I: "AS INTERPRETED BY ME" Zecharia Sitchin
says that he first realized aliens colonized earth when he discovered
that the mythology of the Sumerian people spoke of
real places and real things. For him the
moment of discovery arrived when he came to a stunning conclusion about
our familiar
solar system. In a July 1993
interview, he told
Connecting Link Magazine that the Sumerians knew there were not only nine planets:
"Once
I realized
that this was the answer, that there is one
more planet, everything else fell into place. The meaning of the
Mesopotamian
Epic of Creation on which the first
chapters of Genesis are based and all details traveled from their planet
to Earth
and how they splashed down in the Persian
Gulf and about their first settlement, their leaders and so on and so
on, everything
became clear!"
The Russian-born
Sitchin does not seem at first glance like one of the leading forces in
the ancient
astronaut debate. He looks like a kindly old
man with thinning gray hair and thickening glasses poised above a gently
moustached
mouth. He is the author of eight works on the
influence of ancient astronauts on the emerging human race, starting
with the
1976 best-seller
The Twelfth Planet.
He grew up in Palestine where he says he learned Hebrew, Semitic and
European
languages before attending college at the
University of London, where he graduated with a degree in economic
history. He worked
as a journalist in Israel for many years
before moving to New York City.
Sitchin skeptic Ian Lawton gives an overview
of Sitchin's theories on his
website:
"Not
only does he suggest that a race of 'flesh and blood' gods who were
capable of space flight visited Earth from
their home planet, which the Ancients called
'Nibiru', nearly half a million years ago. He goes on to speculate that
they
came in order to mine precious minerals which
were abundant on our planet; that they created modern Homo sapiens by
genetic
engineering, mixing their own genes with
those of the primitive hominids they encountered ('in their own image');
that they
did this in order to create a slave race to
take over the mining and refining work; and that they lived for
sometimes thousands
of years, were capable of good, evil,
compassion and brutality, and warred with each other and their human
offspring."
Sitchin
described for
Connecting Link what
led him to these remarkable conclusions: "My starting point was, going
backto
my childhood and schooldays, the puzzle of
who were the Nefilim, that are mentioned in Genesis, Chapter six, as the
sons of
the gods who married the daughters of Man in
the days before the great flood, the Deluge."
Sitchin translated
Nefilim
as "those who from heaven to earth came."
(Standard translations have it as "fallen ones."), a meaning he says is
identical
with that of the Biblical Anunnaki. For him,
his "discovery" that the Nefilim (also spelled Nephilim and translated
in the
King James Bible as "giants") were synonymous
with the fifty mysterious gods of fate in Sumerian mythology, the
Anunnaki,
led him to a startling conclusion. The
Anunnaki are extraterrestrials:
"Ever since the publication of my first book
(
The 12th Planet) in 1976 I have
asserted that Sumerian and other ancient Near Eastern texts and
depictions showed
familiarity with a complete Solar System that
included, beside the Sun and the Moon, ten (not nine) planets -- the
3,600 years.
Its Sumerian name was Nibiru."
Sitchin told
Connecting Link that this planet is the key to solving the mystery
of the Anunnaki:
"If Nibiru exists, (and this is the planet that astronomers nowadays call planet X) then the Anunnaki
exist."
Sitchin wrote and article for
his website in May 2001 claiming that this mysterious planet has been
located
by astronomers. He cites an "alternative
theory" proposed to explain the oddly eccentric orbit of a comet named
2000 CR/105.
While one theory has it that Neptune
exaggerated the comet's orbit, the alternative theory says that a
Mars-sized planet could
possibly affected the comet's orbit.
Science
magazine said "A Supercomet following an unexpectedly far-flung path
around the sun suggests that an unidentified planet
once lurked in the outermost reaches of the
solar system, an international team of astronomers reports. What's more,
the mysterious
object may still be there."
