Re: Regarding Planet X Debate...

Herald Sun
Australia's biggest-selling daily newspaper
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Searching for Planet X
By GRAEME HAMMOND
03mar02

IT'S out there somewhere, big, brown and dangerous - and it's heading
our way. It's Planet X, the fabled 10th planet of the solar system.
Noted 19th century English astronomer John Couch Adams was the first to
begin plotting its likely position after noticing strange deviations in
the orbit of Uranus - at that time the most distant planet known - that
suggested it was being tugged by the gravity of another body.  Since
then dozens of eminent astronomers have followed the same hunch. The
search has thus far yielded two further planets - Neptune (1846) and
Pluto (1930) - but not the supersized "brown dwarf" they still think
exists. 

Will a 10th be found? There are as many sceptics as believers. If it's
out there, says John Anderson at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it
has a mass five times that of Earth's, takes as long as 1000 years to
orbit the Sun and is so far away its effects on the outermost planets
won't be detected again until 2600. But here's where the mystery
thickens. If it does exist and is coming back, what will the effects be
for Earth. Could it be that it was Planet X that killed the dinosaurs?
More to the point, if the world's best astronomers do prove its
existence and know it is returning, would they tell us? 

Australian author Stephanie Relfe is among a band of New Age activists
who are convinced there is a conspiracy of silence. Relfe, whose books
include The Mars Records: Biofeedback Meter Sessions Where a Man
Regained Hidden Memories of Military Service on Mars and The Dangers of
Eating Microwave Food, has amassed a catalogue of evidence that suggests
Earth is due for a closer encounter than it would wish with Planet X in
late 2003. Among the claims on her website, www.metatech.org: 

 - NASA discovered and excitedly disclosed the existence of 
   Planet X on December 30, 1983. A Washington Post article 
   the next day quoted space researcher Dr James Houck 
   speculating that the object was as close to Earth as 80 billion
   kilometres - "if it really is that close, it would be part of our 
   solar system," he said. Media controllers quickly gagged the
   scientists responsible. One NASA expert, Dr Robert Harrington, 
   who continued to speak about a strange find, met an untimely
   death in 1993. 

 - OBSERVATORIES continued to sight the planet last year. 
   To quash concerns, NASA announced it had found "the largest
   asteroid in history" beyond Neptune. 

 - PLANET X has intentionally been made to sound ridiculous 
   and confusing in a bid to deflect interest. 

 - DRAMATIC changes in weather patterns and an upsurge of 
   earthquakes and volcanoes since the 1990s are a precursor 
   of what's to come. X's mass, magnetism and density is such 
   that it disrupts the surface of every planet it passes. 

 - NASA and US military chiefs are quietly building dome homes
   to survive the coming cataclysm. "As many know, NASA has 
   covered up evidence of UFOs, Ets and structures on the Moon 
   and Mars for quite some time," writes co-conspiracist Mark 
   Hazlewood at his website, www.prep2003.com. He believes 
   the devastation will wipe out all but a few hundred million 
   people on Earth. 

How do we survive? Head for the hills, says www.zetatalk.com, which
predicts that Planet X's passing will exert such a dramatic effect on
the magnetic poles and tectonic plates of Earth that all but the eastern
third of Australia will disappear under the waves.

END ARTICLE