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Myths Checked: Famous Claims Tested Against the Real Documents

Famous claims checked against the actual documents. Sometimes the claim is wrong. Often the real record is stranger than the myth.

Often the popular claim is wrong but the real record is stranger. Nibiru really was a Babylonian name, and the Emerald Tablet really is a medieval alchemy text; the myths grew on top of them.

Places · Greece and RomeAtlantisPlato's island empire beyond the Pillars of Heracles, ruled by Poseidon's descendants, swallowed by the sea in a single day and night.People · 20th-century American occultismDoreal and the "Emerald Tablets of Thoth"A 1930s occult teacher who claimed to have found and translated emerald tablets written by Thoth, a priest-king from Atlantis.Texts · Hermetic and Arabic alchemyEmerald TabletA short, cryptic alchemical text attributed to Hermes: "That which is below is like that which is above."Objects · Sumer and Babylon; modern speculationNibiruIn Babylon, a name of Marduk and a crossing point in the sky. In modern lore, a hidden planet always about to hit Earth.Texts · India (20th century)Vaimanika ShastraA 'Science of Aeronautics' presented as ancient, but dictated in the 1910s and 20s. Engineers who tested its designs in 1974 found they could not fly.People · Modern ancient-astronaut writingZecharia SitchinThe author who turned the Anunnaki into gold-mining astronauts from Nibiru, and made Sumerian gods a global phenomenon.

Features

FeatureWhere the alien books get it wrongFourteen ancient-astronaut claims checked against the tablets.FeaturePushback and answersThe best objections, answered from the texts.

Questions people ask about Myths Checked

Is Nibiru real?

Nibiru is a real Babylonian word, meaning 'crossing', used for a celestial marker linked to the god Marduk, most often Jupiter. The hidden planet with a 3,600-year orbit is a modern idea from 1976. Astronomers note such a planet would be obvious, and the 3,600 figure comes from a Sumerian number unit.

Was Zecharia Sitchin right about the Anunnaki?

Specialists in cuneiform agree that Sitchin's translations are not supported by the languages or the texts. No Mesopotamian source describes gods mining gold or a twelfth planet. His 1976 book The 12th Planet still made the Anunnaki a global phenomenon.

Are the Emerald Tablets of Thoth ancient?

No. They were written in the 1930s by Doreal, an American occult teacher who claimed to have found and translated them. The older Emerald Tablet is a separate short alchemical text, 'that which is below is like that which is above', traced to Arabic sources of about 750 to 850 CE.