Washington Post: Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered, a front page story
mard...@hotmail.com
A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and
possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system
has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an
orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite.
So mysterious is the object that astronomers do not know if it is a
planet, a giant comet, a nearby "protostar" that never got hot enough
to become a star, a distant galaxy so young that it is still in the
process of forming its first stars or a galaxy so shrouded in dust
that none of the light cast by its stars ever gets through. "All I
can tell you is that we don't know what it is," Dr. Gerry Neugebauer,
IRAS chief scientist for California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and
director of the Palomar Observatory for the California Institute of
Technology said in an interview.
The most fascinating explanation of this mystery body, which is so
cold it casts no light and has never been seen by optical telescopes
on Earth or in space, is that it is a giant gaseous planet, as large
as Jupiter and as close to Earth as 50 billion miles. While that may
seem like a great distance in earthbound terms, it is a stone's throw
in cosmological terms, so close in fact that it would be the nearest
heavenly body to Earth beyond the outermost planet Pluto. "If it is
really that close, it would be a part of our solar system," said Dr.
James Houck of Cornell University's Center for Radio Physics and
Space Research and a member of the IRAS science team. "If it is that
close, I don't know how the world's planetary scientists would even
begin to classify it."
The mystery body was seen twice by the infrared satellite as it
scanned the northern sky from last January to November, when the
satellite ran out of the supercold helium that allowed its telescope
to see the coldest bodies in the heavens. The second observation took
place six months after the first and suggested the mystery body had
not moved from its spot in the sky near the western edge of the
constellation Orion in that time. "This suggests it's not a comet
because a comet would not be as large as the one we've observed and a
comet would probably have moved," Houck said. "A planet may have
moved if it were as close as 50 billion miles but it could still be a
more distant planet and not have moved in six months time.
Whatever it is, Houck said, the mystery body is so cold its
temperature is no more than 40 degrees above "absolute" zero, which
is 459 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. The telescope aboard IRAS is
cooled so low and is so sensitive it can "see" objects in the heavens
that are only 20 degrees above absolute zero. When IRAS scientists
first saw the mystery body and calculated that it could be as close
as 50 billion miles, there was some speculation that it might be
moving toward Earth. "It's not incoming mail," Cal Tech's Neugebauer
said. "I want to douse that idea with as much cold water as I can."
--
The sun stopped dead:
Joshua 10:12-14 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel,
Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand
still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." So the sun
stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on
its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped
in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.
There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the
LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!
The sun reversed:
Isaiah 38:5-8 "Go and tell Hezekiah, 'This is what the LORD, the God
of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your
tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you
and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend
this city. "'This is the LORD'S sign to you that the LORD will do
what he has promised: I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back
the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.'" So the
sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down.
The sun went dark:
Matthew 24:23-31 At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is
the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs
and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles
to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. See, I have told
you ahead of time. "So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the
desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not
believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even
in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there
is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. "Immediately after the
distress of those days 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will
not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the
heavenly bodies will be shaken.' "At that time the sign of the Son of
Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will
mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky,
with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud
trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds,
from one end of the heavens to the other.
--
Top Secret - classified information
Date: 98-07-23 22:57:53 EDT
Beloved Ones:
LIGHT and LOVE to you in abundance!
I received a snail-mail-letter today with highly classified
information:
NASA knows since quite a time affirmative, that a P L A N E T -
not an asteroide is crossing Earth-orbit in August. And they
instructed all those knowing about, to shut their mouths
(and computers), otherwise...... (you may imagin).
The P L A N E T consists mainly of gases but has a
kernel (= nuce) of 37 kilometers diameter; in its totality
it is very much bigger than earth,
even most of it consists of different gases.
The probably scenario is, that this P L A N E T will NOT
"touch" Earth but its gases will do.
Poleshift or not, we will have 3 dark days and YOU
better have candles and other stuff ready.
This is NOT a prophecy or a channeling, THIS is a simple fact,
some of you will just believe it, when they see the atmosphere
darkening, that is ok. But many will enter into panic then,
and I tell YOU, there is no reason for panic, nor for fear.
THIS P L A N E T will pass by earth and it will cause to
look at GOD. Anyhow some only turn to GOD in the time of dangour
and forget GOD in other times, but many will understand, that
we are all GOD, that we are all one.
So I AM telling you this to be prepared, to NOT panic, to NOT fear,
but to LOVE !
LOVE yourself, LOVE all, LOVE GOD and LOVE this P L A N E T
which comes to clean up Earth's-atmosphere.
I surely will not enter into "discussion" if this is true or not,
if this is a fear-based message or not (IT IS NOT !)
or at least that we can change this, with our positive THINKING
and MEDITATION. (For sure we can, but we should NOT,
because our Mother Earth asked for it for cleansing....
and no-one in and from the LIGHT will be harmed).
Rest assured, there is only JOY after,
the purpose of this message is
o n l y to prepare you, that you can tell your neighbours and friends,
that their is nothing to fear ---- only to LOVE !
I AM with YOU !
LOVE to YOU !
--
http://members.aol.com/phikent/orbit/solwatch.html
http://members.aol.com/phikent/orbit/orbit.html
--
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
mard...@hotmail.com
>You forgot to take your medicine today, right?
What does it take to get articles published in
magazines like Newsweek and Astronomy and on the front page of the
Washington Post?
Astronomy magazine, Dec '81, article
"Search for the Tenth Planet
Astronomy, October '82, article
"Searching for a 10th Planet
Newsweek, June 28, 1982, article
"Does the Sun Have a Dark Companion?
US News World Report, Sept 10, 1984, article
"Planet X - Is It Really Out There?
Washington Post, 31-Dec-1983, a front page story
"Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered"
Planet X does exist, and it is the 12th Planet, one and the same. When first
sighted via infrared readings and reported by the IRAS team in 1983, the IRAS
findings were taken in many ways by the human scientists reading the reports,
and thus they cast many interpretations on just what the 12th Planet's
infrared reading might imply. Infrared heat can be taken to mean many
things, depending on distance, size, and composition of the object being
sensed. A very hot object far away can be comparable to a barely warm object
near at hand, or a very large object far away can be considered to be a
smaller object close at hand, and as the compression caused by the mass of an
object is considered to produce infrared rays, then a very heavy but cold
object could be considered comparable to a lighter but warmer object. The
scientists reading the IRAS findings took the 12th Planet, a.k.a. Planet X,
to be larger, colder, and farther away, as the mind does not want to
comprehend the alternatives.
When first sighted in 1983, it was on the right hand side of Orion, as viewed
from your northern hemisphere, and is moving left. It will move further
left, as it nears the Earth's Solar System for its passage, coming in on the
left side of the Sun (as viewed in the manner humans insist upon, from what
they call above the plane). Thus it moves from the right hand side of the
sky, from Orion, to come in on the left hand side, coming up through the
plane as viewed from above the plane, in its first passage.
