The Dark Star: The Planet X Evidence (9 page)

These considerations opened my eyes to the potential room for
manoeuvre in the outer solar system. The orbits of the solar system brown
dwarfs, as described by the scientists, were in the order of several million
years. Yet, Zecharia Sitchin’s planet Nibiru was said to orbit the sun in a
relatively short time period of 3600 years. These two situations were not
readily convergent, even if many of the rest of the findings seemed to tie in
superficially.

Dr. Matese and his team were aware of the comparisons which I had
been making between their work and Zecharia Sitchin’s controversial ideas.
Their main concern with such a link was that their brown dwarf occupied an
orbit and periodicity that could not in any way be compared to Sitchin’s 3600
years. John Murray voiced similar objections. I think it is fair to say that
their concerns did not arise from a dogmatic scientific stance, nor was it a
knee-jerk reaction to an unwanted association with alternative science. Simply
put, they thought the two theories could not be linked because the data would
not support such a notion.

One should also put these objections in the context of the heat
emanating from the scientific community in general, which was less than pleased
about the resurrection of the Planet X debate. Both of these researchers had
been getting some difficult feedback from their peers about their ideas, which
were not generally well received in scientific circles (the media, in contrast,
loved it). The influential solar system dynamist, Brian Marsden was invited to
comment upon the possibilities by The Telegraph, and was cool about the idea:

"It's
possibly suggestive," comments Brian Marsden, associate director for
planetary sciences at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in
Cambridge, Mass. "I don't want to bet on it. We're certainly not going to
name it".
³¹

But
other, more difficult questions have been publicly raised about John Murray’s
research, such as by Harold Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in
Boulder, Colorado. When he was interviewed by ‘Discover’ magazine in 2001, he
argued that "tinkering" with the comet data would make the anomalous
effect simply disappear.
³²

It
must be remembered that John Murray is not an astronomer. Although, his paper
clearly met the approval of the Royal Astronomical Society, in order to be
accepted for publication by this prestigious body. But he is somewhat
"out-ranked" by an acknowledged expert on the Oort Cloud. However,
such objections from the scientific community have been met head-on by
Professor Matese, who cites other scientific researchers analyzing long-period
comet data who have had a more positive outlook.
³³
The possibility
of a Jupiter-mass companion seems alive and well.

In
fact, the Matese team continues to analyze long-period comets and continues to
find the non-random clustering, suggestive of the brown dwarf’s presence. And
they continue to stand by their work. However, they see no reason whatsoever,
that their proposed object might lie closer to the planetary zone in the guise
of Sitchin’s mythical Nibiru.
³⁴

With
respect to them, I’m not so sure. Their discussion of the "oscultation"
effect, whereby their brown dwarf spends some of its time in an orbital
configuration that approaches the outer solar system, is very interesting. The
fact that the great circular orbit at 25,000+AU is "unstable" over
long periods of time, suggests a migratory pattern for the brown dwarf. Then,
as we shall see, there’s the large gap between the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt and
the inner Oort Cloud, where no comets are seen to emanate from. I can’t help
but think this is because this "gap" marks the territory of a massive
perturber that has swept the region clean of cosmic debris.

This
leads me to argue that the brown dwarf currently resides closer to the sun than
the Matese team suggests. It is in the small print of the Matese paper from
1999, that a mechanism for a closer passage near the solar system becomes a
distinct possibility.

