The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence (33 page)

In 1984, the paleontologists Raup and Sepkoski argued that there
is a cyclical pattern to the extinction events recorded in the fossil record.
⁵
The pattern implied a 26 to 30 million year cycle, itself indicative of an
extraterrestrial cause. There are no known terrestrial causes for such massive
and regular extinctions. Could Planet X be to blame, perhaps through showering
Earth with comets as it achieves perihelion?

If the cycle of these extinction events is to be believed (and it
remains controversial among scientists), then any direct extraterrestrial
cause must be coincident with that enormous timescale. So it would not be
satisfactory, then, to associate a 26 million-year extinction cycle with a
planet whose orbit is measured in thousands of years only. The Dark Star's
relatively short orbit (Zecharia Sitchin's 'Sar' of 3,600 years, or even a
multiple-Sar orbital period of, say, 10,800 years) could only produce a random
pattern of extinction events distributed thinly over this timescale.

Putting this another way, if the Dark Star is directly accountable
for extinction level events on Earth, then it must either pass very close to
the Earth during a transit actually into the inner solar system, or else it
must have brought with it a comet, or swarm of comets, that happened to collide
with Earth. Since both these possibilities are statistically unlikely given the
sheer size of the solar system, then they could not occur during each
perihelion passage. Instead, they might occur very, very occasionally
throughout geological history, and the pattern of these events would be
effectively random over that timescale, even if it was closely associated with
a cyclical event that was more frequent, like the perihelion passage of the
Dark Star.

A pattern of extinction-level events, over approximately 26
million year periods, calls for an external cause taking place over a 26
million year cycle. The author Graham Hancock has also considered some of the
external influences affecting our solar system when looking at this extinction
cycle. Our star rotates around the galactic nucleus over a period of about 250
million years, during which time it bobs up and down through the galactic
plane, an oscillation that takes about 30 million years. He has noted the
similarity between this 30 million-year 'bobbing' transit through the galactic
plane, and the extinction cycle on the Earth.

Referring to the work of eminent astronomers, Hancock,
et al.
wondered whether the inner solar system is subjected to a periodic bombardment
of comets, released by a number of possible cosmic mechanisms, and that comet
strikes have brought about these vast extinctions on the Earth. These cometary
strikes possibly account for what Hancock describes as the environmental “death
mask” currently worn by Mars.
⁶
The factors helping to release the
cometary descent from the Oort cloud include the sun's motion through gigantic
molecular clouds (GMCs), and the sun's passage through both the Milky Ways'
spiral arms and galactic plane. Perhaps these factors could also influence the
transit of a distant binary brown dwarf. Certainly, the concept of the proposed
extinction cycle being linked to an orbiting dwarf has been a controversial one
within science.

In the 1980's, the idea emerged that the binary companion takes
the guise of an extremely remote “black dwarf” star, orbiting the sun at the
very limit of its influence. This theoretical body was called “Nemesis”, and
was put forward by Professor Daniel Whitmire, amongst others. Its orbital
period at such a great distance (about 90,000AU!) would then be analogous with
an approximately 30 million-year extinction pattern.

This extinction pattern occurred because Nemesis would bombard the
planetary zone with a massive shower of comets at a given point of its orbital
cycle, by plowing through the inner Oort Cloud.
⁷
This would release
a deadly shower of comets without Nemesis ever approaching the planetary zone
itself, or so the theory goes.

Here's the problem: if the Earth was successfully subject to a
cometary bombardment with every orbital completion of Nemesis, then to guarantee
a comet strike on little old Earth, each comet shower must have been truly
massive. After all, the shower of comets must get past Jupiter first!

The black dwarf would have had to have literally peppered the sun
with comets every 26 million years, like a Chicago mob catching up with one of
their old buddies. In which case, there would have to be ample evidence of
renewed and regular cratering of other planets in the solar system too.

But instead, the solar system cratering patterns show little
activity in recent epochs, implying a different mechanism for the 'cyclic'
extinction patterns. Lone killer asteroids perhaps, but not massive comet
swarms. One or two of these catastrophes (like the K/T boundary devastation)
may have been caused by an asteroid strike, but the alleged 26 million-year
extinction cycle cannot be accounted for by a routine act of cosmic pummeling.

