Zecharia Sitchin's Anunnaki, Planet X and Nibiru Scams Explained
Contents
| 1. | Intro |
| 2. | Appearances |
| 3. | Sitchin's theories |
| 4. | Debunking Sitchin's Sumerian translations |
| 5. | Sitchin, Laurance Rockefeller, and more disinformation |
| 6. | Sitchin theology on the Joe Rogan podcast |
This page is a subsection of ISGP's article Cult of National Security Trolls: Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM. As that article details, shows like Coast to Coast AM promote virtually nothing but very organized and systematic disinformation. For those interested in genuine information concerning UFO-related subjects, I can only recommend ISGP's UFO newspaper archive. The only thing people are going to get outside of this archive is complete and utter BS.
Coast to Coast AM: September 27, 1996; November 24, 1998; January 1, 2001; April 19, 2001; January 5, 2005; December 22, 2005; May 11, 2009; February 1, 2010.
Sitchin died on October 9, 2010.
- From ISGP's World History in Timelines: "1,700 B.C.: The Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis is written down no later than this date. According to the story, An took the heavens, Enlil the earth and Enki the great deep. The ruling Gods are called the Anunnaki. The epic tells the story of the God Enki, who decides to wipe out humanity in a great deluge, but Enki, who created humanity, warns a person in a dream who subsequently builds an ark. Clearly this is where the Biblical story of the ark of Noah is based on."
- In 1976, with his The Twelfth Planet: Book I of the Earth Chronicles, Zecharia Sitchin became the world's original source for the idea that the Anunnaki were space aliens who hail from a still undiscovered planet in our Solar System called Nibiru. Long ago these aliens lived on planet Earth and forced us to mine gold. They'll be returning when Niburu comes close to the Earth again, which is supposed to happen every 3,600 years.
On top of that, Sitchin was of the opinion that aliens first descended to Earth 450,000 years ago to help spur modern man through genetic engineering, a very common theme in (bogus) Rockefeller alien abductions theology. - Bizarrely, Sitchin's original 1976 book The Twelfth Planet: Book I of the Earth Chronicles has an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon, based on close to a thousand reviews. More than a few of the reviews are fake, however, written by persons from the conspiracy disinformation network.
Debunking Sitchin's Sumerian translations
- There has been quite a bit of criticism on Sitchin's translations, especially now that Sumerian texts are available to anyone over the internet. Even on Coast to Coast AM Sitchin has been criticized by Dr. Mike Heiser, who holds a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and ancient Semitic languages from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Heiser has appeared roughly annually on Coast to Coast since 2002, a year after setting up the website Sitchiniswrong.com:
- As originally explained by Heiser, below the reader can find a few randomly picked translations of Sumerian texts regarding the Anunnaki/Anunna gods from etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk, otherwise known as the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature at the University of Oxford. Search for "a-nun-na" as "lemma" and you'll find texts like the following:
"Lord, whom the Great Mountain engendered, whose magnificence has no equal. Ninurta, magnificent in heaven and earth, surpassing among the Anuna [Anunnaki] gods. ……, foremost among the gods, support of An. …… imbued with ……, who roars like a storm, who growls in battle. ……, who butts like a huge wild bull, who destroys the fortresses of the rebel lands. …… of Enlil: no foreign land can escape from his grasp...
"House of the Anuna gods possessing great power, which gives wisdom to the people... Go ahead to the place where the Anuna gods, the great gods, sit at the funerary offerings, to the place where the En priests lie... He will now be counted among the Anuna gods. He will be counted a companion of the great gods. …… the governor of the nether world. He will pass judgments and render verdicts, and what he says will be as weighty as the words of Ningiszida and Dumuzid. ...
"The Anuna gods always stand by your truthful utterances. Shrine Nibru, primeval city, where the divine powers are allotted, sweet is your praise! At the great festivals prepared with care in Nibru, all the great gods …… the majesty of Enlil and Ninlil. ...
"O Isin, city founded by An which he has built on an empty plain! Its front is mighty, its interior is artfully built, its divine powers are divine powers which An has determined. Shrine which Enlil loves, place where An and Enlil determine destinies, place where the great gods dine, filled with great awesomeness and terror: all the Anuna gods attend your great drinking-bouts."