Sitchin believes this closes the
case on his ancient Anunnaki astronauts. However, even if this planet
does exist,
it is a vast leap of logic to assume that it
is the home of alien builder-gods. Sitchin may believe that if Nibiru
exists
the Anunnaki must, but there is as yet no
evidence that one leads to the other. In fact, Sitchin's theory is
vastly more ambitious
than merely adding one more planet to the
solar system's roster. On his website he says:
"According to the
ancient
texts as interpreted by me, Nibiru was a
planet ejected from some other planetary system in outer space that was
captured
into our Solar System as it passed near
Neptune. It became involved in a collision with a pre-existing planet
where the debris
of the Asteroid Belt are now. As a result of
that collision, some 4 billion years ago, the Earth and the Moon came to
be where
they are now."
Of course, the main condition to accepting this theory is that Sitchin has a special expertise in interpreting
ancient texts. Others are not quite ready to give him so much credit. Robert Todd Carroll's
Skeptic's Dictionary explains Sitchin's position:
"Sitchin's
claim to fame is announcing that he alone correctly reads ancient
Sumerian
clay tablets. All other scholars have misread
these tablets which, according to Sitchin, reveal that gods from
another planet
(Niburu, which orbits our Sun every 3,600
years) arrived on Earth some 450,000 years ago and created humans by
some genetic
engineering with female apes."
Ian
Lawton talked to a Sumerian linguist (who requested anonymity to avoid
the onslaught
of hate-mail from ancient astronaut
believers). The linguist confirms Sitchin's "special" understanding of
Sumerian is not
that special:
"[Sitchin] demonstrates
a consistent lack of appreciation of even some of the most basic
fundamentals
of Sumerian and Akkadian grammar, even to the
extent of regularly failing to distinguish between the two entirely
different
languages, and mixing words from each in
interpreting the syllables of longer compound words." This mixing of
languages allows
Sitchin to make amazing "discoveries."
Carroll
is not impressed with Sitchin's scholarship, sarcastically adding,
"Sitchin stands alone, on nobody's shoulders,
as a scholar nonpareil... He alone knows how to correctly translate
ancient
terms allowing him to discover such things as
that the ancients made rockets."
Carroll says Sitchin's dubious
translations
are used to decieve: "Like [Erich] von
Däniken and [Immanuel] Velikovsky, Sitchin weaves a compelling and
entertaining story
out of facts, misrepresentations, fictions,
speculations, misquotes and mistranslations."
So where did Sitchin go
wrong?
II: "DUBIOUS AND SUBJECTIVE" Rob Hafernik is one of Sitchin's most vocal critics. An aerospace engineer, Hafernik worked for NASA and knows all about orbital dynamics
and the workings of the universe and rockets. He said he found a problem right from the beginning of
Twelfth Planet:
"Instead of quoting standard
translations for Biblical verses, Sitchin makes up his own translations,
based on his
interpretation of 'the parallel Sumerian and
Akkadian texts/tales'. Unfortunately, he is using those verses to
support his
interpretation of those texts."
In
other words, his own translation is used to prove his "discoveries"
about the texts
themselves. He could make them say whatever
he wanted. Hafernik says bluntly, "Right away, we're in deep academic
doo-doo.
[Sitchin]'s let us know he's going to twist
the translations around to support his thesis." Sitchin uses his own
translation
to prove his pre-supposed conclusion. He made
the evidence fit the theory, something he and other alternative authors
are
quick to criticize in mainstream science,
especially evolutionary biology.
Sitchin also makes sweeping
statements
about the technological development of the
Sumerians based on a few subjectively interpreted drawings. Hafernik
says, "He
goes too far, however, when he claims that
one of the Sumerian tablets 'shows, without question, a man lying on a
special
bed; his face protected by a mask, and he is
being subjected to some kind of radiation.'"
Ian Lawton agrees:
"To use
the words without question is, without
question, exaggerating a highly dubious and subjective interpretation.
This is also
a prime example, of which there are many, of
the complete lack of any reference as to the location and source of the
original
seal."