It is also not clear to me why comets should be released by
Nemesis at a given point in its orbit. Surely there would be a sustained 'drip,
drip' pattern of long-period comet activity associated with the extremely slow
and distant sweep of Nemesis around the sun. Advocates of the Nemesis theory
might argue that there is an interaction with the galactic tide, or an
association with the sun's 30 million year motion through the galactic plane,
that triggers such a catastrophic release of comets.

But one might as well simply look to the motion of the sun around
the galactic centre, and miss out the middle-man (or middle-dwarf, in this
case). The bottom line is that a cosmic Nemesis is simply too distant, and
irrelevant, to periodically facilitate such a devastating extinction level
event.

On the face of it, it would seem as though the Dark Star's orbit
is not in keeping with this cycle of catastrophe. The cyclical nature of
catastrophism still remains controversial amongst scientists. Robust and
painstaking new research by Richard Muller, who is a professor of physics at
the University of California, Berkeley, has revealed further clues to
extinction events occurring with uniform regularity over the last half billion
years.

His cycle is characterized by a 62 million year periodicity.
⁸
It includes the asteroid impact 65 million years ago, near the Mexican Yucatan
peninsula that seems to have destroyed the dinosaurs. It also includes the
'Great Dying' 250 million years, which we shall look at shortly.

But this careful research still has its critics. Professor Muller
is puzzled by the cause of the cycle, and has exhaustively addressed problems
with each proposed scenario. He remains convinced that an astronomical cause
will eventually be found to explain his version of this controversial
extinction cycle.

The Planet that Thinks Like a
Comet

I have already described how a brown dwarf could, on the one hand,
create a non-random pattern of comets from the distant Oort Cloud, and, on the
other, actually move through the outer solar system. That explanation hinges on
the possibility that the Dark Star's loosely-bound orbit around the sun was
subject to change in a manner not often considered by astronomers. Astronomers
are used to thinking about planets behaving themselves in an orderly manner,
with only minor bodies like comets becoming perturbed from their restful canter
around the sun. But why couldn't a planet among the comets also be perturbed?

As it turns out, theoretical models show that 25,000AU happens to
be a rather unstable place for a planet to reside. A planet or brown dwarf at
this distance would be subject to a number of forces from outside the solar system,
and could readily be nudged into a new orbit.

Indeed, one of the more scientifically-minded Planet X
researchers, a professor of physics named Dr. Matese, has calculated orbital
paths for a massive planet at this distance that seem to necessarily bring it
close to the planetary zone on occasion.
⁹
Those occasions would be
rare, of course, but then so are mass extinctions! It is possible that such a
connection exists.

We also touched upon the work of another physicist, Jack Hills,
who made calculations about the effect of passing stars and black or brown
dwarfs traveling near to or through the planetary zone. Although passing stars
would likely sail on past (given their considerable size and momentum), the
dwarfs run a very real chance of becoming captured by the sun. Indeed, his
calculations showed that a subsequent temporary orbit of the captured dwarf
could be highly eccentric, possibly degrading over time.
⁴

This is in contrast to the general assumption that such a body
would be quickly expelled from the solar system. It should also sound very
familiar by now. It seems as though such a sub-stellar body could actually be
captured by the sun, and its natural inclination then would be to fall into a
highly eccentric, but relatively unstable orbit.

Hills worked for the Los Alamos National Laboratory at the time he
wrote this paper in 1985. He conducted computer simulations modeling the effect
of an intruder on the sun-Jupiter system. The planetary intruder would either
originate from interstellar space or the Oort cloud. He discusses a minimum
radial distance of 5AU, which corresponds to the orbit of the sun's largest
known planet, Jupiter.

Although Jack Hills may not have intended to, he has simulated the
orbit of Sitchin's Nibiru. His computer simulations show that a massive object,
which is as far away from the sun as the Dark Star, is subject to external
forces that can cause it to behave erratically.

Hills showed that if the sub-brown dwarf had less than 10 Jupiter
masses, then its temporary infringement into the planetary zone would not
necessarily cause the other planets to fly off into interstellar space, or to
become unrealistically chaotic. But there would be a different, but remarkably
important effect, one that is well understood by astrophysicists ― but
takes a bit of getting used to for the rest of us.

