The discovery of one more extended scattered disk object showing the same sort of collective properties as the initial cluster of six studied by Drs Batygin and Brown may not seem too exciting on the face of it, but it goes a long way towards answering the following scholarly criticism of their initial proposal:

"Others, like planetary scientist Dave Jewitt, who discovered the Kuiper belt, are more cautious. The 0.007% chance that the clustering of the six objects is coincidental gives the planet claim a statistical significance of 3.8 sigma—beyond the 3-sigma threshold typically required to be taken seriously, but short of the 5 sigma that is sometimes used in fields like particle physics. That worries Jewitt, who has seen plenty of 3-sigma results disappear before. By reducing the dozen objects examined by Sheppard and Trujillo to six for their analysis, Batygin and Brown weakened their claim, he says. “I worry that the finding of a single new object that is not in the group would destroy the whole edifice,” says Jewitt, who is at UC Los Angeles. “It’s a game of sticks with only six sticks.”" (5)

Now it's a game with seven sticks, it seems. 

Mike Brown thinks that this lowers the possibility of this statistical clustering being 'a fluke' to vanishingly low levels, as he described on his Twitter feed:

"I haven't done the statistics yet, but I suspect this takes the probability of this being a statistical fluke down to ~.001% or so." (6)

Meanwhile, one of the original progenitors of the Nemesis' theory from back in the 1980s, Daniel Whitmire, has mooted the possibility that Planet Nine might be the cause of periodic mass extinction events on Earth:

Dr Whitmire's original work concentrated on the existence of a multiple Jupiter-mass object lying in the very outer reaches of the solar system which affected comets in the outer Oort Cloud, sending periodic showers down towards the central solar system (8).  We might call such an object a sub-brown dwarf these days, or perhaps a 'Class Y Ultra-Cool Brown Dwarf', in astronomical parlance (9).  It's the object I believe to exist, too - an object I call the Dark Star.  I think it's much closer than the Nemesis theory originally described, and that there may be good reason to believe that the presence of this object is obscured by a dusty nebula, preventing clear detection in visible or infra-red light (10,11).

Personally, I think there may be a multitude of bodies out there in the outer solar system, as per the ideas put forward by Eugene Chiang, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley back in 2005 (12), in response to the discoveries of various Kuiper belt Objects.  His thoughts echo those of Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado back in 2002 (13).  

Chiang's concept of large-scale planetary migration early in the solar system's history seems appealing, suggesting not just a Planet Nine, a Planet X, but also Planets XI, XII, XIII etc:

"The oligarch theory of planet formation states that there were hundreds of planet-sized objects, known as oligarchs, in the early stages of the Solar System's evolution. In 2005, astronomer Eugene Chiang speculated that although some of these oligarchs became the planets we know today, most would have been flung outward by gravitational interactions. Some may have escaped the Solar System altogether to become free-floating planets, whereas others would be orbiting in a halo around the Solar System, with orbital periods of millions of years. This halo would lie at between 1,000 and 10,000 AU from the Sun, or between a third and a thirtieth the distance to the Oort cloud." (14)

And yet, there does not appear to be a continuum of objects from the Kuiper Belt out towards the inner Oort Cloud, but rather a long gap punctuated by the extended scattered disk objects so tantalisingly suggestive of a distant Planet X object.  This 'Kuiper Cliff' suggests that something, probably Planet Nine in whatever guise it eventually makes itself known, has swept out the gap, and laid claim on this territory all for itself.  Note, this, from back in 2002:

""There's something funny going on out there." Marc Buie of the Lowell Observatory in Arizona is talking about a strange feature at the far edge of our solar system beyond Pluto, among the swarm of small worlds called the Kuiper Belt. It's a wild, uncharted place out there, teeming with icy celestial bodies that may give us essential clues to how the planets formed. It may even be a breeding ground for life. But what's intriguing Buie at the moment is the very edge, about 50 times further out from the Sun than the Earth's orbit. Here, at the "Kuiper Cliff", the number of astronomical objects drops off precipitously. Buie won't be drawn too far but, when pressed, he speaks of the possibility that some "massive object" has swept the zone clean of debris..." (15)

Such thinking would seem to support Daniel Whitmire's claim that a Planet X body might periodically graze the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt, occasionally sending showers of objects in all directions whilst shaping that very belt. 

