Zecharia
Sitchin (July 11, 1920 – October 9, 2010) was an
Azerbaijani-born American author of books proposing an
explanation for human origins involving ancient
astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation
of the ancient Sumerian culture to the
Anunnaki, which he states was a race of
extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called
Nibiru. He believed
this hypothetical planet of Nibiru
to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth's
own Solar System, asserting that Sumerian mythology reflects
this view. Sitchin's books have sold millions of copies
worldwide and have been translated into more than 25 languages.
Early
life
Sitchin
was born in the Soviet Union and raised in Israel. He
worked as an editor and journalist in Israel, before moving
to New York in 1952. While working as an executive for
a shipping company, he taught himself Sumerian cuneiform
and visited several archaeological sites. He also aquired
a profound knowledge of modern and ancient Hebrew,
other Semitic and European languages,
the Old Testament,
and the history of archaeology of the Near East.
He attended the London School
of Economics and Political Science, and
graduated from the University of London, majoring
in economic history with a degree in Economics.
A
leading journalist and editor in Israel for many years,
he lived and wrote in New York. He was a member of the
Israel
Exploration Society, the American
Oriental Society, and the Middle
East Studies Association of North America.
Similarly
to earlier authors such as Immanuel Velikovsky and Erich
von Däniken, Sitchin advocated hypotheses
in which extraterrestrial events supposedly played a significant
role in ancient human history.
According
to Sitchin's interpretation of Mesopotamian iconography
and symbology, outlined in his 1976 book The
12th Planet and its sequels, there is an undiscovered
planet beyond Neptune that follows a long, elliptical
orbit, reaching the inner solar system roughly every 3,600
years. This planet is called Nibiru
(although Jupiter was the planet associated with the god
Marduk in Babylonian cosmology). According to Sitchin,
Nibiru (whose name
was replaced with MARDUK in original legends by the Babylonian
ruler of the same name in an attempt to co-opt the creation
for himself, leading to some confusion among readers)
collided catastrophically with Tiamat (a goddess in the
Babylonian creation myth the Enûma Eliš), which
he considers to be another planet once located between
Mars and Jupiter. This collision supposedly formed the
planet Earth, the asteroid belt, and the comets. Sitchin
states that when struck by one of planet Nibiru's
moons, Tiamat split in two, and then on a second pass
Nibiru itself struck
the broken fragments and one half of Tiamat became the
asteroid belt. The second half, struck again by one of
Nibiru's moons, was
pushed into a new orbit and became today's planet Earth.
According
to Sitchin, Nibiru
(called "the twelfth planet"
because, Sitchin claimed, the Sumerians' gods-given conception
of the Solar System counted all eight planets, plus Pluto,
the Sun and the Moon) was the home of a technologically
advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the
Anunnaki in Sumerian myth, who Sitchin
states are called the
Nephilim in Genesis. He wrote that they
evolved after Nibiru
entered the solar system and first arrived on Earth probably
450,000 years ago, looking for minerals, especially gold,
which they found and mined in Africa. Sitchin states that
these "gods" were the rank-and-file workers
of the colonial expedition to Earth from planet Nibiru.
Sitchin
wrote that Enki suggested that to relieve the
Anunnaki, who had mutinied over their dissatisfaction
with their working conditions, that primitive workers
(Homo sapiens) be created by genetic engineering as slaves
to replace them in the gold mines by crossing extraterrestrial
genes with those of Homo erectus. According to Sitchin,
ancient inscriptions report that the human civilization
in Sumer, Mesopotamia, was set up under the guidance of
these "gods", and human kingship was
inaugurated to provide intermediaries between mankind
and the
Anunnaki (creating the "divine
right of kings" doctrine). Sitchin believes that
fallout from nuclear weapons, used during a war between
factions of the extraterrestrials, is the "evil
wind" described in the Lament for Ur that destroyed
Ur around 2000 BC. Sitchin states the exact year is 2024
BC. Sitchin says that his research coincides with many
biblical texts, and that biblical texts come originally
from Sumerian writings.
Popularity
Since
the release of his first book The
12th Planet in 1976, now in its 45th printing,
Zecharia Sitchin has written seven other books as part
of his Earth Chronicles series, as well as six other companion
books, all of which are still in print as of 2010. Sitchin's
books have sold millions of copies worldwide and been
published in more than 25 languages, as well as in braille.
New York Times reporter
Corey Kilgannon noted that despite academic dismissal
of his work, Sitchin has "a devoted following
of readers".
Critic
Michael Heiser called Sitchin "arguably the most
important proponent of the ancient astronaut hypothesis
over the last several decades." Sitchin was a
frequent guest on the Coast to
Coast AM radio show, which in 2010 presented
Sitchin with a life-time achievement award. Gods
of the New Millennium author Alan F. Alford
admits he initially became "infatuated"
with Sitchin's hypotheses, but later became a critic of
Sitchin's interpretations of myth.
According
to some writers, Sitchin's ideas along with those of Erich
von Däniken may have influenced the
beliefs of the religious sect of Raëlism,
and writer Mark Pilkington sees the mythology of Japan's
Pana
Wave religious group as rooted in Sitchin's
The 12th Planet and
its sequels.
The
1994 movie Stargate,
directed by Roland Emmerich, and the 2009 video game The
Conduit drew some conceptual inspiration
from Sitchin's ideas, while screenwriter Roberto Orci
says the villains of the film Cowboys and Aliens were
inspired by Sitchin's conceptualization of the
Anunnaki as gold-mining aliens.
His
four books in The Earth Chronicles
series have been published and republished in both hardcover
and paperback editions and widely translated into many
languages, including German, French, Spanish, Portuguese,
Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Japanese. The scientific advances
since the publication of the first book, The
12th Planet, in 1976, have confirmed many of
the innovative and pioneering theories and conclusions
of Sitchin's books, attesting to the accuracy of Sumerian
knowledge 6,000 years ago. His first book was followed
in 1980 by The Stairway to Heaven,
and in 1985 by The War of Gods
and Men; book IV of the series titled The
Last Realms (1990), encompases the ancient
events and civilizations of the Americas.
Sitchin's
lastest book, Genesis Revisited,
was published October 1990 by Avon in paperback and in
January 1991 by Bear and Co. in hardcover.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin
MUFON 1991 International UFO Symposium Proceedings
