Perhaps one of the most controversial figures in astronomy, offering evidence that a planet-sized body may come close to Earth as early as this May, James McCanney, M.S., a former theoretical physicist at Cornell University, spoke with The EDGE about his findings, which are detailed in his recently published book, Planet-X: Comets & Earth Changes. Subtitled “A Scientific Treatise on the Effects of a new large Planet or Comet arriving in our Solar System and Expect Earth Weather and Earth Changes,” this book has some people quite nervous and reportedly has high governmental officials planning ways to protect themselves in the case of cataclysmic disaster.
What is the nature and origin of Planet X, also known as the tenth planet in our solar system?
James McCanney: First of all. I want to put in perspective the solar system in general and I’ll do this throughout the interview to clarify my beliefs, as opposed to what you may hear or say from a standard astronomy textbook.
First of all, the solar system was not created all at one time as NASA would have you believe. All of the planets except for Jupiter have been adopted into the solar system one at a time throughout the history of the solar system. The original star system was just Jupiter and our Sun. So throughout history, we’ve gathered occurrences where new planets come into form by an electrical process. They become very large comets and then nestle in as planets, and my theoretical work shows how all of this happens. Let’s call any new planet to come into the solar system “Planet X,” because that is a term that is used for objects that have not been named yet.
If we could go way outside of the solar system and look back at our solar system from a distance and identify all of the bodies that are associated with it, we would see numerous large objects, possibly in very large orbits around the Sun. Only a few of them come into the inner solar system where we live, and the ones that do frequent the inner solar system, some may be on orbits of 100,000 years, while some might be on orbits of a few thousand years.
These objects are the ones that have affected Earth in the past. We are now expecting another object, which possibly has been here before, to come into the inner solar system within possibly the next 10 years — and there is a good reason to believe that it might be as early as May 2003.
This Planet X is in the category of large solar system objects that orbit our Sun and also come within the planetary region of our solar system occasionally. A few of these in the past have come close enough to Earth or close enough to the Sun to cause serious damage to planet Earth. I also should mention that we see the marks of these “invaders,” so to speak, or these periodic visitors on the other planets. For example, Mars is devoid of an atmosphere and its oceans, but it’s very clear when you look at Mars that it lost its water and atmosphere recently. So, the belief that an object could come into this solar system and drastically affect Earth is not that outlandish.
NASA, of course, will try and tell you that the solar system formed all at one time four and a half billion years ago and all the planets have been in stable orbits since then, but even NASA is discovering new planets that it never knew about — and it has no explanation for where these mini planets came from.
I want to mention Hale-Bopp, the comet that visited the inner solar system in the 1990s. It was a perfect example of a new planet that is in its formative stages. NASA kept secret the real information on Hale-Bopp long before its 1995 discovery, which was made public, that it was on a near-collision course with Earth. However, due to its dragging in the tail material and becoming larger, its orbit was altered so that Earth moved ahead three months during that about nine-year period to the point where we were no longer on a collision course with Hale-Bopp. The other thing is NASA has been lying about the size of the nucleus of Hale-Bopp. The nucleus of Hale-Bopp is about the size of our Moon. They claim that it’s only a large comet, possibly only 80 miles in extent. So, we’ve already seen one of these Planet X type objects.
NASA was in communication with the Vatican during the 1990s, and the Vatican, in fact, built a major observatory in Arizona, staffed it with NASA astronomers. The main purpose of that observatory was to observe the large comet Hale-Bopp. The question the Vatican posed to NASA was, “Is Hale-Bopp wormwood?” (Wormwood is the the large planetary object referenced in Revelations that ravaged Earth.) So they all knew very early in the early ’90s that this large comet, Hale-Bopp, was on a near-collision course with Earth, but throughout the ’90s they refused to make this public. The Hopi Indians believe that Hale-Bopp was the precursor to what we call Planet X. My personal belief is that Hale-Bopp was a small companion to the large Planet X on its previous visit about 4,000 years ago and that there was also another companion to Planet X, which later became the planet Venus, as explained by Immanuel Belikovsky.
My theoretical work shows how comets are not dirty snowballs, that they are, in fact, a plasma-electrical phenomenon involving the Sun and an astroidal comet nucleus and, in fact, that these comets are dragging in the tail material and becoming larger. So, in the case of Venus, my theoretical work explains how Venus was a huge comet, ravaged Earth on two separate occasions about 4,000 and 3,600 years ago and then as it absorbed material from the comet tail, eventually nestled into the orbit where we see it today.
Could you please explain the history of your work back to 1979 when you were on the faculty of Cornell University, which led to your current book, Planet X, Comets and Earth Changes?