Still awake? Yes, well, the point, of course, is that Sitchin clearly invented his Sumerian translations about Anunnaki space aliens returning to Earth on a planet called Nibiri. And only in the modern day of broadband internet we can conclusively debunk this fraud without relying on experts with potentially hidden agendas as well. - September 30, 2013, Dr. Mike Heiser on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell: "As far as ancient aliens goes, no [I do not agree with Zecharia Sitchin]. The Anunnaki, of course, show up in Sumerian cuneiform texts in total over 100 times. ...
"One of the things I did on my website devoted to Zecharia Sitchin and ancient astronaut stuff was, well, I figured, I don't want people to just take my word for it when I say "insane" things like, "Look, the fundamental ideas of what Zecharia Sitchin is saying, that the Anunnaki come from Nibiru, that they were here to mine gold, that Niburu is this planet beyond Saturn, really the fundamental tenants of the system [are wrong]."
"Rather than taking my word for it, what I did, in video screen capture of me, going to a website called the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature [etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk] and, I know, this doesn't sound very exciting... I put in a search for the term "Anunnaki" [Anuna]... showing people that, "Look, if you hit "Tr" here, that takes you to an English translation." ... [I do it] so that people can do it themselves. I don't like arguments from authority. ... You should not depend on what Mike says. ...
"None of these ideas about the Anunnaki that Sitchin really depends on to roll out his extraterrestrial narrative [are correct, as] the texts don't say anything about the Anunnaki in regard to these items--at all. It literally doesn't even exist. It's not a question of Mike would translate it this way, but someone else would translate it that way. I'm saying the material doesn't even exist." - April 14, 2003, Coast to Coast AM summary of a show with Mike Heiser: "Heiser has studied the same Sumerian texts and cuneiform that Zecharia Sitchin has based his "12th Planet" theories on and come to very different conclusions. He believes that the texts indicate that Nibiru was a star rather than a planet. "Nibiru shows up in an annual catalogue of star movements," which doesn't correlate with Sitchin's 3,600 year orbit for the planet, Heiser explained. The Sumerians referred to Nibiru as the planet or star of "crossing." To Heiser this indicates they were talking about the Polar Star, which changes over time based on the gradual wobbling or "precession" of the Earth.
"Heiser said the Sumerian references to the Anunnaki do not point to an extraterrestrial presence. The texts "just don't support Sitchin's reconstruction," he stated. Further, his decoding of Sitchin's oft-cited cylinder seal yields a star and a constellation rather than the sun and 11 planets."
- February 2, 2012, Coast to Coast AM summary: "Conducting his own study of the ancient Sumerian texts, [Heiser] has found many of Sitchin's extrapolations to be baffling-- "You don't find things like the Annunaki on Niburi (a planet said to come into our solar system), or associated with Niburi in any way. You don't find known planets beyond Saturn in Mesopotamian astronomical texts," he commented.
"They also don't write about the Annunaki conducting genetic tinkering with humans, he added. While the texts refer to the Annunaki as deities, Sitchin interprets these disembodied entities as literal flesh and blood beings-- something Heiser has not found evidence for in the materials. I think Sitchin "tends to superimpose the Mesopotamian account onto the biblical account, rather than looking at their differences," he noted." - Mike Heiser at Sitchiniswrong.com/anunnaki/anunnaki.htm (accessed: August 2, 2014): "As I noted in my open letter to Zecharia Sitchin, I have challenged him and other ancient astronaut researchers to produce one line of one cuneiform text that demonstrates his ideas about the Anunnaki are really in the Sumerian texts. I want to see one line of one text that says things like the Anunnaki inhabit a planet or inhabit Nibiru, or that the term "Anunnaki" means "people of the fiery rockets, that sort of thing."
- As originally explained by Heiser, below the reader can find a few randomly picked translations of Sumerian texts regarding the Anunnaki/Anunna gods from etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk, otherwise known as the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature at the University of Oxford. Search for "a-nun-na" as "lemma" and you'll find texts like the following:
Sitchin, Laurance Rockefeller, and more disinformation
- Completely fictional translations of ancient texts aren't unique to Zecharia Sitchin. Future Coast to Coast AM guest David Hatcher Childress, followed by many other Coast to Coast AM guests as David Wilcock and Graham Hancock, have been promoting the now world famous flying vimana and ancient nuclear war texts that supposedly appear in the Mahabharata. They don't exist. They never have. Instead, completely separate and completely isolated sentences from a variety of books were wrongly translated and lobbed together to produce the quotes in question. This aspect is discussed in detail in the link provided. It's rather obvious that these closely-affiliated "researchers" have been pushing this disinformation on purpose.
