I’ve been getting emails about the news that some scientists are claiming (note: a claim isn’t the same as established fact) that there is a very large planet beyond Pluto. This naturally excites Sitchinites and other ancient astronaut theorists who follow the work of the late Zecharia Sitchin. This excitement (again) illustrates the poor thinking that is synonymous with ancient astronaut theory. Why? Let’s assume the new is correct. Here’s why Sitchin is still wrong:
- If this planet is real, and no cuneiform tablet describes a planet by ANY name beyond Pluto, Sitchin’s claim that the Sumerians knew of such a body is still a fabrication. It is a demonstrable fact, from the content of astronomical tablets left to us that inform us of Sumerian-Mesopotamian astronomy (where else would we get that knowledge?), that the Mesopotamians didn’t know of any planet beyond Saturn (i.e., that could be viewed with the naked eye).
- Since there is no cuneiform tablet that associates Nibiru with a planet other than Mercury or Jupiter, Sitchin is still wrong.
- Since no cuneiform tablet has Nibiru (or any planet from beyond Pluto) cycling through earth’s orbit every 3600 years, Sitchin is still wrong.
- Since there is no cuneiform tablet that associates the Anunnaki with any planet at all, Sitchin is still wrong.
That wasn’t hard, was it? This discovery lends zero credibility to Sitchin’s ideas.
But wait . . . there’s more.
Here’s the bonus. Such a discovery would actually undermine Sitchin’s claims, disproving them again. Why? If Sitchinites care to do the math on the orbit of the (presumed) new planet, they’ll find that it cannot cycle through earth’s orbit every 3600 years. Oops.
So yes: Sitchin is still wrong.
AMEN, and AMEN BROTHER! Thank you so much for not giving any validation whatsoever to Stitchin. Amen, it’s so refreshing and so about time! Thanks again, Kathy Freeman
You’re welcome; it wasn’t much work.
Ditto for Nancy Leider’s related nonsense. (I recently finished her book Zeta Talk. I have two more Zeta books on the leaf pile. Ugh.)
you deserve some sort of medal for reading that dreck.
Jack Brewer’s book arrived yesterday. I anticipate that being enjoyable.
I’m ordering that one, too.
Hey again Mike. I actually heard an interview today about this purposed new planet. The professor said the planet was “likely” to orbit every 200,000 years or so (they actually do not know the orbit).
The “claim” of this new planet (said to be from what I heard 4-5 times the size of earth) is exactly as you said a “claim”.
The exciting information is,,. The supposed planet is most likely “gaseous”, and that could have some great effect on how we view the creation/evolution (hate to use those terms) of the universe.
200,000 vs. 3600? Hmmm. I’ll have to wait to see how Jason Martell (the self-styled new Sitchin) to tell us all how those two numbers are really the same. Maybe he’s a jedi master of Common Core math.
No doubt he will use the
“force” to equate.
WOW, Sitchinites follow Dr. Mike’s blog, then there is a possibility that IF they applied critical thinking they would be aware of the inherently flawed nature of their teacher, Zecharia Sitchin.
Here is quote to live by:”Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought.”
Pluto needs a good lawyer.
Funny!
Maybe, however keep in mind these Astronomers came to debunk the very thing they apparently ‘discovered’, ‘talk about a ‘180… I too have issues with Zitchen, but what is the best argument contrary to that the Annunaki made Mankind apparently in clay pots, made mankind as a slave race, etc…IMHO I think you focus a little much on Zitchen, which is fine because he was the the most ‘popular’ of the Cuneiform advocates, however clearly there are other Cuneiform advocates out there that are growing in popularity much faster than you may realize…I know you are a busy Man, however I need erudite ‘rebuttal’ on this from someone, for this Man in this video is by far the most eloquent of them all, everything ‘fits’ here it appears, everything makes sense,finally…If he is wrong, I’m open to learning where precisely, exactly, with all the extreme minutiae down to the ‘microscopic levels’, and THEN some, where he is mistaken, IF he is …thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRypdlMc0IM
Astronomers haven’t been trying to debunk the existence of planets beyond Pluto. They’ve been looking for them. What they’ve debunked is the nonsense that goes with the idea, like Sitchin’s “theories” (see Stuart Robbins’ podcasts on Nibiru).
Hey Mike.
I am reluctantly going through this video, and the guy talking in the video is clearly being very deceptive.
It is worse than the others (who I believe to be genuine, but deceived). This guy is leaving out parts of scripture to validate his own ideas.
One example is,, he claims ‘ in Genesis when the Divine council says “let us make man in our own image” The council said “NO” he does this by emitting the “in our own image” terminology.