However, the fact is, we still don't really understand what's out there beyond the Kuiper Belt.  Science goes through phases of favouring various hypotheses, and until the last couple of decades or so was pretty much set on destroying the very concept of Planet X, and all who foolishly were to associate themselves with it.  The 'belief' that a Planet X body might exist was confined to the fringes.  Planets couldn't be found out there, it was declared, because theory of solar system planet formation simply wouldn't allow for it, and previously declared anomalies could be explained away (16).

With the discoveries of anomalous extended Kuiper Belt Objects, that thinking has gradually changed, to the point now where the scientific community is broadly expectant of a major planetary discovery in the next few years.  But I think it's worth noting that whatever that discovery might bring, it doesn't mean that that's necessarily the end of the hunt for new planets in the outer solar system.  Indeed, breaking through that initial scientific taboo opens up the field to all manner of possibilities.

Talk of the return of Nibiru, particularly as a potentially catastrophic event, has been widespread for decades.  It seems to feed into a feeling of dread of the 'End of Days', which may be a peculiarity of our times, or perhaps has always been with us since ancient times.  Either way, the concept of Sitchin's Nibiru has become a magnet for all manner of claims and predictions of imminent catastrophe raining down from us from the heavens. 

So, perhaps it is not particularly surprising that such ideas are now circulating within fringe elements of Judaism, and are being openly discussed by various Rabbis (3).  Whether this is truly significant or not, what's emerging from these discussions are Jewish textual fragments which contain fairly straightforward descriptions of a visitation of a complex celestial entity.  For instance, the appearance of a star at the End of Days is plainly spoken of in the Zohar, Judaism’s primary mystical text, written by the 2nd century sage, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.  Included in the Zohar is this messianic prediction:

“At that time Melech Hamoshiach (Messiah the King) will awaken and go out from Gan Eden (Garden of Eden), from the place called Kan Tzippor, and will be revealed in the Galil (Galilee)…. A star will arise from the East side, flaming with all colors, and seven other stars will go around this star and make a war with it on all sides three times a day for 70 days, and all the people of the world will see.” (4)

You will note that this celestial entity is a complex, multi-coloured affair with a retinue of seven other ‘stars’ in its wake, revolving around it.  These would presumably be seven moons or planets orbiting a central Planet X body, which would presumably be quite sizeable.  The 70 days mentioned would then describe the visible period of the planet/star’s perihelion passage around the Sun, during which time its own system of planets/moons is visibly revolving around itself.  There are a number of similar descriptions from Jewish texts available on the Internet (5).

What’s fascinating for me is that this Dark Star symbolism (a large central planet (sub-brown dwarf?) contained within a colourful aura, and accompanied by its own system of worlds) is associated with a returning Messiah, and was written about during an historical period of time when there was a great deal of expectation about the imminent coming of a Messiah. 

Sitchin's original timings for Nibiru included the date 3760BCE, which would then have placed the next return to 160BCE, during the Graeco-Roman period.  Sitchin later pulled the date of the last return back to coincide with the destruction of the First Temple of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in the 6th Century BCE.  There does not appear to have been an historic record of a return of this celestial body on either occasion, however.  Perhaps that is because (a) it simply doesn't exist, (b) the orbital period is much longer than Sitchin suggested, (c) it failed to appear as predicted, leading to a sense of loss and disappointment during a period of Messianic fervour in the Levant.

Probably much like today, then.

I suspect the truth of this lies in the dissemination of ancient knowledge down through various cultures through history.  When the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem and dragged much of the population of Israel off into slavery, they likely imparted much of their knowledge (which they themselves derived from the Akkadians, and Sumerians before them) to the teachers and leaders of the enslaved clans of Israel.  The symbolisms thus found new life in Jewish texts, many of which were compiled around that time.  Many took on a predictive element within mystical passages.  What's important is where these passages were initially derived from, and the consistent descriptions they provide us of this rather unique celestial phenomenon.

Again, it's little wonder that Zecharia Sitchin, himself of Jewish descent, would be influenced strongly by such imagery.  However, I think that the orbital period of Nibiru, which he pegged to the Sumerian Sar of 3600 years, likely needs re-considering.  This entity is probably much further out in the solar system than generally thought.

