Monday, September 5, 2011

The Nibiru mystery yarn

It is Nibiru, the Death Planet, the blue star Kachina of Hopi prophesy, and it's coming to a solar object near us in 2012 - except that it isn't.

This so-called "theory" has been going around the web for a while now, but it only got my attention a few days ago. Thanks to a troll in the comments section on one of my favorite websites, I got the instructions for how to find Nibiru.

If you go to google.com/sky, type in "mercury," you get this:

mercury 2

Not much there, but then click on the infrared view:

nibiru-mercury

It is Nibiru, the Death Planet, the blue star Kachina of Hopi prophesy, except that it isn't. I think a little background info might be in order.

There is a good, if lengthy synopsis about it all on wikipedia's "Nemesis collision" page. There are two pertinent sets of facts.

In the 1980's, archaeologists looking through the fossil record noticed that "mass extinction events" seem to happen about every 26 million years. The good news is that the last one happened only 5 million years ago, so we're OK for the next 21 million.

The regularity of these events, however, got astronomers wondering if there wasn't something on a 26 million year orbit that caused them. A variety of proposals were put forward, and the hypothetical mystery object was soon dubbed "Nemesis." They haven't found anything yet, but they're still looking.

Not to let a good Doomsday scenario go to waste, some of the more fanciful among us began getting their own idea's. One of these is Nancy Lieder, who after claiming to have been abducted by aliens from Zeta Reticuli, has also been in contact with them ever since.

Now, most people might stop right here. But, not me. Oh no. I soldiered on. And I'm glad I did, because it gets better.

In the late 1990's, Ms Lieder claims she was told by the "Zeta's" that the astronomers were wrong. A large space object would crash into the Earth in 2003 and wipe out everything. The best part about it is, the Zeta's called this object "Planet X." Needless to say, 2003 came and went with no Planet X forthcoming. Apparently, the Zeta's are not only uncharacteristically droll at naming things, they're not very good at math either.

Not to worry. The Zeta's quickly regrouped and came up with a sexy new name and a new date. It was called "Nibiru", from the Babylonian word meaning crossing, and it would hit just in time for the end of the Mayan calender in 2012. What luck!

If you google "blue star kachina," you'll find all manner of doomsday stories. What you won't find are any Hopi's. If you google "Hopi," you'll find a few jewelry stores and the tribal government website. There's no blue star Kachina stories, but there is an interesting statement in Hopi Tribal Chairman LeRoy N. Shingoitewa’s “State of the Tribe” Address, where he takes a swipe at the EPA for trying to shut down the tribes coal fired power station. How times change.

"OK," you may be asking, "if the big blue thing isn't Nibiru, the Death Planet, the blue star Kachina of Hopi prophesy, then what is it?"

It's a little tricky because Google sky won't let you zoom in while in the infrared mode. You can only zoom in while in the visible light mode. But, by using the bright objects in both pictures for reference, you can zoom in to where it should be. You can see that there are stars and even galaxies. These would have to be in front of the object, otherwise you wouldn't see them.

galaxies

Either it's the largest object in the universe and very far away, or it's just a lens flare, like what you get by pointing a camera into the sun. Infrared camera's have multiple lenses too.

I have a little theory of my own about these things. I think native people get a kick out of scaring gullible white people. It's probably racist to think so, but let's face it, it's not as if they owe us any favors.

Somewhere, high on a mesa, there is a group of natives sitting on blankets around a small fire, peering into their laptops and having a good laugh. Oh, the humanity.

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