Sitchin's premise is well known: there is a
planet in our solar system with an eccentric orbit that only approaches Earth
every few thousand years; this planet, Nibiru, is inhabited by the Anunnaki, a civilization
that colonized Earth in the past and was worshipped as gods by primitive
humans; the sagas of the Sumerian and Babylonian gods—and, by extension, those
of some other pantheons—are chronicles of the activities of the Nibiru
colonists. This planet would have drifted away again, but would eventually
return… many claim it has already happened (even though Sitchin's calculated
date is still very far off) and that its inhabitants, the Anunnaki, are coming
to us aboard flying saucers.
Well, I have just discovered compelling
evidence that Sitchin based his premise on the work of a prominent scientist
from Calisota State, and that this wandering planet already approached Earth in
1960; the account of this was published in 1961, years before the appearance of
Sitchin's The 12th Planet, which was published in 1976! The reliable account of
this extraordinary event was the work of the illustrious Carl Barks, and the
commonalities leave no doubt that the hypothesis underlying Zecharia Sitchin's
entire work was taken, without credit, from that publication of Barks'!
 |
| Carl Barks and Zecharia Sitchin would meet in Duckburg. |
The story, "Mythtic Mystery", as it appeared in the pages of Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge N° 34 (June-Aug. 1961), begins with famed Scottish millionaire Scrooge McDuck and his nephews standing on a hill, in Duckburg, Calisota, and wondering about a vast, round shadow which blots out the stars, baffling astronomers and causing freak lightning storms.
They are then approached by an astronomer (unfortunately unnamed) who has hypothesized that this shape is actually an unknown planet approaching Earth, whose proprieties include vast quantities of iron (which accounts for its magnetism maintaining a certain distance from Earth) and absorbing radar emissions.
The gale pulls them away from Earth, much like it once happened to Dorothy Gale, and they encounter, impossibly, what appears to be Thor, god of thunder, riding a chariot!
The ducks learn that when this planet (which, unlike Nibiru, is said to have been orbiting "behind the moon" which of course would make it a satellite instead) approached Earth in the distant past, humans thought these aliens to be gods, and they were so amused with the idea that they took up the names of earthly deities and accepted the names that their newfound worshippers attributed to their homeworld.
This is the reason some Roman characters such as Vulcan and Hercules live among the norse “gods”.
Scrooge is fascinated when Vulcan brags about a magic hammer, which we might call alchemical –something appropriate for a blacksmith-, which can change a piece of iron into gold by merely striking it.
So Huey, Dewey and Louie desperately seek help. Odin is incapacitated due to one of the earthquakes, so they finally find Thor and ask for his aid. Vulcan is finally swayed by showing him modern Earth civilization, and he realizes that if his planet became part of ours, he would be forced to suffer what we know as modernity!
While they were giving Vulcan a tour of Earth, Scrooge came back to his senses and, although it pains him, he somehow crafts by himself another hammer, which turns gold back into iron, which causes Valhalla to again move away from Earth.
Now, let’s compare this to what Zecharia
Sitchin wrote fifteen years later:
-A planet with eccentric orbit came
near Earth in the past and is the dwelling place of the gods of ancient myth;
Babylonians would have called it Nibiru, says Sitchin, while Barks would have
it be called Valhalla and Olympus, among other names.
-Its inhabitants, were more advanced
civilization, were considered gods by early humanity, given various names by
different cultures. Sitchin would have them creating humanity, but the point is
the same; they saw humans as servants, and thrived in their worship. While Barks
used the best-known pantheons, Norse and Roman, since his readership would be
mainly children, Sitchin went for the more exotic and earlier Anunnaki of Mesopotamian lore.
-Valhalla/Olympus came back again, drawing
close to Earth, and the ducks met its inhabitants. Likewise, an eventual return
of Nibiru would be imminent, says Sitchin, and while he calculated it several
centuries for now, conspiracy buffs, not to be deterred by coherence, have been
claiming that Nibiru is near Earth already for a couple of decades now, and
that Enki and his cohorts (somewhow still alive, just like Odin and his people
in Barks’ story) may be infiltrating and manipulating human governments.
-Finally, this being an Uncle Scrooge
adventure, it’s not surprising that gold was important for the aliens, and
Vulcan, evidently a prominent member of their society, is anxious to produce it
in abundance. This is telling; since gold was, according to Sitchin, a coveted
metal for the “gods” from Nibiru, as he writes repeatedly in his first book:
“Though best known for its use as money and
in jewelry or fine artifacts, it is almost invaluable in the electronics
industry. A sophisticated society requires gold for microelectronic assemblies,
guidance circuitry, and computer ‘brains.’”
And, later on:
“Gold, which we call the royal metal, was in fact the metal of the gods. Speaking to the prophet Haggai, the Lord made it clear, in connection with his return to judge the nations: ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine.’ [no, it's not a Scrooge quote!]
“The evidence suggests that Man's own infatuation with these metals has its roots in the great need of the Nefilim for gold.
“The Nefilim, it appears, came to Earth for gold and its related metals.”
There are, I contend, sufficient points of concordance between both works to consider Carl Barks’ Valhalla and Sitchin’s Nibiru to be one and the same; and the coincidences, even down to such hardly predictable items as the great importance of gold in both instances, force us to ask: how did this come to happen?
Three scenarios come to mind:
1. Carl Barks interpreted ancient Babylonian
myths in much the same way as Sitchin did, nearly two decades before him, and
used the narrative for his story, changing the Babylonan pantheon for Norse and
Roman ones for readability’s sake. Which is, sty the very least, highly
unlikely, especially since if we read the existing Babylonian source documents,
it’s clear that Sitchin distorted the meanings of many words and concepts!
2. Sitchin was right all along, and Carl
Barks encountered some secret source document, or maybe he was an initiate or contactee, so that he could reveal the hidden truth through a
kids’ comic.
I’m pretty sure there will be various readers who assume this right away. May
the Junior Woodchucks’ Grand Commander forgives them. (He seems to be quite more reliable than Sitchin, if you ask me!)
3. Zecharia Sitchin, who in spite of being self-taught, was clearly well-read and cultured, was
also an avid reader of Carl Barks’ ducks, and when he read “Mythtic Mystery”,
he realized he could easily adapt its sci-fi plot, craft a convincing fraud,
and make a living out of it!
You may guess which one I favour!
