in 1983

The Washington Post covered the story of Planet X on the front page on December 31, 1983 called "Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered." This story reported that the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) detected heat from an object about fifty billion miles away. A report of an interview with chief scientist Gerry Neugebauer from Jet Propulsion Laboratories appeared in the story. The article stated:
"A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite. 'All I can tell you is that we don't know what it is,' said Gerry Neugebauer, chief IRAS scientist."
The Post article went on to explain that this mysterious object has never been seen by optical telescopes on Earth or in space, but its infrared heat signature was detected twice by IRAS as it scanned the northern sky between January and November of 1983. The second infrared observation of the body, which is so cold it casts no light, noted that the body appeared not to have moved in six months. This suggested that the object is not a comet, since it probably would have moved. The article also explained that the infrared telescope aboard IRAS, which is able to detect very cold objects, calculated that the heavenly body was so cold that its temperature is about 459 F below zero.
Astronomers suggested it was a "giant gaseous planet, as large as Jupiter," and is so close that "it would be the nearest heavenly body to Earth beyond the outermost planet Pluto." This would make it part of our solar system. The article explained that there had been some speculation that the object "might be moving toward Earth." However, Cal Tech's Neugebauer was careful to "douse that idea with as much cold water as I can." He pronounced with certainty that this object "is not incoming mail." The US News World Report on September 10, 1984 published an article called "Planet X - Is it Really Out There?" This article had the following to say about Planet X:
"Shrouded from the sun's light, mysteriously tugging at the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, is an unseen force that astronomers suspect may be Planet X - a 10th resident of the Earth's celestial neighborhood. Last year, the infrared astronomical satellite (IRAS), circling in a polar orbit 560 miles from the Earth, detected heat from an object about 50 billion miles away that is now the subject of intense speculation."
The article went on to say that scientists are hopeful that the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes will locate the object, which they noted was possibly a "brown dwarf," a protostar that never got hot enough to become a star. Others astronomers, however, argue that the object is a "dark, gaseous mass that is slowly evolving into a planet." The article quoted Neugebauer as stating: "If we can show that our solar system is still creating planets, we'll know that it's happening around other stars, too." Contrary to this information, according to the ancient Sumerian texts, our solar system is not still creating planets, and this planet has been with us all along. It would appear that the media spin being put on Planet X is a clear attempt to call it something else besides "incoming mail."

The media was quiet on the subject of Planet X for the next few years. Finally, an article by R. Harrington in The Astronomical Journal dated October 1988 supplied the details of continuing mathematical modeling of this planet. The article suggested the mysterious planet was three to four times the size of Earth, and its position was three times further from the Sun than Pluto. Mathematical modeling also suggested that Planet X had an extreme elliptical orbit of 30 degrees. A NASA/ARC press release published in Newsweek on July 13, 1987 disclosed that "an eccentric 10th planet may - or may not - be orbiting the Sun." The article stated that NASA research scientist John Anderson "has a hunch Planet X is out there, though nowhere near the other nine." The article concluded, "if he is right, two of the most intriguing puzzles of space science might be solved: what caused mysterious irregularities in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune during the 19th Century? And what killed off the dinosaurs 26 million years ago."

The reference to killing off the dinosaurs seems to indicate that something more is known about this planet than NASA is letting on. Is this in fact a reference to the planet Nibiru of ancient infamy, the planet which, according to ancient sources, did in fact strike the Earth (Tiamat) in ancient times, and gave us a moon for a thank you? Regardless of what NASA really knows, silence is golden, and, for the most part, mum was the word on the issue of Planet X during the 1990s. Instead, scientific journals began to debunk the issue of a tenth solar system planet. In the 1990s, news stories began to dwell on "runaway planets" and "rebel planets" discovered in other solar systems. The issue of Planet X has now become entirely befuddled with recent discoveries of 18 nearby stars with Jupiter-class planets orbiting them (last count as of October, 1999). (see astron.berkeley.edu) Locating any new developments regarding a tenth solar system planet is akin to finding a needle in a haystack, since it's difficult to know which "new planet" they are talking about. For instance, an October 23, 1996 AP article entitled "New rebel planet found outside the solar system," disclosed the following:
A new planet that breaks all the rules about how and where planets form has been identified in orbit of a twin star about 70 light years from Earth in a constellation commonly known as the Northern Cross. The new planet has a roller coaster like orbit that swoops down close to its central star and then swings far out into frigid fringes, following a strange egg-shaped orbit that is unlike that of any other known planet.