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CHAPTER 1
Nukes of the Gods
Within the domain of so-called "ancient astronaut" research, the Anunnaki have taken on what can only be described as near-legendary status. But who, or what, were they? And why are they so incredibly integral to the claims that atomic weapons were unleashed thousands of years ago? Let's see. It's a saga both captivating and controversy-filled.
In their efforts to try to understand who, exactly, "the gods" may have been, proponents of the theory that we were visited by extraterrestrials (ETs) untold centuries ago have advanced numerous theories concerning their origins and identities. They include: the denizens of the Pleaides, more popularly known as the "Seven Sisters"; the people of a planet orbiting Sirius, located in the Canis Major constellation; and the long-tried-and-tested Martians, who we shall come back to in a later chapter. No theory, however, has succeeded in capturing the attention of the ancient astronaut community quite like that which revolves around the Anunnaki.
The late Laurence Gardner, author of such books as Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark and Bloodline of the Holy Grail, said: "Every item of written and pictorial attestation confirms that the ancient Sumerians were absolutely sincere about the existence of the Anunnaki, and those such as Enki, Enlil, Nin-khursag and Inanna fulfilled earthly functions with designated community duties."
Gardner continued:
They were patrons and founders; they were teachers and justices; they were technologists and kingmakers. They were jointly and severally venerated as archons and masters, but there were certainly not idols of religious worship as the ritualistic gods of subsequent cultures became. In fact, the word which was eventually translated to become 'worship' was avod, which meant quite simply, 'work.' The Anunnaki presence may baffle historians, their language may confuse linguists and their advanced techniques may bewilder scientists, but to dismiss them is foolish. The Sumerians have themselves told us precisely who the Anunnaki were, and neither history nor science can prove otherwise.
The ET Leaders of the Pack
There's no doubt that the theories suggesting the Anunnaki were extraterrestrials near-exclusively surfaced out of the fertile mind (some have said the fertile "imagination") of just one man: Zechariah Sitchin, a Russian writer who passed away in 2010, at the age of 90.
That the Anunnaki played a significant role in ancient history is not in doubt at all. For the people of Mesopotamia-that's the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Hurrians, and the Sumerians — the Anunnaki were powerful and important gods who held distinct sway over those same people. For Zechariah Sitchin, however, they were nothing of the sort. They were far more than that. For Sitchin, the Anunnaki were an incredibly old race of extraterrestrials who had merely been interpreted as gods, by people who had no comprehension of the concept of alien life. They were giants who had incredibly long life spans and whose technology was far superior to anything we can claim to possess, even today.
Over the course of far more than a few books, such as The 12th Planet, The Wars of Gods and Men, The Lost Realms, and The Anunnaki Chronicles, Sitchin detailed the nature and scope of the Anunnaki mission to Earth, which, he believed, began thousands of years ago. Sitchin's conclusions were not reached by uncovering hard evidence in support of his theory, however. Rather, he relied solely on studying ancient manuscripts and texts, and then interpreting them — finally coming to the conclusion that the gods of Mesopotamia were nothing less than full-blown ETs.
It's hardly surprising that — given the fact that just about everything he said and wrote about the Anunnaki was theoretical and the result of interpretation — Sitchin was widely condemned by those who viewed his conclusions as unprovable nonsense. None of that, however, prevented Sitchin from forging ahead, gaining momentum, and — in the process — ensuring a huge following of devoted souls. So, let's see, exactly, what Sitchin maintained and, most important of all, how it all ties in with the controversies surrounding atomic Armageddon long before our civilization existed.
Aliens in the Neighborhood
Rather incredibly, Sitchin did not believe that the Anunnaki were the denizens of a star system located who knows how many light years away from Earth. Rather, it was his conclusion that the Anunnaki were from right here: our very own solar system. But, they weren't from Mars, Venus, or any of the other known planets. No, they came from a world variously referred to as "Nibiru" and "Planet X." So, how can it be that we don't see Nibiru in the heavens above us? Why have the world's best-leading astronomers not found it? Here's where things get extremely controversial. For Sitchin, the answer to both questions was very simple: Nibiru is so far away that, whereas it takes our planet 365 days to orbit the Sun, it takes Nibiru thousands of years to complete its orbit. And it's an orbit that, on every occasion, brings Nibiru perilously close to the Earth. I say "perilously" because Sitchin concluded something extremely controversial: He asserted that due to its occasional close proximity and massive size, Nibiru — along with its attendant, infinitely powerful gravitational pull — repeatedly created worldwide havoc, mayhem, and destruction of the kind that provoked the legends of ancient floods and apocalyptic stories of the kinds that can be found in numerous religious texts of the ancient kind.
