“The Zetas say that ZetaTalk is Straight Talk.” -Nancy Leider
No, the OTHER Planet X.
One of the very first full-blown conspiracy communities I ran into on the Internet was that of the Planet X advocates, spearheaded by Nancy Lieder of ZetaTalk. Several years and countless failed prophecies later, Nancy and the Zetas are still going strong. Though the cult appears to have lost a few of its followers after a major prophecy failure in 2003, the centrepiece of their cosmology, Planet X (also known as Nibiru), has spread like wildfire across the Internet.
Nancy’s mythology fuses the catastrophism of Immanuel Velikovsky with a tortured version of the Sitchin/von Daniken school of archaeology with a dash of New Age thrown in for good measure. Despite its obvious roots in previous conspiracist/cultic subcultures, ZetaTalk has taken on a real life of its own, and a particular style that distinguishes it from its competitors. Let’s take a peek behind the curtain and see what ZetaTalk is all about.
Way back in the early 90s, Nancy became one of many channelers – receivers of telepathic messages from paranormal or extraterrestrial entities. For many people the channeled entities are ancient Atlantean spirits or Space Jesus; in Nancy’s case, the voices in her head came from the familiar grey aliens of Zeta Reticuli – the little skinny fellows with the huge heads and giant, unblinking black eyes. Now, the greys are generally seen as being fairly evil as aliens go – they generally receive most of the blame for abductions, probings, cattle mutilations, and such. They were actually the perpetrators of Earth’s very first alien abduction, which naturally didn’t endear them to the UFO community.
It comes as a surprise, then, that the Zetas were contacting Nancy to warn her of an impending disaster. Planet X, also known as Nibiru, is the tenth ninth planet in the Solar System, and has an odd orbit such that it sweeps through the inner planets every 3600 years or so. It’s due to come by Real Soon™, and cause all manner of havoc. The Zetas are prevented from helping us directly by intergalactic law, but have decided to give us a hand anyway by warning us of the coming disaster.
At first Nancy was skeptical, unsure of whether she should quit her job and move to Wisconsin to run the ZetaTalk cult full-time. She asked the Zetas for a sign, and hilarity ensued:
” … So, I had a visitation from Pumpkin heads (the big guys, see Zeta Types in Worlds) and they told me that when I went into my office I’d find the MUFON mags turned face down, not up as usual, and that would be my sign. So I went in, all excited, and they were face up. Got hysterical. Another visitation, and they said “this is why we don’t give signs on demand! If they go wrong, or are perceived wrong, hysterics, etc.” So I understood, not on demand. A week later I’m in a movie house, alone, trying to relax, and get the sense that a Zeta came in and sat beside me, and I’d find a candy wrapper in my pocket or some such. I was eating Star Bursts, glued shut cardboard box, welded plastic wrapper around individually wrapped pieces. You have to break your fingernails to get the candy, practially. So I’m eating along and get to the last piece. It’s not individually wrapped in wax paper. Now, EVERY Star Burst is so wrapped, by machine, I have no doubt. So, I figured that was my sign, when I wasn’t expecting it.” [emphasis added]
That was all she needed. The rest, as they say, is history. The Zetas, speaking through Nancy in her new digs in Wisconsin, predicted that Planet X would pass by Earth in 2003, causing a pole shift in which most of the world’s population would die. In light of this they advised everyone to kill their pets so that they wouldn’t suffer needlessly in the cataclysm. Nancy complied, as did some of her followers, and… well…
So there may have been some collateral damage from the Great White Lie. They’re now saying that it’s going to happen sometime before 2012 but can’t be more specific; otherwise, if the governments of the world knew when it was going to happen, they would immediately declare martial law, trapping everyone in cities and slaughtering them en masse via gassing and carpet-bombing. Why? Who knows.
But, then again, the world’s governments do know about it and are keeping it from the public through a conspiracy of silence and media suppression. But they can’t know about it, because our understanding of physics is all wrong, gravity includes a force of repulsion, Earth is pushed around in its orbit by “sweeping arms of the sun,” and so on. But now NASA has decided that the public should know, and their new strategy is to release coded messages in press releases and drop subtle hints to the public through mass media while still overtly denying everything. For instance, Hale-Bopp did not actually exist; it was really a distant exploding star, but NASA told us it was a comet so that we wouldn’t think it was Planet X. Or something.
Anyway, it’s too late now; thanks to the repulsion force, Earth has stopped in its orbit since Planet X entered the inner solar system. X is now hiding on the opposite side of the sun, so that we can’t see it. We can still see all of the constellations on the other side of the sun, though, because the Earth is “wobbling.” This should be obvious to every astronomer ever, but the government is keeping them quiet. Somehow.
So what should we look for in order to know that Planet X is on the way? They’re a bit vague about that – we should watch out for a “lean to the left” and “look to the left of Betelgeuse.” That’s pretty much the most completely unhelpful thing you can say in astronomy – which way is left? It’s hard to tell, and the Zetas aren’t forthcoming with clarification. Though Nancy hosts weekly ZetaChat sessions on the Godlike Productions forums, tough questions are usually met with the same snickering aloofness that appears when the Zetas are yukking it up about how bad at physics we are.
There have been enough failed predictions now that ZetaTalk’s Byzantine conspiracy framework is starting to look a little flimsy. At some point any conspiracy theory gets a little emo and starts slashing its wrists with Occam’s Razor, but I think we’re a couple of years away from that yet with ZetaTalk – it should be interesting to see what happens when 2012 rolls around and there’s still no sign of Nibiru. I’m a disinfo shill, of course, so I would say that, wouldn’t I? – but think about it this way.
Even if you accept that Nancy’s a genuine alien contactee and is being passed telepathic messages by enlightened little grey men, take a look at the facts. Every major ZetaTalk prediction has been wrong, Nancy’s lost most of her followers, and we’re a mere two and a half years away from yet another massive disconfirmation. The failures have been rationalized by proposing the most comprehensively vague system of pseudophysics since young-earth creationism, and a nested set of contradictory, recursive meta-conspiracies that would put David Icke to shame. There’s a simpler explanation here:
The Zetas are fucking with her.
Keep in mind that the Zetas are the anal-probing, cattle-mutilating, hybrid-making X-Files type grey aliens. Clearly they like a bit of mischief – so what better way to get their kicks than by telepathizing themselves into Nancy’s head, convincing her that she’s the UFO apocalypse messiah, and then screwing up on every single prediction? It makes the world just a little bit crazier (and, from what Phil Plait says, clogging up the inboxes of astronomers everywhere with panicked questions from gullible Internet people).
It’s also pretty entertaining, though, so I guess they’re not all bad. Just keep the probes away from me and I’m happy.
(Hat tip to the folks at Godlike Productions for help with this post! The NWO thanks you, and your deaths will be quick and painless.)
Tags: aliens, apocalypse, conspiracy, mental illness, new age, prophecy