Hypothetical planetary object (non-scientific)
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There are a number of planets or planetary bodies whose existence is not supported by scientific evidence, but which are occasionally believed to exist by pseudoscientists, conspiracy theorists or certain religious groups. Some were proposed early in philosophical history, and perhaps belong more to protoscience than pseudoscience, while others were formed in direct conflict with current scientific consensus.
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[edit] Hypothetical planets
[edit] Counter-Earth
This idea was first established by Philolaus when he reasoned that in order to keep the universe in balance there was a need for a Counter-Earth, Antichthon in Greek, a second Earth, identical but opposite to ours in every way on the other side of the Central Fire.
If such a planet actually existed in our current scientific cosmology, as a spherical world that revolved around the sun, it would be permanently hidden behind the sun but nevertheless detectable from Earth, because of its gravitational influence upon the other planets of the Solar System. No such influence has been detected, and indeed space probes sent to Venus, Mars and other places could not have successfully flown by or landed on their targets if a Counter-Earth existed, as it was not accounted for in navigational calculation.
[edit] Planets proposed by Zecharia Sitchin
In recent years, the work of Zecharia Sitchin has garnered much attention among ufologists, ancient astronaut theorists and conspiracy theorists. He claims to have uncovered, through his own retranslations of Sumerian texts, evidence that the human race was visited by a group of extraterrestrials from a distant planet in our own Solar System. 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. However, since the principal evidence for Sitchin's claims lies in his own personally derived etymologies and not on any scholarly agreed interpretations (including scholars among the Sumerians themselves), his theories remain at most pseudoscience to the vast majority, if not the totality, of academics.[1]
Sitchin's theory proposes the planets Tiamat and Nibiru. Tiamat supposedly existed between Mars and Jupiter. He postulated that it was a thriving world in a much differently shaped solar system, with jungles and oceans, whose orbit was disrupted by the arrival of a large planet or very small star (less than twenty times the size of Jupiter) which passed through the solar system between 65 million and four billion years ago. The new orbits caused Tiamat to collide with one of the moons of this object, which is known as Nibiru. The debris from this collision are thought by the theory's proponents to have variously formed the asteroid belt, the moon, and the current incarnation of the planet Earth.
Beginning in 1995, websites such as ZetaTalk have identified Nibiru or "Planet X" as a large object in the outer Solar System currently on collision course with Earth. Sitchin himself disagrees with these claims.
To the Babylonians, Nibiru was the celestial body or region sometimes associated with the god Marduk. The word is Akkadian and the meaning is uncertain. Because of this, the hypothetical planet Nibiru is sometimes also referred to as Marduk. Sitchin hypothesizes it as a planet in a highly elliptic orbit around the Sun, with a perihelion passage some 3,600 years ago and assumed orbital period of about 3,600 to 3,760 years or 3,741 years, he also claims it was the home of a technologically advanced human-like alien race, the Anunnaki, which would have visited Earth in search of gold particles.
[edit] Hypothetical moons
[edit] Lilith
Earth's "dark moon," first proposed in 1846 by French astronomer Frederic Petit and supposedly confirmed in 1919 by astrologer Walter Gornold, who named it. Although neither claim is supported by scientific evidence, Lilith is still used by some astrologers today.
[edit] Gaga
Sitchin also postulates that Pluto began life as Gaga, a satellite of Saturn which, due to gravitational disruption caused by Nibiru's passing, was flung into orbit around Neptune.
[edit] Hypothetical extrasolar planets
[edit] Kolob
A star or planet "nearest the throne of God" that forms part of Latter Day Saint theology. It was the inspiration for the fictional planet Kobol in the television series Battlestar Galactica.
[edit] Serpo
Ufologists believe, based on the testimony of Betty and Barney Hill, one of the first recorded cases of alleged alien abduction, that the alien civilization known as the Greys derive from a planet orbiting the binary star Zeta Reticuli. Bob Lazar has claimed that the crashed UFO found at Area 51 is from that system. In 2005, ufologist Victor Martinez claimed to have unearthed evidence that the alien from the Roswell UFO crash of 1947 was eventually peacefully repatriated, which led to establishment of diplomatic relations with this planet, which was nicknamed Serpo.
[edit] Rizq
An extrasolar planet in a trinary star system believed by the followers of the Nuwaubian doctrine espoused by self-described contactee Dwight York to have been the homeworld of the Anunaqi Eloheem, who came to Earth and played a role in the creation of humans.
