Hi all.... as you can see I am a Newbie. I have been lurking around for the last few days reading posts to try and find out just what the heck is going on here.

I first found out about Planet X (or Nibiru or whatever you call the damn planet) about 6 months ago and all of that six months has been spent in a massive panic about the end of the world... I have been trying to find out things about it but I could only find the things that comfirmed its exsistance, or didn't have a clue. Im not very good at searching things out on the net (im a newbie there too) I came across other sites predicting the same thing, but proving it with things that had happened in the Bible, like Noahs flood! Saying that this planet will be the beginning of the Rapture and stuff like that! (Not that Im mistaken, but I thought that the flood was caused by God making it rain for 40 days and 40 nights.... and then he promised afterwards he would never do it again.) Anyways...

I stumbled across this board a few days ago and started reading your posts... Call me an idiot, but due to some possible sarcasm regarding this issue, I tended to get very confused when reading! :-? Im not an astronimer, physisist, very science related in any way, plus I am scared to death of this thing...

All I want to know really is are we all going to die from this thing? Does it exsist? I have been going outside at night to try and see if it is coming, but cannot see a thing with binoculars or anything, but then maybe I am looking in the wrong place...

Basically it boils down to me being scared out of my wits... My boyfriend thinks I am becoming obsessed with it as I keep talking about it. he is convinced that it doesnt exsist, because we would have had some proof of it happening before in our history if it occurs every 3600 years.

Please can some one put my mind at rest....

purplekitten:

I suppose the honor of welcoming a newbie falls on my shoulders this time, so first of all, welcome to the board.

The overall consensus expressed on this board is simply this: Planet X isn't -repeat IS NOT- coming. It's NOT going to kill you or me or anyone and, based on all of the available and overwhelming evidence at this point (and contrary to what Nancy Lieder, et al, have been saying), it flatly doesn't exist. Non-existent objects have never hurt anybody, anywhere, ever.

Yes, you will find scads of sarcasm in the PX threads, but that's all it is. Furthermore, I'd suggest (if you haven't already) going to the home page of this very site and reading what The Bad Astronomer himself has to say on the matter. I was somewhat concerned when I intially heard about this all, but just reading The BA's writings alone was enough to mellow me out enough to really look at the issue rationally. You're free to continue scanning the night sky yourself, but PX won't show. (Though the rest of the night sky is amazing and beautiful and that's reason enough to keep doing so in and of itself!)

So relax. 8) Planet X is NOT coming in May of this year, or any other time for that matter. Hope this helps a little bit.

Sincerely,
Jerod S.

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Hi purplekitten

This is the page you need to read: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/index.html

As you can see, it's part of this site, written by the Bad Astronomer himself. Now the BA is a professional astronomer, so I think it's reasonable to accept what he's saying.

So don't worry. The Planet X issue is simply being hyped by people who are after either fame or money (that is, your money). They're not interested in things like truth, facts, honesty, or even open discussion.

Simply put, PX is not coming. Your boyfriend sounds like a smart person, listen to him, he's exactly right, we would have evidence from prior visits.

I found out about this latest insanity that combined Lowell's Planet X, Sitchin's Nibiru, and the guy who thought Antartica was really Atlantis due to a sudden pole shift, a couple of years ago. I laughed then, and I'm really laughing now, since PX is supposed to be at Mag 2 and as large as a quarter moon in the afternoon sky, right now. These are all crackpots who've stolen others theories and combind them into their own reality.

I wouldn't worry about a pole shift either, even if one should occur, it goes almost unnoticed, as it takes thousands of years to complete. If the earth were to stop in the period of a day or two, 200mph winds would be the least of our worries. We, along with the mountains, Oceans, and countless other objects, would be flung into deep space because there would be no gravity. How could the doomsayers have missed that part? There's definately never been any evidence of this happening before. Just look around, all Mountains and Oceans are still firmly in place, and humans still roam the Earth.


Another member of this board, Comixx, put together a very good FAQ on PX. I highly recommend reading it.

http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4708


If you're really looking for something to worry about, try looking into the Asteroids that approach Earth from the blindspot the Sun creates. We don't see them until they're 48 hours the otherside of us. Just in the past year alone, we've had 3 near misses, all closer than 4.0 L.D. That concerns me a heep more than PX.

Welcome, purplekitten!

The first thing I would point out is that this so-called "Planet X" cannot according to everything we know about science:
1. If it had been through 3600 years ago, we would have geophysical and historical evidence, as well as evidence from the orbits of other planets. There is none.
2. It's "racetrack" orbit is impossible.
3. It's supposed to speed up and slow down in various impossible ways.
4. It's supposed to be a brown dwarf, but it's described like some sort of planet.
5. It's supposed to be visible to the naked eye, but no competent amateur astronomer can see it, let alone photograph or electronically image it.
6. The current chief proponent, Nancy Lieder, says it won't appear any larger than the full Moon. But she also said the previous week that the thing was about the size of her thumb, held up. When you hold your thumb it, it's actually wider than the full Moon. So by her own statements, it couldn't get any closer, if it existed - which it doesn't.

