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Zecharia Sitchin was born in Russia and raised in Palestine, where he acquired a profound knowledge of modern and ancient Hebrew, other Semitic and European languages, the Old Testament, and the history and archeology of the Near East. He is one of the few scholars who is able to read and understand Sumerian.

Sitchin attended and graduated from the University of London, majoring in economic history. A leading journalist and editor in Israel for many years, he now lives and writes in New York. His books have been widely translated, converted to Braille for the blind, and featured on radio and television.

Connecting Link: What are the Earth Chronicles about?

Zecharia Sitchin: The first book, The Twelfth Planet, refers to the probability that there is one more planet in our solar system. That there are twelve members, counting sun, moon and ten planets, not the nine we know of. That people from that planet came to earth almost half a million years ago and did many of the things about which we read in the Bible, in the book of Genesis.

But that was not my starting point at all. My starting point was, going back to my childhood and schooldays, the puzzle of who were the Nefilim, that are mentioned in Genesis, Chapter six, as the sons of the gods who married the daughters of Man in the days before the great flood, the Deluge. The word Nefilim is commonly, or used to be, translated "giants." And I am sure that you and your readers are familiar with quotes and Sunday preachings, etc., that those were the days when there were giants upon the earth.

 

I questioned this interpretation as a child at school, and I was reprimanded for it because the teacher said "you don't question the Bible." But I did not question the Bible, I questioned an interpretation that seemed inaccurate, because the word, Nefilim, the name by which those extraordinary beings, "the sons of the gods" were known, means literally, "Those who have come down to earth from the heavens."

CL: From the Hebrew word Nafal, which means "fall"?

ZS: Right. Fall, come down, descend. So, what did it mean? This led me to biblical studies and then to mythology and archeology and all the other subjects, including the study of ancient languages, which became my education and avocation. So, my research and my decision to write about it started with a question, Who were the Nefilim?

All the ancient scriptures, the Bible, the Greek myths, the Egyptian myth and texts, the pyramid texts, everything, led to the Sumerians, whose civilization was the first known one six thousand years ago. I focused on Sumer, the source of these legends and myths and texts and information. I learned to read the cuneiform Sumerian texts and came upon their persistent and repeated statements that those beings, whom the Sumerians called Anunnaki, came to earth from a planet called Nibiru. The planet was designated by the sign of the cross and Nibiru meant, "planet of crossing."

The question thus shifted in my research from who were the Nefilim and the Anunnaki, to, what planet is Nibiru? Forced to become proficient in astronomy, I had to learn enough about it to deal with the subject. I found out that the scholars were divided. Some said it (Nibiru) was Mars, which of course was described and known to the ancient people, and others said, no, it was Jupiter. Those who said it was Jupiter and not Mars, had very convincing arguments why it could not be Mars. And those who said it was Mars and not Jupiter had very convincing arguments also.

Being able to go directly to those ancient sources, clay tablets and cuneiforn scripts, it seemed to me that neither was right, because the description of Nibiru and its position when it nears the Sun indicated that it could not be Mars, and it could not be Jupiter. And then one night I woke up with the answer: Of course, it is one more planet that comes periodically between Mars and Jupiter; it is sometimes nearer to Mars and sometimes nearer to Jupiter, but it isn't Mars or Jupiter.

Once I realized that this was the answer, that there is one more planet, everything else fell into place. The meaning of the Mesopotamian Epic of Creation on which the first chapters of Genesis are based and all details about the Anunnaki, who they were and who their leaders were and how they traveled from their planet to Earth and how they splashed down in the Persian Gulf and about their first settlement, their leaders and so on and so on, everything became clear! The Sumerians had immense knowledge.

 

They knew about Uranus and Neptune and described them and they knew about Pluto. They were proficient in mathematics and, in many respects, their knowledge surpassed modem times. They said, "All that we know was told to us by the Anunnaki." The first book's innovation, its impact, was the realization that the ancient peoples, beginning with the Sumerians, knew of and described and spoke of one more planet in our solar system. It was not a discovery like that of Pluto in 1930 (of which the Sumerians knew six thousand years ago).

 

Pluto was a very interesting astronomical discovery; textbooks had to be revised. But to the average person, the man on the street, it really made no difference. Nibiru, on the other hand was a different story. If Nibiru exists, (and this is the planet that astronomers nowadays call planet X) then the Anunnaki exist.

So the existence of Nibiru is not a matter of just one more globe in our solar system. This is different, because if Nibiru exists, and the Anunnaki exist, then the Sumerian claim that they come back to our vicinity every 3,600 years, at which times in the past they gave us civilization, then we are not alone and there are more advanced people than us in our solar system.

