Landing on Planet Earth

The rare visits to Earth by Anu and his consort were accompanied by solemn ceremonies.

During these ceremonies:

• the deities representing the Seven Planets were assigned certain positions and ceremonial robes
• the Four were treated as a separate group.

For example, ancient rules of protocol stated: “The deities Adad, Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar shall be seated in the court until daybreak.”

In the skies, each group was supposed to stay in its own celestial zone, and the Sumerians assumed that there was a “celestial bar” keeping the two groups apart.

“An important astral-mythological text,” according to A. Jeremias (The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient Near East), deals with some remarkable celestial event, when the Seven “stormed in upon the Celestial Bar.”

In this upheaval, which apparently was an unusual alignment of the Seven Planets, “they made allies of the hero Shamash [the Sun] and of the valiant Adad [Mercury]"— meaning, perhaps, that all exerted a gravitational pull in a single direction.

“At the same time, Ishtar, seeking a glorious dwelling place with Anu, strove to become Queen of Heaven”—Venus was somehow shifting its location to a more “glorious dwelling place.” The greatest effect was on Sin (the Moon).

“The seven who fear not the laws … the Light-giver Sin had violently besieged.” According to this text, the appearance of the 12th Planet saved the darkened Moon and made it “shine forth in the heavens” once again.

The Four were located in a celestial zone the Sumerians termed GIR.HE.A (“celestial waters where rockets are confused”), MU.HE (“confusion of spacecraft”), or UL.HE (“band of confusion”).

These puzzling terms make sense once we realize that the Nefilim considered the heavens of the solar system in terms of their space travel. Only recently, the engineers of Comsat (Communications Satellite Corporation) discovered that the Sun and Moon “trick” satellites and “shut them off.”

Earth satellites could be “confused” by showers of particles from solar flares or by changes in the Moon’s reflection of infrared rays. The Nefilim, too, were aware that rocket ships or spacecraft entered a “zone of confusion” once they passed Earth and neared Venus, Mercury, and the Sun.

Separated from the Four by an assumed celestial bar, the Seven were in a celestial zone for which the Sumerians used the term UB. The ub consisted of seven parts called (in Akkadian) giparu (“night residences”). There is little doubt that this was the origin of Near Eastern beliefs in the “Seven heavens.”

The seven “orbs” or “spheres” of the ub comprised the Akkadian kishsharu (“the entirety”). The term’s origin was the Sumerian SHU, which also implied “that part which was the most important,” the Supreme. The Seven Planets were therefore sometimes called “the Seven Shiny Ones SHU.NU”—the Seven who “in the Supreme Part rest.”

The Seven were treated in greater technical detail than the Four. Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian celestial lists described them with various epithets and listed them in their correct order. Most scholars, assuming that the ancient texts could not possibly have dealt with planets beyond Saturn, have found it difficult to identify correctly the planets described in the texts.

But our own findings make identification and understanding of the names’ meanings relatively easy.

First to be encountered by the Nefilim approaching the solar system was Pluto.

The Mesopotamian lists name this planet SHU.PA (“supervisor of the SHU”), the planet that guards the approach to the Supreme Part of the solar system.

The Nefilim could land on Earth only if their spaceship were launched from the 12th Planet well before reaching Earth’s vicinity. They could thus have crossed the orbit of Pluto not only as inhabitants of the 12th Planet but also as astronauts in a moving spaceship.

An astronomical text said that the planet Shupa was the one where “the deity Enlil fixed the destiny for the Land”— where the god, in charge of a spacecraft, set the right course for the planet Earth and the Land of Sumer.

Next to Shupa was IRU (“loop”). At Neptune, the spacecraft of the Nefilim probably commenced its wide curve or “loop” toward its final target. Another list named the planet HUM.BA, which connotes “swampland vegetation.”

When we probe Neptune someday, will we discover that its persistent association with waters is due to the watery swamps the Nefilim saw upon it?

