IRAS (infrared Astronomical Satellite)
was launched on January 25, 1983.
During its ten months of operation,
IRAS scanned more than 96 percent of
the sky four times at four infrared
bands.
On November 9th, 1983 in Washington
DC a press conference was held
discussing objects which were
seen in infrared but had no recorded visible
counterpart. On December 30,
1983 the Washington Post published an
article based on this press
conference. This was not especially a
newsworthy item and it was 7
weeks before the article was printed.
Washington Post article December 30, 1983
Bill Owen analysis of the Washington Post article
This article is used as the main
piece of "evidence" of Planet-X
Although the author clearly
sensationalized a bit, the specifics of
the article are clear. Every
Planet X book and website proclaims
"they spotted it in 1983!"
Other than the attention grabbing
headline and the exciting lead
paragraph, the facts of
the article are fairly routine.
The article tells us something
was found that could be "a planet,
a giant comet, a nearby "protostar"
that never got hot enough to
become a star, a distant galaxy
so young that it is still in the
process of forming its first
stars or a galaxy so shrouded in dust
that none of the light cast
by its stars ever gets through."
"All I can tell you is that we
don't know what it is," Dr. Gerry
Neugebauer, IRAS chief scientist
for California's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory and director of the
Palomar Observatory for the
California Institute of Technology,
said in an interview.
<later in article>
"I believe it's one of these
dark, young galaxies that we have
never been able to observe before,"
Neugebauer said.
Not very concrete evidence of
a mystery planet, just a scientific
mystery that astronomers couldn't
identify at the time. Mark
Hazlewood in his book Blindsided
even
thanked Neugebauer for
coming forward saying:
"he publicly spoke to 6 daily newspapers
informing everyone they had
found the 10th planet, the last day
in 1983." This is definitely
not what Neugebauer said, but is normal
for the badly pieced together
book Blindsided. Hazlewood did not
even know the date of the press
conference and as Zetatalk had an
incorrect date for the article
(12/31/83), Hazlewood was sure to
make the same mistake.
Others talk about the conspiracy
to cover-up IRAS. What
cover-up you ask? 18 years of
silence after the 1983 announcement
of course! They actually consider
no follow-up story as a cover-up.
What is really zany is that the
article states that the object IRAS
spotted was extremely cold,
"no more than 40 degrees above
"absolute" zero". The proposed
Zeta planet is supposed to be a
brown dwarf, definitely not
a cold object.
Also the object IRAS spotted
did not move in the 6 months
between images. The Zeta planet
is a moving object as illustrated
by a map on the Zeta web site.
IRAS would have easily detected
this much movement over a 6
month period.
Zany Zeta logic, IRAS spotted
something unknown, extremely
cold and not moving that could
be a planet, and this is proof of
the Zeta hot, moving planet/brown
dwarf.