The 12th Planet

KINGSHIP OF HEAVEN

STUDIES OF THE "EPIC OF CREATION" and parallel texts (for example, S. Langdon's The Babylonian Epic of Creation) show that sometime after 2000 B.C., Marduk, son of Enki, was the successful winner of a contest with Ninurta, son of Enlil, for supremacy among the gods.

The Babylonians then revised the original Sumerian "Epic of Creation," expunged from it all references to Ninurta and most references to Enlil, and renamed the invading planet Marduk.

The actual elevation of Marduk to the status of "King of the Gods" upon Earth was thus accompanied by assigning to him, as his celestial counterpart, the planet of the Nefilim, the Twelfth Planet. As "Lord of the Celestial Gods [the planets]" Marduk was thus also "King of the Heavens."

Some scholars at first believed that "Marduk" was either the North Star or some other bright star seen in the Mesopotamian skies at the time of the spring equinox because the celestial Marduk was described as a "bright heavenly body." But Albert Schott (Marduk und sein Stern) and others have shown conclusively that all the ancient astronomical texts spoke of Marduk as a member of the solar system.

Since other epithets described Marduk as the "Great Heavenly Body" and the "One Who Illumines," the theory was advanced that Marduk was a Babylonian Sun God, parallel to the Egyptian god Ra, whom the scholars also considered a Sun God. Texts describing Marduk as he "who scans the heights of the distant heavens... wearing a halo whose brilliance is awe-inspiring" appeared to support this theoiy. But the same text continued to say that "he surveys the lands like Shamash [the Sun]."

If Marduk was in some respects akin to the Sun, he could not, of course, be the Sun.

If Marduk was not the Sun, which one of the planets was he? The ancient astronomical texts failed to fit any one planet. Basing their theories on certain epithets (such as Son of the Sun), some scholars pointed at Saturn. The description of Marduk as a reddish planet made Mars, too, a candidate.

But the texts placed Marduk in markas shame ("in the center of Heaven"), and this convinced most scholars that the proper identification should be Jupiter, which is located in the center of the line of planets:

Jupiter

Mercury Venus Earth Mars Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto

This theory suffers from a contradiction.

The same scholars who put it forward were the ones who held the view that the Chaldeans were unaware of the planets beyond Saturn. These scholars list Earth as a planet, while contending that the Chaldeans thought of Earth as a flat center of the planetary system. And they omit the Moon, which the Mesopotamians most definitely counted among the "celestial gods." The equating-of the Twelfth Planet with Jupiter simply does not work out.

The "Epic of Creation" clearly states that Marduk was an invader from outside the solar system, passing by the outer planets (including Saturn and Jupiter) before colliding with Tiamat.

The Sumerians called the planet NIBIRU, the "planet of crossing," and the Babylonian version of the epic retained the following astronomical information:

Planet NIBIRU:
The Crossroads of Heaven and Earth he shall occupy.
Above and below, they shall not go across;
They must await him.

Planet NIBIRU:
Planet which is brilliant in the heavens.
He holds the central position;
To him they shall pay homage.

Planet NIBIRU:
It is he who without tiring
The midst of Tiamat keeps crossing.
Let "CROSSING" be his name -
The one who occupies the midst.

These lines provide the additional and conclusive information that in dividing the other planets into two equal groups, the Twelfth Planet in "the midst of Tiamat keeps crossing": Its orbit takes it again and again to the site of the celestial battle, where Tiamat used to be.

We find that astronomical texts that dealt in a highly sophisticated manner with the planetary periods, as well as lists of planets in their celestial order, also suggested that Marduk appeared somewhere between Jupiter and Mars.

Since the Sumerians did know of all the planets, the appearance of the Twelfth Planet in "the central position" confirms our conclusions:

Marduk
Mercury Venus Moon Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto

If Marduk's orbit takes it to where Tiamat once was, relatively near us (between Mars and Jupiter), why have we not yet seen this planet, which is supposedly large and bright?

The Mesopotamian texts spoke of Marduk as reaching unknown regions of the skies and the far reaches of the universe. "He scans the hidden knowledge ... he sees all the quarters of the universe." He was described as the "monitor" of all the planets, one whose orbit enables him to encircle all the others. "He keeps hold on their bands [orbits]," makes a "hoop" around them. His orbit was "loftier" and "grander" than that of any other planet.

