The basic molecules of living matter have also been found "floating" in interplanetary space, and the belief that life can exist only within certain atmospheres or temperature ranges has also been shattered. Furthermore, the notion that the only source of energy and heat available to living organisms is the Sun's emissions has been discarded. Thus, the spacecraft Pioneer 10 discovered that Jupiter, though much farther away from the Sun than Earth, was so hot that it must have its own sources of energy and heat.
A planet with an abundance of radioactive elements in its depths would not only generate its own heat; it would also experience substantial volcanic activity. Such volcanic activity provides an atmosphere. If the planet is large enough to exert a strong gravitational pull, it will keep its atmosphere almost indefinitely. Such an atmosphere, in turn, creates a hothouse effect: it shields the planet from the cold of outer space, and keeps the planet's own heat from dissipating into space - much as clothing keeps us warm by not letting the body's heat dissipate. With this in mind, the ancient texts' descriptions of the Twelfth Planet as "clothed with a halo" assume more than poetic significance. It was always referred to as a radiant planet - "most radiant of the gods he is" - and depictions of it showed it as a ray-emitting body. The Twelfth Planet could generate its own heat and retain the heat because of its atmospheric mantle.
Scientists have also come to the unexpected conclusion that not only could life have evolved upon the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) but it probably did evolve there. These planets are made up of the lighter elements of the solar system, have a composition more akin to that of the universe in general, and offer a profusion of hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia, and probably neon and water vapor in their atmospheres - all the elements required for the production of organic molecules.
For life as we know it to develop, water is essential. The Mesopotamian texts left no doubt that the Twelfth Planet was a watery planet. In the "Epic of Creation," the planet's list of fifty names included a group exalting its watery aspects. Based on the epithet A.SAR ("watery king"), "who established water levels," the names described the planet as A.SAR.U ('lofty, bright watery king"), A.SAR. U.LU.DU ("lofty, bright watery king whose deep is plentiful"), and so on.
The Sumerians had no doubt that the Twelfth Planet was a verdant planet of We; indeed, they called it NAM.TIL.LA.KU, "the god who maintains life." He was also "bestower of cultivation," "creator of grain and herbs who causes vegetation to sprout . . . who opened the wells, apportioning waters of abundance" - the "irrigator of Heaven and Earth."
Life, scientists have concluded, evolved not upon the terrestrial planets, with their heavy chemical components, but in the outer fringes of the solar system. From these fringes of the solar system, the Twelfth Planet came into our midst, a reddish, glowing
planet, generating and radiating its own heat, providing from its own atmosphere the ingredients needed for the chemistry of life. If a puzzle exists, it is the appearance of life on Earth. Earth was formed some 4,500,000,000 years ago, and scientists believe that the simpler forms of life were already present on Earth within a few hundred million years thereafter. This is simply much too soon for comfort. There are also several indications that the oldest and simplest forms of life, more than 3,000,000,000 years old, had molecules of a biological, not a nonbiological, origin. Stated differently, this means that the life that was on Earth so soon after Earth was born was itself a descendant of some previous life form, and not the result of the combination of lifeless chemicals and gases.
What all this suggests to the baffled scientists is that life, which could not easily evolve on Earth, did not, in fact, evolve on Earth. Writing in the scientific magazine Icarus (September 1973), Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick and Dr. Leslie Orgel advanced the theory that "life on Earth may have sprung from tiny organisms from a distant planet." They launched their studies out of the known uneasiness among scientists over current theories of the origins of life on Earth. Why is there only one genetic code for all terrestrial life? If life started in a primeval "soup," as most biologists believe, organisms with a variety of genetic codes should have developed. Also, why does the element molybdenum play a key role in enzymatic reactions that are essential to life, when molybdenum is a very rare element? Why are elements that are more abundant on Earth, such as chromium or nickel, so unimportant in biochemical reactions?
The bizarre theory offered by Crick and Orgel was not only that all life on Earth may have sprung from an organism from another planet but that such "seeding" was deliberate - that intelligent beings from another planet launched the "seed of life" from their planet to Earth in a spaceship, for the express purpose of starting the life chain on Earth.
Without benefit of the data provided by this book, these two eminent scientists came close to the real fact. There was no premeditated "seeding"; instead, there was a celestial collision. A life-bearing planet, the Twelfth Planet and its satellites, collided with Tiamat and split it in two, "creating" Earth of its half.
During that collision the life-bearing soil and air of the Twelfth Planet "seeded" Earth, giving it the biological and complex early forms of life for whose early appearance there is no other explanation.
If life on the Twelfth Planet started even 1 percent sooner than on Earth, then it began there some 45,000,000 years earlier. Even by this minute margin, beings as developed as Man would already have been living upon the Twelfth Planet when the first small mammals had just begun to appear on Earth.
Given this earlier start for life on the Twelfth Planet, it was possible for its people to be capable of space travel a mere 500,000 years ago.
LANDING ON PLANET EARTH
WE HAVE SET FOOT only on the Moon, and have probed only the planets closest to us with unmanned craft. Beyond our
relatively close neighbors, both interplanetary and outer space are still outside the reach of even small
scanning craft. But the Nefilim's own planet, with its vast orbit, has served as a traveling observatory, taking them
through the orbits of all the outer planets and enabling them to observe at first hand most of the solar system.
No wonder, then, that when they landed on Earth, a good deal of the knowledge they brought with them concerned astronomy
and celestial mathematics. The Nefilim, "Gods of Heaven" upon Earth, taught Man to look up unto the heavens - just as Yahweh
urged Abraham to do.
No wonder, too, that even the earliest and crudest sculptures and drawings bore celestial symbols of constellations and planets; and that when the gods were to be represented or invoked, their celestial symbols were used as a graphic shorthand. By invoking the celestial ("divine") symbols, Man was no longer alone; the symbols connected Earthlings with the Nefilim, Earth with Heaven, Mankind with the universe.
Some of the symbols, we believe, also convey information that could be related only to space travel to Earth. Ancient sources provide a profusion of texts and lists I dealing with the celestial bodies and their associations with the various deities. The ancient habit of assigning I several epithet names to both the celestial bodies and the I deities has made identification difficult. Even in the case of established identifications, such as Venus/Ishtar, the picture is confused by the changes in the pantheon. Thus, in earlier times Venus was associated with Ninhursag.
Somewhat greater clarity has been obtained by scholars, such as E. D. Van Buren (Symbols of the Gods in Mesopotamian Art), who assembled and sorted out the more than eighty symbols - of gods and celestial bodies - that can be found on cylinder seals, sculptures, stelae, reliefs, murals, and (in great detail and clarity) on boundary stones (kudurru in Akkadian). When the classification of the symbols is made, it becomes evident that apart from standing for some of the better-known southern or northern constellations (such as the Sea Serpent for the constellation Hydra), they represented either the twelve constellations of the zodiac (for example, the Crab for Scorpio), or the twelve Gods of Heaven and Earth, or the twelve members of the solar system. The kudurru set up by Melishipak, king of Susa, shows the twelve symbols of the zodiac and the symbols of the twelve astral gods.