¹
J. Davis “Beyond Pluto” pp9-10 Cambridge University Press 2001

²
(Ed) J. Shirley and R. Fairbridge "Encyclopedia of Planetary
Sciences": ‘Planet X’ by John D. Anderson, Chapman and Hall, see
http://dosxx.colorado.edu/Pluto/PlanetX.Anderson.html

³
C. Sagan & A. Druyan “Comet” pp300-6, Headline 1985

⁴
“Does the Sun have a Dark Companion?” Newsweek, 28/6/ 82, p83,
with thanks to Greg Jenner

⁵
W. Alvarez “T. Rex and the Crater of Doom” Penguin 1998 6. R.
Corfield “Architects of Eternity” Ch 6, Headline 2001


7. D. Whitmire & A.
Jackson, Nature (1984) 308, 713


8. M. Davis, P. Hut & R. Muller, Nature (1984) 308, 715

⁵
W. Alvarez “T. Rex and the Crater of Doom” Penguin 1998

⁶
R. Corfield “Architects of Eternity” Ch 6, Headline 2001



⁷
D. Whitmire & A. Jackson, Nature (1984) 308, 713



⁸
M. Davis, P. Hut & R. Muller, Nature (1984) 308, 715

⁹
D. Raup & J. Sepkoski, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (1984) 81, 801

¹⁰
P. Moore “Atlas of the Universe” p195, George Philip Ltd, 1999

¹¹
Z. Sitchin “Genesis Revisited” pp319-24 Avon 1990

¹²
P. Moore “Guide to Stars and Planets” p100, Chancellor Press 2001

¹³
Hogg, D. W.; Quinlan, G. D. & Tremaine, S., 1991,
"Dynamical limits on dark mass in the outer solar system", AJ, 101,
p2274-2286

¹⁴
Private correspondence from J. D. Kirkpatrick, shared with me by
John Lee, aka Rajasun and various other aliases 9/6/03

¹⁵
J. Kelly Beatty “Bigorbit Object Confounds Dynamicists”
http://www.skypub.com/news/news.shtml#bigorbit
5th April 2001

¹⁶
Correspondence from Jim Oberg, 13th January 2002,
www.jamesoberg.com email: [email protected]

¹⁷
J.Murray “Arguments for the presence of a distant large
undiscovered solar system planet” Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 309, 31-34 (1999)

¹⁸
J. Oort “The structure of the cloud of comets surrounding the
solar system, and a hypothesis concerning its structure” Bull. Astron. Inst.
Neth. 11, 91-110 (1950)

¹⁹
Enuma Elish Tablet I, Lines 87-105

²⁰
Enuma Elish Tablet VI Lines 124-9

²¹
“Waiting for the Apocalypse” Documentary Video, 2003

²²
E. Krupp, (ed.) “In Search of Ancient Astronomies” Doubleday
& Co. 1978

²³
E. Krupp “Echoes of the Ancient Skies: The Astronomy of Lost
Civilizations” Oxford University Press 1983

²⁴
G. de Santillana & H. von Dechend “Hamlet’s Mill” Gambit Inc.
1969

²⁵
A. Lloyd “Winged Disc: The Dark Star Theory” which was available
in manuscript form, 2001-4

²⁶
A. Alford “Gods of the New Millennium” Hodder & Stoughton
1997

²⁷
A. Lloyd “Ancient to Modern” p76, UFO Magazine Sept.- Oct. 1999

²⁸
A. Lloyd ‘Synopsis of the Dark Star Theory’ pp50-5, UFO Magazine
August 2001

²⁹
J.J. Matese, P.G. Whitman and D.P. Whitmire, “Cometary Evidence
of a Massive Body in the Outer Oort Cloud” Icarus, 141, 354-336 (1999),

³⁰
J.G. Hills “The Passage of a “Nemesis”-like object through the
Planetary System” The Astronomical Journal, 90, Number 9, pp1876-1882,
September 1985

³¹
P. Blakemore writing in The Telegraph, 22nd October 2002
http://www.viewzone.com/nemesis.html

³²
Kathy A. Svitil "Dogged scientist looks for 'Planet X'"
from Discover Magazine 5/12/01

³³
Dr. Matese’s website:
http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~jjm9638
,
citing ("Biases in Cometary Catalogues and Planet X", J. Horner and
N. W. Evans, MNRAS (2002)

³⁴
L. Moulton Howe interviewing Dr. John Matese, 2001,
http://www.earthfiles.com/earth317.htm

8. Binary Companion

In
the last chapter, we looked at some of the history of the hunt for Planet X.
This search has been going on for about 100 years, sometimes in vogue,
sometimes not. The suffix ‘X’ denotes either a potential Tenth Planet (in Roman
numerals) or simply an Unknown. But, the term “planet” itself covers a wide
spectrum of objects in space.

