Nibiru - the argument against

he purpose of this site is to provide a balanced view of the variety of Earth Change theories. This excellent article was originally put in as a Guestbook entry:

You have some flaws in your Planet X 'theory':

1. Electromagnetic forces can be safely ignored at long distances because they are a medium-range force. Gravitation is a long-range force (acts over much greater distances) and at long distances all other fundamental forces can be ignored without losing any accuracy. Incidentally, although it is the only fundamental force whose effects acts over long distances, gravitation is the weakest of the these forces.

2. You have a common misconception about Doppler effect. A difference in velocity of a light-emitting object would not cause it to go red or blue. Yes, it would shift its spectrum to the blue or red regions but when this happens the invisible radiation at the other end of the spectrum would become visible, keeping the colour balance in a way that it would be impossible for the human eye to realise the object is getting blue/red. The Doppler effect can only be seen with the aid of a spectrometer, never with the naked eye.

3. Hopis, Greeks, Sumerians, etc. could well have been describing other phenomena, such as supernovae. Have you allowed for this or are you ignoring the obvious because it doesn't fit your model? If some numbers like 3600 have a special meaning in some cultures and even special names, did you investigate if other numbers are also special and why? For example, Graham
Hancock (a prolific and mind-provoking author and researcher of ancient civilizations) gives an example of unknown ancient underwater ruins off the south coast of Japan at just about the latitude of the tropic of cancer and, if I remember well, he uses this as a proof that very ancient people could well have known how to calculate the latitude with such a remarkable precision. Well, my question is, how about the other 100-odd over 3000 year old under water sites? Are they ALL in the tropic of cancer? Do they all have a meaning? If so, what is their meaning?

4. Cataclysmic events don't need Planet X to happen. There are larger than life volcanoes (called calderas) that can cause massive destruction in very wide areas. Take Krakatoa, or the one in Yellowstone National Park in the US. Or the recently discovered one in the Canary Islands that, so it's being argued, could erupt sending a gigantic wall of earth into the ocean creating a huge wave that would drown the entire US eastern seaboard. Surely we don't need Planet X to account for the destruction whose potential is right here on Earth?

5. The push force exerted by the sun (on account of its magnetic radiation) isn't strong enough compared to the gravitational pull force. If it was, the Earth would be long gone from our orbit around it. Over this distance, the sun has a strong gravitational pull. Period.

6. Earthquakes are due to the fact that the Earth's crust is made of huge, moving plates, called tectonic plates. These have been moving at very much the same rate for millions of years (a few cms a year) - as can be measured in the rifts at the depths of the oceans. There are on average 12-13 non-negligible (higher than 5 or 6 in the Richter scale) tremors a day and this rate has been about the same since records began. The fact that some tremors have huge impact on human life in the 20th century is most probably due to the very high concentration of people around susceptible areas (Japan, Turkey, Mexico, California) and to the shoddy building techniques employed in some cases. Until recently there weren't many examples of skyscrapers in
some of these countries and while architects and civil engineers learn how to make buildings cope with earth quakes and people realise they may end up paying more for safer buildings, more people will keep on dying in these catastrophes.

7. Scientists may be enigmatic but you can believe on them more than anybody else to tell you what they believe is the scientific truth. They share information in a much open fashion than any other group of professionals. If Planet X represented a non-negligible danger, once that scientists knew about they'd be the first to blow the whistle.

8. The 11th Sep tragedy was the result of a terrorist attack. The leader of Al-Qaeda isn't called Planet X. Planet X isn't one of the Taleban. In fact, much worse tragedies, man-made, have occurred on the recent and not so recent past. The fact that you mention that attack as being a sign of the existence of Planet X's coming relies solely on the fact that you're Western and that therefore you were on the victim side. Were you on the attacking side you'd never mention that event Do you remember there was an atom bomb being dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Do you blame that on Planet X? Maybe you feel that that kind of event is justifiable. Or maybe you attribute that to Planet X. Also, there have been enough atrocities in the last, say, 2000 years, that far outweigh (on the whole anyway) the 20th century. Take Romans' undisguised lust for blood in the circuses. The crusades. The Spanish in south America. The inquisition. The ruthless Genghis Khan. The ethnic cleansing of boriginals in Australia. Slavery. Now, where was lanet X then? If it is coming now, when some of these vents occurred it must have been very far away indeed. o maybe Planet X's effects can be the same regardless f the distance??? That's a novel form of interaction to me...

9. Where is Planet X right now ? Can you see it? Can you measure it? Can you measure its effects on surrounding planets? If it's close we should be able to measure very accurately. Any amateur astronomer should be able to see its effects on surrounding matter even if it doesn't emit light.
If we consider it can't be seen, then maybe it is still far away and its interaction with Earth couldn't possibly explain all the 'terrible catastrophes' going on.

My question is: after May/June 2003 are you still going to believe your views and let them stay on your website or are you going to accept you're wrong?