Interest in Planet X was roaring along going into the 1983 IRAS search. Had
Planet X not been found, interest might still be roaring along, in the media,
that is. When the blanket of suppression was dropped on the media and major
observatories, who know just where Planet X is at all times these days, it
took some time for an explanation for the silence to be concocted. Thus one
finds the strange silence, that lasted almost a decade, following the Planet
X discovery in 1983. Since JPL and NASA are firmly in hand, doing the
bidding of the establishment on so many information issues, they became the
designated arm of the explanation. The mystery of why the outer planets
appeared perturbed to astronomers for the last 160 years was explained away
by adjustments in the size and composition of these outer planets discovered
by probes. The public gets the conclusion, but not the details, or they get
the details in such a manner that an independent conclusion can't be arrived
at. All very safe.
12th planet:
http://www.zetatalk.com/science/s00.htm
Interview with Zecharia Sitchin: [...] Zecharia Sitchin was born in Russia
and raised in Palestine, where he acquired a profound knowledge of modern and
ancient Hebrew, other Semitic and European languages, the Old Testament, and
the history and archeology of the Near East. He is one of the few scholars
who is able to read and understand Sumerian. Sitchin attended and graduated
from the University of London, majoring in economic history. A leading
journalist and editor in Israel for many years, he now lives and writes in
New York. His books have been widely translated, converted to Braille for the
blind, and featured on radio and television.
The Earth Chronicles series is based on the premise that mythology is not
fanciful but the repository of ancient memories; that the Bible ought to be
read literally as a historic/scientific document; and that ancient
civilizations--older and greater than assumed--were the product of knowledge
brought to Earth by the Anunnaki, "Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came." ...I
trust that modern science will continue to confirm ancient knowledge.
--Zecharia Sitchin
[...]
Connecting Link: What are the Earth Chronicles about?
Zecharia Sitchin: The first book, The Twelfth Planet, refers to the
probability that there is one more planet in our solar system. That there are
twelve members, counting sun, moon and ten planets, not the nine we know of.
That people from that planet came to earth almost half a million years ago
and did many of the things about which we read in the Bible, in the book of
Genesis.
But that was not my starting point at all. My starting point was, going back
to my childhood and schooldays, the puzzle of who were the Nefilim, that are
mentioned in Genesis, Chapter six, as the sons of the gods who married the
daughters of Man in the days before the great flood, the Deluge. The word
Nefilim is commonly, or used to be, translated "giants." And I am sure that
you and your readers are familiar with quotes and Sunday preachings, etc.,
that those were the days when there were giants upon the earth. I questioned
this interpretation as a child at school, and I was reprimanded for it
because the teacher said "you don't question the Bible." But I did not
question the Bible, I questioned an interpretation that seemed inaccurate,
because the word, Nefilim, the name by which those extraordinary beings, "the
sons of the gods" were known, means literally, "Those who have come down to
earth from the heavens."
CL: From the Hebrew word Nafal, which means "fall"?
ZS: Right. Fall, come down, descend. So, what did it mean? This led me to
biblical studies and then to mythology and archeology and all the other
subjects, including the study of ancient languages, which became my education
and avocation. So, my research and my decision to write about it started with
a question, Who were the Nefilim?
All the ancient scriptures, the Bible, the Greek myths, the Egyptian myth and
texts, the pyramid texts, everything, led to the Sumerians, whose
civilization was the first known one six thousand years ago. I focused on
Sumer, the source of these legends and myths and texts and information. I
learned to read the cuneiform Sumerian texts and came upon their persistent
and repeated statements that those beings, whom the Sumerians called
Anunnaki, came to earth from a planet called Nibiru. The planet was
designated by the sign of the cross and Nibiru meant, "planet of crossing."
The question thus shifted in my research from who were the Nefilim and the
Anunnaki, to, what planet is Nibiru? Forced to become proficient in
astronomy, I had to learn enough about it to deal with the subject. I found
out that the scholars were divided. Some said it (Nibiru) was Mars, which of
course was described and known to the ancient people, and others said, no, it
was Jupiter. Those who said it was Jupiter and not Mars, had very convincing
arguments why it could not be Mars. And those who said it was Mars and not
Jupiter had very convincing arguments also.
Being able to go directly to those ancient sources, clay tablets and
cuneiforn scripts, it seemed to me that neither was right, because the
description of Nibiru and its position when it nears the Sun indicated that
it could not be Mars, and it could not be Jupiter. And then one night I woke
up with the answer: Of course, it is one more planet that comes periodically
between Mars and Jupiter; it is sometimes nearer to Mars and sometimes nearer
to Jupiter, but it isn't Mars or Jupiter.
Once I realized that this was the answer, that there is one more planet,
everything else fell into place. The meaning of the Mesopotamian Epic of
Creation on which the first chapters of Genesis are based and all details
about the Anunnaki, who they were and who their leaders were and how they
traveled from their planet to Earth and how they splashed down in the Persian
Gulf and about their first settlement, their leaders and so on and so on,
everything became clear! The Sumerians had immense knowledge. They knew about
Uranus and Neptune and described them and they knew about Pluto. They were
proficient in mathematics and, in many respects, their knowledge surpassed
modem times. They said, "All that we know was told to us by the Anunnaki."
The first book's innovation, its impact, was the realization that the ancient
peoples, beginning with the Sumerians, knew of and described and spoke of one
more planet in our solar system. It was not a discovery like that of Pluto in
1930 (of which the Sumerians knew six thousand years ago). Pluto was a very
interesting astronomical discovery; textbooks had to be revised. But to the
average person, the man on the street, it really made no difference. Nibiru,
on the other hand was a different story. If Nibiru exists, (and this is the
planet that astronomers nowadays call planet X) then the Anunnaki exist.
So the existence of Nibiru is not a matter of just one more globe in our
solar system. This is different, because if Nibiru exists, and the Anunnaki
exist, then the Sumerian claim that they come back to our vicinity every
3,600 years, at which times in the past they gave us civilization, then we
are not alone and there are more advanced people than us in our solar system.
CL: What will happen next time around?
ZS: Who knows how they will feel about us when they come back. Will they
decide to give us more knowledge again, and more technical advancement and
more civilization, or will they decide that we are no good, as happened at
the time of the Deluge, and try to get rid of us?
So, the first book, laying the foundation and describing Sumerian knowledge
and concluding with the existence of one more planet is really the key to
understanding what it is all about. What the tales of Genesis are, what the
tales of creation are, what our past was, and in a way what our future will
be.
CL: And the second book in the series?
ZS: The Stairway to Heaven, looks at the tales of ancient times, primarily
from two new aspects. One was to bring the Egyptian texts and mythologies
into the picture and show how they fit with the Sumerian [texts] and what
they really meant. The second was to look at the issue of man's search for
immortality. And this ties in with the Sinai, it ties in with the landing
place, with the spaceports in the Sinai Peninsula, the role of Jerusalem and
all that.
The third book, The Wars of Gods and Men, continues the story and shows what
happened after Kingship, a new phase of civilization, was given to mankind.
Dealing with the conflict that began with the rivalry between two half
brothers, Enlil and Enki. It relates how this conflict continued among their
sons and their grandchildren, leading to actual warfare which I call the
Pyramid Wars (there were two) in which, eventually, mankind became involved.
That is how mankind learned to make war. And this deals with a moral or
theological subject: Is man a warrior by nature, or was he taught to become a
warrior?
