Expert: Steve Nelson - 12/30/2007

Question
Hello Philip,

I read where NASA discovered Planet X in Dec. 1983 with the IRAS telescope. The story was published in 2 or 3 major magazines, then NASA became silent. Then, in the late 80s', the JPL said that the Pioneer spacecraft indicated the perturbations in Neptune's and Pluto's orbits were natural perturbations not related to these planets being influenced by an outside large body in space. There just seems to be a hint of a cover-up here. I also viewed several pictures of Planet X on the internet taken from different folks and amateur photgraphers in various parts of the world, especially in the Southern hemisphere. Some pictures of X appeared near the rising sun, supposedly at times when it would "peek out from hiding", whatever that means. It just doesn't seem like all these photos from different parts of the world could have had a Planet X airbrushed or cropped into them. I've read a lot on the internet about Planet X, most seemed a bit hyped, but some articles seemed to have been researched and comparatively well written. So, I'm still in the dark.

What is your opinion on the existence of Planet X and do you think there is any kind of NASA cover-up going on?

With warmest regards,

Mike E.

Answer
This is too easy:  No cover-up.  

Why?  I know you can figure this out for yourself, but for completeness let's review the positives and negatives of such a discovery for NASA.

Positives:  NASA could inflame the public interest in a positive way (not like the negative outpouring over Pluto being declared a dwarf planet and not a planet) and possibly get billions of dollars for a new mission to photograph this new planet.  They have tons to gain by promoting such a discovery in a bold and public way.

Negatives:  Ummm...we haven't even landed people on Mars and haven't been back to the Moon in decades, so we won't be actually exploring a supposed "Planet X" within our lifetimes (barring lifetime-extension technology).  So no negatives or economic incentives to create the conspiracy needed for a cover-up.  Also, any such conspiracy would be scientifically irresponsible and the NASA leadership would be risking their jobs.  For absolutely nothing.

Cover-up?  That would be risky, pointless, and stupid.  NASA, like all space agencies, has made mistakes in their high-pressure and highly complex job, but they're faaaar from stupid!

Orbits?  Yes, just revising the mass of Uranus by 0.5% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_X fixed that astronomical mystery.  :)

Amateur astronomers?  That's tricky, because most of them seem to be referring to the hypothetical planet Nibiru.  http://xfacts.com/x1.htm  They rely on historical record and speculation as much as astronomy.  These have been discredited by simpler explanations, which I will continue to go with until I hear from my astronomer friends (and I'm friends with quite a few) that there's good reason to actually believe in Planet X.  It's not some dogma that the astronomical community believes, there's no direct evidence (telescope observations) for planet X.  A more vehement response to "true believers" in Planet X may be found here:  http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/nutshell.html

A final note.  I'm writing a book on science crackpots and I've learned what separates a good scientist from a crackpot because I've studied them for a couple of decades now.  The people with the Planet X websites have all the hallmarks of crackpots.  Speculation is used in place of evidence, sketchy evidence is used as "proof" that carefully done science is wrong, and especially that a lot of them predicted global disaster from their idea of Planet X passing nearby in 2003...and here we are.  I thank you for writing this question, I'm leaning toward including them in my book as an example of the "dark star" type gloom-and-doom crackpots.