There's actually many more reasons why "Planet X" is pure bunk. That's just a few. One thing you can be sure of is that when we are all still here come June, some lame excuses will be offered - the aliens intervened, or something.

Stick around, ask questions, and enjoy looking at the night sky!

P.S. PeaceRules - there would still be gravity if the Earth stopped spinning. But quite a mess would indeed be made of things. Fortunately, won't happen.

One nitpick Peace, Earth's gravity is not caused by its rotation but by its mass. If the Earth suddenly stopped rotating we would be still be moving at several hundred miles per hour (depending on how far you are from the equator), but we wouldn't be flung into space since we would not be going faster than the escape velocity.

But overall you are correct. There should be evidence of this planet passing, if not on our planet, then from the orbits of the other planets and asteroids in the solar system.

Now there are others on this board that believe that Nibiru exists, but they believe that it won't arrive for at least several hundred years, and it will not cause wide-spread destruction when it does come because it won't come close enough to Earth to seriously bother us. These folks are still wrong for the reasons stated above, but at least they are not trying to cause panic.

So as others have said, purplekitten, don't lose any sleep over this non-event. Planet X should have been visible to amateur astronomers for at least a year and no one can see it less than a month away? Why? It doesn't exist.

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Old laser physicists never die, they just become incoherent.
These days, every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks he knows what a photon is, but he is wrong. - Albert Einstein

Hi Purple Kitten...

I have little to add except that Girl101 has just set up a thread on this board (Clear Skies Reports). The idea is for those who have clear skies to go check the supposed Planet X's coordinates and report back over the next few weeks. You might want to monitor it.

This should be fun, but of course no-one will see Planet X (though misidentifications are possible), because this body cannot exist, as sts60 points out - it's a logical and scientific impossibility, and its advocates have offered no convincing reasons why our physics is wrong. On scales the size of our solar system, there are no discernable problems with our practical understanding of gravity (which is why we can get space probes to their targets with incredible accuracy).

As an example of poor science by Planet X advocates, few are as silly as Nancy's Lieder's contention that the Moon really is bigger when close to the horizon than when it is high in the sky. In fact this can be easily measured, and it is an optical illusion - the human eye-brain system is easily fooled. This not only shows the abysmal understanding of the universe that these people have, but it also demonstrates their reluctance to do the simplest of experiments.

Planet X makes as much sense as an invisible pink unicorn. Don't be worrying about it.

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Fin
Skep-ti-cult® member #488-28303-790

I forget one must be literal when posting here. No, we would not literally be ejected into space, and yes, there would technically still be gravity on earth.

If the Earth were to literally stop spinning suddenly, the atmosphere would still be zipping along nicely at around 1,000 miles per hour. As a result, everything not attached to bedrock would pretty much be scoured clean. Perhaps not the Mountains, but basically everything else would be ejected into the atmosphere. I'm just happy we'll never have to find out.


http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/q1168.html

Thanks guys You have all made me feel better about this. I hate the fact that the last few months of my life have been ruined by this. I wish I had found you all sooner

*hugs* everyone in extreme relief and gratitude

I love astronamy... I think the night sky is such a beautiful place. I love finding things out about the planets and things. It so unbelievably amazing some of the things that go on out there.

Thanks again everyone for being so friendly

I know how you feel. I just learned about this planet x stuff a month ago. Let me tell you I have been so worried about this. I am glad I found this board to quell my fears a little bit. Unfourtanely, I am still worried about this. It just seems like they have so much evidence.

Welome to the Board pokey! Sit back on your chair and take your time reading the posts on this board. After a while you will note that "so much evidence" that you cite is nothing but hogwash spouted out by no one but fools who only want to make you tense for their aggrandisment.

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I have grasped the bull by the tail and am lookin' 'im right in the eye.

The amount of 'information' at ZetaTalk is overwhelming, definintely, but you must remember that this info has been collected over the years since 1995. Nancy is not the sole contributor: pages have been grabbed from their IRC chats and bulletin boards. Over that 8 years, she has undeniably gained a loyal following, those who desperately want to believe Nancy is talking to aliens and that this planet is coming to whisk them off to some high state of conciousness. Some will be desperate enough to fabricate images, others are just pulling Nancy's leg.

The downside to debunking an event of this nature is that we cannot photograph something that isn't there. If we provided pictures, one of them would find some kind of image noise or blemish that they would pass off as X. We can say there is nothing in the pictures, but there will always be that undying level of doubt in those not acquainted to analysis of this sort. The only real evidence we have of it not coming is all around us: the world that we live in. Our science.

