Super Earth Planet Space HD40307J. Pinfield, for the RoPACS network at the University of Hertfordshire

The world is supposed to end tomorrow.

That's according to some people who say the Mayans predicted some things that other people say they didn't predict.

It's already "tomorrow" in New Zealand, and the world hasn't ended, but some people point out that the Mayans were on Central time not New Zealand time, so we're going to have to stay on alert for another day or so.

By the way, the folks who think the world is about to end have different theories about how it is going to end.

As we explained here, there are basically four theories:

  • We will get sucked into a black hole
  • The sun will pass through a "galactic plane" that will cause everything to go haywire
  • Solar flares will reverse the poles and fry us
  • We will smash into a planet called Nibiru

Of these theories, the last one is the most curious.

A planet called Nibiru?

What's up with that?

Well, it turns out there's a whole Wikipedia entry devoted to Nibiru, which is also sometimes called "Planet X."

Basically, in 1995, a Wisconsin woman named Nancy Lieder was contacted by gray extra-terrestrials called Zetas through an implant in her brain. Lieder was chosen to warn everyone that a "large planetary object" would pass by Earth in 2003 and destroy civilization. She warned everyone. Later, when the planet didn't appear, the date was changed.

Below is the collective wisdom of many experts about this particular Armageddon theory...


Nibiru cataclysm


The idea was first put forward in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk. Lieder describes herself as a contactee with the ability to receive messages from extra-terrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system through an implant in her brain. She states that she was chosen to warn mankind that the object would sweep through the inner Solar System in May 2003 (though that date was later abandoned) causing Earth to undergo a pole shift that would destroy most of humanity. The prediction has subsequently spread beyond Lieder's website and has been embraced by numerous Internet doomsday groups, most of which link the event to the 2012 phenomenon. Although the name "Nibiru" is derived from the works of the late ancient astronaut writer Zecharia Sitchin and his interpretations of Babylonian and Sumerian mythology, Sitchin denied any connection between his work and various claims of a coming apocalypse.




The idea of the Nibiru encounter originated with Nancy Lieder, a Wisconsin woman who claims that as a girl she was contacted by gray extraterrestrials called Zetas, who implanted a communications device in her brain. In 1995, she founded the website ZetaTalk to disseminate her ideas.[2] Lieder first came to public attention on Internet newsgroups during the build-up to Comet Hale–Bopp's 1997 perihelion. She stated, speaking as the Zetas, that "The Hale-Bopp comet does not exist. It is a fraud, perpetrated by those who would have the teeming masses quiescent until it is too late. Hale-Bopp is nothing more than a distant star, and will draw no closer."[3] She claimed that the Hale-Bopp story was manufactured to distract people from the imminent arrival of a large planetary object, "Planet X", which would soon pass by Earth and destroy civilization.[3] After Hale-Bopp's perihelion revealed it as one of the brightest and longest-observed comets of the last century,[4] Lieder removed the first two sentences of her initial statement from her site, though they can still be found in Google's archives.[3] Her claims eventually made the New York Times.[5]



Roughly a week before the supposed arrival of Planet X, Lieder appeared on KROQ-FM radio in Los Angeles, and advised listeners to put their pets down in anticipation of the event. When asked if she had done so, she replied that she had, and that "The puppies are in a happy place." She also advised that "A dog makes a good meal".[9] After the 2003 date passed without incident, Lieder said that it was merely a "White Lie ... to fool the establishment,"[10] and said that to disclose the true date would give those in power enough time to declare martial law and trap people in cities during the shift, leading to their deaths.[11]

Many Internet sites continue to proclaim that Lieder's object is en route to Earth, often citing its arrival date as December, 2012. This date has gathered many apocalyptic associations, as it is the end of the current cycle (baktun) in the long count in the Mayan calendar. Several writers have published books connecting the encounter with 2012.[12]

Zecharia Sitchin and Sumer

Although Lieder originally referred to the object as "Planet X", it has become deeply associated with Nibiru, a planet from the works of ancient astronaut proponent Zecharia Sitchin, particularly his book The 12th Planet. According to Sitchin's interpretation of Babylonian religious texts, which contradicts conclusions reached by credited scholars on the subject,[13][14] a giant planet (called Nibiru or Marduk) passes by Earth every 3,600 years and allows its sentient inhabitants to interact with humanity. These beings, which Sitchin identified with the Annunaki of Sumerian myth, would become humanity's first gods.[15] Lieder first made the connection between Nibiru and her Planet X on her site in 1996 ("Planet X does exist, and it is the 12th Planet, one and the same.").[16]