At
the small end, we have small rocky worlds that are really just very large
asteroids. The point at which an asteroid begins to be labeled a planet is not
a clear-cut one, but generally it is the point where a world becomes spherical
in shape, rather than being irregularly shaped. Thus, Pluto is generally
accepted to be a planet.

However,
the reader will no doubt point out that the Moon is spherical, as are many
other moons in the solar system. Are these also planets in their own right? So,
the additional factor appears to be whether the body is independently orbiting
the sun, as we would normally understand a planet to do. A moon that is
spherical may have the appearance of a planet, but because it orbits a parent
planet, we generally think of it as a moon.

Examples
include our own Moon, the Galilean moons of Jupiter and Titan. The latter is
even more like a planet, though, because it has a thick atmosphere and a
dynamic weather system, with liquid oceans and landmasses. We are left with
the uncomfortable realization that Titan is more like our idea of a planet
than, say, Pluto, which is small, barren and orbits the sun in a rather odd
way.

It
is clear, then, that the label ‘planet’ is not easily definable even at the
lower end of the celestial market. Yet, these difficulties pale into insignificance
when faced with defining a planet at the top end. Where once we thought we
could easily distinguish between stars and planets, now the black and white
labels are becoming increasingly confused.

Our
common sense dictates that a planet does not emit its own light, and a star
does. However, there is an array of bodies which lie in a grey area between
these definitions. There are planets that behave a bit like stars; and some
that behave like stars for a short time then die down a bit; and others that
are almost stars, but not quite.

In
the Chapter, Brown Dwarfs, we shall look at some of the science behind the
understanding of these objects, many of which are called brown dwarfs.
"brown dwarf" is not a great name for this kind of hybrid planet/star
really, but it has stuck because no one’s come up with anything better. They’re
the cosmic equivalent of a difficult teenager; not terribly easy to understand
and full of surprises.

There’s
a lot to think about with these brown dwarfs, but I would first like to first
spend a little more time looking at the hunt for Planet X. That hunt has, on
occasion, concentrated on the possibility that the tenth planet is a brown
dwarf, or perhaps something larger. The speculation has been that we live in a
binary star system.

Now,
that is not to say that there is a full-blown star near the sun that has
somehow evaded everyone’s attention for the last 6000 years or so. No, the
thinking is that there might be an undetected planet which is so massive that
it is warm, and possibly gives out its own light. If it emits a lot of light,
then it would have to be very, very far away. If it’s essentially dark, then it
could be closer and still have evaded detection.

So
as a rough guide, we could imagine the following as reasonable possibilities: a
terrestrial tenth planet like Mars or Earth might yet be found about 100 times
as far away from the sun as the Earth (150 Astronomical Units). A planet
heavier than Jupiter, but essentially still ‘dark’ might yet be discovered
further still, perhaps 1000 astronomical units away. This lies somewhere
between the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt and the inner Oort cloud. Lastly, a
substantial brown dwarf, which is large enough to emit its own light, might lie
undiscovered in the outer Oort cloud, more than 10,000 times the distance from
the Earth to the sun.

Any of these possibilities are plausible I would argue, although
many astronomers would rather dismiss them all. This is because the theory of
planet-building, that is currently accepted, but does not readily allow for the
‘construction’ of planets so far away from the sun. However, things are not
that straightforward anymore, as we shall soon discover, so I suggest we should
remain open-minded for the time being.