It thus occurred to Franz Kugler (Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babylon) that Marduk was a fast-moving celestial body, orbiting in a great elliptical path just like a comet.

Such an elliptical path, focused on the Sun as a center of gravity, has an apogee - the point farthest from the Sun, where the return flight begins - and a perigee - the point nearest the Sun, where the return to outer space begins. We find that two such "bases" are indeed associated with Marduk in the Mesopotamian texts. The Sumerian texts described the planet as going from AN.UR ("Heaven's base") to E.NUN ("lordly abode").

The Creation epic said of Marduk:

He crossed the Heaven and surveyed the regions....
The structure of the Deep the Lord then measured.
E-Shara he established as his outstanding abode;
E-Shara as a great abode in the Heaven he established.

One "abode" was thus "outstanding" - far in the deep regions of space.

The other was established in the "Heaven," within the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter.

Following the teachings of their Sumerian forefather, Abraham of Ur, the ancient Hebrews also associated their supreme deity with the supreme planet.

Like the Mesopotamian texts, many books of the Old Testament describe the "Lord" as having his abode in the "heights of Heaven," where he "beheld the foremost planets as they were arisen"; a celestial Lord who, unseen, "in the heavens moves about in a circle."

The Book of Job, having described the celestial collision, contains these significant verses telling us where the lordly planet had gone:

Upon the Deep he marked out an orbit;

Where light and darkness [merge] Is his farthest limit.
No less explicitly, the Psalms outlined the planet's majestic course:
The Heavens bespeak the glory of the Lord;
The Hammered Bracelet proclaims his handiwork....
He comes forth as a groom from the canopy;
Like an athlete he rejoices to run the course.
From the end of heavens he emanates,
And his circuit is to their end.

Recognized as a great traveler in the heavens, soaring to immense heights at its apogee and then "coming down, bowing unto the Heaven" at its perigee, the planet was depicted as a Winged Globe.

Wherever archaeologists uncovered the remains of Near Eastern peoples, the symbol of the Winged Globe was conspicuous, dominating temples and palaces, carved on rocks, etched on cylinder seals, painted on walls.

It accompanied kings and priests, stood above their thrones, "hovered" above them in battle scenes, was etched into their chariots. Clay, metal, stone, and wood objects were adorned with the symbol. The rulers of Sumer and Akkad, Babylon and Assyria, Elam and Urartu, Mari and Nuzi, Mitanni and Canaan - all revered the symbol. Hittite kings, Egyptian pharaohs, Persian shar's - all proclaimed the symbol (and what it stood for) supreme.

It remained so for millennia.

Central to the religious beliefs and astronomy of the ancient world was the conviction that the Twelfth Planet, the "Planet of the Gods," remained within the solar system and that its grand orbit returned it periodically to Earth's vicinity. The pictographic sign for the Twelfth Planet, the "Planet of Crossing," was a cross.

This cuneiform sign , also meant "Ami" and "divine," evolved in the Semitic languages to the letter tav , which meant "the sign."

Indeed, all the peoples of the ancient world considered the periodic nearing of the Twelfth Planet as a sign of upheavals, great changes, and new eras.

The Mesopotamian texts spoke of the planet's periodic appearance as an anticipated, predictable, and observable event:

The great planet;
At his appearance, dark red.
The Heaven he divides in half and stands as Nibiru.

Many of the texts dealing with the planet's arrival were omen texts prophesying the effect the event would have upon Earth and Mankind.

R. Campbell Thompson (Reports of the Magicians and Astronomers of Nineveh and Babylon) reproduced several such texts, which trace the progress of the planet as it "ringed the station of Jupiter" and arrived at the point of crossing, Nibiru:

When from the station of Jupiter
the Planet passes towards the west,
there will be a time of dwelling in security.
Kindly peace will descend on the land.
When from the station of Jupiter
the Planet increases in brilliance c
and in the Zodiac of Cancer will become Nibiru, ;
Akkad will overflow with plenty,
the king of Akkad will grow powerful.
When Nibiru culminates....
The lands will dwell securely,
Hostile kings will be at peace,
The gods will receive prayers and hear supplications.

The nearing planet, however, was expected to cause rains and flooding, as its strong gravitational effects have been known to do:

When the Planet of the Throne of Heaven
will grow brighter,
there will be floods and rains.
When Nibiru attains its perigee,
the gods will give peace;
troubles will be cleared up,

complications will be unravelled.