I worry and think this guy (DR Scott McQuade” DR of deception) needs to be held to account. I am not familiar enough with Hebrew text to make a video debunking him,, maybe Chris White could have a go,, as I know you are really busy over next few weeks?
loved the quote about McQuade. Not sure I’ve ever heard of him. Send Chris an email.
For those interested, here is the “topic tree” over at the PseudoAstronomy podcast. Scroll down for Planet X episodes. Stuart has done 13 of these. Maybe you can ask him to include McQuade.
http://podcast.sjrdesign.net/tree.html
Ahh, yes. Scott McQuate, leader of the ‘Inner Circle’. Gatekeeper of the secret secrets of the Bible that God didn’t show anyone until he showed Scott McQuate now. It’s Doritos – corny and cheesy. But the cheese isn’t even cheese, it’s some kind of yeast byproduct. And the corn is a bit mouldy. I was hoping it would at least have some giggle factor, but it’s just stupid. Not saying you were going to bother, but don’t.
Thing is, if they don’t call it Nibiru I’ll be devastated at the lost opportunity.
Funny!
I tried watching the video, but it seemed to be echoing the same old stuff. I think a lot of these people just read some David Icke (and the rest of the nutters) books and then regurgitate the subject matter as new discoveries come along.
From what I’ve been able to ascertain they haven’t “found” anything. They’ve placed a body in a computer model and this objects mass and supposed orbit explains movements of certain Kuiper Belt objects. Much the same as placing “Dark Matter” into galaxy formation models has helped said models to match observations. They change variables in a computer program to match observations and folks claim discovery of new planet…yikes. It doesn’t matter if they “find” my car keys out there, Sitchin (and the AA fellows) still have some “essplainin” to do. I can hear it now, “I’m not saying it’s Nibiru…..but it’s Nibiru.”
Yep. Something to look forward to after football season ends.
I had the pleasure of directing someone to your work recently. An acquaintance asked me if I had read Sitchin (I actually haven’t), and then he began to tell me the incredible story of Nibiru and the Anunnaki. I patently waited for him to finish and then asked him to look at your website. Not too long later I received a text from a very disappointed man thanking me, then enquiring what I thought of David Icke…
LOL – nice work!
The orbit of this potential 9th planet is going to be about 15,000-20,000 years per the articles that I have read, still a far cry from 3600. Therefore this is still a completely different planet than that that “predicted” by the ancient cuneiform. Apparently the aliens didn’t quite have their facts right.
And, correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t this cuneiform tablet originally misinterpreted by the likes of Sitchin back at a time when Pluto was still the 9th Planet? Wasn’t the claim made then that Pluto was for some reason represented on that tablet? The problem with this interpretation would therefore be glaringly obvious.
There are actually hundreds of “plutinos” (dwarf planets out there with Pluto that are about it’s size) and any advanced alien species would know that and therefore not have indicated an object representing Pluto to these ancient men. For, if they were going to go there, they would have to present them all. Why pick Pluto over the couple hundred others? They are all of the same size and significance as Pluto. They clearly would have ignored Pluto and would have only recognized the 8 Planets that we know along with any mysterious 9th Planet. Thus, to include an object representing Pluto also kind of destroys the theory that the content of this cuneiform tablet is of alien origin.
There are no cuneiform tablets that refer to Pluto. There are none that refer to any planet farther away than Saturn.
The Cuneiform Tablets overall are troubling and challenging to me Dr. Heiser because there are no older Tablets/Proto-language on Earth, It predates Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, etc. and has frighteningly similar creation story parallel to Genesis…They told me in Sunday School Moses penned Genesis, however as an Adult, I cannot find one Chapter and Verse anywhere in Scripture that CLEARLY and CONCISELY implies that, and suspect IF Moses penned it, he penned from the Cuneiform, and changed up the story a bit, IDK because the second most frightening thing to me is that we have no verifiable, original copies of any books of the Bible, none…As a believer these things just concern me greatly, because according to the Cuneiform, The Oldest Tablets/Language on Earth it was not the Supreme Creator than made Mankind, how does one find truth and peace with that? Thank you.
The problem is that you were either lied to in Sunday School or taught by someone under-informed.
For a start, I’d recommend this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO1fYj1wwqM
Then you might want to read some material on the Bible in its original context (a survey). Let me know.
You are dealing with two related, but distinct, issues:
1) My Sunday School teachers taught me things that I now know either can’t be demonstrated as true or simply aren’t true.
2) The content of the Bible understood in the original environment of the people God prompted to produce it.
The first one is the problem. The second one isn’t.