Scientific rejection

Astronomers reject the idea of Nibiru, and have made efforts to inform the public that there is no threat to Earth in 2012.[19] They point out that such an object so close to Earth would be easily visible to the naked eye, as Jupiter and Saturn are both visible to the naked eye, and are dimmer than Nibiru would be at their distances. A planet such as Nibiru would create noticeable effects in the orbits of the outer planets.[20] Some counter this by claiming that the object has been concealed behind the Sun for several years, though this would be geometrically impossible.[12] Amateur photographs supposedly showing Nibiru near the Sun are usually the result of lens flares, false images of the Sun created by reflections within the lens.[21]



Conspiracy theories

Many believers in the imminent approach of Planet X/Nibiru accuse NASA of deliberately covering up visual evidence of its existence.[25] One such accusation involves the IRAS infrared space observatory, launched in 1983. The satellite briefly made headlines due to an "unknown object" that was at first described as "possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this Solar System".[26] This newspaper article has been cited by proponents of the Nibiru cataclysm, beginning with Lieder herself, as evidence for the existence of Nibiru.[27] However, further analysis revealed that of several initially unidentified objects, nine were distant galaxies and the tenth was "intergalactic cirrus"; none were found to be Solar System bodies.[28]

Another accusation frequently made by websites predicting the collision is that the U.S. government built the South Pole Telescope (SPT) to track Nibiru's trajectory, and that the object has been imaged optically.[29] However, the SPT (which is not funded by NASA) is a radio telescope, and cannot take optical images. Its South Pole location was chosen due to the low-humidity environment, and there is no way an approaching object could be seen only from the South Pole.[30] The "picture" of Nibiru posted on YouTube was revealed, in fact, to be a Hubble image of the expanding light echo around the star V838 Mon.[29]




Planet X

Lieder drew the name Planet X from the hypothetical planet once searched for by astronomers to account for discrepancies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.[16] In 1894, Bostonian astronomer Percival Lowell became convinced that the planets Uranus and Neptune had slight discrepancies in their orbits. He concluded that they were being tugged by the gravity of another, more distant planet, which he called "Planet X".[33] However, nearly a century of searching failed to turn up any evidence for such an object (Pluto was initially believed to be Planet X, but was later determined to be too small).[34] In 1992, astronomer Myles Standish showed that the supposed discrepancies in the planets' orbits were illusory; the product of an overestimation of the mass of Neptune.[35] Today astronomers accept that Planet X does not exist.[36]


In 1999, New Age author V. M. Rabolu wrote in Hercolubus or Red Planet that Barnard's star is actually a planet known to the ancients as Hercolubus, which purportedly came dangerously close to Earth in the past, destroying Atlantis, and will come close to Earth again.[37] Lieder subsequently used Rabolu's ideas to bolster her claims.[38]

Barnard's star has been directly measured to be 5.98 ± 0.003 light years from Earth (35.15 trillion miles).[39] While it is approaching Earth, Barnard's Star will not make its closest approach to the Sun until around 11,700 AD, when it will approach to within some 3.8 light-years.[40] This is only slightly closer than the closest star to the Sun (Proxima Centauri) lies today.



Sedna or Eris

Still others confuse Nibiru with Sedna or Eris, trans-Neptunian objects discovered by Mike Brown in 2003 and 2005 respectively.[43][44] However, despite having been described as a "tenth planet" in an early NASA press release,[45] Eris (provisional designation: 2003 UB313) is now classified as a dwarf planet. Only slightly more massive than Pluto,[46] Eris has a well-determined orbit that never takes it closer than 5.5 billion km from the Earth.[47] Sedna is slightly smaller than Pluto,[48] and never comes closer to Earth than 11.4 billion km.[49] Mike Brown believes the confusion results from both the real Eris and the imaginary Nibiru having extremely elliptical orbits.[43]


