Zecharia Sitchin

Zecharia Sitchin (born 1920?) is a best-selling author promoting the ancient astronaut theory of mankind's origins. He attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Nephilim from Nibiru. He also argues that the asteroid belt was once a planet which the Sumerians called Tiamat. Although his 'planetary collision' theory superficially resembles a theory which is seriously entertained by modern astronomers —the giant impact theory of the Moon's formation about 4.5 billion years ago by a body impacting with the newly-formed Earth—, Sitchin's proposed series of rogue planetary collisions post-dating the early formation of the solar system finds little or no support within the scientific arena. As with Immanuel Velikovsky's earlier Worlds in Collision trilogy, Sitchin finds evidence of ancient human knowledge of rogue celestial motions in a variety of mythological accounts. In Velilovsky's case, these interplanetary collisions were supposed to have taken place within the span of human existence, whereas for Sitchin these occurred much earlier, but entered the mythological account passed down via the purported alien survivors of these encounters. In neither case are their respective interpretations of mythology held to be reliable by the great majority of scholars in the field.

Zecharia Sitchin was born in Russia and raised in Palestine, where he acquired a knowledge of modern and ancient Hebrew, other Semitic and European languages, the Old Testament, and the history and archaeology of the Near East. Sitchin attended and graduated from the University of London, majoring in economic history.

A 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.

Sitchin claims that his research coincides with many biblical texts and that the biblical texts come originally from the Sumerian writings of their history.

Theories

Sitchin has recently put forth his own date for the next passage of Nibiru in the year 2085, but the date most talked about is 2012 which marks the end of the Maya calendar.

Nibiru (the planet associated with Marduk in Babylonian cosmology) is a central element of Sitchin's theory. He claims it was a tenth planet (twelfth to those who included the Sun and Moon) which followed a long, elliptical orbit, reaching the inner solar system every 3600 years.

According to his theories of Sumerian cosmology, Nibiru was the twelfth member in the solar system family of planets (which includes 10 planets, the Sun, and the Moon). Its catastrophic collision with Tiamat, a planet that was between Mars and Jupiter, would have formed the planet Earth and the asteroid belt and comets. It was the home of a technologically advanced human-like alien race Anunnaki of Sumerian myth, who, Sitchin claims, survived and later came to Earth. According to Sitchin, they subsequently genetically engineered our species, originally as slave animals to work in their gold mines, by crossing their genes with those of Homo erectus.

Sitchin says some sources speak about the same planet, possibly being a brown dwarf star and still in a highly elliptic orbit around the Sun, with a perihelion passage some 3,600 years ago and assumed orbital period of about 3,600 to 3,760 years or 3,741 years. However, scientists argue that a planet with such an orbit would eventually either develop a circular orbit or fly off into space and overwhelmingly consider Sitchin's claims to be pseudoscience. Sitchin attributes these figures to astronomers of the Maya civilization. However, a brown dwarf with a period of 3,760 years would be clearly evident through infrared and gravitational observations.

In a recently published book, titled 2012: Appointment With Marduk, Turkish writer/researcher Burak Eldem presents a new theory, suggesting a 3,661 years orbital period for the planet and claiming a "return date" in the year 2012 AD. According to Eldem's theory, 3,661 is one-seventh of 25,627, which is the total time span of "5 World Ages" according to Mayan Long Count Calendar system. The last orbital passage of Marduk, he adds, was in 1649 BC and caused great catastrophes on earth, including the Thera eruption.

Tiamat Planet Theory

Tiamat, as outlined in the Enûma Elish, is a goddess. According to Sitchin, however, she may have been what we now know as Earth, when one of Marduk's (Nibiru) moons struck Tiamat and broke her into two separate pieces, on a second pass Marduk himself struck the broken pieces and one half of Tiamat was crumbled and became what we now know as the asteroid belt. The second half being struck again by one of Marduk's moons was pushed into a new orbit and created what we now know as Earth. Although most scientists argue that the scenario is improbable, Sitchin's supporters argue that it would explain how the Earth's continents were divided and would also explain why the Earth is layered in sediments.

Annunaki

Sitchin claims that artifacts and documents from the great library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh and other sources, show technology and advanced scientific knowledge out of place for their time period. This he claims as proof for the following theory.

According to Sitchin in his book The 12th Planet, the Annunaki were extraterrestrials related to the Biblical Nephilim. He claims that they first arrived on Earth probably 450,000 years ago, looking for minerals, especially gold, which they found and mined in Africa. According to Sitchin, the "gods" of the Anunnaki were the rank and file workers of the colonial expedition to earth from the 12th planet, also known later, through the Babylonians, as Marduk. Sitchin claims that ancient records report that a human civilization in Sumer of Mesopotamia was set up under the tutelage of these "gods" and human kings were inaugurated as go-betweens, foremen of the human populations answering to the Annunaki. The Nephilim "gods" were the commanders of the operation. The Anunnaki performed the menial labor, mining ores and building bases, while the Nephilim issued the orders setting these tasks into motion. It was only due to an uprising by the Anunnaki against the Nephilim in protest of these conditions that the Anunnaki 'workers' revolted against their overseers. Because of this the Nephilim and Anunnaki came together in a project to blend the DNA of Homo erectus with that of their own, thus giving rise to the Homo sapiens. He proposes that fallout from the nuclear weapons used during this struggle was the "evil wind" that destroyed Ur c. 2000 BCE, as recorded in the Lament for Ur[1].

To the right is a list of the seven main Mesopotamian gods for further study.