 

CL: What will happen next time around?

ZS: Who knows how they will feel about us when they come back. Will they decide to give us more knowledge again, and more technical advancement and more civilization, or will they decide that we are no good, as happened at the time of the Deluge, and try to get rid of us?

So, the first book, laying the foundation and describing Sumerian knowledge and concluding with the existence of one more planet is really the key to understanding what it is all about. What the tales of Genesis are, what the tales of creation are, what our past was, and in a way what our future will be.

CL: And the second book in the series?

ZS: The Stairway to Heaven, looks at the tales of ancient times, primarily from two new aspects. One was to bring the Egyptian texts and mythologies into the picture and show how they fit with the Sumerian [texts] and what they really meant. The second was to look at the issue of man's search for immortality. And this ties in with the Sinai, it ties in with the landing place, with the spaceports in the Sinai Peninsula, the role of Jerusalem and all that.

The third book, The Wars of Gods and Men, continues the story and shows what happened after Kingship, a new phase of civilization, was given to mankind. Dealing with the conflict that began with the rivalry between two half brothers, Enlil and Enki. It relates how this conflict continued among their sons and their grandchildren, leading to actual warfare which I call the Pyramid Wars (there were two) in which, eventually, mankind became involved. That is how mankind learned to make war. And this deals with a moral or theological subject: Is man a warrior by nature, or was he taught to become a warrior?

Book four, The Lost Realms, is the tale of the Americas. Not just what they call pre-Columbian times but four, five thousand years ago, which was before the Incas, the Mayans and the Aztecs. Who really was in the Americas, how ancient are some of the antiquities and how were such incredible megalithic structures built? What for, How come, and By Whom? The Lost Realms shows that it is part of the same story, that the same Anunnaki brought mankind or part of mankind to the Americas.

Book five, Genesis Revisited, a companion book, was really written because in the fifteen years since the first book was published, there have been many scientific advances, especially in astronomy and all the discoveries of the Voyager Spacecraft, in geology, biology, the discovery of DNA, the ability to create babies in a test tube, linguistics, and [in unlocking the secrets of] the origin of languages. Each such discovery corroborated what the Sumerians had known and had written, and therefore fully confirmed what I said in my first book. And each time there was such a discovery I would literally jump out of my seat and say, "My god, this is exactly what the Sumerians said six thousand years ago!"

If you read the relevant page in The Twelfth Planet, you will see that I quote a Sumerian text that says exactly how the Adam, the first Homo sapiens, was created.* You will see that this is a process that today we call the test tube baby process. I quote a text that describes Uranus and Neptune as Voyager 2 saw them in 1986 and 1989. I finally sat down and put together all this scientific evidence, all these scientific discoveries to show how they match and corroborate ancient knowledge. Hence the subtitle of Genesis Revisited is Is Modern Science Catching Up With Ancient Knowledge? So, this is a review of the five books.

CL: Astounding work. And it all started with the word Nefilim?

ZS: Yes. That was the beginning.

CL: Might people read your books and say, well, he's doing a lot of presuming. He's got fragments of tablets, and pieces of cuneiform, and he's put many liberties in piecing together the stories?

ZS: There are several different answers to that. The best answer is what I brought out in Genesis Revisited. The knowledge that we have acquired corroborates what the Sumerians knew six thousand years ago. You wonder how is it possible, how could they know? How, as another example, could their symbol of the entwined serpents, that we still use today to denote medicine and healing and biology, be 6,000 years ago, the symbol of Enki, who engaged in genetic engineering to bring about the Adam? That was a symbol of the DNA, the double helix of DNA.

How could they know without telescopes and spacecraft that Neptune is a watery planet? They provided the answer by saying "All that we know we have learned from the Anunnaki. So, you say, "Ok. There were Anunnaki." Now, who were the Anunnaki and where were they from? The Sumerians say, "They came here from Nibiru." And you say, "What is Nibiru?" So they say, "It is one more planet in our solar system." Now, if you say, "I'm really impressed by the Sumerian knowledge, and, maybe they knew what they were talking about regarding the Anunnaki. But I don't think there is another planet with these advanced beings on it near Earth."

 

If so, what is your explanation of who Anunnaki were? Was there really a race of giants who existed on Earth half a million years ago? Do you believe there was a civilization on Earth half a million years ago that surpassed our own and disappeared? When the focus shifts to explaining those other people, you have no explanation. I then say, if you have no explanation, why not accept the word of the Sumerians?

The second aspect of the answer is this. Nowhere in all these books do I use a text, or do I refer to a tablet and say, I went to this or that place in the Near East and as I was visiting that place, I shifted the soil with my foot or with a stick and look what I found! I found this tablet and look what it says! It says that there was somebody called Enki who travelled from Nibiru to Earth and splashed down in the Persian Gulf. No, nowhere do I say, "Look what I found."