I know it may seem that way, but think about this for a moment. There are SO many websites out there feeding this frenzy, yet, BA may be the only site that refutes it. Why you ask, because most credible media sites, as well as scientific orgs, have better things to do. Many learned their lessons from Y2K, and don't want to mention PX even in a debunking effort. Just the publicity alone, by mentioning PX, spreads the word, and adds to the frenzy.

Nancy is reduced to tabloid types and shows like C2C. If a reputable source covered this, it may gain credibility to SOME, they may panic, or believe it's a conspiracy of some kind. Remember Y2K? There were tons of people who fed off that fear and used it to make all kinds of cash. I think that's what many respectable orgs are trying to stay away from, this time.

Here's an example of how one would know a calamity like X were possible, and may affect the Earth. Remember last year, when NASA scientists announced that an asteroid had been discovered that may impact earth in 2012? The media made no bones about reporting it, did they? Why would X be different? Of course they got more data on that asteroid as it turns out, and it was found to be no threat to Earth. SARS, which scares the hell out of people, but the media reports it. Believe me, the media is aware of Nancy and the Zetas, they just know there's no evidence found anywhere to support her claims. They simply don't want to give her any attention. That's why Nancy will always publicly debate her nonsense, it's a win/win situation for her, and she’s assured of the attention.

By the way, if you do the research, you'll find that Nancy and the Zetas have no evidence. None! Even if there were a Planet X, even if it were going to end all life as we know it, she has ALIENS telling her the date of its arrival. HAHA! That's what the future of Earth is hanging on? PLEASE! There is no evidence anywhere to suggest this; even Nancy has to claim Aliens are telling her the date. Think about it!

Nancy's tactics are a throw back to early religious cult leaders, "only she has been given the answers," "she is the chosen one." If one presents tangible evidence to refute her, she always falls back on this divine element, and suggests that humans are ignorant; they know not what they say. How convenient, right? The thing that continues to amaze me is that people actually believe her. She's not very clever and continues to make serious blunders every day, why can't people see this?

pokey wrote:pokey, welcome to the board! Just remember one thing - the Internet makes it easy for anyone to put massive amounts of official-sounding, nicely formatted drivel up for all to see.

Suggestion: pick up a copy of The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Read up on the Baloney Detection Kit. Ask yourself if it is really likely that one person gets information in her head directly from aliens, and that information is right even if it contradicts basically all of known science. And that we're just "not advanced enough" to understand the explanation, even though we can pretty confidently guide spacecraft around the solar system. And that every amateur and professional astronomer who disagrees with Ms. Lieder is actually a "disinformation agent" paid by the government.

Then ask yourself how likely it is that the "evidence" is actually all it's cracked up to be, rather than a compendium of selective use of data (and memory), misinterpretations, irrelevancies, and outright falsehoods...

One thing you don't have to worry about: there will always be another Nancy Lieder/Marshall Applewhite/Richard Hoagland/etc. Some will do more damage than others.

Hey, Pokey -- no, there's no need to worry. In fact, you can apply the baloney detection here without our help.

Just go outside this evening (hopefully it's clear) and watch the sunset. The nonexistant "Planet X" is supposed to be a thumb-sized glowing red-orange object that you can see at and after sunset (wait until the sun is mostly below the horizon and watch until about 9 pm.) However, since it's NOT there, you won't see it.

Look at CNN.COM and other news sites -- including ones all over the world (do you read another language? I read Spanish badly). None of them are reporting this thing that's supposed to be huge and inside the solar system. If there was some sort of evil glowing spot in the sky, reporters wouldn't care how many Men In Black or Evil Timetraveling Clones there were -- they'd have that story plastered all over the airwaves and the news papers.

But, as I said, run your own baloney detection. Watch the sun set. You're not going to see any Evil Red smear that's the size of your thumb in the sky.

I've said it before. A common characteristic of cranks and kooks and paranoid types seems to be an inability to shut up. They seem to have an inexhaustible well of babble to draw on. They just keep on putting out more and more and more until you feel overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of data. The quantity of writing tends to disguise the fact that there's very little quality therein. Contradictions can be hidden, mistakes can be overlooked, and most people find themselves unable to devote the time and energy necessary to look carefully at the ideas being presented. Many just assume that there's so much there, the writer must really know what he's saying. In a word, it's called obfuscation.

There may be a few who do this deliberately, trying to sound serious and scholarly, but I think that for most of them it's a psychological problem. Being unable to focus clearly on the points they want to make, they are in a constant fight to justify their ideas/beliefs and make themselves understood.

Think about it this way. If you had voices babbling away in your head all the time, mightn't you start writing down everything they say? If they were really talkative aliens, then you'd have several volumes of material before long. :-)

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere