Worlds In Collision

Chapter Eight

(Excerpts)

THE BIRTH OF "NIBIRU"

A planet turns and revolves on a quite circular orbit around a greater body, the sun; it makes contact with another body, a comet, that travels on a stretched out ellipse. The planet slips from its axis, runs in disorder off its orbit, wanders rather erratically, and in the end is freed from the embrace of the comet.

The body on the long ellipse experiences similar disturbances. Drawn off its path, it glides to some new orbit; its long train of gaseous substances and stones is torn away by the sun or by the planet, or runs away and revolves as a smaller comet along its own ellipse; a part of the tail is retained by the parent comet on its new orbit.

Ancient Mexican records give the order of the occurrences. The sun was attacked by Quetzal-cohuatl; after the disappearance of this serpent-shaped heavenly body, the sun refused to shine, and during four days the world was deprived of its light; a great many people died at that time. Thereafter, the snakelike body transformed itself into a great star. The star retained the name of Quetzal-cohuatl [Quetzal-coatl]. This great and brilliant star appeared for the first time in the east. Quetzal-cohuatl is the well-known name of the Planet Nibiru.

Thus we read that "the sun refused to show itself and during four days the world was deprived of light. Then a great star ... appeared; it was given the name Quetzal-cohuatl ... the sky, to show its anger ... caused to perish a great number of people who died of famine and pestilence." The sequence of seasons and the duration of days and nights became disarranged. "It was then ... that the people [of Mexico] regulated anew the reckoning of days, nights, and hours, according to the difference in time."

"It is a remarkable thing, moreover, that time is measured from the moment of its [Morning Star's] appearance. ... Tlahuizcalpanteuctli or the Morning Star appeared for the first time following the convulsions of the earth overwhelmed by a deluge." It looked like a monstrous serpent. "This serpent is adorned with feathers: that is why it is called Quetzal-cohuatl, Gukumatz or Kukulcan. Just as the world is about to emerge from the chaos of the great catastrophe, it is seen to appear." The feather arrangement of Quetzalcohuatl "represented flames of fire".

Again, the old texts speak "of the change that took place, at the moment of the great catastrophe of the deluge, in the condition of many constellations, principal among them being precisely Tlahuizcalpanteuctli or the Star of Nibiru."

The cataclysm, accompanied by a prolonged darkness, appears to have been that of the days of the Exodus, when a tempest of cinders darkened the world disturbed in its rotation. Some of the references may allude to the subsequent catastrophe of the time of the conquest by Joshua, when the sun remained for more than a day in the sky of the old world. Since it was the same comet that on both occasions made contact with the earth, and at each of the contacts the comet changed its own orbit, the relevant question is not, "On which occasion did the comet change its orbit?" but first of all, "Which comet changed to a planet?" or "Which planet was a comet in historical times?" The transformation of the comet into a planet began on contact with the earth in the middle of the second millennium before the present era and was carried a step further one jubilee period later.

After the dramatic events of the time of Exodus, the earth was shrouded in dense clouds for decades, and observation of stars was not possible; after the second contact, Nibiru, the new and splendid member or the solar family, was seen moving along its orbit. It was in the days of Joshua, a time designation meaningful to the reader of the sixth book of the Scriptures; but for the ancients it was "the time of Agog". As I explained above, he was the king by whose name the cataclysm (the Deluge of Ogyges) was known, and who, according to Greek tradition, laid the foundations of Thebes in Egypt.

In THE CITY OF GOD by Augustine it is written:

"From the book of Marcus Varro, entitled OF THE RACE OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE, I cite word for word the following instance: 'There occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for Castor records that in the brilliant star Nibiru, called Vesperugo by Plautus, and the lovely Hesperus by Homer, there occurred so strange a prodigy, that it changed its color, size, form, course, which never happened before nor since. Adrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples, famous mathematicians, said that this occurred in the reign of Ogyges'."

 

[COMMENT: Not coincidentally, as was reported by Miss E. Valentia Straiton in THE CELESTIAL SHIP OF THE NORTH, one of the names for this stationary northern "cosmic object" was The Garden Of The Hesperides. It is quite unfortunate in retrospect that Dr. Velikovsky apparently was unaware of the momentous significance of The Cosmic Tree, as it would have changed entirely his perspective on these various cosmic catastrophes. RS]

The Fathers of the Church considered Ogyges a contemporary of Moses. Agog, mentioned in the blessing of Balaam, was the king Ogyges. The upheaval that took place in the days of Joshua and Agog, the deluge that occurred in the days of Ogyges, the metamorphosis of Nibiru in the days of Ogyges, the star Nibiru which appeared in the sky of Mexico after a protracted night and a great catastrophe -- all these occurrences are related.