Rains and floods will come.

Like the Mesopotamian savants, the Hebrew prophets considered the time of the planet's approaching Earth and becoming visible to Mankind as ushering in a new era.

The similarities between the Mesopotamian omens of peace and prosperity that would accompany the Planet of the Throne of Heaven, and the biblical prophesies of the peace and justice that would settle upon Earth after the Day of the Lord, can best be expressed in the words of Isaiah:

And it shall come to pass at the End of Days:... the Lord shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many peoples. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation.

In contrast with the blessings of the new era following the Day of the Lord, the day itself was described by the Old Testament as a time of rains, inundations, and earthquakes.

If we think of the biblical passages as referring, like their Mesopotamian counterparts, to the passage in Earth's vicinity of a large planet with a strong gravitational pull, the words of Isaiah can be plainly understood:

Like the noise of a multitude in the mountains,
a tumultuous noise like of a great many people,
of kingdoms of nations gathered together;
it is the Lord of Hosts,
commanding a Host to battle.
From a far away land they come,
from the end-point of the Heaven
do the Lord and his Weapons of wrath
come to destroy the whole Earth....
Therefore will I agitate the Heaven
and Earth shall be shaken out of its place
when the Lord of Hosts shall be crossing,
the day of his burning wrath.

While on Earth "mountains shall melt... valleys shall be cleft," Earth's axial spin would also be affected.

The prophet Amos explicitly predicted:

It shall come to pass on that Day,
sayeth the Lord God,
that I will cause the Sun to go down at noon
and I will darken the Earth in the midst of daytime.

Announcing, "Behold, the Day of the Lord is come!" the prophet Zechariah informed the people that this phenomenon of an arrest in Earth's spin around its own axis would last only one day:

And it shall come to pass on that Day
there shall be no light - uncommonly shall it freeze.
And there shall be one day, known to the Lord,
which shall be neither day nor night,
when at eve-time there shall be light.

On the Day of the Lord, the prophet Joel said, "the Sun and Moon shall be darkened, the stars shall withdraw their radiance"; "the Sun shall be turned into darkness, and the Moon shall be as red blood."

Mesopotamian texts exalted the planet's radiance and suggested that it could be seen even at daytime: "visible at sunrise, disappearing from view at sunset." A cylinder seal, found at Nippur, depicts a group of plowmen looking up with awe as the Twelfth Planet (depicted with its cross symbol) is visible in the skies.

The ancient peoples not only expected the periodic arrival of the Twelfth Planet but also charted its advancing course.

Various biblical passages - especially in Isaiah, Amos, and Job - relate the movement of the celestial Lord to various constellations.

"Alone he stretches out the heavens and treads upon the highest Deep; he arrives at the Great Hoar, Orion and Sirius, and the constellations of the south." Or, "He smiles his face upon Taurus and Aries; from Taurus to Sagittarius he shall go."

These verses describe a planet that not only spans the highest heavens but also comes in from the south and moves in a clockwise direction - just as we have deduced from the Mesopotamian data. Quite explicitly, the prophet Habakkuk stated:

"The Lord from the south shall come... his glory shall fill the Earth... and Venus shall be as light, its rays of the Lord given."

Among the many Mesopotamian texts that dealt with the subject, one is quite clear:

Planet of the god Marduk:

Upon its appearance: Mercury.
Rising thirty degrees of the celestial arc: Jupiter.
When standing in the place of the celestial battle: Nibiru.

As the accompanying schematic chart illustrates, the above texts do not simply call the Twelfth Planet by different names (as scholars have assumed).

They deal ml her with the movements of the planet and the three crucial points at which its appearance can be observed and charted from Earth.

The first opportunity to observe the Twelfth Planet as its orbit brings it back to Earth's vicinity, then, was when it aligned with Mercury (point A) - by our calculations, at an angle of 30 degrees to the imaginary celestial axis of Sun - Earth - perigee.

Coming closer to Earth and thus appearing to "rise" farther in Earth's skies (another 30 degrees, to be exact), the planet crossed the orbit of Jupiter ul point B. Finally, arriving at the place where the celestial I tattle had taken place, the perigee, or the Place of the Crossing, the planet is Nibiru, point C.