McCanney: I was a theoretical physicist at that time, studying celestial mechanics and plasma physics on my own. I also had access to NASA data from space probes, which were newly discovering the properties of Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and the other planets.
What I found was that the expectations of traditional theory were not being met. I found that the electrical, magnetic nature of the solar system that I had been studying quietly in the back room was very pronounced in the data that was coming back from these space probes. Thus, I began publishing my papers in astrophysics journals. And then I was actually relieved of my teaching position at Cornell because my theories (about the nature of comets) were so radically different from the standard norm. I lost my teaching position and was blackballed from further publication.
I continued to study this over the past 30-plus years and this has led to my current book, Planet X, Comets and Earth Changes, which was written for the general public. It also contains the early technical papers in the back for more technically minded people. The book was written to explain my theories on how the Sun’s electric fields affect our weather and what I call Earth changes.
My point is that these large comets, which are fairly rare but do visit our inner solar system occasionally as is imminently clear from historical records from the ancients, can drastically affect the planet in numerous ways. In the book I explain the theoretical nature of comets and describe how they become planets, new members of our solar system, and also how their near-approaches to the inner solar system can cause dramatic Earth changes.
What are some of the Earth changes expected to take place as this planet approaches the Earth?
McCanney: First of all, we don’t have a definite sighting on this object. There is a belief, based on NASA’s internal studies from the early ’90s, that this object is coming in from a southerly location that is only visible during the month of May from the very southern locations on Earth, specifically New Zealand. Last spring, the weather in New Zealand did not cooperate and we were unable to get good observations, but we’re waiting possibly as early as February of this year to be able to observe this object in the southern hemisphere as the Earth turns around the Sun.
We do believe a large, new object is coming into the solar system because of the preparations of the governments around the world, including our own. They’re building cave cities for certain elite members of our society and basically leaving the rest of us out to hang like dirty laundry in the wind.
The effects on the Earth are very clear, both from my theoretical work and from what the ancients describe. There are episodes of mountain building. There could be a pole shift caused by a gravitational tidal wave that moves through the surface mantle of the Earth. There would be flooding both from tidal waves of the oceans, tremendous atmospheric storms and also from a huge pollution influx of oil and water — hydrocarbons and water — from inner planetary space onto Earth. And all of these things have been seen in the past.
The Bible talks about, for example, when all the vermin, bugs, insects and snakes came out of the ground and overran the Earth. This was a direct result of the electric fields penetrating the mantle of the Earth and causing these creatures to leave the ground and come out of the ground. The atmospheric conditions include the increase in the number of volcanoes going off.
I want to mention is that these planetary objects do not have to come necessarily that close to Earth to cause even dramatic Earth changes. Electrical discharges can occur between the planets even a distance apart. These, in fact, have been measured with NASA satellites where, in the 1990s, we saw incredible electrical discharges flow between Jupiter and Earth, taking out a number of our communication satellites. The scientists at that time were totally puzzled that outer space could do this. They still don’t understand the very electrical nature of our solar system. My book explains, in fact, how this works in a theoretical sense, and it also explains in a practical sense the effects it would have on planet Earth.
Have we already seen any of the effects that could be attributed to Planet X?
McCanney: Absolutely. We’re seeing the Sun at an excited level never before seen. There was a solar maximum in the year 2000 that would be the expected time for the Sun to reach the maximum of activity on its 11-year solar cycle, and after that it would be expected to diminish in energy over that 11-year span of time. We should be well on the way in the year 2003 to the solar minimum, but instead, the Sun is at an explosive state never before seen in the history of our solar system. My theoretical work shows how, in fact, the Sun is interacting with some large object that we have not seen yet — NASA probably has seen it, but it is not telling us — causing the dramatic solar flares that we’re seeing.
Are there any safe zones to be aware of should this come to pass?
McCanney: It’s very difficult to say that there are so-called “safe zones.” You might be safe from flooding in one area, but earthquakes and volcanic activity might be devastating. The best thing you can say is that it would not be safe to be near the oceans, because of the movement of the oceans, tidal waves and that type of Earth change.
What is desperately needed is public awareness so we can build safe shelters, domed regions with reinforced cement. We know these structures will withstand a lot, but right now there’s been no preparation except for the people who we call “leaders” in this country. They’ve prepared for a 50-year span where they would be safe in caves, without informing the public who, very much at this point, could be on the road towards preparedness and being in a mode of being much better off than they would be with no information and no preparation.
Please explain how the findings of ancient civilizations in the so-called Ice Age relates to your theory.