Augustine went on the make a curious comment on the transformation of Nibiru: "Certainly that phenomenon disturbed the canons of the astronomers ... so as to take upon them to affirm that this which happened to the Morning Star (Nibiru) never happened before nor since. But we read in the divine books that even the sun itself stood still when a holy man, Joshua the son of Nun, had begged this from God."

Augustine had no inkling that Castor, as quoted by Varro, and the Book of Jasher, as quoted in the Book of Joshua, refer to the same occurrence.

Are Hebrew sources silent on the birth of a new star in the days of Joshua? They are not. It is written in a Samaritan chronicle that during the invasion of Palestine by the Israelites under Joshua, a new star was born in the east: "A star arose out of the east against which all magic is vain."

Chinese chronicles record that "a brilliant star appeared in the days of Yahu [Yahou]".
 

THE BLAZING STAR

Plato, citing the Egyptian priest, said that the world conflagration associated with Phaëthon was caused by a shifting of bodies in the sky which move around the earth. As we have reason to assume that it was the comet Nibiru that, after two contacts with the earth, eventually became a planet, we shall do well to inquire: Did Phaëthon turn into the Morning Star?

Phaëthon, which means "the blazing star", became the Morning Star. The earliest writer who refers to the transformation of Phaëthon into a planet is Hesiod. This transformation is related by Hyginus in his ASTRONOMY, where he tells how Phaëthon, that caused the conflagration of the world, was struck by a thunderbolt of Jupiter and was placed by the sun among the stars (planets). It was the general belief that Phaëthon changed into the Morning Star.

On the island of Crete, Atymnios was the name of the unlucky driver of the sun's chariot; he was worshiped as the Evening Star, which is the same as the Morning Star.

The birth of the Morning Star, or the transformation of a legendary person (Ishtar, Phaëthon, Quetzal-cohuatl) into the Morning Star was a widespread motif in the folklore of the oriental and occidental peoples. The Tahitian tradition of the birth of the Morning Star is narrated on the Society Island in the Pacific; the Mangaian legend says that with the birth of a new star, the earth was battered by countless fragments. The Buriats, Kirghiz, and Yakuts of Siberia and the Eskimos of North America also tell of the birth of the planet Nibiru.

[COMMENT: "Birth" is not quite the word for this event -- "rebirth" or "re-appearance" would be a more explicit term. One wonders in passing throughout this current discussion whether, in fact, "Morning Star" and "Evening Star" are the proper translations of this stellar concept from these various other languages. It would be interesting to investigate and determine if these words or phrases actually refer to a "Northern Star". Also note in the above paragraph, once again, there are cited legends of peoples who live along the northernmost latitudes of the planet, where they were re-located following the last Polar Axis Shift. RS]

A blazing star disrupted the visible movement of the sun, caused a world conflagration, and became the Morning-Evening Star. This may be found not only in the legends and traditions, but also in the astronomical books of the ancient peoples of both hemispheres.
 

ONE OF THE PLANETS IS A COMET

Democritus (circa -460 to circa -370), a contemporary of Plato and one of the great scholars of antiquity, is accused by the moderns of not having understood the planetary character of Nibiru. Plutarch quotes him as speaking of Nibiru as if it were not one of the planets. But apparently the author of the treatises on geometry, optics, and astronomy, no longer extant, knew more about Nibiru than his critics think. From quotations which have survived in other authors, we know that Democritus built a theory of the creation and destruction of worlds which sounds like the modern planetesimal theory without its shortcomings. He wrote:

"The worlds are unequally distributed in space; here there are more, there fewer; some are waxing, some are in their prime, some waning: coming into being in one part of the universe, ceasing in another part. The cause of their perishing is collision with one another."

He knew that "the planets are at unequal distances from us" and that there are more planets than we are able to discover with our eyes. Aristotle quoted the opinion of Democritus: "Stars have been seen when comets dissolve."