Drawing an imaginary axis between Sun, Earth and the perigee of Marduk's orbit, observers on Earth first saw Marduk aligned with Mercury, at a 30° angle (point A). Progressing another 30°, Marduk crossed the orbital path of Jupiter at point B.

Then, at its perigee (point C) Marduk reached The Crossing: back at the site of the Celestial Battle, it was closest to Earth, and began its orbit back to distant space.

The anticipation of the Day of the Lord in the ancient Mesopotamian and Hebrew wrings (which were echoed in the New Testament's expectations of the coming of the Kingship of Heaven) was thus based on the actual experiences of Earth's people: their witnessing the periodic return of the Planet of Kingship to Earth's vicinity.

The planet's periodic appearance and disappearance from Earth's view confirms the assumption of its permanence in solar orbit. In this it acts like many comets. Some of the known comets - like Halley's comet, which nears Earth every seventy-five years - disappeared from view for such long times that astronomers were hard-pressed to realize that they were seeing the same comet.

Other comets have been seen only once in human memory, and are assumed to have orbital periods running into thousands of years. The comet Kohoutek, for example, first discovered in March 1973, came within 75,000,000 miles of Earth in January 1974, and disappeared behind the Sun soon thereafter. Astronomers calculate it will reappear anywhere from 7,500 to 75,000 years in the future.

Human familiarity with the Twelfth Planet's periodic appearances and disappearances from view suggests that its orbital period is shorter than that calculated for Kohoutek. If so, why are our astronomers not aware of the existence of this planet?

The fact is that even an orbit half as long as the lower figure for Kohoutek would take the Twelfth Planet about six times farther away from us than Pluto - a distance at which such a planet would not be visible from Earth, since it would barely (if at all) reflect the Sun's light toward Earth. In fact, the known planets beyond Saturn were first discovered not visually but mathematically. The orbits of known planets, astronomers found, were apparently being affected by other celestial bodies.

This may also be the way in which astronomers will "discover" the Twelfth Planet. There has already been speculation that a "Planet X" exists, which, though unseen, may be "sensed" through its effects on the orbits of certain comets. In 1972, Joseph L. Brady of the Lawrence Liver-more Laboratory of the University of California discovered that discrepancies in the orbit of Halley's comet could be caused by a planet the size of Jupiter orbiting the Sun every 1,800 years.

At its estimated distance of 6,000,000,-000 miles, its presence could be detected only mathematically.

While such an orbital period cannot be ruled out, the Mesopotamian and biblical sources present strong evidence that the orbital period of the Twelfth Planet is 3,600 years. The number 3,600 was written in Sumerian as a large circle. The epithet for the planet - shar ("supreme ruler") also meant "a perfect circle," a "completed cycle." It also meant the number 3,600. And the identity of the three terms - planet/orbit/3,600 - could not be a mere coincidence.

Berossus, the Babylonian priest-astronomer-scholar, spoke of ten rulers who reigned upon Earth before the Deluge.

Summarizing the writings of Berossus, Alexander Polyhistor wrote:

"In the second book was the history of the ten kings of the Chaldeans, and the periods of each reign, which consisted collectively of an hundred and twenty shar's, or four hundred and thirty-two thousand years; reaching to the time of the Deluge."

Abydenus, a disciple of Aristotle, also quoted Berossus in terms of ten pre-Diluvial rulers whose total reign numbered 120 shar's.

He made clear that these rulers and their cities were located in ancient Mesopotamia:

It is said that the first king of the land was Alorus....

He reigned ten skat's.
Now, a shar is esteemed to be three thousand six hundred years. ...
After him Alaprus reigned three shar's;

to him succeeded Amillarus from the city of panti-Biblon,

who reigned thirteen shar's. ...
After him Ammenon reigned twelve shar's;

he was of the city of panti-Biblon.

Then Megalurus of the same place, eighteen shar's.
Then Daos, the Shepherd,

governed for the space of ten shar's. ...

There were afterwards other Rulers, and the last of all Sisithrus; so that in the whole, the number amounted to ten kings, and the term of their reigns to an hundred and twenty shar's.

Apollodorus of Athens also reported on the prehistorical disclosures of Berossus in similar terms: Ten rulers reigned a total of 120 shar's (432,000 years), and the reign of each one of them was also measured in the 3,600-year shar units.

