This will sound crazy, but I sure don't claim to be all knowing. I build monolithic domes for a living. Last year a built two domes for a couple of family's who told me of a planet that was discovered in 1983. It is on a 3650 year orbit of our sun. They told me that it is coming back May of 2003. There will be what is called a pole shift. When this planet pass by, the earth is supposed to stop in its rotation for about 3 days. Ya, I know, it gets better. Anyway, after it stops it will rotate about 90 degrees, as the earth tries to align its self with the more powerful pull of this planet. After it passes, the earth will start to rotate again. Now the bad thing is that the population of the earth will be reduced by 70-90%. From what I have read and found, the earth will rotate in about an hour. Which means our oceans will be sloshing inland for several hundred miles. I am not going to get into everything as there is so much that I have read from Mars polar ice melting, animals flash frozen with tropical vegetation in there teeth and stomach, earth warming , volcanic activity up 1500% in the past 20 years, earth quakes up 1200% in the same amount of time, and I could go on and on. I have looked at zetatalk.com and they really sound crazy, but what do I know. It is a mighty big area out there that we call space. I did look at it for along time, but never really put to much stock in it as I am very busy with work. Now I am finding out that the people I am building for, not all but enough, are preparing for this event. These people are HIGH ranking military, Gov., and scientist that do not strike me as run of the mill idiots like myself, but what do I know. I do not know these people other than what they tell me. I do know they have the money to do what they want. Anyone who could give me info or could possibly know someone who could confirm or hopfully give proof that this will not happen would be great. Please don't write and say you are crazy this is so bad that it couldn't possibly happen because I don't want it to, there for it won't. Again I am not predicting the end of the world or trying to cause yet another crazy scare. I am looking for anyone with info, RELIABLE info. I am using this as another avenue of gathering info. By the way my doctor says I am not crazy as long as I stay on my meds and see him twice a week. Just kidding. Well here I go sending this into the lions den for everyone to tear me apart, lets hear it ladies and men.

Domeman, There was a planetary shift that moved your post to the campfire. Now, every 3650 years? If this is true, there would be geological and cultural evidence. The earth does indeed periodically shift magnetic poles, but in millions of measured years, not a few thousand. This is geologically recorded. Now, 1648 b.C. would have been the last visit. I suggest you review the various vibrant cultures worldwide at that time. There have been many prehistoric and historical references to comets, monumental environmental disasters and the usual teotwawki, second coming, hey Mr, Spaceman, won't you take me along, I ain't done nothing wrong... This is a cultural phenomenon us Anthropologists love to write dissertations about ( with our lucky fountain pen we received our first A with in grammer school.) It is a perverse psycological and social means of dealing with the daily struggle of survival : grumpy short faced bears, invading Hittites and your kid's heavy metal music. I suggest reading one of the Late Joseph Campbells works for comfort.

There may very well be a 10nth planeet orbiting Sol, but it's not Planet X. There has been a recent discovery of a large rock that orbits the sun outside of Pluto's orbit. Some are arguing that it's not big enought to be classified as a planet. Some also argue that Pluto isn't big enough either. I say, "who cares?" <br><br>We are going to be discovering a lot more large rocks floating between Pluto and the Kupier belt, the ring of rocks that occaisionally kick out asteroids now and then. But none will cause the symptoms your friend's listed. So relax. Let's worry more about the man-made "natural" disasters that are very real.