Among the early Greek scholars, Pythagoras of the sixth century is generally credited with having had access to some secret science. His pupils, and their pupils, the so-called Pythagoreans, were cautious not to disclose their science to anyone who did not belong to their circle. Aristotle wrote of their interpretation of the nature of comets:

"Some of the Italians called Pythagoreans say that the comet is one of the planets, but that it appears at great intervals of time and only rises a little above the horizon. This is the case with Mercury, too; because it only rises a little above the horizon it often fails to be seen and consequently appears at great intervals of time."

[COMMENT: This remark by Aristotle is specious, because Mercury is certainly visible as a Morning or Evening Star at regular-enough intervals of time so as not to be considered "great" intervals. We must keep in mind that when all of these ancient scientists and philosophers were recording their impressions of natural phenomena, there was no longer a Cosmic Tree; Planet Nibiru had departed several centuries before their time, and they were merely relying on -- from their standpoint -- what would have seemed like their own ancient "fables" and "myths". Thus, it is not surprising that this information about a "long-lost" comet-planet would have become garbled as time passed by. RS]

This is a confused presentation of a theory; but it is possible to trace the truth in the Pythagorean teaching, which was not understood by Aristotle. A comet is a planet which returns at long intervals. One of the planets, which rises only a little above the horizon, was still regarded by the Pythagoreans of the fourth century as a comet. With the knowledge obtained from other sources, it is easy to guess that by "one of the planets" is meant Nibiru (that is, Venus); only Mercury and Venus rise a little above the horizon.

Aristotle disagreed with the Pythagorean scholars who considered one of the five planets to be a comet.

"These views involve impossibilities. ... This is the case, first, with those who say that the comet is one of the planets ... more comets than one have often appeared simultaneously ... as a matter of fact, no planet has been observed besides the five. And all of them are often visible above the horizon together at the same time. Further, comets are often found to appear, as well when all the planets are visible as when some are not."

With these words, Aristotle, who did not learn the secrets of the Pythagoreans directly, tried to refute their teaching by arguing that all five planets are in their places when a comet appears, as if the Pythagoreans thought that all comets were one and the same planet leaving its usual path at certain times. But the Pythagoreans did not think that one planet represents all comets. According to Plutarch, they taught that each of the comets has its own orbit and period of revolution. Hence the Pythagoreans apparently knew that the comet which is "one of the planets" is Nibiru.
 

THE COMET "NIBIRU"

During the centuries when Venus was a comet, it had a tail.

[COMMENT: This is a surprisingly odd statement to find here and read again. It has always been my impression that the Velikovskian School agreed that the principal reason that this "comet-planet" was considered to be Venus and that it had been ejected from Jupiter not long before this cosmic catastrophe, was that it had been actually observed to have left Jupiter, that is, that this explosion at Jupiter was part and parcel of the rest of this interpretation of ancient legends and events. Dr. Velikovsky seems to be contradicting himself here by saying that this "birth of Venus" occurred "centuries" before the second millennium BCE. RS]

The early traditions of the peoples of Mexico, written down in pre-Colombian days, relate that Nibiru smoked.

"The star that smoked, 'la estrella que humeava', was Sitlae choloha, which the Spaniards call Venus."

"Now, I ask," says Alexander von Humboldt, "what optical illusion could give Venus the appearance of a star throwing out smoke?"

Sahagun, the sixteenth century Spanish authority on Mexico, wrote that the Mexicans called a comet "a star that smoked". It may thus be concluded that since the Mexicans called Venus "a star that smoked", they considered it a comet.

[COMMENT: All of these writings occurred, of course, centuries after the actual last visit here by the Planet Nibiru. These Mexican legends could only be explained as referring to Venus or whatever else, because the Spaniards, Alexander von Humboldt and others would have had absolutely no frame of reference to interpret them as something like Nibiru that was unknown and not visible in their time. RS]

It is also said in the VEDAS that the star Nibiru looks like fire with smoke. Apparently, the star had a tail, dark in the daytime and luminous at night. In very concrete form this luminous tail, which Nibiru had in earlier centuries, is mentioned in the Talmud, in the Tractate Shabbat: "Fire is hanging down from the planet Nibiru."

This phenomenon was described by the Chaldeans. The planet Nibiru "was said to have a beard". This same technical expression ("beard") is used in modern astronomy in the description of comets.