As for when the Anunnaki first decided to make an exploratory mission to Earth, we're not talking about a few thousand years ago. We are not even talking about tens of thousands of years ago. For Sitchin, the Anunnaki made their presence known on our world hundreds of thousands of years ago — possibly even in excess of 400,000 years ago. As for the purpose of the mission, here's where things get even more controversial.
Saving a World and Changing a Species
In the world of Sitchin, the Anunnaki's home planet of Nibiru was going through extremely turbulent times. Its atmosphere was degrading to the point where life on that faraway world was in deep and dark peril. So, the Anunnaki elected to launch an emergency mission to save themselves from death and destruction, specifically by making use of us and our resources — and one resource in particular: gold. The plan was to establish massive, worldwide mining colonies on Earth, to mine the potentially millions of tons of gold that might be available to them, to convert into gold-dust, and then to unleash it all into Nibiru's failing atmosphere, in essence, creating a "shield" — one specifically designed to ensure that the powerful ultraviolet rays that were causing so much havoc would be blocked and nullified.
The Anunnaki had another plan, too. Instead of doing the hard and harsh work themselves, these long-lived giants elected to use what, at the time, were Homo erectus to put in all the effort for them. Highly advanced genetic manipulation, coupled with an apparent compatibility that allowed the Anunnaki to mate with the primitive people of Earth, resulted in the development of an early human that ultimately became us, Homo sapiens. Huge fleets of Anunnaki arrived, establishing bases and installations in portions of what are now Africa and the Middle East. It was these collective events, Sitchin suspected, that led to the development of legends of "the gods" coming down from the skies, of the origins of the story of Adam and Eve, of those same gods taking human wives, of the legendary "giants," of the Nephilim, and of incredibly long-lived characters from times long gone, such as Methuselah and Noah.
As time progressed, and as the gold-mining programs proceeded at incredible rates, the numbers of proto-humans grew and grew, even to the point of becoming troublesome and hard to contain. There was, however, something guaranteed to curtail this near-out-of-control growth. It was nothing good for the people of Earth. If true, it was just about one of the worst things possible. Nibiru was about to turn the Earth on its head — maybe almost literally.
Disaster, Resettling, and Starting Over
According to Sitchin, roughly about 12,500 years ago Nibiru was about to make a close pass by the Earth. An extremely close pass. Very unfortunately, nothing less than a near-all-destructive pass. When huge Nibiru was at its absolute closest, its gravitational pull provoked massive destruction across the Earth. Entire countries were flooded; millions died; there may even have been a polar tilt. Cities crumbled under waves of hundreds of feet. Civilizations were wiped out. Our planet was scarred beyond belief and imagination. Right before all of this terrifying activity began, the Anunnaki fled the Earth, only returning when the carnage and chaos finally subsided. It was this particular disastrous pass, Sitchin asserted, that provoked many of the flood legends of the kind that turned up in both the Koran and the Old Testament.
In the aftermath of the destruction, even the incredibly advanced Anunnaki found matters difficult to cope with. In Sitchin's version of events, they chose to make a new base of operations in Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq). It's generally accepted that Sumer was founded as early as 7,500 years ago — by the denizens of northern Mesopotamia. With that in mind, it's possible that, if Sitchin's interpretations were correct, the Anunnaki may have tried to help rebuild human civilization in the very same area that became their new base of operations: Sumer. Things were not destined to last, however.
An Evil Wind Comes Calling
Sitchin's theorizing led him to believe that the Anunnaki ultimately turned on one another, quickly protecting their own respective areas of the Earth and, as tensions rose, issuing threats against each other. Jealousy, threats of war, and ever-growing threats resulted in the Anunnaki doing the unthinkable: They sparked off an atomic battle of massively destructive proportions.
According to the work of Sitchin:
At the end of the third millennium B.C. the great Sumerian civilization came to an abrupt end. Its sudden demise was bewailed in numerous lamentation texts that have been discovered by archeologists. The texts ascribed the calamity to an Evil Wind that came blowing from the west (from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea) — a deathly cloud that caused excruciating death to all living beings, people and animals alike, that withered plants and poisoned the waters."
As for what this intriguingly titled "evil wind" may have been, Sitchin was in very little doubt. In his view, it was nothing less than deadly radiation. It was also his opinion that atomic weapons were utilized to "... obliterate the spaceport that then existed in the Sinai Peninsula (and some 'sinning cities' such as Sodom and Gomorrah)." The "nuclear cloud," Sitchin suggested, "... was carried by the prevailing winds eastward, causing death and desolation in the Lands between the Rivers (Mesopotamia) — the empire of Sumer and Akkad."