A quick check reveals that Sitchin has promoted the same theories surrounding "flying vimanas" in a number of his books. And his niece, Janet Sitchin, continued the mythology. 2015, Janet Sitchin, 'The Anunnaki Chronicles: A Zecharia Sitchin Reader': "They fight from Vimanas, aerial "cars" that could traverse great distances with incredible speed. They use beam-emitting and earth-shattering weapons." - Sitchin is one the more important "alien aliens" theory pushers. He wrote that aliens first descended to Earth 450,000 years ago and help spur modern man through genetic engineering, a very common theme in (bogus) Rockefeller alien abductions theology. Laurance Rockefeller primarily pushed his alien abductions and genetic engineering work through Dr. John Mack, while Prince Hans Adam II von Liechtenstein (member 1001 Club, as was Laurance) opted for a more apocalyptic version of Budd Hopkins, who, by the way, had his art featured at the Rockefeller's Museum of Modern Art. Laurance Rockefeller and allies have pushed the genetic-engineering-by-aliens theory through many other "researchers" and avenues. Sitchin, Mack and Hopkins all were Coast to Coast AM regulars.
- Probably on the October 5, 2003 Coast to Coast AM show, when Mike Heiser appeared with Richard Hoagland, the latter stated that Sitchin had an office at Rockefeller Plaza. This is what I personally remember Hoagland talking about.
A second source on this on this rare tidbit: Joseph Farrell, another (questionable) Coast to Coast guest, in a January 11, 2011 Gizadeathstar.com post: "... consider only that Mr. Sitchin's offices were in Rockefeller plaza, and his business was as an antiques importer exporter (if I recall correctly)." - May 27-29, 1995: Rockefeller employee C. B. Scott Jones' organizes the "When Cosmic Cultures Meet" Conference under the banner of Laurance Rockefeller's Human Potential Foundation. Sitchin was among those present, along with John Mack, Michael Hesemann and about 20 other speakers. June 2, 1995, Washington City paper, 'A Conference of Space Cases UFO Experts Suggest It's Time to Make Nice With E.T.s':
"As moderator, C.B. Scott Jones remains cosmically neutral. Jones is the president of the Falls Church, Va.-based Human Potential Foundation, which organized the conference. Previously, he worked for six years as special assistant to Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), whom he says shares an interest in ESP, telepathy, and clairvoyance. Unable to convince the government to fund research into the paranormal, Jones turned to the private sector. Laurance Rockefeller, millionaire philanthropist and brother of Nelson, provided seed money for the foundation. ...
"The stated mission of the event is to prepare humanity for contact with otherworldly visitors. ... The audience endures Rohatyn's ribbing politely, but seems more engaged by Harvard psychiatry professor John Mack, who's drawn raised eyebrows from his colleagues for suggesting that UFO abduction tales be accepted at face value. Based on the accounts of about 100 alleged abductees—many of whom cite sexual molestation by E.T.s—Mack thinks the visitors are trying to create a hybrid human/extraterrestrial race. ...
"Zecharia Sitchin, author of the "Earth Chronicles" series, believes the conference should have been retitled "When Cosmic Cultures Met." Sitchin's theory is that 450,000 years ago, aliens touched down in the Persian Gulf and created mankind by merging their gametes with those of our knuckle-scraping hominid ancestors. Sitchin insists he has met the aliens, and they are us." - As admitted by director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin, Sitchin's ideas, as well as those of Coast to Coast AM guests Robert Schoch and John Anthony West, greatly influenced the 1994 movie Stargate, which was followed up by 17 seasons of related miniseries: Stargate SG1 (1997-2007), Stargate Atlantis (2004-2009) and Stargate Universe (2009-2011). This includes the still prominent claim that Egyptologist Colonel Richard Vyse hoaxed a link between Pharaoh Khufu and the Great Pyramid, which Sitchin made in his 1980 book The Stairway to Heaven, Book II of the Earth Chronicles (pp. 332, 346-352). This issue is discussed in much more detail in ISGP's article Fingerprints of Graham Hancock: Giza Plateau no older than 2,580 B.C.
