F. I've wondered about so much of this for some time. Thank you for posting

Thanks X- always the voice of logic and reason.

I don't think this information will be reviewed thoroughly by those who support the theory of Nibiru.

I would like to see this kill all delusions but alas, people of that mindset WANT it to happen so bad they become blinded by dogmatism and fail to see truth.

Best thread in months!

S&F&kudos

The only thing I could think of that the Nibidiot's also bring up are "Sun-Dogs".

"omg omg .....there is a giant planet next to the sun and I can only see it with a camera.......it's definitely not a reflection nor image artifact.....it must be Nibiru! "

reply to post by OccamAssassin


I thought about doing something for the cell phone pictures but couldn't really come up with anything other than "Those people don't know how how to use a camera." So I'm just kind of hoping that this thread does enough to show that Nibiru doesn't exist that those threads will stop being posted. I mean these people can't be taking pictures of something that doesn't exist.

Sitchin never tied Nibiru to Dec 21 2012 or the Mayan calendar, or predict an end time. Other people did that. I believe his estimate for Nibiru to return was between 2070-2100.

He does mention that Isac Newton tried to predict an end time by using the book of Daniel which was somewhere around the 2300 time period according to his calculations.

reply to post by curious_soul


I didn't say Sitchin tied Nibiru to 2012. However, I can't rightly discuss Nibiru without discussing Sitchin. His actual date was around 2900 but he also said it could return as soon as 2090.

reply to post by Xcalibur254


I highly appreciate your efforts, and you've put together what's supposed about Nibiru in a quite concise and encompassing manner. Only a few things are missing, but the KEY to what's missing is Sitchin, the FATHER of NIBIRU BELIEF claims himself that if Nibiru returns, when Nibiru returns, it'll be around the year 2225, and not 2012,

Anyone whose read his books knows 2012 is not associated with Nibiru at all.

I don't remember when 2012 is posed as a question but Sitchin laughs at the date. This video is also on youtube:
www.disclose.tv...

reply to post by curious_soul


2300? Issac Newton predicted the end of the world to be around 2060...

Also, Sitchin's interpretations of that one Sumerian tablet you referenced are not the culmination or origins of his theories and extrapolations.

Anyone whose well versed with Sitchin knows of his Jewish Yeshiva education, his qualms with certain passages of the Torah and the Rabbinical explanations regarding them.

Sitchin, summed up in a nut shell, postulates that histories myths and legends are not fairy tales\ and non-fiction, but rather works of recorded history. It was the Enuma Elish (spelling), Epic of Creation, and the repeats of the Epic of Giglamesh, through an ancient alien lens, which brought him great understanding about scripture and allowed him to form his conclusions about Nibiru and the rest of the Sumerian stone text.

Nibiru has another name which is the answer to the riddle.

Originally posted by lostinspace
Nibiru has another name which is the answer to the riddle.

You mean to say " Another name, does nibiru have, the riddles answers you'll find" Thanks Yoda.

Thaaaats right.....

Ok, you may think that I am crazy but I have a theory of my own. It has been well established that the Sol system is not native to the milky way galaxy but rather comes from the Sagittarius galaxy. Since we were acquired we not only rotate around the galactic center we also move up and down in a sine wave above and below this galactic disk. Now every so often we will pass through the galactic disk. (next time is Dec 2012). Now my idea is that there is a planet or even a dwarf star with at least one planet rotating around the milky way in exact correspondence with our rotation around the galactic center only it does not have the sine wave movement above and below the disk as it is a native to the milky way. This would cause an encounter with us and this other object about every 35000 years at the times that we cross the disk.
I know that I have not had time or resources to confirm this but I think that it is possible.

Bump the good stuff. Great thread. S&F





:bnghd:

Ok. So niburu did not mean planet, but meant crossing or point of crossing. What does this really mean if it's not planet x? They new back then we just don't understand it now. Bridge to where comes every 3600 years? Planet x may be debunked but there is still a mystery in the Sumerian text that ties in with 2012.

reply to post by Xcalibur254


Nice thread, some good information. If Nibiru were going to appear I think it would be visible by now right?

The second piece of evidence was Cylinder Seal VA243.



According to Sitchin not only did this depict one of the Annunaki but it also depicted the Sumerians view of our solar system. If you look in the upper left corner you can see what appears to be the Sun surrounded by a number of planets. Sitchin claimed that the Sumerians believed that the Moon was another planet and then it showed the nine planets that were known of in Sitchin's day and then also Nibiru.

Regardless of how Sitchin was trying to spin that picture, I still find it extremely fascinating. The Sumerians were supposed to be the earliest civilized culture on Earth right? How did they know that the planets were orbiting around the Sun as that picture clearly demonstrates? Why didn't they think the planets revolved around Earth? According to modern science we have 8 planets in our solar system but we also have 5 dwarf planets. Before 2006 we had 9 planets then we changed it to 8. Our definition of a "planet" is very picky and subject to change. In that picture we see 11 planets, and to me that is suspiciously close to the number of planets we know about... it's possible their definition of a planet was slightly different to ours too, or that some of the dwarf planets we have now weren't yet formed properly back then.

This image shows the Sumerian symbols for star/planet, Moon, Sun (From Left to Right). As you can clearly see the second and third symbols don't appear anywhere on Cylinder Seal VA243. Only a night sky full of stars.

You're going to dismiss that picture as a night sky full of stars? Absurd. They clearly drew a large star with small round objects around it. The first symbol is NOT a planet/star. Do you really think they would have planet and star as the same symbol? If anything the last symbol is a planet (hence the roundness) and the first one is clearly a star/sun... after all the Sun is a star, thus they WOULD have the same symbol for both things. It makes 100% more logical sense to assume the first symbol is a that of a bright star object (hence the pointy appearance) and to assume that the picture depicts a LARGE star surrounded by small round planets. That's clearly what it is.

Most recently a paper in 2011 reinvestigated the claims of the paper and they reported that there was absolutely evidence for a periodicity of mass extinctions.

I think you meant to say "they reported that there was absolutely no evidence".