There is an energetic relationship between the orbits of the sun's
children. The 'planetary binding energies' are not fixed, but intertwined.
Introduce a new, maverick element to the solar system (particularly one of
considerable mass) and those binding energies are subject to change, even if
the planets are tightly bound in stable, circular orbits.

Hills indicated that the overall energy of the orbits of the known
planets would alter, if the interloper's own orbit around the sun changed. This
might happen if the interloper came from interstellar space and was captured by
the sun, or if it was an Oort Cloud object that had trespassed into the
planetary zone and taken on a new, more tightly bound temporary orbit.

What exactly would be the physical manifestation of such a change
in the binding energies of the planetary orbits, as the interloper falls under
the influence of the sun gravitationally? Simply put, the solar system would be
subject to possible contraction or expansion, dependent upon the particular
event. The very distances of the planets from the sun would be subject to
change! The dwarf would not need to directly interact with the planets,
either...simply the changing relationship with the sun would be enough to
affect other bodies in the solar system.

Jack Hills described these effects in a theoretical way. His
interest was in studying whether a body the size of Nemesis, a proposed black
dwarf, could have become captured by the sun. He concluded that it would have
caused too much chaos in the solar system. But below 10 Jupiter masses, an
interloper would not create the same devastation. In other words, a Dark Star
in the form of a sub-brown dwarf might just have been captured by the sun in
the remote past, and the solar system would still appear as stable as it is
thought to be today.

A brown dwarf which had migrated inwards from the comet clouds
would enter the planetary solar system at nearly parabolic speed. If it
subsequently interacted with the other planets, as in Sitchin's thesis, then
two things might happen according to Hills' calculations. One scenario
indicates that the Dark Star might have attained greater orbital energy, and
thus would have been flung out of the solar system altogether.

The other possibility is that its orbital energy decreases, and it
becomes bound into a much tighter orbit around the sun. As it turns out, the
chances are about 50:50 between the two scenarios. In his paper, Hills
describes the planetary system 'binding energies', and how the orbital radii of
the planets are affected by the incursion of the intruder.
⁴

During this devastating event in the early history of the solar
system, there would have been massive changes to the climates of the planets,
particularly in the inner solar system. This reflected massive changes in the
orbital energy of the Dark Star. Now, if the Dark Star's orbit is still subject
to some fluctuation, then there could be ongoing changes over time during the
life of the solar system.

Indeed, changes in the binding energy of the Earth may then have
had significant effects upon our world's climate down the ages. Venus and Mars
may have experienced similar climate changes during similar periods of time.
That might explain why the existence of water on Mars is so odd, or why Venus
became trapped into its runaway greenhouse gas effect .
¹⁰
Venus has
had its share of extreme climate variation in the past as well, leading to
extensive changes to its surface about 700 million years ago.
¹¹

So, the paper by Hills shows us that if Planet X is a small brown
dwarf, then physical mechanisms have been modeled that can actually account for
its existence within the solar system. Furthermore, those calculations show that
the interaction between this dwarf and the rest of the solar system might have
fundamental physical ramifications. The distance between the Earth and the sun
might have been altered, for instance. Not just once; but every time the
temporary orbit of the loosely bound cometary dwarf changes. Such changes would
readily account for planetary migration.

Which leads me to ask...has the Earth's distance from the sun
altered? Was the distance between the Earth and the sun a variable that changed
with respect to the incursion and subsequent capture by the sun of a brown
dwarf? What if the unstable nature of the orbit of our Dark Star meant that,
over time, several such changes occurred?

Perhaps the Dark Star's orbit altered because of other external
influences, like the gravitational attraction of other passing stars, or of
giant molecular clouds found within interstellar space. If so, then the Earth's
relative position with respect to the sun might have changed several times. If
so, how would we know?

Such changes would have had catastrophic environmental effects on
this planet, leading to the coming and going of Ice Ages and interglacial
periods, dependent upon the altered distance between the sun and the Earth.
Additionally, the actual physical displacement of our planet would have brought
about sudden, catastrophic Earth-changes. What happens to the oceans, for
instance, when the Earth suddenly falls away from or towards the sun? Would
they not be swept over the land, accompanied by titanic volcanic and seismic activity?