- artbell.com/guests.html (accessed: November 28, 2002): "Zecharia Sitchin has made statements concerning the "Olmecs" of ancient Mexico. The discovery of a colossal stone head [with very thick lips] in 1869 revealed that there may have been an advanced civilization with origins in Africa that preceded the Mayas and Aztecs of Mexico."
This well-known theory surrounding the Olmec heads also is complete disinformation. Only in recent years it could be conclusively debunked, however, when extensive worldwide genetic studies found zero evidence that Africans moved to the Americas over the Atlantic. Eskimos, originally coming from Asia and traveling the frozen Bering Strait 15,000 years ago into the Americas, today still have very thick lips and these traits can still be found in certain Central and South American Indian tribes. The same goes for the almond shaped eyes. - February 6, 2003, Mike Heiser at michaelsheiser.com, 'History Channel Censors Facade Author Mike Heiser from its "UFOs in the Bible" Show'.
The article presents clear evidence that History Channel had an agenda to push the ancient aliens story, first by asking Heiser very biased questions and then by cutting him out of their program altogether. Considering the History Channel's extremely frauludent and lucrative Ancient Aliens series, which first premiered in 2010, Heiser's claims make all the sense in the world.
In his article Heiser also explains that Coast to Coast AM has been the only one to interview him over the years. Interestingly, even con artist extraordinare John Lear has claimed on Coast to Coast AM that Sitchin is a fraud - which would be about the only truthful thing ever said on the show apart from Heiser's claims. To illustrate, Lear has been promoting no-plane theories for 9/11 and the idea of alien-built human soul catchers on the Moon. It's true though that Whitley Strieber and other prominent ufologists have generally refused to interview Heiser.
Sitchin theology on the Joe Rogan podcast
Major latter-day pushers of Zecharia Sitchin's Anunnaki and Nibiru theories have been Joe Rogan and Eddie Bravo on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. While this occurred primarily in the 2010-2014 period, it wasn't until 2016, two years after his "conversion" from "conspiracy theorist" to "skeptic", that Rogan first mentioned the existence of Dr. Mike Heiser's criticism on Sitchin. Bravo, in particular, also loves to promote the idea of chemtrails and a number of other extremely disinformative theories. Both are listed in ISGP's no-plane-at-Pentagon list regarding 9/11.
- In 2003 Eddie Bravo began 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu, the name inspired by Zecharia Sitchin's manipulative Anunnaki and "Niburu/Planet X" work. To this day Bravo runs the related "Niburu forum" and continues to profess his interest in the "Ancient Aliens" and other disinformative themes.
- May 5, 2012, Joe Rogan on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast, talking to Mike Ruppert: "[Starts out jokingly:] I believe we were designed to mine gold for the Anunnaki. ... That's the most fascinating idea, or myth, I don't - what you would call it: historical tale? ... A guy named Zecharia Sitchin. He was a biblical scholar, or linguist. ... He has this really fascinating tale of human creation, that humans were brought here. We were created here, rather, by a combination of the Anunnaki genetics and the lower primates. And that's why we are so much different than every other ape on this planet ... because we were really at one point some sort of a genetically engineered thing, like a dog. ... It's amazing, the diversity in dogs. And it's amazing that they can breed with each other. ...
"And the idea was that these Anunnaki had created us to mine gold. And the reason why they needed gold was that their atmosphere eroded due to, you know, ozone, and what have you, fucked up their environment, and had suspended metallic particles in the air to reflect the radiation and to protect their environment.
"[Ruppert: "Well, yeah, that's not resonating with me."]
"Well, the reason why it is fascinating is because a lot of the things they said were right. But they knew about Earth 1 and Earth 2, which is a fairly recent, like within the last couple of decades, reason, rather theory, where they figured out how the moon was created, and that Earth had been hit at one point by a planet. Well, they knew about this.
"This is actually in the Sumerian texts. This is all shit that Zecharia Sitchin wrote. He wrote about like in the 1970s and it turned out to be actual mainstream science in the 2000s. ... So you think Zecharia Sitchin was a crazy disinformation artist? Where's the music? Thun! Thun! Thah!"