With the advent of Sumerology, the "olden texts" to which Berossus referred were found and deciphered; these were Sumerian king lists, which apparently laid down tradition of ten pre-Diluvial rulers who ruled Earth from the time when "Kingship was lowered from Heaven" until the "Deluge swept over the Earth."

One Sumerian king list, known as text W-B/144, records the divine reigns in five settled places or "cities." In the first city, Eridu, there were two rulers.

The text prefixes both names with the title-syllable "A," meaning "progenitor."

When kingship was lowered from Heaven,
kingship was first in Eridu.
In Eridu,
A.LU.LIM became king; he ruled 28,800 years.
A.LAL.GAR ruled 36,000 years.
Two kings ruled it 64,800 years.

Kingship then transferred to other seats of government, where the rulers were called en, or "lord" (and in one instance by the divine title dingir).

I drop Eridu;
its kingship was carried to Bad-Tibira.

In Bad-Tibira,
EN.MEN.LU.AN.NA ruled 43,200 years;

'EN.MEN.GAL.AN.NA ruled 28,800 years.

Divine DU.MU.ZI, Shepherd, ruled 36,000 years.

Three kings ruled it for 108,000 years.

The list then names the cities that followed, Larak and Sippar, and their divine rulers; and last, the city of Shuruppak, where a human of divine parentage was king. The striking fact about the fantastic lengths of these rules is that, without exception, they are multiples of 3,600.

Another Sumerian text (W-B/62) added Larsa and its two divine rulers to the king list, and the reign periods it gives are also perfect multiples of the 3,600-year shar. With the aid of other texts, the conclusion is that there were indeed ten rulers in Sumer before the Deluge; each rule lasted so many shar's; and altogether their reign lasted 120 shar's - as reported by Berossus.

The conclusion that suggests itself is that these shar's of rulership were related to the orbital period shar (3,600 years) of the planet "Shar," the "Planet of Kingship"; that Alulim reigned during eight orbits of the Twelfth Planet, Alalgar during ten orbits, and so on.

If these pre-Diluvial rulers were, as we suggest, Nefilim who came to Earth from the Twelfth Planet, then it should not be surprising that their periods of "reign" on Earth should be related to the orbital period of the Twelfth Planet. The periods of such tenure or Kingship would last from the time of a landing to the time of a takeoff; as one commander arrived from the Twelfth Planet, the other's time came up. Since the landings and takeoffs must have been related to the Twelfth Planet's approach to Earth, the command tenures could only have been measured in these orbital periods, of shar's.

One may ask, of course, whether any one of the Nefilim, having landed on Earth, could remain in command here for the purported 28,800 or 36,000 years. No wonder scholars speak of the length of these reigns as "legendary."

But what is a year?

Our "year" is simply the time it takes Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun. Because life developed on Earth when it was already orbiting the Sun, life on Earth is patterned by this length of orbit. (Even a more minor orbit time, like that of the Moon, or the day-night cycle is powerful enough to affect almost all life on Earth.) We live so many years because our biological clocks are geared to so many Earth orbits around the Sun.

There can be little doubt that life on another planet would be "timed" to the cycles of that planet. If the trajectory of the Twelfth Planet around the Sun were so extended that one orbit was completed in the same time it takes Earth to complete 100 orbits, then one year of the Nefilim would equal 100 of our years. If their orbit took 1,000 times longer than ours, then 1,000 Earth years would equal only one Nefilim year.

And what if, as we believe, their orbit around the sun lasted 3,600 Earth years? Then 3,600 of our years would amount to only one year in their calendar, and also only one year in their lifetime. The tenures of Kingship reported by the Sumerians and Berossus would thus be neither "legendary" nor fantastic: They would have lasted five or eight or ten Nefilim years.

We have noted, in earlier chapters, that Mankind's march to civilization - through the intervention of the Nefilim - passed through three stages, which were separated by periods of 3,600 years: the Mesolithic period (circa 11,000 B.C.), the pottery phase (circa 7400 B.C.), and the sudden Sumerian civilization (circa 3800 B.C.).

It is not unlikely, then, that the Nefilim periodically reviewed (and resolved to continue) Mankind's progress, since they could meet in assembly each time the Twelfth Planet neared Earth.