Hey Domeman,<br>When I was of single-digit age, our family's 1960's encyclopedia explained how the solar system was laid out and said that the planets would all line up sometime (I forget now) before the end of the century, and how the gravitational pull of all the planets lined up would likely cause all the tectonic plates to shift, causing unprecedented simultaneous earthquakes and volcano eruptions all over the globe. This was our encyclopedia. Well, there was a planetary convergence, sure enough, and absolutely nothing happened.<br>I also, again as a child, read, again in this same encyclopedia, about how scientists had recently discovered a new planet. This planet was called ... Pluto! So, we now knew, as of 1930, that there were nine planets, rather than the eight that science had identified up until then.<br>Of course, Pluto was downgraded, a few years back, from a "planet" to a mere "trans-neptunian object", so we went back to only having eight planets in our solar system. Does that mean that the tenth planet would only then have been the real ninth planet? Except that Pluto was soon then upgraded back to being a real planet again. So, does that mean that if our former tenth planet had now then become the ninth, then Pluto, when it got upgraded again, became our new tenth?<br>Of course not, because we're listing them in order of distance from the sun, not order of discovery.<br>But then, when I was in eighth grade, Pluto and Neptune switched places. Neptune became the farthest planet out. So, Pluto became the eighth planet and Neptune became the ninth. Not that that would have changed the tenth planet's ranking as actually the ninth when Pluto became a trans-neptunian object instead of a planet, but it would have made Neptune the eighth planet again, even though it was supposed to now be the ninth. Boy, I'm sure glad that Pluto and Neptune switched places back to the way they're supposed to be before that whole downgrade/upgrade thing happened with Pluto. Otherwise, it might have gotten confusing...<br>Seriously, there are a whole lot of big chunks of stuff out there. If their orbit is circular enough, we call them asteroids. If their orbits are eliptical enough, we usually prefer to call them comets. You can say that comets are ice and planets are rock, but that's not really true, either, as a lot of moons, asteroids, and possibly a planet or two are actually mostly or all ice, and comets are only mostly ice because they're so far out. If they were closer, they'd be rocks with water, sort of like Earth.<br>We're still learning so much. And the argument over what the definition of a "planet" rages on ... with Pluto's ultimate categorization hanging in the balance. Is it a planet or not? It has a moon, but then, so do some other moons, and even some asteroids have moons...<br>Here's the point: we're still learning so much. For anyone to say, "We've only just now discovered a brand new planet/comet/asteroid/whatever, and we already know that precisely this series of events will occur, at this exact angle and for this number of days and in this specific order" is not possible. We don't begin to know enough to predict that kind of stuff! And as for guessing population casualty rates? That's just not even close to remotely possible! Remember, my encyclopedia told me the late 20th century planetary convergence was going to cause global catastrophe, and what we actually got was a measurable 0% increase in tectonic activity. (Oh well, maybe next time...)<br>For what it's worth, there is more than just one "tenth" something out there. There is a whole bunch of stuff out past Pluto. And we're still learning all sorts of stuff about the fuzzy edges of our solar system all the time. This link has some cool information on hypothetical planets, including the search for trans-neptunian objects (with the resultant finding of Pluto) and trans-plutonian objects (with the current failure to find anything other than asteroids/comets). It may prove helpful, or at least interesting.

Jet-My wife asked me what in the world I was walking around giggling about about after reading your piece on planets. When she read it she enjoyed it as much as I did. It is a delightfull illustration for students on how changeable the "fixed" rules of science really are. May she copy it for her class? <br><br>Robb

Hi Robb,<br>Gosh, thanks. Yes, certainly she may copy it. Can I ask you a favor? Would you please ask her to use my real name, James Thad Entzminger, instead of jet on the copies she gives out? I'm glad you both enjoyed it. I hope the class does as well.<br>Take care,<br>James Thad

James/Jet--<br><br>Done and done! Thanks again!<br><br>Robb

Just a little quick math.<br><br>When Jupiter and Earth are aligned on the same side of the Sun, they are on average 4.2 Astronautical Units (AU) apart.<br><br>When Pluto and Earth are similarly aligned, they are 38.5 <br>AU apart.<br><br>Since gravity attenuates as the square of the distance, if this planet were only in Pluto orbit, it would have to have 81 times the mass of Jupiter to have the same, tiny, gravitational effect that Jupiter has on Earth.<br><br>However, since Pluto has a "year" that is 248.54 Earth years long, we can estimate that this other planet, with its 3650 Earth year orbit, is at least 10 times as far out as Pluto, thus it would have to mass 100x81 times Jupiter to have the same, tiny effect of Jupiter.<br><br>This would give it a mass of about 7 times that of the Sun.<br>I think that it would be sort of hard to hide, since I think that with that kind of mass it should be alight.

The math just doesn't make an impact on a lot of people.<br><br>I once had a woman tell me that she took photos of the moon one night, and didn't understand why they didn't come out- she had used a flash, after all...<br><br>Similarly, at a party once a man told me that during the '50s we had set off nuclear explosions in the Van Allen belt to see what it would do. Now, I can think of any number of reasons why this might be stupid idea, but his didn't occur to me.. he felt that other civilizations "out there" would take this as aggression on our part. I tried to explain the scale involved, but again....<br>

Re: The math just doesn't make an impact on a lot of people.<br><br><br> You are absolutely correct, but I keep on trying.<br><br> A few years ago, while playing blackjack in Vegas, the person next to me kept urging me to take insurance on my blackjack. I can prove mathmatically, that insurance is a bad bet. Heck, I can show it easier than that, if it were a favorable bet to the bettor, would the house offer it? Anyway, I ran through the math, and was told "That is statistics, this is the real world."<br><br> I have a friend who was a professional backgammon player. Those guys live off of tenths of a per cent of mathmatical expectation. Our favorite joke was "What's a couple of per cent mathmatical expectation amoung friends?"

Oh, oh! :-0 Now there's a "Planet V." <br><br><br>

Schaz,<br><br>Don't give up on the math. A lot of us still appreciate it.<br><br>John