Book four, The Lost Realms, is the tale of the Americas. Not just what they
call pre-Columbian times but four, five thousand years ago, which was before
the Incas, the Mayans and the Aztecs. Who really was in the Americas, how
ancient are some of the antiquities and how were such incredible megalithic
structures built? What for, How come, and By Whom? The Lost Realms shows that
it is part of the same story, that the same Anunnaki brought mankind or part
of mankind to the Americas.
Book five, Genesis Revisited, a companion book, was really written because in
the fifteen years since the first book was published, there have been many
scientific advances, especially in astronomy and all the discoveries of the
Voyager Spacecraft, in geology, biology, the discovery of DNA, the ability to
create babies in a test tube, linguistics, and [in unlocking the secrets of]
the origin of languages. Each such discovery corroborated what the Sumerians
had known and had written, and therefore fully confirmed what I said in my
first book. And each time there was such a discovery I would literally jump
out of my seat and say, "My god, this is exactly what the Sumerians said six
thousand years ago!"
If you read the relevant page in The Twelfth Planet, you will see that I
quote a Sumerian text that says exactly how the Adam, the first Homo sapiens,
was created.* You will see that this is a process that today we call the test
tube baby process. I quote a text that describes Uranus and Neptune as
Voyager 2 saw them in 1986 and 1989. 1 finally sat down and put together all
this scientific evidence, all these scientific discoveries to show how they
match and corroborate ancient knowledge. Hence the subtitle of Genesis
Revisited is Is Modern Science Catching Up With Ancient Knowledge? So, this
is a review of the five books.
CL: Astounding work. And it all started with the word Nefilim?
ZS: Yes. That was the beginning.
CL: Might people read your books and say, well, he's doing a lot of
presuming. He's got fragments of tablets, and pieces of cuneiform, and he's
put many liberties in piecing together the stories?
ZS: There are several different answers to that. The best answer is what I
brought out in Genesis Revisited. The knowledge that we have acquired
corroborates what the Sumerians knew six thousand years ago. You wonder how
is it possible, how could they know? How, as another example, could their
symbol of the entwined serpents, that we still use today to denote medicine
and healing and biology, be 6,000 years ago, the symbol of Enki, who engaged
in genetic engineering to bring about the Adam? That was a symbol of the DNA,
the double helix of DNA.
How could they know without telescopes and spacecraft that Neptune is a
watery planet? They provided the answer by saying "All that we know we have
learned from the Anunnaki. So, you say, "Ok. There were Anunnaki." Now, who
were the Anunnaki and where were they from? The Sumerians say, "They came
here from Nibiru." And you say, "What is Nibiru?" So they say, "It is one
more planet in our solar system." Now, if you say, "I'm really impressed by
the Sumerian knowledge, and, maybe they knew what they were talking about
regarding the Anunnaki. But I don't think there is another planet with these
advanced beings on it near Earth." If so, what is your explanation of who
Anunnaki were? Was there really a race of giants who existed on Earth half a
million years ago? Do you believe there was a civilization on Earth half a
million years ago that surpassed our own and disappeared? When the focus
shifts to explaining those other people, you have no explanation. I then say,
if you have no explanation, why not accept the word of the Sumerians?
The second aspect of the answer is this. Nowhere in all these books do I use
a text, or do I refer to a tablet and say, I went to this or that place in
the Near East and as I was visiting that place, I shifted the soil with my
foot or with a stick and look what I found! I found this tablet and look what
it says! It says that there was somebody called Enki who travelled from
Nibiru to Earth and splashed down in the Persian Gulf. No, nowhere do I say,
"Look what I found." All the time I say, "There is a tablet in the British
Museum, its catalog number is such and such; it was discovered in this and
this place; the text was first published by this and this scholar, here is
what it says." All the information, all the sources that I am giving, are
academically, scientifically, scholarly known and accepted sources. At no
time do I invent my own source.
CL: Just in The Wars of God and Men, the sources you list take up almost 16
pages!
ZS: The difference is, and this is the key difference, that when there is a
text, for example, that describes how Enki came to Earth and splashed down,
the scholars, the text books, call this the "Myth of Enki and the Earth."
Another text that deals with Enlil is called the "Myth of Enlil" and whatever
the subject is. All these texts are called by scholars "mythology." I say:
What if this is not a myth, what if these texts tell us what really took
place?
CL: Right.
ZS: From that I created the scenario, a plausible, a logical scenario that
explains so many of the enigmas and the puzzles and the mysteries which
otherwise remain enigmas, and mysteries and puzzles. Like, who built the
pyramids, what for, etc.
CL: What more can you tell us about the Anunnaki, and do we have free-will or
is it all determined by these same Anunnaki?
ZS: I'm asked, "Do they look like us?" and I say, no, we look like them. They
made us through genetic engineering. they jumped the gun on evolution, and
made us to look like them physically, and to be like them emotionally. That
is what the Bible says: "Let us make the Adam in our likeness and after our
image." Physically, outwardly and inwardly. So much of what they are, we are.
There is a tremendous difference in the lifespan, which is the cause of the
notions of their immortality. Because one year to them is one orbit of theirs
around the sun. So, one of their years equals three-thousand-six-hundred of
ours. This is the key difference between us and them.
Then there is the difference in their technological advancement which enables
them not only to travel in space, and to have traveled half a million years
ago, but also to revive the dead and do other things which in biblical times
were considered miracles.
I feel that just as they came to earth and created us through genetic
engineering, and mixed their genes with those of Ape-woman, that one day we
will go out in space and land on another planet somewhere and do the same
thing. In this sense, I believe things are ordained in a grand pattern.
But can events within this grand pattern be determined by individuals? I
think so. Take the story of the Deluge and the destruction of mankind and the
saving of the seed of mankind, through Noah and his ark. Enlil decided to use
the opportunity of the avalanche of water to destroy mankind, while Enki told
Noah, (the Sumerian Ziusudra) about what was coming. Enki taught Noah how to
build an ark and cover and seal it so it wouldn't be swamped, and Noah was
able to take himself and his family and others, according to the Sumerians,
into the ark and save the seed of mankind. Here you have a conflict between
two leaders of the Anunnaki. One felt one way and one felt another way. So
the question of free choice, of what is right, what is wrong, what should be
done, what should not be done, is there all along.
CL: What about the theory that we are the gods of before? That we created
mankind and now are at the effect end?
ZS: All I can tell you is that I see my task, or maybe my mission, to bring
to the knowledge of people today what the ancient people knew and believed
in. To do so by being able to go to their sources and their writings and
their depictions, and treating that material not as a myth but as a true
story. Now, my writings have become a basis of quite a substantial
literature. There are two dozen or more books that are based on my books.
These are in theology, astrology, and so on and so forth, and I am sure there
are many more about which I don't know. They refer to my writings or are
based on them. I provide the facts as I see them, and everyone is free to
interpret them as they wish.
CL: That's the scientific way of looking at it, which makes your work even
more credible, That means you're not making guesses, you're going by the
actual evidence that exists.
ZS: Yes. I am pleased that many have used this material as evidence, to build
on it, to expound on it in various directions. Without saying whether I agree
or disagree with the other theories and developments, I am very happy that my
books have become text books about ancient times.