Hafernik says there is very
little chance that anyone could challenge this interpretation, not
because it is
right but because there is no way of tracking
down the source for the hand-drawn copy of the Sumerian tablet: "We
have no
way to know what the original tablet actually
showed. We have no reference or citation so we can go look up the
tablet. Yet,
we have a totally wild claim based solely on
this reproduction."
In another section of the book, Hafernik says Sitchin
directly copied a table showing the development of language from a S. N. Kramer's
The Sumerians (1971):
"Since
the table contains hand-written symbols, it's
easy to compare the strokes, relative weights of lines, and so on and
come to
the conclusion that the table has been
photocopied somehow, not merely reproduced by hand. Even more
interesting, the labels
of the table have been changed" to obscure
the clear evolution of writing and support Sitchin's theory of
extraterrestrial
teachers.
On page 163 of
The Twelfth Planet, Sitchen presents a hand-drawn picture, without citation, of
a presumably Sumerian cylinder with wings topped by a bird, of which he asked:
"What
or who was the Eagle who took
Etana to the distant heavens? We cannot help
but associate the ancient text with the message beamed to earth in July
1969
by Neil Armstrong, commander of the Apollo 11
spacecraft: Houston! Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed." As
Rob Hafernik
points out, this argument is pointless. But
why should Sitchin have a rocket-fetish? After all, advanced
civilizations should
logically have moved beyond the need for
fuel-inefficient rockets. However when
Twelfth Planet was written, rockets
were state of the art.
But all the
rockets landing in ancient Sumer apparently did not impress the jaded
residents
of that civilization. Citing standard works
on Sumer, Hafernik says there is no record of these visitations:
"Here
we are at the heart of the matter. These
Sumerians, direct descendants of the gods from the skies, privy to the
creation of
the solar system, eye witnesses to rockets
coming and going, didn't record enough astronomical observations that
even a single
tablet (out of many tens of thousands) has
made it to the present day."
Sitchin argues the reverse,
claiming that
his special and unique ability to understand
and decipher Sumerian texts proves the visitation of the Anunnaki.
Remember,
Sitchin claims to be the
only person in the world capable
of accurately translating the texts. Sitchin says his Sumerian
comprehension led him to Akkadian Seal VA243,
which he claims shows an accurate view of the universe through the use
of small
dots to represent the planets. Unfortunately,
the size of the dots does not correlate to the size of the planets.
William Saylor
supports Sitchin's theories, and on his website claims that the seal
accurately shows the universe by relating the size of
the small bumps to the logarithm of each
planet's orbit, thereby correcting the mismatch between planet size and
the size
of the carved image. Unfortunately, there are
problems with this theory.
Saylor bases his theory on a drawing
from
Sitchin's Twelfth Planet that claims to
reproduce the Akkadian original. Sitchin's hand drawing changes the size
and location
of the seal's original configuration. Ian
Lawton argues that these drawings make for bad evidence:
"[M]uch
of his
pictorial evidence, based on carvings and
reliefs on tablets and stelae, is in the form of hand-copied drawings;
this is fine
if they are properly referenced to the
original piece in a museum collection, but often they are not. This
makes them ...
exasperating to trace when attempting to
ensure they can be relied on as accurate representations of the
original."
Hafernik
says that even Sitchin's re-drawing has many problems if we follow Sitchin's interpretation:
"You
have to really study
these pictures to see what a laugh this is.
First of all, Mercury comes AFTER Venus (assuming it's the smaller one)
or is
shown in the position of being a moon of
Venus. Next Mercury is only a third the diameter of Venus or Earth, but
it's shown
a lot bigger (about three-fourths their
size). Next, the Moon should be a dot on this scale, but it's shown
pretty good size.
Looking at the picture (rather than his
drawing) Mars looks exactly the same size as Earth. Jupiter and Saturn
are in reality
three times the size of Uranus and Neptune,
but drawn less than twice as big. Pluto is shown about the same size as
the Earth,
even though it's only a tiny bit bigger than
the Moon (about a seventh the size of the Earth)."
