None of these strange and wonderful objects can claim to be the Planet X that Lowell was looking for, but in popular usage, the name Planet X has now come to mean any unknown planetoid on the far edge of our solar system. Some researchers think this object may be dangerous to us. This hypothetical planet is predicted to periodically swing into the heart of the solar system, causing great damage and disruption when it does.

Zechariah Sitchin

The concept of a theoretical planet called Nibiru has been popularized by the writer Zechariah Sitchin, from his personal interpretations of ancient Sumerian texts. Sitchin has published a number of books, including The Twelfth Planet, that claim the Sumerians believed there is a planet unknown to modern astronomy that follows a highly elliptical orbit, reaching the inner solar system roughly every 3,600 years. Part of his theory lies in an astronomical interpretation of the Babylonian creation myth the Enuma Elish, in which he replaces the names of gods with hypothetical planets. Some interpreters of Sitchin's work believe that a return of Nibiru is timed to coincide with 2012, though Sitchin himself doesn't agree with that timing.

Sitchin also claims that Nibiru is home to a technologically advanced human-like alien race called the Anunnaki, who have visited Earth in the past to mine for gold, which they need to maintain the atmosphere on their planet. These beings, Sitchin claims, created humanity by genetically experimenting with primates and crossing them with Anunnaki DNA.

Recent Critiques

When Sitchin first wrote his books, he was one of only a handful of specialists who could read the Sumerian language, but since the publication of the Sumerian Lexicon in 2006, it has been possible to check Sitchin's translations. Both individual words and larger portions of ancient texts have been found to be incorrectly translated.

Mike Heiser, who has a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been particularly critical of Sitchin's work. He claims Sitchin's associations of gods with planets is flawed. For example, Sitchin associates Nibiru with the Babylonian god Marduk. However, Marduk is normally associated with the planet Jupiter in the Babylonian cosmology. Conventional Sumerian scholars believe the Sumerians only knew of five planets, not twelve. Heiser also cites the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, a resource that contains an exhaustive compilation of all cuneiform material known to the present day. It has no references to Nibiru being a planet beyond Pluto and the Anunnaki gods are never associated with it.

The Return of the Destroyer

Marshall Masters, a former CNN science reporter, also believes Planet X will return in 2012. In his documentary Surviving 2012 & Planet X, he points to a number of scientific reports that he claims have been later suppressed or covered up because they indicate the government knows about the existence of a rogue planet that is on a collision course with the inner solar system due in 2012.

Masters claims that low-level seismic activity and planetary changes on Earth are being created by the influence of Planet X. Most of Masters's historical support for the impending return of the destroyer comes from a book called the Kolbrin Bible, which claims to be based on earlier ancient Egyptian records called The Great Book. These supposedly contain accounts of previous visits of the destroyer that resulted in world cataclysms.

Although both Masters's and Sitchin's versions of Planet X are based on questionable sources and interpretations, they have some similarities to a much more scientific theory that supports the idea that cataclysms on Earth, including periodic mass extinction events, may be triggered by the gravitational influence of an unseen body on the edge of our solar system. This theory, however, doesn't require a planet or brown dwarf to come charging into the orbits of the inner planets. The secret of how this might happen may be found in a far distant region of our solar system called the Oort cloud.