McCanney: What is very clear is that the Ice Age that we see in North America, what we call the Laurentian ice shield, was actually the old north polar cap of Earth. At that time, Siberia had a tropical climate and the south pole was in the region of the south Indian Ocean. What we’re finding is that the mass extinction that included the mastodons, the woolly mammoths and the saber tooth tiger was an event that occurred due to the passage of a very large celestial object that caused the poles to move approximately 30-40 degrees.
The old north pole of Earth used to be somewhere north of the state of Wisconsin, and this shift happened overnight. The mastodons in Siberia that are frozen in the tundra, for example, were quick-frozen in a moment’s notice. The one they dug out of the tundra just a year or two ago, was standing on all fours with undigested tropical plants in its throat. In other words, it was frozen, alive, while standing. We find this type of devastation all around the world. We’re also learning how vast civilizations of humans around the globe were devastated at that time. Entire cities, predating the Egyptian pyramids, are being dug out of the lower regions of the Andes mountains in South America. An ancient pyramid-type city, off the coast of Cuba, was recently discovered 2,000 feet under the ocean surface. And, of course, we have tales of cities like Atlantis and the prediluvian world, with standard science trying its best to explain away all of this as being localized events. But what is crystal clear is that this was one worldwide event caused by the passage of a large celestial object — and we are expecting that this could happen in the future with the passage of a large object that we call Planet X.
This passes approximately every 3,600 years?
McCanney: There are people saying numbers, but I don’t give numbers myself unless I have scientific data. There are people claiming that they have visions or other sources of information that would indicate May 2003 would be the date of the next passage, but I won’t predict dates or project dates into the past without definite scientific information. There is a definite dating structure, however, that shows that approximately 3,600 years ago there was a major event on this planet caused by an extra-celestial object. But, when it will happen in the future is unknown scientifically at this time, except to the people in NASA who are hiding the information from the public.
Most of the information about Planet X, comets and earth changes have been strictly grassroots. Why hasn’t NASA or the government released this information to the general public?
McCanney: NASA scientists are under a strict National Security Agency contract to not talk to the public at all. They cannot talk to the public about anything. NASA has official news release agencies. NASA has been confronted with the topic of Planet X, but it has chosen to send out representatives who are not NASA employees, and the first thing that they say is they do not represent NASA or their interests. To date, NASA has refused to make a public statement on record regarding Planet X, its arrival date and what they know about this large object that we believe is coming in the solar system.
Now, there’s been much disinformation on the subject in the media. Can you shed some light on this?
McCanney: If you go on the internet and search for Planet X, you’ll find a tremendous amount of disinformation. There has been a concerted disinformation campaign by the government through people on the internet, some of whom claim to be visionary or talk to aliens. Other disinformation comes from people who simply use their first name. What I’m attempting to do with my book and radio interviews is draw a middle ground and some clarity to this topic.
I’ve been on possibly 50 national radio shows in the past four months. I have my own radio show on the internet every Thursday night from 9-10 p.m. Eastern, streaming on the internet [www.realityradionetwork.com]. You have the disinformation people on the internet on one side, and you have the government introducing disinformation on the other, leaving the public unable to understand what they should believe. That’s why I have been very popular on these radio shows. People understand what I’m saying and it makes sense.
Now, Jim, is it possible that this is one of the cataclysmic events prophesied by those such as the Bible, Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce?
McCanney: Yes, and if you look at not just the prediction of Earth changes and dramatic Earth devastation, many of the other prophecies are very much coming in line with this event. So, for people who have studied those topics, most people agree that we are on the verge of having another major Earth change. The Hopi Indians have an entire legend built around this. Their early cultures talked very much about the passage, about the seven stages of Earth changes as they called them. They make no qualms about the Earth changes. They say that the comets are the things that cause this and that the blue comets are the dangerous ones. We now know scientifically that the blue comets are the dangerous ones, because those are the ones that are so electrically active that they literally light up like a light bulb in the daytime sky.
Is it expected that there will be a collision with the Earth or are these changes going to happen by a near passage?
McCanney: The probability of a direct collision is very remote and very small, but in the past we know that these things have occurred without a large crater on Earth. In fact, all of the Earth changes can be explained by a near passage of one of these large objects through the inner solar system.
In fact, my book talks about what I call “action at a distance.” That is, the object does not have to be anywhere near Earth to cause dramatic Earth changes. For example, the object could interact electrically with the Sun, as it is doing now, the Sun would throw out an enormous solar flare and that would drastically affect our weather, causing tremendous storms that would devastate the Earth. It could reverse our magnetic field, causing a high amount of radiation to come into the planetary surface. It could increase the number of volcanoes that become active and cause earthquakes. We already know that the Sun can do this without the Planet X object being near Earth.