CL: You said when Pluto was discovered, in 1930, text books were rewritten to
accommodate that fact. Has anyone or any textbook publisher done the same
with this information?
ZS: It takes time, but it is beginning to filter through.
CL: When is this thirty-six hundred year cycle due again?
ZS: Well, you have to reach your own conclusions.
CL: If every time they came back they taught us something new, and advanced
our civilization, do you have a theory what their next step for us might be?
ZS: No. As I said, one time they didn't give us any civilization, they tried
to destroy us. So, I don't know what the odds are.
CL: Is there a lesson here for us? If this is our history, what are we
supposed to have learned to avert another flood when the Anunnaki come back?
Or is that too unpredictable to guess?
ZS: To some extent it is unpredictable because I don't know who their leader
is now. Whether he is from the Enlil clan or from the Enki clan. If I knew
that, I could answer you more easily. That's why I still have books to write
to reach the answer. It is a big question, and the answer is not that simple.
http://lovecraft.cc.utexas.edu/Sitchin/sitchin-interview.html
============================================================
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink"
============================================================
Karl Kluge
Zecharia Sitchin's "research" is tough enough to swallow on its own without
the load of mystic crap that "marduk33" wants to shovel on top of it in
addition. That Tom van Flandern, one of the primary proponents of the
existance of a Planet X, has publicly posted to the net that a planet with the
properties of Sitchen's Nibiru isn't possible (the postulated orbit would be
very unstable) should have pretty well buried that particular idea a long time
ago. Below is an analysis of Sitchen's shoddy use of his sources with respect
to the Planet X controversy and the Martian moon Phobos that I wrote some time
ago. After that I've appended a couple posts from a real expert on Sumerian
offering a critique of his knowledge of that language.
===============================================================================
From: kck...@krusty.eecs.umich.edu (Karl Kluge)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.research,alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo
Subject: Re: Looking at Sitchin (12th Planet) and all
Followup-To: alt.alien.research,alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo
Date: 08 Sep 1995 07:20:33 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
In article <42ne7c$9...@sun001.spd.dsccc.com> wp...@spd.dsccc.com (Woodrow Pope)
writes:
> If you liked "The 12th Planet", then get a copy of his book "Genisis
> Revisited" it'll blow your mind, especially the last chapters about the
> comet/planet to appear(Hale-Bopp).
Oh yes, reading that section of _Genesis Revisited_ did indeed blow my mind,
although not for the reason you suggest. What was mindblowing was the manner in
which he misrepresented the contents of a number of his (poorly cited) original
sources.
Several examples: (page references to the Oct. 1990 Avon paperback edition)
p. 316: "Intrigued by these findings, two collegues of Christie at the
U.S. Naval Observatory, Robert S. Harrington (who collaborated with Christie on
the Charon identification) and Thomas C. Van Flandern, concluded after a series
of computer simulations that there had to be an Intruder, a planet two to five
times the size of Earth, in an inclined orbit, with a semi-major axis of 'less
than 100 AU' (_Icarus_, vol. 39, 1979). This was another step in the
confirmation by modern science of ancient knowledge: the whole concept of an
Intruder that had caused all the oddities was in accord with the Sumerian tale
of Nibiru; and the distance of 100 AU, if doubled due to the Sun's focal
position, would place Planet X about where the Sumerians had sited it."
Quoting ICARUS 39:134, "If the solar system originally had one additional
2-to-5-Earth-mass planet in a roughly circular orbit beyond Neptune, the rest
of the scenario would follow if something perturbed its orbit into a
Neptune-crossing situation...The postencounter heliocentric orbit of the
projectile would have a high probability of remaining elliptic, with a
semimajor axis less than 100 AU and an eccentricity less than 0.6, suggesting
there might still be another planet beyond the orbit of Pluto."
Note that they did not conclude that "there had to be an Intruder." Just that
one with certain properties could explain a number of features of the outer
Solar System. Note also some information that Sitchin elides: the bounds on
the orbit are "...a semimajor axis less than 100 AU and an eccentricity less
than 0.6..." It is straighforward (using, for instance, Theorem 1 from Section
5 of Chapter 4, Munem & Foulis, _Calculus_, May 1979) to calculate that for a
100 AU orbit with 0.6 eccentricity (the most ellongated, longest orbit within
the bounds given) that the following holds:
Max. distance from Sun: 160 AU
Min. distance from Sun: 40 AU
As a very, very conservative upper bound on orbital period, we can use the
max. distance from the Sun as the average distance in Kepler's Third Law, which
states that the period P of a planet with average distance from the Sun R is
given by the equation
P = R^1.5
where P is in years and R is in AU. From this, the max. period would be bounded
conservatively by 160^1.5 = 2024 years. (There is a more general form of
Kepler's 3rd Law which would use the bounds on the mass to give an exact
answer, but a conservative upper bound will do here.)
Sitchin's Nibiru has an orbital period of 3600 years (inconsistent with the
bounds from the ICARUS paper) and crosses inside Jupiter's orbit of 5 AU (also
inconsistent with the bounds from the ICARUS paper). Thus, the ICARUS paper
offers no support for the existance of Nibiru.
Indeed, Thomas Van Flandern has stated on the 'net that a planet with the
specified properties of Nibiru is impossible:
: From: met...@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van Flandern)
: Newsgroups: sci.astro
: Subject: Re: 10th planet?
: Date: 1 May 1994 16:40:02 GMT
: [....]
: As for Planet X, the topic of this thread, its orbit could not have a
: period of 3600 years and approach the Sun closer than Jupiter, as Sitchin
: suggested, because such an orbit is unstable. Its period would be drastically
: altered in a single revolution, and it would eventually collide with Jupiter
: or get ejected from the solar system....
: ....Even if giant Jupiter came galloping into the inner solar
: system, its tidal effects on Earth would be negligible unless it came quite
: close. But the probability of such a close approach is very small; and
: again, such an orbit is highly unstable and would soon be eliminated. For
: example, comets in such orbits cannot survive longer than about 100,000
: years....
Starting on page 319 Sitchin says:
"Did IRAS find the tenth planet?
"Although specialists admit it will take years to sift through and 'blink'
the more than 600,000 images transmitted by IRAS in its ten months of
operation, the official response to the question is no -- no tenth planet was
found.
"But that, to put it mildly, is not a correct answer.
"Having scanned the same part of the heavens at least twice, IRAS did make
it possible to 'blink' images; and, contrary to the impression given, _moving
objects_ were discovered. These included five previously unknown comets,
several comets that astronomers had 'lost,' four new asteroids -- and _'an
enigmatic cometlike object'_.
"Was it perhaps Planet X?
"In spite of the official denials, a disclosure did leak out at the end of
the year. It came in the form of an exclusive interview of the key IRAS
scientists by Thomas O'Toole of the science service of the _Washinton
Post_. The story, generally ignored -- suppressed, perhaps -- was carried by
several dailies, which variously headlined it 'Giant Object Mystifies
Astronomers,' Mystery Body Found in Space,' and 'At Solar System's Edge Giant
Object is a Mystery' (Fig. 104). The opening paragraphs of the exclusive story
began thus:
WASHINGTON -- A heavenly body possibly as large as the
giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that
it would be part of this solar system has been found in
the direction of the constelation Orion by an orbiting
telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite.