There are mathematical
problems with Saylor's attempt to salvage Sitchin with talk of logarithms.
First
one must decide what units of measurement
one is using. The logarithm of one inch is
not the same as the logarithm of its metric equivalent, 2.5 cm.
Secondly, what
units do the logarithms express the orbs
diameters in? Miles, millimeters, furlongs? Obviously, the problem with
the thesis
that planetary logarithms represent orbs is
that using different units of measurement, one gets a different result.
Consequently,
a planet of 1 inch has a logarithm of 0
inches. An orb of 2.5 cm has a logarithm of .39794 cm. Something doesn't
add up with
this theory.
Let's take a
hypothetical planet of 143,000 km. This produces an orb, by your method,
with a diameter
of 5.155 of whatever unit you measured orbs
in. However, that planet's measurement taken in miles (85,800 mi)
produces an
orb of 4.933 of this unit. Consequently,
since you cannot postulate that the ancients knew of the metric system
(their systems
were close, but no cigar - Akkadians used a
base 60) the logarithmic correlation is false numerology.
Besides,
the
only evidence for Saylor assuming which
planets correlate to which orbs is Sitchin, and his drawing is "not to
scale." Consequently,
measurements taken from it are suspect.
Lastly, Saylor concludes that the Akkadians "[k]new the precise
diameters of the Sun,
nine major planets, Titan and the Moon." Yet
he also says that the sun is not accurately portrayed and claim that as
evidence
that the Sumerians knew what they were doing,
since they "purposely" got it wrong!
So, the short answer is
that different
units provide different logarithmic
correlations. Since the modern metric system was devised by the French
in the 1790s, it
cannot be considered correct to apply it to a
"not to scale" drawing of miniscule orbs on an ancient seal.
Furthermore:
the seal was on a curved surface, a cylinder,
so the drawing had to be "corrected" for cylindrical trigonometry to
yeild your
figures. Otherwise the distortion of the
cylinder would have to be accounted for in Sitchin's and Saylor's
figures.
Saylor
answered these problems by using the diameter
of Jupiter as the base unit of measurement and then relating all the
other planetary
sizes to Jupiter to make the data independent
of the unit of measurement.
Still, the Akkadians would not have
used
logarithms, since a log function is
predicated on a base 10 relationship, and ancient Akkadian mathematics
is based on a base
60. Furthermore, the larger point that these
measurements are only valid if made from the original, not a "not to
scale" drawing,
stands. Also, there is no other evidence
linking any orb to a specific planet; nor is there a reason the Moon or
Titan should
be depicted over Europa or Io or any other
body floating around the sun. Plus, you can't claim they knew the
diameter of the
sun if Saylor's evidence is that they
"purposely" did not show it correctly. That's faulty logic.
Yet
at least Saylor
attempted to provide some substantative basis
for Sitchin's wild claims. Briefly given, Sitchin's cosmology runs
something
like this:
Once upon a time the
mysterious planet Nibiru was the home of a race of alien super-creatures
who descended
to Earth and created the human race as slaves
to mine for them the precious metals that they so desired. These aliens
were
remembered as the physical inspiration for
the gods of ancient times, so Sitchin names them accordingly: Marduk,
Enlil, Enki,
Osiris, Seth, etc. Their home planet travels
on an orbit so eccentric that it comes by earth only ever 3600 years or
so. The
mythological entities lived literal lives on
earth, and the descendants of Enki warred with those of Enlil. As Ian
Lawton
says in his refutation of Sitchin:
"He
further suggests that originally the first-born son Enki colonised the
Earth,
but that his command was subsequently usurped
by Enlil - the latter being superior by virtue of having been sired by
An's
half-sister, and thus of purer genetic stock.
According to Sitchin this lead to great animosity between the two
brothers,
spawning an inter-clan rivalry which
continued through successive generations and shaped many of the events
of the Earth's
formative years."