Do you believe that if the public is well-informed about this event that they may take steps to prepare for it?
McCanney: The entire purpose of my going public, and writing my book, is to make the statement that it’s not a matter of “if” this is going to happen. The question is only “when.” Preparation at an early stage is imperative. It would be a mistake to wait and allow ourselves to expect to prepare at the last minute.
Government scientists are mistaken when they believe that this passage will only cause a day or two of trauma to the Earth. We are already seeing the effects of a large object in the solar system, and a near passage would cause months of effects before the passage and possibly years of effects afterwards. So, it is imperative to prepare early and to have good data that NASA is hiding right now that would help us prepare.
Now, looking at this from a spiritual aspect, could it be that this is a triggering device to awaken souls to the time of transition and a shift in consciousness and not an end-time scenario as many view it to be?
McCanney: Absolutely. The human consciousness is definitely going to be awakened. For people to survive, it will not be possible for them to crawl into a cave by themselves with supplies and somehow come out of this as the sole survivor. It will have to be a total community effort where people understand what the damage and dangers would be and to prepare for it in a communal type of manner with total cooperation. Without such cooperation, there won’t be any survivors — if it’s as serious as we think it possibly could be, if it’s as serious as it has been in the past.
We see that the civilizations that did survive the last encounter actually formed many of the religious beliefs that came out of ancient culture. For example, a simple one is that if a man died, his brother would marry his wife to keep the procreation going, because at that point they were in a desperate survival mode. So, you find that much of the civilizations that did survive in the past did so as civilizations, not as individuals.
Along with your book, Planet X, Comets and Earth Changes, could you recommend any other good sources of information to people who would like to learn more about this topic?
McCanney: As I mentioned, I host a weekly radio show on the internet and I also have a website that I keep current with information. Other books that would be pertinent might be Mark Hazlewood’s book, Blindsided, which talks about the possibility that this object could be here as early as May 2003. Mark’s book is important because it made the public aware of Planet X, not so much as he is specifying a date for a passage.
A tremendous source of information is the work by Immanuel Velikovsky, who wrote three books describing his translation of ancient texts which, in fact, describe what the ancients encountered during the last series of Earth changes caused by an extra-solar system object. I’m going to mention also that NASA has spent decades downgrading his work, but what my work shows is that Velikovsky was right on the mark. The only thing missing from his books, which were written in the 1950s and describe Venus as a large comet that devastated Earth on two occasions 3,600 years ago, was a sound theoretical structure for his space science — and that’s what my work provides. It explains how comets become planets and how they come into the solar system and are formed. What is clear from recent space probe data is that all of the theories presented by NASA are incorrect.
In an overall statement to society in general, what is it you would like to tell them about the whole subject of Planet X and what is the message that we need to receive from this?
McCanney: The entire message of Planet X is that Earth has experienced and that civilizations have experienced these events in the past and they will happen again in the future. As a civilization, we have to prepare for this as it will be the most Earth-changing event in our future. Left totally unprepared, it might happen in 100 years, it might happen in 50 years, it could happen within the next 10 years or it could happen this coming May, but given any of those scenarios, we, as a civilization, as a species, must prepare for the most devastating event. If not, as a civilization we are doomed. And, being prepared is the most important thing that we can do.
We can build cement domes that kids could play in when this is not an imminent danger, but left totally unprepared there would be nearly a mass extinction of the human race. That’s why it’s imperative that we prepare now, whether it’s in the near future or the more distant future. We must prepare mentally, physically and spiritually as a human race for these events because, as I said before, it’s not a matter of “if” it will happen, but a matter of “when.”
Our government, obviously, is doing this major cover-up about Planet X. What are the other countries doing? Are they covering up the information as well?
McCanney: What’s interesting is that this is public knowledge in other countries, including Russia, where we usually would consider it to be a state where the government controls information. The topic of Planet X has been on billboards in Moscow, so the public around the world is very much aware of this.
The news media in the United States is very controlled by large corporations and government influence. In fact, the United States is one of the regions where very little, if anything, is known about Planet X amongst the general public.
Throughout the ’90s, top space scientists and astronomers in Russia took my published scientific papers, translated them into Russian and were teaching them to graduate-level science students in Russia in the top universities. Later in the 1990s, I noticed my e-mails were being intercepted, and eventually, my contact with the Russian scientists was cut off entirely.
The Russian scientists became very interested in my work because they were experimentalists, atmospheric experimentalists and space scientists and they were measuring effects that they didn’t understand. When they read my papers they realized that my papers explained what they were seeing.
For more information, go to James McCanney’s homepage at www.jmccanneyscience.com