Written by Andy Lloyd, 7th March 2016

New studies, the details of which have been released his week, set the dates of when the cave was occupied back considerably:

"The new analysis, published today in Nature, asserts that the skeletal remains of H. floresiensis are more likely between 100,000 and 60,000 years old, and their stone tools date from as far back as 190,000 years to around 50,000 years ago. That suggests these evolutionary cousins did not exist for long after modern humans arrived in the region some 50,000 years ago." (2)

The final dating, of around 50,000 years ago, places their demise in the same kind of time period as human migrations into South-east Asia.  None of this solves the mystery of the nature of the hobbits, whose very classification as a separate sub-species of human is still subject to some scholarly debate.  Perhaps they are a direct descendent from Homo Erectus, evolving in isolation in Indonesia?  Perhaps this isolated 'tribe' of pygmy humans suffered with a genetic abnormality causing microcephaly? 

If you want to go down the Sitchinite route, then one might imagine that the hobbits are remnants of the hominins who hadn't been messed with.  What seems likely, however, is that, as with so many other species on our planet, their downfall came in the guise of us.

The planet has a minimum mass twice that of Jupiter and orbits a star known as HD 20782, which is part of a wide binary star system with HD 20781.  Incredibly, studies of the system showed that the orbit of HD 20782b displays an eccentricity of 0.96, a flattened ellipse which is the most extreme yet to be discovered (1,2).  Yet, the very pace of the perihelion transit this planet experiences as it whips past the star may be its saving grace - it's is simply moving too fast, the planet's discoverers think, to be stripped of its atmosphere like many of the so-called 'hot Jupiter' class exoplanets. 

This planet creates a fascinating precedent for a hypothetical highly eccentric planet such as the mythical 'Nibiru'.  Of course, the dynamics of the solar system compared with HD 20782 are very different.  HD 20782 is part of a binary star system, where our system is (presumably) not. 

"Extrasolar planets like HD 20782 contain a wealth of questions for astronomers, [SF State astronomer Stephen] Kane said. "When we see a planet like this that is in an eccentric orbit, it can be really hard to try and explain how it got that way," he explained. "It's kind of like looking at a murder scene, like those people who examine blood spatter patterns on the walls. You know something bad has happened, but you need to figure out what it was that caused it."

"There are few possible "suspects" in the case of HD 20782, Kane noted. It could be that there was originally more than one planet in the system, and one planet developed an unstable orbit that brought the two planets too close together. This collision or near-collision might have ejected one planet from the system entirely and pushed HD 20782 on its eccentric path. The planet is in a binary star system, so it might also be the case that the second star in the binary made a close approach that threw HD 20782 off a more circular orbit." (1)

These kind of considerations are not significantly different from those mooted by Zecharia Sitchin for Nibiru, as outlined, he argued, in the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish (3).  Catastrophism early in the history of a star system disrupts its smooth flow, potentially perturbing one of its planets into a highly eccentric orbit. 

5)  Andy Lloyd "The Dark Star Theory" 7 February 2000

How are you? Thanks again for the signed copy of your book.

I wanted to share a link to a very interested find. James Gilliland claims to have had direct contact with 340 year old Pleiadian's, 9th dimensional 8 foot tall Anunnaki women, who he claims are very beautiful. His contact has allowed him access recollections from previous lifetimes and he has stated that the planet Nibiru is now a dead planet, which no longer has the ability to sustain life, and that it was merely used as a temporary "vehicle" or space station. His ranch has some very hi-profile visitors to the volume of UFO activity witnessed there. Anyway, he speaks very eloquently in his videos on youtube, which I'd be surprised if you don't already know about.

Here is one I watched recently.

1) Jacob Aron "Asteroid barrage may have birthed a short-lived ocean on Mars" 24 March 2016,   with thanks to Eitan

newscientist.com article

2)  Andy Lloyd "A Martian Riddle" 22 September 2014

andylloyd.org/darkstarblog18.htm

3)  Andy Lloyd "The Implications of Mars' Chaotic Tilt" 22 March 2015

andylloyd.org/darkstarblog24.htm

4)  Andy Lloyd "Earth's Primordial Waters" 24 November 2015,

andylloyd.org/darkstarblog32.htm

5)  Andy Lloyd 'Zircon Crystals Reveal Photosynthesis on Earth over 4 Billion Years Ago' 28 October 2015 

andylloyd.org/darkstarblog31.htm

UK Dark Star Talk