Based solely on his
"special" understanding of Sumerian mythology, Sitchin claimed that
Enlil led
the Annunaki space aliens. Lawton says
Sitchin's special knowledge, which includes a unique reconstruction of
the Sumerian
pantheon to bring it in line with numerology,
is wrong:
"[W]e can now see that if his detailed
reconstructions are
heavily dependent on knowing to which 'clan'
any particular deity belonged, and that his 'allocations' are littered
with assumptions
and inconsistencies, then the entire edifice
of his highly detailed reconstructions comes tumbling down."
III: "THE FACTS AS I SEE THEM" Sitchin wrote seven other books after
Twelfth Planet,
each building upon the theory he first laid
down in 1976. Over the twenty-five years between then and today, Sitchin
has claimed
that the Anunnaki genetically engineered
humanity, that the space invaders tried to destroy humanity in a flood,
and that
someday the aliens will return and bring a
Biblical-style judgment on mankind.
His books have become best-sellers
wherever they are published and in whatever language. Today, the
Google search engine finds over 7,500 websites devoted to Sitchin and his theories. Sitchin confessed to
Connecting Link
that he is more popular than ever:
"There
are two dozen or more books that are based on my books. These are in
theology,
astrology, and so on and so forth, and I am
sure there are many more about which I don't know. They refer to my
writings or
are based on them. I provide the facts as I
see them, and everyone is free to interpret them as they wish."
One
of
Sitchin's "facts" concerned the quarry marks
that showed Khufu built the Great Pyramid. Sitchin claimed years ago
they were
fake to bolster his theory that space aliens
built the Giza pyramids as beacons for their rocket-ships (see
Who Built the Pyramids?), and many people believed him without question. Today, almost no one takes this seriously (including former believer
Graham Hancock of
Fingerprints of the Gods fame), but the public at large still believes. These, then, are the "facts" as Sitchin
saw them.
For Sitchin's critics, their greatest concern is that many people are unable to separate fact from fiction
and eagerly consume Sitchin's work as gospel truth. Ian Lawton:
"Over the last quarter of a century, Sitchin's books
have made a considerable worldwide impact, and have persuaded a great many people that the 'gods'
were
flesh
and blood visitors from elsewhere. This idea
has become extended by many into the belief that they will return to
'save' the
human race. I believe this is a fundamentally
dangerous proposition."
Witness the Heaven's Gate cult, a group
that
committed mass suicide in 1998 to meet up
with the "gods" from outer space who were supposed to return in a UFO
flying behind
the comet Hale-Bopp. Other groups, like the
Raelian Revolution, have embraced Sitchin's work and used it as a basis
for their
own UFO cosmology and even as a justification
for human cloning. After all, if the Anunnaki made man in their image,
they
ask why man should not do the same with
clones.
Aerospace engineer Rob Hafernik sums up Sitchin:
"Clearly,
Sitchin is a smart man. He weaves a
complicated tale from the bits and pieces of evidence that survive from
ancient Sumeria
to the present day. Just as clearly, Sitchin
is capable of academic transgressions (fracturing quotes, ignoring
dissenting
facts), theft of intellectual property (those
tables he copied) and flights of intellectual fancy (the whole book,
really).
Worst of all, he is almost utterly innocent
of astronomy and other assorted fields of modern science... In the end,
he's just
another nut making a living selling books
that treat folks to a tale they want to believe in."
REFERENCESCaroll,
Robert Todd. "Zecharia Sitchin."
The Skeptic's Dictionary.
http://skepdic.com/sitchin.html. 2000 (updated April 26, 2001).
Hafernik, Rob. "Sitchin's
Twelfth Planet."
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/8148/hafernik.html. May 1996.
"Interview with Zecharia Sitchin."
Connecting Link. Issue 17. July 1993.
Lawton, Ian. "A
Refutation of the Theories of Zecharia Sitchin."
http://www.ianlawton.com. May 1, 2000.
Saylor, William. "Akkadian Seal."
http://members.tripod.com/wlsaylor/akkadian_seal.htm. 2000-2001.
Sitchin, Zecharia.
The 12th Planet. Avon Publishers: 1976.