These parallels in observations made in the valley of the Ganges, on the shores of the Euphrates, and on the coast of the Mexican Gulf prove their objectivity. The question must then be put, not in the form, What was the illusion of the ancient Toltecs and Mayas? but, What was the phenomenon and what was its cause? A train, large enough to be visible from the earth and giving the impression of smoke and fire, hung from the planet Nibiru.

Nibiru, with its glowing train, was a very brilliant body; it is therefore not strange that the Chaldeans described it as a "bright torch of heaven", also as a "diamond that illuminates like the sun", and compared its light with the light of the rising sun. At present, the light of Venus is less than one millionth of the light of the sun. "A stupendous prodigy in the sky," the Chaldeans called it.

[COMMENT: In other words, when skies are clear and Nibiru, The Cosmic Tree, would be visible in the nighttime sky, it would brighten the world in much the same way that our current dawn and twilight do; thus, there would never be any total darkness, as we know it today at the time of the New Moon. On overcast nights, Nibiru would probably add a warm glow to the clouds, also dispelling some of the darkness. Conversely, such a bright sky, as dim a glow as it would be, would nevertheless obscure our view of the stars, at least in the immediate vicinity of the North Polar region of the sky. The farther south one would travel in the world, the brighter the stars would become, until below the Southern Tropic Latitude, Nibiru's brightness would have no effect at all upon the nighttime view, since Hyperborea -- Land Beyond The North -- would be hidden by the world's southern hemisphere. Even as bright as Venus can get today, and sometimes it is bright enough to be visible during daylight hours, if it were rising as a Morning Star high in the sky, it would never add enough brightness to the horizon to compare it to the dawn sky. Thus, Venus is not this "comet-planet"; Nibiru is.

[ALSO, if must be noted that the electromagnetic tether or "tree trunk" connecting Nibiru to Earth is said to be darkish, or smoky, in appearance during the daylight hours but glow like fire at night. In short, for those who live long enough to witness this, it will be a magnificent thing to behold. RS]

The Hebrews similarly described the planet: "The brilliant light of Nibiru blazes from one end of the cosmos to the other end."

The Chinese astronomical text from Soochow refers to the past when "Nibiru was visible in full daylight and, while moving across the sky, rivaled the sun in brightness".

As late as the seventh century, Ashurbanipal wrote about Nibiru (Ishtar) "who is clothed with fire and bears aloft a crown of awful splendor". The Egyptians under Seti thus described Nibiru (Sekhmet): "A circling star which scatters its flame in fire ... a flame of fire in her tempest."

[COMMENT: King Ashurbanipal of Assyria ascended the throne in 666 BCE. He was the son of King Esarhaddon, who began to reign in 679 after the death of his father King Sennacherib, who ruled during 695-679. Sennacherib was the King of Assyria in 687 BCE when his army was destroyed at Pelusium, Sinai, on its march to attack Egypt. This army was destroyed by "unknown cosmic forces" which Dr. Velikovsky describes in great detail in WORLDS IN COLLISION. In Egypt, according to the Historical Reconstruction of the AGES IN CHAOS series, the Nineteenth Dynasty began in the year 671 with the accession of Ramses I. Then Seti I ruled from 659; Ramses II, from 636. Thus, the Nineteenth Dynasty in Egypt was contemporaneous with Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal in Assyria. This point in time occurred just after the Planet Nibiru had completed a 75-year period of undocking, detethering and departing, swinging past the Earth five times in 15-year intervals from 762 through 687. Some of these rulers mentioned above undoubtedly had seen Nibiru complete its departure sequence and recalled its fiery splendor.

[ALSO, here is a convenient place to mention something else. As I stated above, no transcription will be made of Dr. Velikovsky's discussion of the catastrophes during 762-687, Part Three of his book; however, I'll add that what he describes is rather the "reverse" of what happened when Nibiru arrived. After 900 years, people had become so accustomed to its presence, that when it began to depart, people felt that the sky was disintegrating, that the very foundation of the world and the universe was being ripped apart; and they feared for the future and for their very own lives. Fortunately for them, the departure sequence was not nearly so cataclysmic as the arrival sequence; there was no Polar Axis Shift, for instance. In the Mediterranean region, however, people did begin to date the beginning of their "modern history" from the time of The Trojan War, which occurred simultaneously with this departure sequence. Then Rome was founded. The Greeks Olympiads began. The new Era of Nabonassar was proclaimed at Babylon. But ... by now once again, the centuries have passed, and Mankind has forgotten his "gods" that lived in their "Hyperborea Paradise Tree". All that remains today are spooky myths and legends, dusty forgotten memories from long ago. But as William Shakespeare wrote : "What is past is prologue." RS]

Possessing a tail and moving on a not yet circular orbit, Nibiru was more of a comet than a planet, and was called a "smoking star" or a comet by the Mexicans. They also called it by the name of Tzontemocque, or "the mane". The Arabs called Ishtar (Nibiru) by the name of Zebbaj or "one with hair", as did the Babylonians.

