continued from Part I
The Evidence
The Chronology of Planet-X
If X passes Earth roughly every 3600 years and its next fly-by is expected any minute now, then we’ve got an excellent idea of when these major cataclysms should’ve wracked the earth. The last wave of havoc should have occurred ’round about 1590 BC, in the late Bronze Age. The wave before that would have happened around 5190 BC, in the Stone Age. As we’ll see, Rand has a quite different chronology, with a margin of error of well over 1000 years. He states that X’s last fly-by occurred in 1447 BC.
The theories of Zechariah Sitchin and Immanuel Velikovsky become important here.
A crash course (haw haw) in Velikovsky & Sitchin
Like most people who’ve read it, Immanuel Velikovsky was confounded and somewhat appalled by Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (1939), in which Freud posited that Moses was a disciple of Akhenaten murdered by his followers sometime during the Exodus.
Most people shrug, say something like “Wow, Freud was kinda nuts at the end”, and move on. Not Velikovsky. He set out to prove that every event in the Old Testament happened precisely as described. Rather than producing another work of Judeo-Christian apologetics, however, he decided to take a stab at writing a scientific treatise blending history, archaeology, and astronomy. This was Worlds in Collision (1950). In it, Velikovsky proposed that beginning around 1500 BC, our solar system was engaged in a crazy cosmic pool game. First a monstrously huge comet broke off of Jupiter and zoomed extremely close to Earth, causing all the plagues of Egypt as well as the miracles of the Exodus. For instance, the plague of flies was really a plague of fly-like insects from Jupiter. Really.
Later this comet knocked Mars out of orbit and settled down to become the planet Venus, but that’s not for here.
Velikovsky’s comet caused just as much death and destruction as Rand’s X, but it was a boon to the homeless Hebrews in the desert. Its passage caused the planet to stop and tilt slightly on its axis, “dividing” the Red Sea just long enough for them to slip across the seabed unharmed. Its carbohydrate-rich tail provided manna for them to eat, and though Velikovsky doesn’t mention it, the comet was respectful enough to observe the Sabbath by not providing any manna on Sundays. What a nice comet. Compared to Velikovsky’s comet, Planet-X is a total asshole.
Note that Velikovsky’s date for the Exodus (1500 BC) somewhat matches Rand’s date of 1447 BC. They’re both quite different from the 1590 BC date we would expect for a celestial body with a 3600-year orbit, but hey, let’s give Rand some slack. We can’t honestly expect him to contradict one of the grand masters of catastrophism, can we? It’s clear that Rand uses – or at least admits to using – more of Velikovsky’s material than Sitchin’s. This is possibly because Sitchin’s work is not as Christian-oriented. Sitchin even hinted that God himself is a fabrication of the helpful but deceptive Anunnaki.
Sitchin , based on his own translations of interpretations of ancient Near East artwork and mythology, theorized that a distant planet called Nibiru (which is or is not Planet-X, depending on which page of Planet-X you read) passes by Earth in its elliptical orbit about every 3600 years. The only significant difference between Rand’s brown dwarf and Sitchin’s Nibiru is that Nibiru is inhabited by humanoids who can reach Earth by spaceship when their planet is close enough. Please don’t ask me how a planet so far from the Sun can foster intelligent humanoid life.
These Nibiruans probably spawned the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis, as well as the ancient gods of Sumer and Babylonia known as the Anunnaki. They’re responsible for the rapid evolution of man at certain points in our history, because they introduced metalworking, writing, mathematics, and pretty much every other major innovation. Without them, we’d still be morons playing with rocks. They may even have genetically engineered us to be a slave race, toiling in their mines.
Then the Sumerian god/ET overlord Enlil broke away from his evil brother Enki and freed us. Or something like that. It’s all in Sitchin’s 7-book series if you’re interested. For now let’s just keep in mind that Sitchin’s Nibiru timeline should mesh closely with Rand’s X timeline. Sitchin believes Nibiru swept by around 11, 000 BC, 7400 BC, and 3800 BC.
So, um, yeah. By Sitchin’s chronology, Nibiru wouldn’t have been anywhere near Earth during the Exodus.
Alright, so the chronology is totally screwed. Let’s move on to real, solid, meaty evidence of why we should believe that Planet-X regularly brings death and chaos to our “small and watery world hurtling though the vastness of the Milky Way Galaxy.”
In Rand’s view, science must start accepting ancient mythologies as straightforward historical accounts, and cease the “international coverup” of the evidence of recurrent global catastrophes caused by Planet-X.
Let’s keep Rand’s X chronology in mind as we review some of this “forbidden” evidence he cites:
– “Gram” Hancock dove down to extensive ruins full of Doric columns in Quait Bay (off Alexandria, Egypt). To nitpick, “Quait Bay” is not a bay. It’s a fort named for the sultan who built it, Qaitbay. Graham Hancock has some photos of underwater “megalithic structures” off Alexandria on his website. There are no Doric columns visible, but it certainly isn’t unheard-of for ancient Egyptian structures to contain Hellenistic elements from the 3rd century AD on. So what the hell does this have to do with Planet-X? Nada. Besides, these ruins (if they are, indeed, ruins) are few and pitiful when compared to spectacular monuments discovered in the same waters off Alexandria. I’m not sure why Rand thinks Hancock’s site is of any special significance to his thesis.
For years, Hancock has been attempting to prove that a “pole shift” occurred about 10,000 years ago, followed by a global flood that wiped out several advanced civilizations (another timeline, just what we needed!). He routinely pulls out flimsy or outright retarded pieces of “evidence” to support his theories, and also creatively reinterprets actual archeaological evidence. He also uses the common pseudohistorian’s trick of interpreting myths as garbled accounts of real historical events and personages, a lead Rand follows in Planet-X.