Large bodies that emit heat, glow in the infrared part of the
spectrum. That includes relatively cold objects as well, because the background
temperature of space is itself so low. In 1983, there was an extensive sky
survey carried out by a mission called IRAS, and thousands and thousands of ‘warm’
objects in the heavens were catalogued as a result. One of the hopes of the sky
search was that it would turn up a tenth planet. Two decades later, controversy
still rages about certain alleged discoveries made by IRAS, which were widely
publicized at the time, stoking public interest in the possibility of a new
planet.

The IRAS ‘Discovery’

A very famous Planet X ‘sighting’ was made by IRAS in 1983, and it
has become the centre of several conspiracy theories that NASA has attempted to
hush-up the discovery of Planet X. The report does appear to be very
encouraging for a Dark Star, in that it described the object as being about the
right size (like Jupiter, which is similar in size as a heavier brown dwarf),
and at the right sort of distance (about 500AU). It might even be moving in the
correct direction (towards us), although this was denied fervently by Gerry
Neugebauer, the chief IRAS scientist at Cal Tech at the time.
¹

Arguably, its location is not without merit either. The
controversial ‘object’ was spotted in Orion, which is a favorite potential
location for Nibiru among many alternative researchers. Orion is one of the
best known constellations in the sky, despite the fact that it lies south of
the ecliptic and is not a zodiacal constellation. But its appearance in the
Autumnal months in the Northern hemisphere is dramatic, and it appears clearly
as a Hunter wielding his club in his right hand, whilst symbolically holding a
lion skin in his left.

Over 100 years ago, Emmeline Plunket considered the idea that the
constellation of Orion was known to the ancient people of the Indian
subcontinent in a similar form to the later Greeks, who are credited with the
name Orion. An etymological argument has been made that the Greek name was
originally derived from the Sanskrit names of the Nakshatra, one of which means
‘first-going’.

From
this, Plunket argues that the characterization of this constellation may have
been as early as 4600BC, a quite extraordinary contention.
²
Whether
this very ancient dating is correct or not, it is evident that Orion was held
in high esteem by the ancients. For instance, the Babylonians named the
constellation after Tammuz, coincident with their month of the same name, which
saw the heliacal rising of its famous belt of three stars.

Adrian
Gilbert thinks that Orion was pivotal to our understanding of ancient religions
³
,
and his colleague Robert Bauval became famous for his influential theory about
the juxtaposition of the earthly Pyramids of Giza, with the heavenly belt stars
of Orion.
⁴
Even the esteemed archeo-astronomer E.C. Krupp recognizes
the significance of the star Sirius and the constellation of Orion to the
ancient Egyptians when he describes the account in the ancient Egyptian Pyramid
Texts about the ascent of the departed king to Orion (Osiris), with Sirius as
his guide.
⁵

So
is it little wonder that the pinpointing of an allegedly new solar system
object in Orion by IRAS would ignite tremendous interest? However, I suspect
that the Dark Star is to be found currently in the exact opposite part of the
sky, in the sky north of Sagittarius. I have some very good reasons for holding
this view, which I will explain in due course.

Over
the past several years, many have asked me why I seem to have ignored the IRAS
finding, given the sensational way it was reported at the time. The answer is
that the controversial result was never confirmed by optical means. There have
been many contemporary astronomers interested in Planet X, including Brunini,
Matese, Whitmire, Anderson and Harrington, to name but a few. If JPL, through
the Washington Post, gave these fellows a treasure map back in 1983, one
imagines that the buried planet would have been dug up long ago. Instead, it
has become the stuff of Internet legend.

At
the time, there were various suggestions for the identity of this ‘object’. It
may have been a Jupiter-sized planet, whose distance from the sun was anything
from Pluto's distance, to all the way out to the nearest star. This covers a
very significant range of possibilities, indeed. But, other ideas included the
possibility that the ‘object’ was a "dark, young galaxy" that had not
been detected before, or even a proto-planetary gas cloud.
¹

In
contrast to the fuss made about this finding, a second report emerged around
the same time about a massive planet discovered by IRAS. The rumors of this
next find created waves in the scientific community.