Hey Mike, do you think that this could be part of some nefarious plan to kick start the alien deception?
No. I would think anyone who wanted to create some sort of serious deception would be smarter than this.
I had the same line of thinking. I`m the deception is going to start with an archeological discovery. Perhaps they would present the remains of the giants of genesis 6 as super evolved humanoid beings from another planet. Knowing they weren’t entirely human in the first place, it would be very easy to convince the world of this once they see that part of the dna in the bones can’t be compared to any known creature of earth.
Oh I totally get that. The true interpretation of these tablets could never include anything that ancient man didn’t already know for himself.
I was of course talking about the Sitchinesque pseudoscience/goofball interpretations that take modern understandings (which can change over time, case in point – Pluto) and project them backward upon ancient writings, errantly.
As I recall, Harrington observed that Neptune’s and Uranus’ orbits were deflected downwards. that means something was under them. I figure the thing was either passing by under the ecliptic, on its way out of town so to speak or will just be passing through UNDER the ecliptic, never in the inner solar system, or…..
its orbit is below to the opposite end, loops over and completes the orbit going over the ecliptic, and still never enters the inner solar system.
In the latter case, the solar system including this dark star whatever is a giant Cross.
It would not make any horrific disruptions just some like set off volcanoes and earthquakes, but nothing like the Flood. Blaming the Flood on “nibiru” is part of an attempt to write off divine interventions in the Bible as mere natural occurrances.
meanwhile, follow the money. for decades, for one excuse or another, survival food and gold suppliers have raked in bucks over whatever (commies, martial law, asteroid, and lately nibiru). I wonder if Nancy Leider was getting a big kickback, did she run gold seller ads on her site?
personally I believe the alien abduction stories, and promoting survival colonies out in remote places sounds like a good setup to be able to take people and process them en masse without possible witnesses, in some cases never return some loner types.
As it is, this Planet 9 (would be Planet X as in 10 if Pluto were still called a planet like when Harrington was writing his observations) is the old Nemesis theory, a large object disrupting things in the Oort Cloud and sending them our way now and then.
Thank you, I’m open to learning much more, as we all should open to learning and seeking truth until our last day and not be ‘locked and loaded’ into anything yet, however I think calling potential Cuneiform advocates to being ‘Sitchinites’ is tantamount to calling Christians ‘Joel Osteenites’, or ‘PopeFrancisites’…They’re all flawed and mistaken in a number of messages they convey(ed), so I believe it’s a WEE bit disingenuous and intellectually dishonest in that regard, especially in light that, nevertheless The Cuneiform question/challenge is spreading VERY fast online, there are OTHER teachers on this, and with it’s great antiquity and it’s same/similar stories to the Bible, with the same/similar names and events as in Scripture, all occurring way before the Jews penned them much, much later, and MAYBE, (IDK yet), maybe passed those very same/similar stories in those Tablets and passed them off as their own stories…I’m looking into that one, things that Seminary and Theological Schools simply missed teaching, or just keep quiet about and rather not teach, tantamount how M.D.’s in the U.S. are barely taught Natural Nutrition and are taught to instead to dispense ‘Pharmakia'(Sorcery) instead, and nobody bats an eye about that…well almost nobody lol.
“Hey, let’s laugh at all those goofs that think the earth is round! LOL! Such morons!”
That’s what they used to say, you know. And now here are all of you, so incredibly intelligent and snarky about Z’s theories. But millions of copies sold in over 20 different languages seems to indicate that everyone isn’t buying your obstinate opinions.
Scientists came up with the ~10,000 year cycle presuming a CIRCULAR orbit. But if the orbit is ELLIPTICAL, as Z proposed, then the math would bring the orbit more in line with a ~4,000 year cycle. Or, if the planet were pulled into our solar system, the planet could be settling into a circular orbit from it’s initial elliptical one. We won’t know until we actual view the planet, if it is even there.
Unless, of course, you’re one of the intelligent people writing these mocking messages on this website. You people seem to already know just about everything there is to know about our universe, so for you there’s apparently no need to even look. lol
If the orbit is elliptical, it’s just as bad for Sitchin. Elliptical orbits aren’t smaller.
But please — give us (and the world) the cuneiform tablet citations that associate the term Nibiru with a planet beyond Pluto, and that associate the Anunnaki with any of that.
I heard today that scientists discovered the earth was frontally hit by another planet in the early days during the formation of our solar system. Wasn’t something like that in Sitchin’s book? It’s been years since I’ve read it but reading about that suspected new planet and about the early day collision, made me think of that book again.