Many scholars (for example, Heinrich Zimmern in The Babylonian and Hebrew Genesis) have pointed out that the Old Testament also carried traditions of pre-Diluvial chieftains, or forefathers, and that the line from Adam to Noah (the hero of the Deluge) listen ten such rulers.

Putting the situation prior to the Deluge in perspective, the Book of Genesis (Chapter 6) described the divine disenchantment with Mankind.

"And it repented the Lord that he had made Man on Earth... and the Lord said: I will destroy Man whom I had created."

And the Lord said:
My spirit shall not shield Man forever;
having erred, he is but flesh.
And his days were one hundred and twenty years.

Generations of scholars have read the verse "And his days shall be a hundred and twenty years" as God's granting a life span of 120 years to Man.

But this just does not make sense. If the text dealt with God's intent to destroy Mankind, why would he in the same breath offer Man long life? And we find that no sooner had the Deluge subsided than Noah lived far longer than the supposed limit of 120 years, as did his descendants Shem (600), Arpakhshad (438), Shelah (433), and so on.

In seeking to apply the span of 120 years to Man, the scholars ignore the fact that the biblical language employs not the future tense - "His days shall be" - but the past tense -

"And his days were one hundred and twenty years."

The obvious question, then, is: Whose time span is referred to here?

Our conclusion is that the count of 120 years was meant to apply to the Deity.

Setting a momentous event in its proper time perspective is a common feature of the Sumerian and Babylonian epic texts. The "Epic of Creation" opens with the words Enuma elish ("when on high"). The story of the encounter of the god Enlil and the goddess Ninlil is placed at the time "when man had not yet been created," and so on.

The language and purpose of Chapter 6 of Genesis were geared to the same purpose - to put the momentous events of the great Flood in their proper time perspective.

The very first word of the very first verse of Chapter 6 is when:

When the Earthlings
began to increase in number
upon the face of the Earth,
and daughters were born unto them.
This, the narrative continues, was the time when

The sons of the gods saw the daughters of the Earthling that they were compatible;

and they took unto themselves wives of whichever they chose.
It was the time when
The Nefilim were upon the land
in those days, and thereafter too;
when the sons of the gods
cohabited with the Earthling's daughters
and they conceived.
They were the Mighty Ones who are of Olam,
the People of the Shem.
It was then, in those days,

at that time that Man was about to be wiped off the face of the Earth by the Flood.

When exactly was that?

Verse 3 tells us unequivocally: when his, the Deity's count, was 120 years. One hundred twenty "years," not of Man and not of Earth, but as counted by the mighty ones, the "People of the Rockets," the Nefilim. And their year was the shar - 3,600 Earth years.

This interpretation not only clarifies the perplexing verses of Genesis 6, it also shows how the verses match the Sumerian information: 120 shar's, 432,000 Earth years, had passed between the Nefilim's first landing on Earth and the Deluge.

Based on our estimates of when the Deluge occurred, we place the first landing of the Nefilim on Earth circa 450,000 years ago.

Before we turn to the ancient records regarding the voyages of the Nefilim to Earth and their settlement on Earth, two basic questions need to be answered: Could beings obviously not much different from us evolve on another planet? Could such beings have had the capability, half a million years ago, for interplanetary travel?

The first question touches upon a more fundamental question: Is there life as we know it anywhere besides the planet Earth? Scientists now know that there are innumerable galaxies like ours, containing countless stars like our Sun, with astronomical numbers of planets providing every imaginable combination of temperature and atmosphere and chemicals, offering billions of chances for Life.

They have also found that our own interplanetary space is not void. For example, there are water molecules in space, the remnants of what are believed to have been clouds of ice crystals that apparently envelop stars in their early stages of development. This discovery lends support to persistent Mesopotamian references to the waters of the Sun, which mingled with the waters of Tiamat.

The basic molecules of living matter have also been found "floating" in interplanetary space, and the belief that life can exist only within certain atmospheres or temperature ranges has also been shattered.

Furthermore, the notion that the only source of energy and heat available to living organisms is the Sun's emissions has been discarded. Thus, the spacecraft Pioneer 10 discovered that Jupiter, though much farther away from the Sun than Earth, was so hot that it must have its own sources of energy and heat.

A planet with an abundance of radioactive elements in its depths would not only generate its own heat; it would also experience substantial volcanic activity. Such volcanic activity provides an atmosphere. If the planet is large enough to exert a strong gravitational pull, it will keep its atmosphere almost indefinitely.

