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Zecharia Sitchin
The fault in our stars Pseudoastronomy |
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Zecharia Sitchin (Azerbaijani: Zaxariya Sitçin) (1920–2010) was an economist and crank who believed in a "twelfth planet" called Nibiru that created all life on Earth. It is apparently a "yo-yo" planet that only shows up "every 3000 plus years", or something. It is also responsible for the asteroid belt.
Influences[edit]
He basically spliced together Immanuel Velikovsky's catastrophism with Peter Kolosimo and Erich von Däniken's ancient astronauts,[1] using as a glue his own contribution to the mix — the long-period planet Nibiru and its inhabitants, the Anunnaki.
Sumerian language[edit]
All of this is supposedly found in a prophecy written by the ancient Sumerians and confirmed in the Old Testament.
Sitchin had a distinct advantage here. His translations of ancient Sumerian works are often "idiosyncratic", and not much like anybody else's. Only a few dozen academics in the world today are competent in Sumerian, so not many people could actually call him out properly on his nonsense.[note 1]
Other beliefs[edit]
He also believed that a missile from Mars' moon Phobos shot down a Soviet probe.[2]
Somehow, he was convinced that he was moments away from being recognized as the most important scientist of all time.
Partial bibliography[edit]
- The 12th Planet, 1976, ISBN 0-8128-1939-X
- The Stairway to Heaven, 1980, ISBN 0-312-75505-8
- The Wars of Gods and Men, 1985, ISBN 0-380-89585-4
- The Lost Realms, 1990, ISBN 0-380-75890-3
- When Time Began, 1993, ISBN 0-380-77071-7
- The Cosmic Code, 1998, ISBN 0-380-80157-4
- The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-123823-9
See also[edit]
External links[edit]
- Official website
- Sitchin Is Wrong.com, written by a professional scholar of ancient Near East languages and cultures
- "Sitchin's Twelfth Planet", by Rob Hafernik
- "Forging the Pharoah's name?", by Martin Stower
- Sitchin's Sumerian Astronomy Refuted
- A Refutation of the Theories of Zecharia Sitchin, by Ian Lawton
- Position Papers
- An astronomer's analysis of the Akkadian Seal
- The Pyramid Mystery
- Zecharia Sitchin's entry at the Skeptic's Dictionary
- Nibiru at Cosmophobia
- Hypothetical Planets
- A collection of Sitchin's ramblings, including pirated versions of several of his kookbooks
Notes[edit]
- ↑ Far fewer than Classical Hebrew, Sanskrit or even Ancient Egyptian.
References[edit]
- ↑ Velikovsky's Worlds in Colision came out in 1950, Kolosimo's Timeless Earth in 1964, von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods in 1968, and Sitchin's The 12th Planet in 1976.
- ↑ "The Rush Back to Phobos"