So mysterious is the object that astronomers do not know
if it is a planet, a giant comet, a nearby 'protostar'
that never got hot enough to become a star, a distant
galaxy so young that it is still in the process of forming
its first stars or a galaxy so shrouded in dust that none
of the light cast by its stars ever gets through.
'All I can tell you is that we don't know what it is,' said
Gerry Neugebauer, chief IRAS scientist.
"But could it be a planet -- another member of our Solar System? That
possibility seemed to have occured to NASA. According to the _Washington Post_,
When IRAS scientists first saw the mystery body and
calculated that it could be as close as 50 billion
miles, there was some speculation that it might be
moving toward Earth.
"'The mystery body,' the report went on, 'was seen twice by IRAS.' The
second observation took place six months after the first and suggested that the
body had hardly moved from its spot in the sky. 'This suggests that it's not a
comet because a comet would not be as large as the one we've observed, and a
comet would probably have moved,' said James Houck of Cornell's Center for
Radio Physics and Space Research, and a member of the IRAS science team.
"Could it be a slow-moving and very distant planet, if it is not a
faster-moving comet?
"'Conceivably,' the _Washington Post_ reported, 'it could be the 10th planet
that astronomers have searched for in vain.'
"So, what did IRAS discover, I inquired of the Public Information Office of
JPL in February 1984. This is the response I received:
The scientist quoted in the press reports used a statement
reflecting his lack of ranging data on the object seen by
IRAS.
In true scientific fashion he carefully noted that if the
object were close it would have to be Neptune-size. But
if distant, an entire galaxy.
"Gone, then, is the Jupiter-sized comparison: now it was a Neptune-sized
planet 'if the object were close' -- but a galaxy (!) if distant."
Sitchin's puzzlement over JPL's letter is strange, as the point made is
clear. Given that object didn't move detectably, the only way to characterize
size is as a function of distance based on the angular diameter of the object.
There is at least one sin of commission in Sitchin's report of the article
[ignoring the lack of a full citation], and one of omission. The sin of
commission is the statement that the second observation "suggested that the
body had hardly moved." What the article (located based on the very barely
readable dates in Fig. 104) actually said was, "The second observation took
place six months after the first and suggested the mystery body had not moved
from its spot in the sky near the western edge of the constellation Orion in
that time." "Not moved," not "hardly moved." Not only that, but he fails to
cite the paragraph after the one reporting initial speculation that the body
was moving towards Earth: "'It's not incoming mail,' Cal Tech's Neugebauer
said. 'I want to douse that idea with as much cold water as I can.'"
The sin of omission is to fail to mention that, "Whatever it is, Houck said,
the mystery body is so cold its temperature is no more than 40 degrees above
'absolute' zero, which is 459 degrees Fahrenheit below zero." A little chilly,
even if the Anunnaki wore thermal underwear.
The *closest* the object could be, given the absence of detectable parallax
after six months, is given in the article as 50 billion miles, i.e. ~535 AU --
inconsistent with the bounds on the orbit of Planet X hypothesized in the
ICARUS article discussed above. Also note that the minimum size of the object
is given as comparable to that of Jupiter. Even using Neptune as a limiting
lower size (as per the quoted JPL letter) and assuming the object has the
density of water, it would be at least 10 Earth masses -- inconsistent with the
2 to 5 Earth mass size derived in the ICARUS paper. (N.b., even if the closest
distance was calculated from angular diameter rather than minimum detectable
parallax, the reduction in size only pulls the closest distance in to 185 AU,
still inconsistent with the ICARUS paper.)
In Sitchin's book _The Wars of Gods and Men_, here is how he represents this
situation: "And at the close of 1983, astronomers at the Jet Propulsion Lab in
California announced that IRAS -- the infrared telescope mounted on a
spacecraft and launched under NASA's auspices with the cooperation of other
nations -- had discovered beyond Pluto a very distant 'mystery celestial body'
about four times the size of Earth _and moving towards Earth_. They have not
yet called it a planet but our Earth Chronicles leave the ultimate finding in
little doubt." (p. 110)
There is at best a tangential resemblance to what was said in the _Post_
interview in this description:
"about four time the size of Earth" -- the _Post_ article said
Jupiter-sized, the JPL letter said Neptune-sized -- neither
even close to that small
"_and moving towards Earth_" -- the _Post_ article explicitly
said that there was no detectable motion between the two IRAS
observations of the object, and as for the initial speculations
that it might be moving towards Earth, the article said,
"'It's not incoming mail,' Cal Tech's Neugebauer said. 'I
want to douse that idea with as much cold water as I can.'"
Sitchin continues in _Genesis Revisited_: "So, did IRAS spot, by heat sensing,
the Tenth Planet? Many astronomers believe so. As an example, let is quote
William Gutsch, chairman of the American Museum-Heyden Planetarium in New York
(and science editor of WABC-TV). Writing about the IRAS discoveries in the
syndicated column 'Skywatch,' he said: 'A tenth planet may have already been
spotted and even catalogued,' although it is yet to be seen with optical
telescopes."
Many astronomers, writing in peer-reviewed journals rather than syndicated
columns, believe not. Seidelmann and Harrington (the Harrington of the ICARUS
paper discussed above) state in _Celestial Mechanics_ 43(1-4):55-68 (1988),
"The detectability of the motion of such a planet during the time between
observations, and at the accuracy with which the positions could be determined,
is marginal. The IRAS results have not discovered the existance of a tenth
planet, but the data are still being studied."
Also, Hogg, Quinlan, and Tremaine, in _Astronomical Journal_ 101(6):2274-86
(June '91) state, "If Planet X is a normal planet (i.e., not a black hole or
other exotic object), and is massive enough to exert significant dynamical
effects on the outer planets, then it is more likely than not that it would
have already been detected in the IRAS survey.
"Given the lack of any convincing dynamical anomalies that can be explained
by Planet X, the null results from the IRAS survey, the inadequacy of the
present database due to unknowable systematic errors in the historical data...
we believe that there is little motivation for continuing to explore the Planet
X hypothesis..."
Starting on page 325, Sitchin says,
"Increasingly, the U.S. Naval Observatory team decided that the search for
Planet X at present should focus on the southern hemisphere, at a distance
about 2.5 time farther away than Neptune and Pluto are now. Dr. Harrington
presented his latest findings in a paper published in _The Astronomical
Journal_ (October 1988) titled 'The Location of Planet X.' A sketch of the
heavens indicating the best location 'fits' (of where Planet X may be now) in
both the nothern and souther skies accompanied the paper. But since its
publication, data from _Voyager 2_, which has flown by Uranus and Neptune and
detected such ongoing perturnations -- minute yet discernable -- in their
present orbits, left no doubt in Harrington's mind that Planet X must be now
_in the southern skies_.
"Sending me a reprint of the paper, he marked alongside the northern portion
of the sketch, 'Not consistent with Neptune,' and alongside the souther portion
of the skies he wrote, 'Best area now' (Fig. 105).