Such an atmosphere, in turn, creates a hothouse effect: it shields the planet from the cold of outer space, and keeps the planet's own heat from dissipating into space - much as clothing keeps us warm by not letting the body's heat dissipate. With this in mind, the ancient texts' descriptions of the Twelfth Planet as "clothed with a halo" assume more than poetic significance. It was always referred to as a radiant planet - "most radiant of the gods he is" - and depictions of it showed it as a ray-emitting body.

The Twelfth Planet could generate its own heat and retain the heat because of its atmospheric mantle.

Scientists have also come to the unexpected conclusion that not only could life have evolved upon the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) but it probably did evolve there.

These planets are made up of the lighter elements of the solar system, have a composition more akin to that of the universe in general, and offer a profusion of hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia, and probably neon and water vapor in their atmospheres - all the elements required for the production of organic molecules.

For life as we know it to develop, water is essential. The Mesopotamian texts left no doubt that the Twelfth Planet was a watery planet. In the "Epic of Creation," the planet's list of fifty names included a group exalting its watery aspects.

Based on the epithet A.SAR ("watery king"), "who established water levels," the names described the planet as A.SAR.U ('lofty, bright watery king"), A.SAR. U.LU.DU ("lofty, bright watery king whose deep is plentiful"), and so on.

The Sumerians had no doubt that the Twelfth Planet was a verdant planet of We; indeed, they called it NAM.TIL.LA.KU, "the god who maintains life."

He was also "bestower of cultivation,"

"creator of grain and herbs who causes vegetation to sprout... who opened the wells, apportioning waters of abundance" - the "irrigator of Heaven and Earth."

Life, scientists have concluded, evolved not upon the terrestrial planets, with their heavy chemical components, but in the outer fringes of the solar system.

From these fringes of the solar system, the Twelfth Planet came into our midst, a reddish, glowing planet, generating and radiating its own heat, providing from its own atmosphere the ingredients needed for the chemistry of life.

If a puzzle exists, it is the appearance of life on Earth. Earth was formed some 4,500,000,000 years ago, and scientists believe that the simpler forms of life were already present on Earth within a few hundred million years thereafter. This is simply much too soon for comfort.

There are also several indications that the oldest and simplest forms of life, more than 3,000,000,000 years old, had molecules of a biological, not a non-biological, origin. Stated differently, this means that the life that was on Earth so soon after Earth was born was itself a descendant of some previous life form, and not the result of the combination of lifeless chemicals and gases.

What all this suggests to the baffled scientists is that life, which could not easily evolve on Earth, did not, in fact, evolve on Earth. Writing in the scientific magazine Icarus (September 1973), Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick and

Dr. Leslie Orgel advanced the theory that,

"life on Earth may have sprung from tiny organisms from a distant planet."

They launched their studies out of the known uneasiness among scientists over current theories of the origins of life on Earth.

Why is there only one genetic code for all terrestrial life? If life started in a primeval "soup," as most biologists believe, organisms with a variety of genetic codes should have developed.

Also, why does the element molybdenum play a key role in enzymatic reactions that are essential to life, when molybdenum is a very rare element? Why are elements that are more abundant on Earth, such as chromium or nickel, so unimportant in biochemical reactions?

The bizarre theory offered by Crick and Orgel was not only that all life on Earth may have sprung from an organism from another planet but that such "seeding" was deliberate - that intelligent beings from another planet launched the "seed of life" from their planet to Earth in a spaceship, for the express purpose of starting the life chain on Earth.

Without benefit of the data provided by this book, these two eminent scientists came close to the real fact. There was no premeditated "seeding"; instead, there was a celestial collision. A life-bearing planet, the Twelfth Planet and its satellites, collided with Tiamat and split it in two, "creating" Earth of its half.

During that collision the life-bearing soil and air of the Twelfth Planet "seeded" Earth, giving it the biological and complex early forms of life for whose early appearance there is no other explanation.

If life on the Twelfth Planet started even 1 percent sooner than on Earth, then it began there some 45,000,000 years earlier.

Even by this minute margin, beings as developed as Man would already have been living upon the Twelfth Planet when the first small mammals had just begun to appear on Earth.

Given this earlier start for life on the Twelfth Planet, it was possible for its people to be capable of space travel a mere 500,000 years ago.

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