What’s the source? This is basically the old catastrophist model. (And cuneiform literature doesn’t have a story about another planet colliding with earth anyway).
I think the catastrophist model makes sense, I believe that’s from the “Enuma Elish”, the oldest creation story we have.
Enuma Elish doesn’t know of any celestial body beyond Saturn. It also doesn’t have planets colliding with earth. That is simply a modern reading of the text (i.e., let’s assume Tiamat is XYZ planet and go from there). Mesopotamian astronomical texts know no planet beyond Saturn — period. None of them (and there are a good number of them and they have a lot of detail).
On catastrophism’s coherence, maybe you should chat with this former associate (and defender) of Velikovsky. He’s 180 degrees from where he was.
https://drmsh.com/?p=1626
https://drmsh.com/?p=1709
Thank you for the links, I will take a look at them carefully. I have only one of Velikovsky’s books BTW titled ‘Earth In Upheaval’ which I have not got around to reading yet…I still stand by the Genesis account not being what we were told in Church, that it was some peaceful, calm, ‘laid back’ type creation event from the Supreme Creator…Something happened Dr. Heiser, IDK, this Solar System’s Planets and even our Moon clearly look like they’re heavy casualties of some violent intergalactic War/Event regardless, we can SEE that…I have much to learn, but learning from Cuneiform Tablets and NOT all Sitchin BTW, I may have to ‘unlearn’some things as well, keep in mind they told you and me in School that Earth is spinning 1000 MPH at the Equator, hurling around the Sun at 67,000 MPH…67,000 MPH? I don’t think so IMHO.
Am I the only one wondering whose side ‘Chewy’ is on? If he’s on my side, I disown him, if he’s on your side, you can keep him.
Actually I’m on the questioning side…The Cuneiform is a huge issue nevertheless…I think Dr. Heiser needs to write a minimum 800 page book using his best ‘arsenal’ disproving that the Cuneiform has nothing to do with the Bible whatsoever, or why the stories in the Cuneiform don’t matter at all…A huge book, an exhaustive, extremely detailed work down to the core, ENTIRELY discrediting Sitchen, ENTIRELY discrediting Samuel Noah Kramer, ENTIRELY discrediting Michael Tellinger, etc, time to take the gloves off because the entire legitimacy of the Bible may be at stake here …If that book is promised, I will buy that book, because it’s a book we need now, to settle this Cuneiform issue forever, but he will have his work cut out for him, because IDK how one can discredit the ORIGINAL stories in those Tablets that later were written in the Bible, that will be extremely challenging IMO…We’ll see if that ‘book’ happens…no ‘website’, a book. 😉
The point is not that cuneiform material has nothing to do with the Bible. I’m sort of perplexed how that would surface in your mind in response to a discussion about nibiru. The issue is that Sitchin’s mythology about nibiru isn’t in cuneiform tablets. What that has to do with the Bible I have no idea.
2 last questions Dr. Heiser: WHO created Man in the Enuma Elish if there’s an account of that in the Tablets, and where can we all find the correct interpretation of the ENTIRE Enuma Elish if Sitchen’s interpretation of it is butchered and incorrect?
While some Sumerian texts have humans being grown like plants out of the ground, others have humans being created from the blood of a god + clay. Here is an example of the latter (Nintu is the creator goddess):
OLD BABYLONIAN TEXT
(obverse)
(preceding column and top of the
present column destroyed)
“That which is slight he shall raise to abundance;
The work of god man shall bear!”
The goddess they called to enquire,
The midwife of the gods, the wise Mami:
“Thou art the mother-womb,
The one who creates mankind.
Create, then, Lullu and let him bear the yoke!
The yoke he shall bear, … [ … ];
The work of god man shall bear!”
Nintu opened her mouth, (10)
Saying to the great gods:
“With me is the doing of (this) not suitable;
With Enki is (this) work (proper)!
He purifies everything,
Let him give me the clay, then I will do (it)!”
Enki opened his mouth,
Saying to the great gods:
“On the first of the month, the seventh and fifteenth days,
I will prepare a purification, a bath.
Let one god be slain, (20)
And let the gods be purified by immersion
In his flesh and his blood.
Let Nintu mix clay,
God and man,
Let them together be smeared with clay.
Unto eternity let us hear the drum.”
James Bennett Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd ed. with Supplement.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 99–100.
Also, the dwarf planet Eris has a mass 27% greater than Pluto. So if aliens told ancients about Pluto, they should know about Eris too.
I totally agree! Have you found any tablets that refer to a vibrational sound of the SOL resonance?
No
I agree that ”Sitchen is wrong” in a number of things Dr. Heiser, but IMHO SO FAR I believe Sitchen is ”wrong” in like manner that the founder of ”The Watchtower” Christian sect was ”wrong”, in like manner that end of days Preacher Jack and Rexella Van Impe is ”wrong”, in like manner that Pat Robertson is ”wrong” in for example that there’s a video of him on YT saying the ”God” told him Mitt Romney would be elected President in 2012, in like manner that Joel Osteen is ”wrong”, etc, I’m sure my point is made here. ‘Fact is overall I NEED YOUR HELP, seriously, because I’m not ‘locked and loaded’ into anything here yet, but EXACTLY how does one explain that a number of the Bible stories were taken DIRECTLY from the Cuneiform, with the stories and character names changed up a little when they appeared in the MUCH LATER Hebrew language with evidently the Jews passing off those MUCH older stories as THEIR OWN stories?? The similarities between the Cuneiform stories are uncanny regardless if Sitchen was ”wrong” on a few details or not, and anyone who is intellectually honest with themselves knows these uncanny similarities between the Cuneiform and the Bi-ble to be true! What are we missing here?? I know you’re erudite in Hebrew and break things down in that language CSI style and appreciate that Dr., but at the same time you can break down the Hebrew language all you want, because Hebrew itself came much later than the Cuneiform language/tablets,, so what are we missing here?? HELP, I’m open to info to have an AIRTIGHT argument against the Cuneiform/Bible uncanny connections…Come on, what do you really have for us? Help!
Where is he right? Where are the primary ancient texts that have the gods coming from other planets? Where is the empirical evidence that intelligent aliens exist?
Think about your logic:
Cuneiform texts and the Hebrew Bible talk about creation and a great flood … so there must be aliens …?
Huh?
The languages have ZERO to do with this question/issue.
Sitchen was right in generally first EXPOSING in modern times, that there truly are very closely related stories in the Cuneiform as in the much later written accounts of the Bible…I’m sorry Dr., I don’t recall ever personally mentioning ”Intelligent Aliens” before, Sitchen had issues in like manner that Jim Bakker and John ”Blood Moon” Hagee has issues into some general strangeness as well, I was merely talking about the number of the general stories themselves and the uncanny Bible/Cuneiform connections to them…And yes I agree that the languages THEMSELVES have zero to do with it, just the ORDER in which the languages themselves came into existence, more to the point, the language that appeared long before Hebrew having the same/similar stories the Bible has, and that proto-language simply would be the Cuneiform Tablets…again not the language itself Dr., but in which language that the same/similar Bible stories came first, and why the Jews copied them later in the much later language of Hebrew…Why did they copy the Cuneiform and change the stories in them here and there?? They’re essentially the SAME STORIES!
It’s tough answering and justifying that one isn’t it, very tough, don’t worry we’ve been struggling with that ourselves for years, which is why we came to you for MAYBE some kind of airtight evidential closure to the contrary…It appears we’re going around in circles here, and we hope and pray that’s not the case…thank you
That ancient languages share features means that they are part of a language family. What does that have to do with aliens? Absurd reasoning. We have cultures from the same geographic region recording the memory of an event. Why does their order argue for aliens? Again, this is patently illogical.
Stichin,the name makes me laugh,enough said on him.mike I hope Mike is ok to call you.i was reading the comments an I noticed a familiar name came up,Gil Broussard, a friend of mine had mentioned him to me an said he related a lot of interesting things noted in the bible, which I read daily an have study for many years, anyway you mentioned a guy named Stuart to check out to see this Gil fellow debunking. Well my interest got the better of me so I did,oddly as I scrolled down I counted the same 13 articles you’d mentioned but I continued to scroll down just to see what else was on the site, well when I went back up to read his info on Gil it was gone an there was only 12 items left in the planet X part.could this mean perhaps he (Gil) may be on to something after all,i checked out his info an his ideas an it is convincing to some degree, it relates things in the bible that in a lot of ways explain things which pastors can’t seem to answer, what’s your thought on this, Stichin aside, we agree on him lol
Hey, Vic.
Here is a link to the English translation of the Enuma Elish.
Not sure how accurate it is but , it seems to be correct.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm
i read your post…. but Are You aware of Gill Broussard “planet7x theory”? https://youtu.be/WsViOfCx0XE
no proof …. for starters how do you explain
the Nebra Sky Disk? …which is real
Sightings of the Chinese …are real
Zecharia Sitchin was wrong ….about the time factor
but otherwise it seems to me not so far-fetched.
no – see Stuart Robbins’ PseudoAstronomy blog. He’s made a hobby of debunking this sort of alternative astronomy.