Enki

According to Sitchin, Enki was the same as Ptah and Poseidon/Neptune. He supposedly created a being called LU.LU. by mixing the Life Essence of animals with the Life Essence of the gods. This LU.LU. (which means mixed), would go on to receive more god-like attributes as a result of Enki's creator-ambitions, and subsequently humans were created.

Anu

According to Sitchin, the wife of An (Anu) was a fertility goddess and the mother of the gods; her cult was centered in Munster. However, Anu was one of the Nefilim who came from the planet Nibiru (Marduk). Anu was the leader of the council of the twelve Gods until he later retired and gave the throne to his son Enlil.

Impact

Sitchin's claims are strongly disputed by archeologists and astronomers. Nevertheless, they have proven popular reading if only as science fiction, and they are a novel way of handling the enduring legacy of Mesopotamian mythology and astrology. His series of books has led directly to other works of popular fiction, such as the successful Stargate movies and TV films that have adapted his theory that the Mesopotamian gods were in fact strange, resource hungry mortals. If not credible to mainstream scholars, his theory is at least an intriguing interpretation of the related phenomena of religious belief in the divine.

Academic Opposition

Academic opposition to Sitchin's theories focuses on various fundamental questions that are not answered in his research.

Q1:First, if planet Nibiru's orbit takes 3,600 years, then its aphelion would be further away than Pluto. At such a distance from the Sun, temperatures are so low that water would exist as ice, life as we know it would be impossible. If a form of life can exist in such conditions, then it would not be water-based and could conceivably perish at Earth's much warmer temperatures.

A1:Sitchin counters that Nibiru has an internally generated heat source. To quote Sitchin "My answer has been that we need not go that far out to freeze to death, just rising above Earth’s surface would do the trick. It is the planet’s atmosphere that retains the warmth, be it warmth obtained from the Sun, or from an internal source of heat. The crucial issue for the Anunnaki, I explained, was to prevent the loss of Nibiru’s atmosphere; they sought to do that with a shield of gold particles, and they came here to obtain the gold."

Q2A:Secondly, if alien visitors to Earth created humans, then evidence for this would have been found by now within our DNA. Since DNA sequencing is now cheap and easy, the conspiracy theory idea that our true DNA sequences have been suppressed would seem to be discounted, the idea being that since almost anyone can sequence our genes, if there was any extraterrestrial DNA to be found it would have been by now.

Additionally, humans and chimpanzees share up to 99% of their DNA and the remaining 1% is posited by some to be of bacterial origin. Thus, present-day genetics fails to produce evidence that supports Sitchin's theories and more readily supports the idea that humans evolved through a series of DNA mutations from a precursor ape-like species.

A2:Sitchin counters that the 223 genes "do not have the required predecessors on the genomic evolutionary tree". Citing the journals "Nature" and "Science", Sitchin holds that there is not a strongly preferred bacterial source for the putative horizontally transferred genes. Thus, these genes are of unknown origin. Horizontally-inserted genes are well-known fact in genetics, and the idea that they all came from bacteria is merely a speculation, as there is no proof that many of these genes did indeed come from such sources (some probably came from lysogenic viruses, and other genes could originate with genetic engineering).

Works

• The 12th Planet (Earth Chronicles, No. 1), 1978
• The Stairway to Heaven (Earth Chronicles, No. 2), 1980
• The Wars of Gods and Men (Earth Chronicles, No. 3), 1985
• The Lost Realms (Earth Chronicles, No. 4), 1990
• Genesis Revisited: Is Modern Science Catching Up With Ancient Knowledge?, 1991
• When Time Began (Earth Chronicles, No. 5), 1993
• Divine Encounters: A Guide to Visions, Angels and Other Emissaries, 1995
• The Cosmic Code (Earth Chronicles, No. 6), 1998
• The Lost Book of Enki: Memoirs and Prophecies of an Extraterrestrial god, 2002

David Icke about Zecharia Sitchin:

David Icke (much renowned conspiracy theorist) has spoke about Zecharia Sitchin as a "gate keeper" or a hench-man of the Illuminati network. Zecharia Sitchin reportedly told David Icke not to investigate the matter of reptilian bloodlines further, which has turned out to be, in many ways, the foundation of David Ickes work.

See also

• Archaeoastronomy
• Asteroid belt
• Erich von Däniken
• Laurence Gardner
• Giant impact theory
• Graham Hancock
• Robert Sutton Harrington
• David Icke
• Hypothetical planet
• Jordan Maxwell
• Mesopotamian mythology
• Nuwaubianism
• Pseudoarchaeology
• Rizq
• Sherry Shriner
• ZetaTalk
• Raelism
• Reptile Agenda

External links

• Author's website
• Lloyd Pye
• Andy Lloyd
• Skeptic's Dictionary entry on Sitchin
• Zecharia Sitchin's ancient astronaut theories
• Critique of Sitchin's work
• "2012: Appointment With Marduk." Official site for Turkish writer/researcher Burak Eldem's 2003 book.
• Planet X in Bible Prophecy Official site for writer/researcher Tim McHyde's 2005 book.
• Time line of research regarding the 'Search for Planet X'
• Planet X -- Nibiru facts. Xfacts.com.
• Nibiru. Crystalinks.com.
• Nibiru and the Anunnaki. Conspiracy Planet.com.
• The Anunnaki Remnants Are Still on Earth. Conspiracy Planet.com.
• [2]. Astronomical Society in Mexico City
• Fehler und Fehlinterpretationen Zecharia Sitchins (Mistakes and misinterpretations by Zecharia Sitchin - German article).