"On January 16, 1990, Dr. Harrington reported at the American Astronomical
Society meeting in Arlington, Virginia, that the U.S. Naval Observatory team
has narrowed its search for the tenth planet to the southern skies and has
announed the dispatch of a team of astronomers to the Black Birch Astronomic
Observatory in New Zealand. The data from _Voyager 2_, he disclosed, now lead
his team to believe that the tenth planet is about five times larger than Earth
and about three time farther from the Sun than Neptune or Pluto."
The area shown in Harrinton's star map is not even close to Orion, the location
of the object seen by IRAS; three times the distance from the Sun to Neptune is
90.3 AU, not even close to the minimun distance of 185 AU for the object seen
by IRAS; and five times the mass of Earth is rather less than the conservative
bound of 10 Earth masses for the object seen by IRAS. In other words, the IRAS
object can't be the Planet X the Naval Observatory team is looking for based on
their analysis of the orbital perturbations -- yet Sitchin fails to analyze his
data sufficiently carefully to notice that. He also fails to analyze his data
sufficiently carefully to see that the ICARUS paper discussed on page 316
describes a Planet X whose properties are not consistent with those of the
supposed Nibiru.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As to your Phobos remark, this would seem like an opportune time to examine
"whut's that all about", as Sitchen also makes some noise about this. Quoting
p. 296-298 of the Oct. 1990 Avon paperback edition of _Genesis Revisited_:
"In the 1960s it was noticed that Phobos was speeding up in its orbit around
Mars; this led Soviet scientists to suggest that Phobos was lighter than its
size warrants. The Soviet physicist I. S. Shklovsky then offered the astounding
hypothesis that Phobos was hollow.
"Other Soviet writers then speculated that Phobos was an 'artificial
satellite' put into Mars orbit by 'an extinct race of humanoids millions of
years ago.' Others ridiculed the idea of a hollow satellite and suggested that
Phobos was accelerating because it is drifting closer to Mars. The detailed
report in _Nature_ now includes the finding that Phobos is even less dense than
has been thought, so that its interior is either made of ice or is hollow."
1) Shklovsky argued that the orbital decay of Phobos had to be due to air
friction (in particular, that it wasn't due to tidal effects), and on that
basis concluded that Phobos had a density 0.001 that of water. Shklovsky was
wrong. First, others did analysis showing that tidal effects were a more likely
source of the orbital decay. Second, and more importantly, empirical data
contradicted his conclusion. The estimate of Phobos' density derived from
Viking orbital data was 2.2 +/- 0.2 g cm^-3, and the estimate based on the
Phobos 2 data was 1.95 +/- 0.1 g cm^-3, both in the neighborhood of 2000 times
Shklovsky's calculated density. Shklovsky's argument is a red herring at this
point.
Who's to blame more, Gilgamesh? Sagan, for considering Shklovsky's argument
seriously in the 1960s when it was first proposed, or Sitchin for continuing to
cite it 30-some years later when it had already been shown to be incorrect?
2) It is true that the article in NATURE states "The navigation tracking of the
spacecraft resulted in a more accurate estimation of the Phobos mass, that is
1.08 +/- 0.01 x 10^19 g^15. Taking from model calculations, the volume of
Phobos to be 5,530 +/- 300 km^3 (ref. 16), a mean density of 1.95 +/- 0.1 g
cm^-3 is then obtained, lower than the value of 2.2 +/- 0.2 g cm^-3 based on
Viking data^17. This value is significantly less than the densities of
materials having spectral reflectances similar to that of Phobos (for example,
hydrous and anhydrous carbonaceous Chondrites and optically blackened mafic
material) strongly suggesting that the interior of Phobos could be more or less
pourous or contain ice." [NATURE 341:587] There are several anomolies here,
though:
a) the Phobos 2 group uses the shape model in ref 16 (Duxbury, T. C.
_Icarus_ 78, 169-180 (1980)) as the basis for calculating the
volume of Phobos (which is then divided into the mass to get the
density). Duxbury's abstract says, "This model appears to fit the
entire surface to an accuracy of a few hundred meters, except in
the region around the large crater Stickney. The model was validated
using control points, limbs, terminators, map projections and
predicted rotational properties." But the Phobos 2 team says in
their NATURE paper, "The control network of Phobos derived from
Viking data^3 was found to be generally consistent with VSK images.
However, deviations of up to 0.5-1 km were observed when limb
profiles of Phobos were compared with those derived from the Phobos
topographic map^4." [p. 585] Given the uncertainty in the volume
calculation that this implies, it is hard to see how they could
have gotten the claimed accuracy in their density estimate.
b) in addition, the Duxbury reference concludes that the Phobos has
a uniform density distribution, which contradicts the icy or
hollow interior idea.
While we may have to wait for additional data to settle the matter, it's a good
bet that the Phobos 2 team density estimate is in error. Both the bulk density
as estimated from the Viking data and the density of the top few decimeters of
regolith as estimated from radar data (SCIENCE 243(4898):1584-6) are consistent
with each other and with the density of Type I-II carbonaceous chondites.
A page or two later Sitchin says, "Were a natural crater and interior faults
artificially enlarged and carved out by 'someone' to create inside Phobos a
shelter shielding its occupants from the cold and radiation of space? The
Soviet report does not speculate on that; but what it says regarding the
'tracks' is illuminating. It calls them 'grooves,' reports that their sides are
of a brighter material than the moonlet's surface, and, what is indeed a
revelation, that in the area west of the large crater, 'new grooves can be
identified' -- groves or tracks that were not there when _Mariner 9_ and the
_Vikings_ took pictures of the moonlet."
While it is true that the NATURE article on the Phobos 2 images states that
"new grooves can be identified," the conclusion drawn by Sitchin -- that the
groves "were not there when _Mariner 9_ and the _Vikings_ took pictures of the
moonlet" is not stated in the article, and is not justified by what the article
says:
"Over two-thirds of Phobos had been viewed by Viking at a spatial resolution
of 50 m pixel^-1 or better. However, the area to the west of Stickney (70-160
degrees W) had previously been viewed at a very oblique angle and at a spatial
resolution of a few hundred meters per pixel. VSK imaged this area at low
emergence angles and at a spatial resolution of 40-80 m pixel^-1 (Fig. 2b,d,e).
Because of the generally low phase angles the topography of this area is still
not seen very clearly, but craters and grooves can be recognized. Comparison
with Viking-based maps shows that several new grooves can be identified in the
area 130-180 degrees W (Fig. 2e)..." NATURE 341:585 (fig 2e: 37 m/pixel)
I.e., the ability to identify new grooves was due to the improved resolution of
the image data. There is no implication that they were "new" in the sense of
not having been there before.
===============================================================================
From: pio...@umich.edu (Piotr Michalowski)
Subject: Stitchin's Language Skills 1(was: Looking at Sitchin...)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.archaeology,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.alien.visitors,alt.alien.research
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 12:17:30
Organization: University of Michigan
Rob was kind enough to send me a copy of the 12th Planet so that I would have
something to mark up as I read. I am afraid that myu earlier opinions have to
stand. I know that this is a no-win proposition and that if I criticize this
I will either be accused of knowing too much or knowing only a narrow amount,
or both, but here goes. To do this properly I have to post it in pieces, as
the whole thing would get too long. As I said before, I will leave astronomy
and a variety of other ills to more informed people and comment here only on
S's use of ancient languages.
This post has some preliminaries for those who may not be familiar with
some of the necessary background material. S uses completely out of date
information for almost everything. Articles he cites from the twenties and
thirtes are for the most part completely obsolete. He mixes up tales from
different periods, and has some very strange ideas about which text is in
Akkadina and which is in Sumerian; he also thinks that Hurrian was
Indo-European, which it certainly was not, and that Urartean was it's
decendant, which it was not (it is commonly assumed that the Urartean
language, while related closely to Hurrian, was a sister language, and that
both are possibly related to one of the Caucasian language groups).
Sumerian and Akkadian (Babylonian and Assyrian) were two completely
different languages that were not genetically related. Even though scribes
knew both, they were different languages, typologically as different as
English and Chinese, in fact more so. Sumerian had mostly monosyllabic roots,
such as gub, dar, zi, etc. and to this one added prefixes and suffixes for
grammatical elements. Akkadian, being a Semitic language, had roots that
are essentially and abstraction, consisting (in oversimplified terms) of a
consonental skeleton, usually of three consonants (h, w, j, and the
gutterals, here represented as ', are consonants in Semitic). The vocalic
pattern, as well as prefixes and sufffixes, determines grammatical function,
so PRS means to divide, /iprus, "he/she divided," but iparras, "he. she
divides," para:su "to divide," [: after a vowel means it is long]. One cannot
mix the two languages in a name or to make a word. Stichin's etymologes,
which are important to his theory, are almost all completely wrong, they mix
languages, are ungrammatical in both, and without any foundation. Imagine if
someone took English "Manhattan", without knowing anything about its origin,
and claimed that it consisted of three words, "man, hat and tan" and, without
any regard for English grammar, not to mention sense, translated it as "Tan
man with a hat" or "Tan hat on a man," or even better, claiming that hat was
German for "had", meant "The man who has a tan". I will provide numerous
examples of this in the 12th P, one that immediately comes to mind is his
analysis of the name of Ti'amat, which, (p. 212) he translates as "maiden of
life," without explanation. This is rubbish, to be polite. He apparently
takes TI to be Sumerian "life" and "amat" he must derive from Akkadian amtu,
servant girl, but that would be *amat ti, first of all, as in both languages
that is the required word order for a possesive construction, and second,
they never mixed languages in names! Ti'amat is an absolute state noun (that
means that it has no vocalic case ending) from a root T'M or the like, which
is well known from Akkadian ta:mtu "ocean" (the t is feminine and the u is the
subject case) or Hebrew tehom. When a Semitic word has cognates in two or
more Semitic languages, or better in Afro-Asiatic languages such as Egyptian
or Ethiopic, one can be pretty sure that it is an old word that was not
borrowed from Sumerian! In the next posting I will asseme this background and
provide examples from the book of how this kind of linguistic mishmash
permeates S' analysis. I cannot cover every example, as that would require a
whole book, and we have already done this subject to excess!
===============================================================================
From: pio...@umich.edu (Piotr Michalowski)
Subject: Re: Stitchin's Language Skills 2(was: Looking at Sitchin...)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.archaeology,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.alien.visitors,alt.alien.research
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 14:12:15
Organization: University of Michigan
Let us start with the chapter on Sumer: land of the Gods. Most S's summaries
of Sumerian myths are from Kramer and reflect Kramer's time and predelections.
I will not quarell with that. The moment he adds anything of his own,
confusion enters. P. 90 he does not seem to realize that the Adapa story is
Akkadian, not Sumerian, and that the earliest version of what he cites
actually comes from Egypt, from the time of Akhnaten, when Akkadian was the
international dyplomatic language. There is in fact a Sumerian version of
Adapa, but S could not have known about it, as it was found only recently and
we do not know how it goes, as it is still unpublished. IN the pages that
follow he paraphrases rituals from the second half of the 1st millennium BCE,
rituals that were written in Akkadian under the Seleucid kings! P. 95 he
introduces Enlil, whose name he translates as "lord of the airspace." LIL,
however, never means that, as I pointed out in previuos posts. P. 9 he
claims that a Sumerian king complained about something to the Assembly of the
Gods. The text that he is obliquely refering to is actually a literary letter
written from the last king of Ur to his vassal in the northern city of
Kazallu. Further on that page the fun really begins. "The third god of
Sumer...bore two names E.A and EN.KI." ...E.a (the name meant 'house-water').
These are actually the two names, Akkadian and Sumerian respectively, for the
same deity, but in two different languages. The thinks that E.A, although
Akkaidian, consists of Sumeria e and a! Actually, the sign that we
transliterate as e2, when used for early Semitic languages, has a value /'a/,
the ' being the Akkadian equivalent of many Proto-Semitic glottal stops. When
two vowels are written together, it is a writing convention for /aja/, not for
a long vowel. Hence a-a is the writing of the wife of Shamash, who is
actually Aja. Thus, most people believe that the real name of Ea was actually
/Haja/. It certainly was not Sumerian--that was Enki.
Next page (100) "a city appropriately named HA.A.KI (Place of the
water-fishes); it was also known as E.RI.DU ("home of going afar"). First, ki
was a classifier for place names that was not pronounced. HA.A was read
Kua'ra, and was a small place next to Eridu, not the same city. No one knows
what Eridu means, but it was never spelled the way S analyzes in, but was
written with the sign NUN, the symbol of Enki. When they did spell it
sylabically, it was eri-dug, a fold etymology meaning "sweet city."
I skip some strange stuff. P. 107 "an evil god named Zu ("wise"). Zu is
Akkadian, zu is Sumerian. This is the thunderbird, or lion-eaded eagle,
symbol of Ningirsu, who was named in Sumerian Anzu (in old books Imdugud) ,
and that was shortened and borrowed as a full name into Zu (long u). Same
page the mention of Sumerian mu, which means "name" translated as a "flying
machine" without any reason, but has a very strange explanation further on!
P. 109 "sacred precinct (the GIR.SU) in the city of Lagash" [this is repeated
a number of times]. Girsu was the ancient name of the mound Telloh, while
Lagash was the name of the nearby enormous mound of Al-Hiba. Same page, he
introduced the name of the Babylonian god Marduk, whose name he
writes MAR.DUK and translates as "son of the pure mound." It took me a minute
to figure out what outlandish mechanism had lead to this one; it must be
Akkadian maru:, "son," and Sumerian du "mound," followed by ku "pure,"
likewise Sumerian! Just like Manhattan!
P. 111 "Nanna (short for NAN.NAR---"bright one")" Wrong again! Nanna is
an old Sumerian name with no apparent etymology. Late in the first millennium
a few scribes wrote it playfully with a final /r/, making a word-paly on
Akkadian nama:ru, "to shine." This says nothing at all about it's etymology
and cannot be reconciled with any imaginary nan and nar! P. 113 "Nanna's
other name , Sin, derived from SU.EN...the same complex...be obtained by
placing the syllables in any order, ZU.EN and EN.ZU were mirror words of each
other. Nanna/Sin as ZU.EN was none other than EN.ZU (lord Zu)." He confuses
writing and prononciation. In early cuneiform the order of signs did not
conform to the order they were read in. Some words, such as ZU.AP = abzu, and
EN.ZU = Su'en, were traditionally written like this even after the order had
changed. Syllabic text indicate that EN.ZU was read Su'en, later as Sin.
Again a Sumerian etymology with an Akkadian name (Zu) all mixed up, with no
reason!
P 123. The etymology of Ishkur as "mountainous" because it has an element
kur, "mountain, foreign land" is strange, but not as strange as what follows.
The Akkadian name of this storm god as Adad. S derives it from Sumerian
DA.DA, which does not even exist, and confuses the supposed Sumerian DA.DA
with Hebrew "dod", which he renders as "lover" or "uncle"! Now three
languages are confused. On the next page he confuses things even more by
listing incorrect names of this deity in other languages, including
Semitic Amorite, in which the name was Addu, not Ramanu. This and West
Semitic Hadad, indicate that the root was 'DD in Semitic languages, but Hebrew
dod, as well as the related Akkadian word da:du, are from a different root
D'D. As we shall see later, S thinks that anything a little bit similar is
the same, but in language phonemic differences are precisely those that make a
change in meaning, hence in English "moose" and "goose" show that m and g are
separate phonemes because they make such a difference. For S su is zu, shi is
zi, etc.
P. 140 He proposes that the boat ZAG.MU.KU means "the bright MU which is from
afar." This is all wrong. zag-mu is Sumerian for "new year" and ku means
"holy, clean." This leads to pure fiction about mu. It never means "that
which rises straight." Never in any text. He then provides a strange chart
of the development of the sign mu, but only the first two of the five are
actually mu, the rest are completely different, unrelated signs!!!! This
leads on p. 143 to shu-mu, apparently the Semitic pronoun shu + Sumerian mu!
This is simply impossible, and certainly never means "sky-chamber." When a
slave is sold and it says X mu-ni-im, "X is his/her name" I really think it
would be difficult to translate such a mundane document as X is his/her rocket!
P. 145 "fiery skyships...The Sumerians called them NA.RU ("stones that rise").
The AKkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians called them naru ("objects that give
off light") He is actually speaking for the Sumerian word for a stone stelea,
na-ru-a, which mean "demarcation stone." This was loaned into Akkadian as
naru: (when a Sumerian word ended in a vowel and it was loaned into Akkaian,
the vowel became long). He evidently confuses this with the Semitic root for
"light" which comes out as nu:ru in Akkadian (middle vowel long, final short).
He illustrates a naru on p. 152 and tells us on 151 that "this central figure
(i.e. who everyone else knows was Naram-Sin of Akkad) is that of a deity and
not of a human king, for the person is wearing a helmet adorned with
horns--the identifying mark exclusive of the gods." Naram-SIn, grandson of
Sargon, had proclaimed himself divine, and was in fact represented thus!
More to come!
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From: pio...@umich.edu (Piotr Michalowski)
Subject: Mesopotamian Astronomy (=Sitchin's Language Skills 3)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.archaeology,alt.paranet.ufo,alt.alien.visitors,alt.alien.research
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 11:24:23
Organization: University of Michigan
Beginnig with p. 187 S pronounces his opinions on Mesopotamian astronomy.
Almost everything he says is garbled or based on works that cannot be consultd
today. For convenience I would say that one of the best recent publications
on the subject is Hannes D. Galter, ed., Die Rolle der Astronomie in den
Kulturen Mesopotamiens, Graz 1993. Most of the articles are in English, but
they are rather technical. Importantly, there is a nice bibliography of the
subject. There is also a book by Ulla Kocj-Westenholtz, Mesopotamian
Astrology: An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination,
Copenhagen 1995.
Here is S (12th Pl,187-8): "A major astronomical series that the
Babylonians called "The Day of the Lord" was declared by its scribes to have
been copied from a Sumerian tablet written in the time ofSargon of Akkad--in
the third millennium B.B. A tablet dated to the third Dynasty of
Ur...describes a series of celstial bodies... the text as a classification of
constalations.... Later p. 189 he attributes the zodiac to the Sumerians and
lists twelve "zodiacal constallations."
First, there is no such "astronomical series." After some thought I realized
that he is talking about the astronimical omen series Enuma Anu Enlil, "When
An and Enlil". The first signs as UD and EN, which he takes as "day" and
"lord" but this just means "when" and the first part of Enlil's name,, as
indicated by the AKkadian translation of the introduction. There are no
astronomical tablets from the time of Sargon or of the ur dynasty! In fact,
there is no Zodiac before about 430 BCE, as far as we know. The zodiac is
related to the great change in Mesopotamia astronomy that took place sometime
around 500 BCE, very late by the standards we are talking about. At this time
the simple observations made for omen purposes were replaced by a complex
mathematical astronomy that included the famous "zodiac" (for which , I
repeat, there is no evidence before about 450). This is the Mesopotamian
astronomy that had so much influence among the Greeks and even in India. I
refer the reader to articles by Francesca Rochberg-Halton and John Britton in
the volume mentioned above. There is very little of astronomical significance
in the Sumerian texts of the third millennium, and although there are some
upublished moon omens from around 1600 BCE, most of what we know about the
stars and the constallations in Mesopotamian thought does not precede about
1000 BCE. The names of stars and contallations existed, at least some of
them, before, and are sporadcally attested, but we cannot reconstruct the
earlier systems right now.
S. (. 189) lists a mixed up "zodiac" that he claims originated
with the Sumerians. This is incorrect. His list of twelve is simply made up
by mixxing things up with the later zodiac. A first millennium compendium
entitled Mul.apin gives us the first glimpse of a system of constellations
(but not a zodiac) and they are 17 in number, not 12! The series is now
edited by Herman Hunger and David Pingree, MUL.APIN: AN Astronomical
Compedium in Cuneiform. Graz, 1989.
Just as an aside, S' twelve are not only five short, but also very strange.
Just to list a few bizarre elements:
3. AB.SIN ("her father was Sin"). Another weird etymology. It is one word,
which means "plough."
6. ZI.BA.AN.NA ("heavenly fate"). This is really sipa.zi.an.na, "the true
shepherd of An" and it is not Libra, but Orion!
8. PA.BIL ("defender") is really the god Pabilsag.
11. SIM.MAH ("fishes")Pisces. he really blew this one! This means "swallow"
and is identified with SW Pisces (the NW was the goddess Annunitum).
12. KU.MAL ("field dwelller"). This one threw me! I finally got it! it is,
believe it or not, lu.hun.ga, "Hired Man." ku is hun and ga is mal!
On the next page he claims that these remained "virtually intact since their
introduction in Sumer" and has three illustrations, all of which are from the
first millennium! The pages that follow are all wrong, based on very old
ideas that no longer hold, and also on the notion that these late astronomical
ideas can be traced back to Sumer, which has no basis in fact, whatsoever.
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