We now know that Ice Ages are global in nature, and not confined
simply to one hemisphere.
¹²
This implies changes to the Earth's
entire climate system, possibly drawing us towards the conclusion that an
external factor is at play here. There is certainly a substantial question mark
hanging over the previous received wisdom that Ice Ages resulted from a
redistribution of heat via the world's oceans. Instead, the entire atmosphere
of the Earth appears to cool during the glacial periods of Ice Ages.

Might our lack of understanding of the causes behind the ebb and
flow of Ice Epochs
^13,
or of mass extinctions, find an
extraterrestrial explanation - in the guise of a maverick brown dwarf
occasionally lurching from one unstable temporary orbit to another? Let us look
at this possibility. I have chosen three examples of periods of sustained
catastrophic damage to our world, to illustrate how this hypothesis might work.
They start with the most recent, and work backwards to the early solar system.

The Permian-Triassic Boundary

A great extinction event occurred around the Permian-Triassic
boundary, some 245 million years ago. The scale of the destruction of life on
Earth was an order of magnitude greater than the wiping out of the dinosaurs 65
million years ago. The destruction of the dinosaurs at the end of the
Cretaceous period is now thought to have been caused by a single impact event
off the coast of Yucatan, Mexico.
¹⁴
This asteroid or comet impact
led to the deposition of extraterrestrial iridium, forming the famous K/T
boundary in the rock strata of that period. Can we look to a similar cause for
the more catastrophic P-Tr boundary mass extinction?

Well, the problem is that the extinctions at the P-Tr boundary did
not occur instantly during a single boundary event (as would be expected if the
mass extinction had been caused by an asteroid impact). They were associated
with multiple events, including the overturning of the oceans, and massive
volcanism. One of these events was a major asteroid or comet impact that
created a 130 kilometer crater at Woodleigh in Australia, discovered in April
2000.
¹⁵
This one event, however destructive it may have been, was
simply one of several which occurred over a relatively short period of time.

Paleontologists have recorded 4 distinct extinction episodes
during the Permian, over a 10 million-year period. At a loss to explain such a
bizarre extinction pattern, paleontologists considered the coalescing of the
continents into the super-continent 'Pangea' to somehow be the likely cause.
¹⁶
Ice caps were also forming at that time. However, this is an unsatisfactory
theory, as it fails to come up with an explanation for the pulsed nature of the
extinction events in the geological record.
⁵

How did the world's entire ocean become overturned, driving
multiple extinction events over a 10 million-year period? The devastation of
the P-Tr boundary is so great that internal environmental readjustments simply
don't provide a satisfactory answer. Instead, an extraterrestrial cause is
necessary to meet the fundamental and sustained changes affecting Earth during
the Permian. An isolated asteroid impact is insufficient. What else could there
be?

I suggest that this pattern of extinction and environmental change
is readily explained by the perturbation of the Dark Star into a temporary
tightly bound orbit. If the brown dwarf migrated close to the planetary zone at
the beginning of the Permian, and became captured into a new, much tighter
orbit, then the Earth would have been subject to a number of tremendous
pressures. This is because there must be a conservation of energy within the
overall orbital system of the planets. If the Dark Star were to be dragged into
a closer orbit, then there would have to be an adjustment made among the other
planets, resulting in them feeling less tightly bound to the sun. Their orbits
would expand accordingly.

Earth's lurch into a new orbit might provide the mechanism for the
overturning of the oceans, the coalescing of the continents, and the formation
of ice caps. What's more, repeated passages of the brown dwarf through the
solar system during, say, its 10 million-year long temporarily tightly bound
orbit, would endanger Earth again and again. At the end of the Permian, the
unstable temporary orbit might have naturally degraded, expelling the Dark Star
back towards a more familiar orbit beyond the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. This
reversal of fortunes would mean that the Dark Star's binding energy would
decrease, and the binding energies of the other planets would subsequently
increase. The Earth would move back to an orbit closer to the sun, warming the
world environment and ending this temporary period of instability.

Such a sustained pattern of orbital change and planetary
interaction with a brown dwarf within the planetary solar system would
certainly have destroyed far more life on this planet than the single asteroid
strike of the K/T boundary. For about 10 million years, the days of the early
solar system would have been relived ― bringing about the string of
extinction events at the P-Tr boundary.