– Rand claims he and some diving buddies probably found the remains of Flight 19 while recreating its final flight, and while they were at it they discovered a 3000-lb. marble Doric column, which he refers to as “Atlantean“. It was later stolen. (Rand also discovered the possible site of the Fountain of Youth. It’s a sunken stone Lithium spring located in a mangrove swamp east of North Bimini.) These are *interesting* stories, but Rand presents zero evidence of his amazing discoveries. Not that they have anything to do with X, anyway. Again, a Doric column in the ocean won’t tell us anything about what may have happened in 1590 BC (or 1447 BC). It should be noted, too, that Rand didn’t come to the Atlantis conclusion through any kind of scientific analysis; Bimini is one of the most popular locations for Atlantis, because the “Bimini stones” were discovered there after Edgar Cayce said Atlantis would resurface off the coast of Florida sometime in the late ’60s.
– Rand also tentatively locates Atlantis in the Azores, where in 2001, 18-story towers were discovered underwater. Rand just can’t seem to decide where the hell Atlantis was. Maybe it bounced around like the island in Lost. Anyway, I have no idea what he’s talking about here, unless he’s referring to very impressive mineral deposits discovered 1800 km from the Azores in 2000. These are natural geothermal chimneys.
– Chaotic flood deposits of animal remains have been found in various parts of the world. Like Velikovsky and many creationists, Rand points to animal graveyards as evidence that mass extinctions were caused by a global flood or a sudden freeze. There are many reasons why animal remains would be jumbled together in certain places: Crevasses, the action of river currents, tar and mud pits. You don’t actually need a catastrophic event to explain them. And while the 15 or so mass extinctions that have occurred in the past were certainly caused (at least in part) by catastrophic events like carbon dioxide releases and comet and asteroid collisions, they were definitely not caused by a single worldwide flood nor by a “pole shift” (as we’ll see in part III).
– Nicholas Flemming found the underwater city of Elaphonisos off Greece. Flemming found Pavlopetri off the Greek island of Elafonisos, actually. That’s how much in-depth research Rand has done. Pavolpetri dates to the Bronze Age and is the oldest submerged city yet discovered. It sank around 1000 BC.
– Arthur Posnansky found “chaotic rubble” indicative of some great disaster on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Posnansky didn’t excavate the shore of Lake Titicaca. He explored nearby Tiahuanaca in the 1930s, and posited that an earthquake created the crack in the Gate of the Sun around 15,000 BC (though he didn’t find any rubble, or other evidence of seismic activity). Today, archaeologists estimate the city was built around 200 AD.
– In 1993, a U-shaped underwater structure was found off the coast of Kadaikadu, India. There’s a site off Poomphuar touted by (guess who?) Graham Hancock because it is very deep (about 23 m) and contains a horseshoe-shaped “structure”. However, even Hancock is hesitant to declare this a manmade artifact, as exploration has been limited.
– Paulina Zelitztsky and Paul Weinzweig claim to have found ruins constructed of polished granite, including a pyramid roughly 150 feet high, off the coast of Cuba in 2000. Alas, the only evidence they possess is an intriguing side scan sonar image, which doesn’t tell us much. Zelitztsky has declared the “ruins” are at least 12,000 years old, and possibly as old as 50,000. No freaking comment.
– The Pakistani cities of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa contain roads covered with skeletons, some holding hands, as well as thousands of melted clay vessels. This is not even remotely the case. Mohenjo Daro is a thoroughly excavated World Heritage site, built around 2600 BC, and it shows no evidence of any sudden disaster other than some flooding of the Indus River. Nor does Harappa. On the contrary, many delicate and intricate works of art from these sites have been preserved.
But lots of strange rumours have surfaced about the two cities. Pseudohistorian Philip Coppens claims not only that Mohenjo Daro was “melted”, but that skeletons discovered there are radioactive – indicating an atomic blast. Similar misinfo can be found all over the Internets. It’s all unsourced.
– In 1999, megalithic structures were found on the seabed near Malta. They resemble those found on the mainland. This “find” was supposedly announced to a “Paleo Astronaut Society” in Germany by archaeologist Hubert Zeitlmar, who claims the ruins resemble the famous temples of Malta. His video footage and photos have not been reproduced, and I can’t find any further info about Zeitlmar.
The mainland temples were constructed between about 3600-3000 BC.
– Sunken kingdoms of legend: Cantre’r Gwaelod (Wales), Lyonesse (England). Welsh and Arthurian legend is not exactly straightforward history, but if you insist on using these examples I’ll just point out that Lyonesse hadn’t yet sunk during Arthur’s time (6th century AD), and that Cantre’r Gwaelod was flooded because some drunk forgot to close the dike.
I’m baffled as to why Rand used these weak examples of “forbidden archaeology”, rather than better-documented finds like the Yonaguni monument (Japan). Sure, no one knows if it’s manmade or not, but since it’s not dated Rand could argue that it sank in 1447 BC.
At any rate, you’ve probably noticed that the estimated ages of the ruins and suspected ruins in all of Rand’s examples in no way mesh with the supposed dates of Planet-X crossings. If you’re trying to prove that shit got real in 1447 BC, then you’re going to have to find examples of bad shit from that period. Pretty basic. You can’t just pick a random sunken city.
There are many sunken cities sprinkled around the planet, and in most cases the exact circumstances of their demises aren’t known. All we know is that they were sent to the bottom of the ocean by earthquakes, tsunamis, rising sea levels, or some combination of those things. A few, like Baiae, were simply built in the wrong places. It should go without saying that none of this has to be caused by the passage of giant celestial objects, “pole shifts”, or global floods.
Part III: “Pole Shifts”
Part IV: So does “Planet-X” exist?
Swallowing The Camel 
Thank you for the hilarious exposé!