[COMMENT: This "Demon Star" has also been compared to the legendary Greek she-monster, The Medusa, whose hair was a tangle of snakes and whom Odysseus encountered on his return voyage from Troy after the war. This legend has also been linked to Constellations like Cassiopeia that encircle our North Polar Star. This "hair" most likely refers to the "72 Branches Of The Cosmic Tree" which are its "host" of planetoids and moons, 72 in all, that, like the Earth, may be tethered, but more closely than Earth, to this Mother Planet, and swarm around it like a "tangle of snakes" on top of "Ishtar's" head. What else? RS]

"Sometimes there are hairs attached to the planets," wrote Pliny; an old description of Nibiru must have served as a basis for his assertion. But hair or "coma" is a characteristic of comets, and in fact "comet" is derived from the Greek word for "hair". The Peruvian name "Chaska" (wavy-haired) is still the name for Venus, though at present the Morning Star is definitely a planet and has no tail attached to it.

The coma of Nibiru changed its form with the position of the planet. When the planet Venus approaches the earth now, it is only partly illuminated, a portion of the disc being in shadow; it has phases like the moon. At this time, being closer to the earth, it is most brilliant. When Nibiru had a coma, the horns of its crescent must have been extended by the illuminated portions of the coma. It thus had two long appendages and looked like a bull's head.

Sanchoniathon says that Astarte (Nibiru) had a bull's head. The planet was even called Ashteroth-Karnaim, or Astarte of the Horns, a name given to a city in Canaan in honor of this deity. The golden calf worshiped by Aaron and the people at the foot of Sinai was the image of the star. Rabbinical authorities say that "the devotion of Israel to this worship of the bull is in part explained by the circumstance that, while passing through the Red Sea, they beheld the celestial Throne, and most distinctly of the four creatures about the Throne, they saw the ox". The likeness of a calf was placed by Jeroboam in Dan, the great temple of the Northern Kingdom.

Tishtrya of the ZEND-AVESTA, the star that attacks the planets, "the bright and glorious Tistrya mingles his shape with light moving in the shape of a golden-horned bull".

The Egyptians similarly pictured the planet and worshiped it in the effigy of a bull. The cult of a bull sprang up also in Mycenaean Greece. A golden cow head with a star on its brow was found in Mycenae, on the Greek mainland.

The people of faraway Samoa, primitive tribes that depend on oral tradition as they have no art of writing, repeat to this day: "The planet Nibiru became wild and horns grew out of her head."

Examples and references could be multiplied ad libitum.

The astronomical texts of the Babylonians describe the horns of the planet "Venus"/Nibiru. Sometimes one of the two horns became more prominent. Because the astronomical works of antiquity have so much to say about the horns of Venus, modern scholars have asked themselves whether the Babylonians could have seen the phases of Venus, which cannot now be distinguished with the naked eye; Galileo saw them for the first time in modern history when he used his telescope.

The long horns of Nibiru could have been seen without the aid of a telescopic lens. The horns were the illuminated portions of the coma of Nibiru, which stretched toward the earth. These horns could also have extended toward the sun as Nibiru approached the solar orb, since comets were repeatedly observed with projections in the direction of the sun, while the tails of the comets are regularly directed away from the sun.

When Venus approached close to one of the planets, its horns grew longer: this is the phenomenon the astrologers of Babylon observed and described when Venus neared Mars.

[COMMENT: That last sentence, transcribed as it is, is most peculiar. Probably it is a futile attempt by Dr. Velikovsky to link Venus with Mars, as a duo, since the second series of catastrophes during 762-687 he attributed to erratic movements of Mars. Suffice it to say that since Dr. Velikovsky was confused overall about the Planet Nibiru, such a statement is to be expected occasionally. RS]

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