 

All the time I say, "There is a tablet in the British Museum, its catalog number is such and such; it was discovered in this and this place; the text was first published by this and this scholar, here is what it says." All the information, all the sources that I am giving, are academically, scientifically, scholarly known and accepted sources. At no time do I invent my own source.

CL: Just in The Wars of God and Men, the sources you list take up almost 16 pages!

ZS: The difference is, and this is the key difference, that when there is a text, for example, that describes how Enki came to Earth and splashed down, the scholars, the text books, call this the "Myth of Enki and the Earth." Another text that deals with Enlil is called the "Myth of Enlil" and whatever the subject is. All these texts are called by scholars "mythology." I say: What if this is not a myth, what if these texts tell us what really took place?

CL: Right.

ZS: From that I created the scenario, a plausible, a logical scenario that explains so many of the enigmas and the puzzles and the mysteries which otherwise remain enigmas, and mysteries and puzzles. Like, who built the pyramids, what for, etc.

CL: What more can you tell us about the Anunnaki, and do we have free-will or is it all determined by these same Anunnaki?

ZS: I'm asked, "Do they look like us?" and I say, no, we look like them. They made us through genetic engineering. They jumped the gun on evolution , and made us to look like them physically, and to be like them emotionally. That is what the Bible says:

" Let us make the Adam in our likeness and after our image."

Physically, outwardly and inwardly. So much of what they are, we are.

There is a tremendous difference in the lifespan, which is the cause of the notions of their immortality. Because one year to them is one orbit of theirs around the sun. So, one of their years equals three-thousand-six-hundred of ours. This is the key difference between us and them.

Then there is the difference in their technological advancement which enables them not only to travel in space, and to have traveled half a million years ago, but also to revive the dead and do other things which in biblical times were considered miracles.

I feel that just as they came to earth and created us through genetic engineering, and mixed their genes with those of Ape-woman, that one day we will go out in space and land on another planet somewhere and do the same thing. In this sense, I believe things are ordained in a grand pattern.

But can events within this grand pattern be determined by individuals? I think so. Take the story of the Deluge and the destruction of mankind and the saving of the seed of mankind, through Noah and his ark. Enlil decided to use the opportunity of the avalanche of water to destroy mankind, while Enki told Noah, (the Sumerian Ziusudra) about what was coming.

 

Enki taught Noah how to build an ark and cover and seal it so it wouldn't be swamped, and Noah was able to take himself and his family and others, according to the Sumerians, into the ark and save the seed of mankind. Here you have a conflict between two leaders of the Anunnaki. One felt one way and one felt another way. So the question of free choice, of what is right, what is wrong, what should be done, what should not be done, is there all along.

CL: What about the theory that we are the gods of before? That we created mankind and now are at the effect end?

ZS: All I can tell you is that I see my task, or maybe my mission, to bring to the knowledge of people today what the ancient people knew and believed in. To do so by being able to go to their sources and their writings and their depictions, and treating that material not as a myth but as a true story. Now, my writings have become a basis of quite a substantial literature. There are two dozen or more books that are based on my books. These are in theology, astrology, and so on and so forth, and I am sure there are many more about which I don't know. They refer to my writings or are based on them. I provide the facts as I see them, and everyone is free to interpret them as they wish.

CL: That's the scientific way of looking at it, which makes your work even more credible, That means you're not making guesses, you're going by the actual evidence that exists.

ZS: Yes. I am pleased that many have used this material as evidence, to build on it, to expound on it in various directions. Without saying whether I agree or disagree with the other theories and developments, I am very happy that my books have become text books about ancient times.

CL: You said when Pluto was discovered, in 1930, text books were rewritten to accommodate that fact. Has anyone or any textbook publisher done the same with this information?

ZS: It takes time, but it is beginning to filter through.

CL: When is this thirty-six hundred year cycle due again?

ZS: Well, you have to reach your own conclusions.

CL: If every time they came back they taught us something new, and advanced our civilization, do you have a theory what their next step for us might be?

ZS: No. As I said, one time they didn't give us any civilization, they tried to destroy us. So, I don't know what the odds are.

CL: Is there a lesson here for us? If this is our history, what are we supposed to have learned to avert another flood when the Anunnaki come back? Or is that too unpredictable to guess?

ZS: To some extent it is unpredictable because I don't know who their leader is now. Whether he is from the Enlil clan or from the Enki clan. If I knew that, I could answer you more easily. That's why I still have books to write to reach the answer. It is a big question, and the answer is not that simple.