Others have tied it to Tyche;[50] the name proposed by John Matese and Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for an object they believe to be influencing the orbits of comets in the Oort cloud.[51] The name, after the "good sister" of the Greek goddess Nemesis, was chosen to distinguish it from the similar Nemesis hypothesis as, unlike Nemesis (or Nibiru), Matese and Whitmire do not believe that their object poses a threat to Earth.[52] Also, this object, if it exists, would, like Nemesis, have an orbit hundreds of times longer than that proposed for Nibiru, and never come near the inner Solar System.[50]

Comet Elenin

Some have also associated Nibiru with Comet Elenin,[53] a long-period comet discovered by Russian astronomer Leonid Elenin on December 10, 2010.[54] On October 16, 2011, Elenin made its closest approach to the Earth at a distance of 0.2338 AU (34,980,000 km; 21,730,000 mi),[55][56] which is slightly closer than the planet Venus.[57] Nevertheless, in the leadup to its closest approach, claims spread on conspiracy websites concluded that it was on a collision course, that it was as large as Jupiter or even a brown dwarf, and even that the name of the discoverer, Leonid Elenin, was in fact code for ELE, or an Extinction Level Event.[53]

Although the sizes of comets are difficult to determine without close observation, Comet Elenin is likely to be less than 10 km in diameter.[58] Elenin himself estimates that the comet nucleus is roughly 3–4 km in diameter.[59] This would make it millions of times smaller than the supposed Nibiru. Comet hysteria is not uncommon.[60] Attempts have been made to correlate Elenin's alignments with the 2011 Japan earthquake, the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, and 2010 Chile earthquake; however, even discounting Elenin's tiny size, earthquakes are driven by forces within the earth, and cannot be triggered by the passage of nearby objects.[61] In 2011, Leonid Elenin ran a simulation on his blog in which he increased the mass of the comet to that of a brown dwarf (0.05 solar masses). He demonstrated that its gravity would have caused noticeable changes in the orbit of Saturn years before its arrival in the inner Solar System.[62]

In August, 2011, Comet Elenin began to disintegrate,[63][64] and by the time of its closest approach in October 2011 the comet was undetected even by large, ground-based telescopes.[65]

Public reaction

The impact of the public fear of the Nibiru cataclysm has been especially felt by professional astronomers. Mike Brown now says that Nibiru is the most common pseudoscientific topic he is asked about.[22]

David Morrison, director of SETI, CSI Fellow and Senior Scientist at NASA's Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center, says he receives 20 to 25 emails a week about the impending arrival of Nibiru: some frightened, others angry and naming him as part of the conspiracy to keep the truth of the impending apocalypse from the public, and still others asking whether or not they should kill themselves, their children or their pets.[25][66] Half of these emails are from outside the U.S.[12] "Planetary scientists are being driven to distraction by Nibiru," notes science writer Govert Schilling, "And it is not surprising; you devote so much time, energy and creativity to fascinating scientific research, and find yourself on the tracks of the most amazing and interesting things, and all the public at large is concerned about is some crackpot theory about clay tablets, god-astronauts and a planet that doesn't exist."[1] Morrison states that he hopes that the non-arrival of Nibiru could serve as a teaching moment for the public, instructing them on "rational thought and baloney detection", but doubts that will happen.[25]

Morrison noted in a lecture recorded on that there was a huge disconnect between the large number of people on the Internet who believed in Nibiru's arrival in 2012 and the majority of scientists who have never heard of it. To date he is the only major NASA scientist to speak out regularly against the Nibiru phenomenon.[66]

Cultural influence

A viral marketing campaign for Sony Pictures' 2009 film 2012, directed by Roland Emmerich, which depicts the end of the world in that year, featured a supposed warning from the "Institute for Human Continuity" that listed the arrival of Planet X as one of its doomsday scenarios.[67] Mike Brown attributes a spike in concerned emails and phone calls he has received from the public to this site.[43]

Lars von Trier's 2011 film Melancholia features a plot in which a planet emerges from behind the Sun onto a collision course with Earth.[68] Announcing his company's purchase of the film, the head of Magnolia Pictures said in a press release, "As the 2012 apocalypse is upon us, it is time to prepare for a cinematic last supper."[69]