Certainly, translated texts concerning the downfall of Sumer tell a bleak and disturbing story that could be equated with the huge destruction, radioactive contamination, and death wrought upon the Japanese cities of Hiroshima in August 1945 — something that brought the Second World War to a sudden, Earth-shuddering end. Those texts state:
On the land [Sumer] fell a calamity, one unknown to man; one that had never been seen before, one which could not be withstood. A great storm from heaven. A land-annihilating storm.
An evil wind, like a rushing torrent. A battling storm joined by a scorching heat. By day it deprived the land of the bright sun, in the evening the stars did not shine. The people, terrified, could hardly breathe; the evil wind clutched them, does not grant them another day. Mouths were drenched with blood, heads wallowed in blood. The face was made pale by the Evil Wind. It caused cities to be desolated, houses to become desolate; stalls to become desolate, the sheepfolds to be emptied. Sumer's rivers it made flow with water that is bitter; its cultivated fields grow weeds, its pastures grow withering plants."
The Matter of Atlantis
Given his fascination for the issue of ancient atomic war and pulverized civilizations, it's surprising that Sitchin did not overly dwell on matters relative to the legendary land of Atlantis. After all, the story of that fabled land and its people is filled with data on cataclysmic and mysterious events, and a society destroyed. He did, however, at least comment on the matter, as we shall see shortly. The saga of the destruction of Atlantis has captured the attention of numerous authors and researchers for many a decade, to the extent that the numbers of published books and papers on the subject are massive. On top of that, numerous locations have been posited for Atlantis, yet there is still no firm consensus as to when and where it Existed — or if it even existed at all. Despite all of the research and work that has been undertaken to try to identify when and where Atlantis met its end, the fact is that the whole controversy can be pretty much placed squarely on the shoulders of a certain, near-legendary philosopher from ancient Greece: Plato, who is believed to have entered this world circa 427 BC, although admittedly the precise date remains unknown (and is likely to remain that way).
It's to Plato's Critias and Timaeus that we have to turn our attention. According to Plato, when it came to the people of Atlantis:
For many generations, as long as the divine nature lasted in them, they were obedient to the laws, and well-affectioned towards the god, whose seed they were; for they possessed true and in every way great spirits, uniting gentleness with wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one another. They despised everything but virtue, caring little for their present state of life, and thinking lightly of the possession of gold and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods are increased by virtue and friendship with one another, whereas by too great regard and respect for them, they are lost and friendship with them.
That state of near-paradise was not destined to last, however. After hundreds — maybe thousands — of years, near-extinction for the Atlanteans was just around the corner. Back to Plato:
When the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power.
That was when the "gods" decided that the people of Atlantis had gone too far. The result: tales of that magical place and its people destroyed, of the land sinking beneath the waves, of massive, irreversible destruction, and of an amazing culture reduced to nothing but folklore and myth. There is a very good reason why myth and folklore, rather than mainstream history, dominate the story of Atlantis. Put simply, Plato's account of Atlantis and its ultimate downfall is a work of fiction. At least, that is the prevailing, mainstream opinion. For ancient astronaut seekers, however, Plato's story is based upon an ancient reality.
Gilles Nuytens sums up the matter concisely:
The story of Atlantis begins quite literally with two of Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. These accounts are the only known written records which refer specifically to a lost civilization called Atlantis. Many people believe the tale to be complete fiction, the creation of a philosopher's imagination used to illustrate an argument. Others believe that the story was inspired by catastrophic events which may have destroyed the Minoan civilization on Crete and Thera. Still others maintain that the story is an accurate representation of a long lost and almost completely forgotten land.
Sitchin and That Sunken Land
With that said, let's take a look at the Sitchin-Atlantis connection. Tony O'Connell, of Atlantipedia: An A–Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis, notes that "Sitchin did not address the question of Atlantis directly until 2004, when he devoted a chapter of the Earth Chronicles Expeditions, where he considered the Minoan Hypothesis and found it wanting."
The "Minoan Hypothesis" suggests an eastern Mediterranean location for ill-fated Atlantis. O'Connell continued that Sitchin "... did not propose any specific location but suggested that there was a possible transatlantic connection," adding that Sitchin's "... broader views did find favor with a number of fringe Atlantis commentators...."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Weapons of the Gods"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Nick Redfern.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
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