Slave Species of god by Michael Tellinger

(I know Tellinger reads this blog, so I’ve avoided mentioning his book until I’d read it myself or I could get my hands on a review by someone who had actually read it. I’ve found one, so here it is.)

A review by Neil Kennard-Davis

Tellinger feels that he has a message to share with the world, and he does so with evangelistic fervour. The message is that human beings are a created species, created by visitors from another planet for their own nefarious purposes.

The story of this creation, it is claimed, is given to us in the ancient Sumerian tablets written in cuneiform and translated by Zecharia Sitchin.

The basic thesis is that Earth was visited by the inhabitants of a planet, called Nibiru, in a long period cometary orbit of the Sun. The planet takes some 3 600 years to complete an orbit. About 450 000 years ago these "people", the Anunnaki, visited Earth to obtain gold. Some 250 000 years later, fed up with the hard labour of mining, they created a new species by combining their own genetic material with that of Homo erectus. The new species was Homo sapiens. The visitors then used Homo sapiens as their slaves and, in turn, were worshiped by them as Gods.

The visitors established their first bases in Mesopotamia, with other bases in Southern Africa and, later, South America to mine gold. All of this was later recorded by the early Sumerians, and passed down to us.

The book relies heavily on the translations of Sumerian cuneiform tablets by Zecharia Sitchin. These translations, if accepted at face value, make some startling claims and indicate a high level of technological expertise. The theory is that the cuneiform tablets record actual events rather than mythological tales. The question that I have to ask is; did the translations inform the theory or did the theory inform the translations? Cursory research suggests that other scholars of Sumerian cuneiform tablets do not agree with Sitchin's interpretations.

I have several problems with the thesis put forward by Tellinger.

On a general level, before getting to specifics, the arguments are advanced with little, or no, reference to fact or logic. Arguments run along the lines of "Let us speculate that such and such might be possible." Then a few pages later "Since I have shown that such and such probably happened." And then a little later "As such and such has been conclusively proved." All of this without any connecting logic or evidence. Other ideas are advanced on the basis of "Surely anyone can see that it is impossible that . and therefore so and so must have been the case." In my opinion arguments proposed by these means are rarely credible.

On a specific level, there are numerous areas with which I have difficulty.
I will only touch on a few of them.

Much is made, in the book, about human beings having a damaged, or incomplete, genome. This was, apparently, a deliberate stratagem by the creators to keep us servile. Evidence of this faulty genome is the "Greed"
gene and the "Violence" gene that we are supposed to have received from our creators. This takes no account of the fact that very similar behaviour is to be found amongst our genetic cousins chimpanzees and other simians, let alone other mammals.

At the same time the message is given that we are evolving at a furious rate and that our faulty genome is repairing itself. No cognisance is given to analysis of ancient human DNA that shows it to be identical with modern human DNA. Probably the best known example being that of "Otzi the Ice Man"
who died close to 5 000 years ago and whose well preserved body was found in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991.

Apparently, when Homo sapiens was first created, some 200 000 years ago, this was done in Southern Africa and the result was, from Sitchin's translations, "Woolly haired man" a clear reference to African or Bantu races. Then, later, the Anunnaki interbred with humans and their offspring were the "Aryans" or "European" races who, supposedly, compose Homo sapiens sapiens. The difference between the two is supposed to be a further infusion of alien DNA into the human genome.

Once again genetic evidence is dispensed with. Modern research has shown that, genetically, all human beings - Woolly Haired or Aryan - are "kissing cousins." Any hybridisation with another species would show up clearly in the DNA of the different races. Such evidence is not present. Incidentally the same evidence has shown that there was no interbreeding with Homo neanderthalensis when the two species co-existed in Europe between 60 000 and 30 000 years ago.

As an example of the closeness of the genetic relationship between humans, the genetic diversity within chimpanzees - in a far smaller population - is four times that to be found in humans.

Tellinger also proposes, as fact, a planet-wide flood or deluge as recorded in the Bible and, apparently, the Sumerian texts. This, we are told, most scholars agree happened around 11 000 B.C. at the end of the last Ice Age.
Unfortunately no references are given to these "most scholars" and, as far as I am aware, very few, if any, serious geologists, geographers or archaeologists adhere to the idea of such an event.

A flood of such proportions is, however, a very useful answer to the obvious questions about the lack of archaeological remains from the 400 000 year occupation of Earth by the Anunnaki. All such evidence was destroyed in the flood. This argument ignores the fact that there are clear remains of human activity all around the planet dating from the period in question and before.
The marvellously scholarly book "After the Ice" by Steven Mithen examines just about every major site dating from the Last Glacial Maximum at 20 000 B.C. to the Agricultural Revolution in about 5 000 B.C. No sign of a global deluge is found, but there is lots of evidence of human activity.

The gigantic deluge is supposed to have resulted from the catastrophic collapse of the Antarctic Ice Cap caused by gravitational disturbances from the planet Nibiru as it made its pass through the inner Solar System. This collapse caused a tsunami of monstrous proportions that swept across the whole planet.

The actual fact is that the Antarctic Ice Cap has been stable for more than 400 000 years. Drill cores have been collected and painstakingly analysed to show this conclusively. In addition, analysis of air samples trapped in the ice show evidence of a number of events affecting the planet over this period. Ice Ages and Interglacial periods can be identified. Even large scale deforestation with the advent of agriculture has left its mark, as has the Industrial Revolution. Evidence of a planetary deluge is absent.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorra is ascribed to an attack, by the Anunnaki, using atomic bombs against rebellious humans. In my opinion a far more likely scenario would have been a meteorite strike, such as the one that devastated Tunguska, Russia, in 1908.

As telling as the clear scientific errors articulated in the story are the things that are left out. Perhaps the early Sumerian writers had no knowledge of Neanderthals who had lived in Europe and the Middle East. They cannot be expected to have known about them, but the Anunnaki would surely have done so. After all Neanderthal remains have been found in the Middle East dating back beyond 60 000 years before present, a time when the Anunnaki were supposedly at the height of their presence.

Similarly no mention is made of the eruption of the Torba volcano, some 75 000 years ago. This event wiped out all life in the Indian sub-continent, and much of the Middle East, under a layer of ash between two and six metres deep. In the process it took Homo sapiens to the brink of extinction, probably caused the extinction of Homo erectus in Asia, and tipped the global climate into a severe Ice Age. One would expect such a significant event to have been recorded by the Anunnaki, but the Sumerian tablets appear to be silent on the issue. Perhaps Mr Sitchin is ignorant of this event.

Carl Sagan said "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The claims put forwards by Michael Tellinger in "Slave Species of god" are truly extraordinary. Unfortunately, the evidence put forward to back them does not match up to the required standard.