Uranus was called Kakkab Shanamma (“planet which is the double”). Uranus is truly the twin of Neptune in size and appearance. A Sumerian list calls it EN.TI.MASH.SIG (“planet of bright greenish life”). Is Uranus, too, a planet on which swampy vegetation abounded?

Beyond Uranus looms Saturn, a giant planet (nearly ten times Earth’s size) distinguished by its rings, which extend more than twice as far out as the planet’s diameter. Armed with a tremendous gravitational pull and the mysterious rings, Saturn must have posed many dangers to the Nefilim and their spacecraft.

This is why the 4th planet was called TAR.GALLU (“the great destroyer”).

The planet was also called KAK.SI.DI (“weapon of righteousness”) and SI.MUTU (“he who for justice kills”). Throughout the ancient Near East, the planet represented the punisher of the unjust. Were these names expressions of fear or references to actual space accidents?

The Akitll rituals, we have seen, made reference to “storms of the waters” between An and Ki on the fourth day—when the spacecraft was between Anshar (Saturn) and Kishar (Jupiter).

A very early Sumerian text, assumed since its first publication in 1912 to be “an ancient magical text,” very possibly records the loss of a spaceship and its fifty occupants. It relates how Marduk, arriving at Eridu, rushed to his father Ea with some terrible news:

The text does not identify “it,” whatever destroyed the SHU.SAR (the flying “supreme chaser”) and its 50 astronauts.

But fear of celestial danger was evident only in regard to Saturn.

The Nefilim must have passed by Saturn and come in view of Jupiter with a great sense of relief. They called the fifth planet Barharu (“bright one”), as well as SAG.ME.GAR (“great one, where the space suits are fastened”).

Another name for Jupiter, SIB.ZI.AN.NA (“true guide in the heavens”), also described its probable role in the journey to Earth: It was the signal for curving into the difficult passage between Jupiter and Mars, and the entry into the dangerous zone of the asteroid belt.

From the epithets, it would seem that it was at this point that the Nefilim put on their mes, their spacesuits.

Mars, appropriately, was called UTU.KA.GAB.A (“light established at the gate of the waters”), reminding us of the Sumerian and biblical descriptions of the asteroid belt as the celestial “bracelet” separating the “upper waters” from the “lower waters” of the solar system. More precisely, Mars was referred to as Shelibbu (“one near the center” of the solar system).

An unusual drawing on a cylinder seal suggests that, passing Mars, an incoming spacecraft of the Nefilim established constant communication with “Mission Control” on Earth. (Fig. 121)

The central object in this ancient drawing simulates the symbol of the 12th Planet, the Winged Globe. Yet it looks different: It is more mechanical, more manufactured than natural. Its “wings” look almost exactly like the solar panels with which American spacecraft are provided to convert the Sun’s energy to electricity. The two antennas cannot be mistaken.

The circular craft, with its crownlike top and extended wings and antennas, is located in the heavens, between Mars (the six-pointed star) and Earth and its Moon.

On Earth, a deity extends his hand in greeting to an astronaut still out in the heavens, near Mars. The astronaut is shown wearing a helmet with a visor and a breastplate. The lower part of his suit is like that of a “fish-man”—a requirement, perhaps, in case of an emergency splashdown in the ocean. In one hand he holds an instrument; the other hand reciprocates the greeting from Earth.

And then, cruising on, there was Earth, the seventh planet.

In the lists of the “Seven Celestial Gods” it was called SHU.GI (“right resting place of SHU”).

It also meant the “land at the conclusion of SHU,” of the Supreme Part of the solar system—the destination of the long space journey.

While in the ancient Near East the sound gi was sometimes transformed into the more familiar ki (“Earth,” “dry land”), the pronunciation and syllable gi have endured into our own times in their original meaning, exactly as the Nefilim meant it to be: geo-graphy, geo-metry, geo-logy.