• The ZetaTalk images
  This page was last updated on 12/23/04 at 06:01:29 PM EDT

" I am Joan of Arc and Mother Teresa in essence " - Nancy Lieder, 5/13/03 on Coast to Coast AM

Important Note: (05/13/03) Many images on these pages are linked directly from Nancy Lieder's site, zetatalk.com. A large number of images have been removed from Nancy's site, and apparently ZetaTalk has been down for a number of hours today. The images that are missing are images that reside on the Zetatalk server. I have no control over the availability of those images for reference, as the links to them were originally intended for.

• Image pages (older pages may be removed due to space limitations, so it's best not to link to these individual pages directly). If you link, please link directly to this page.

Updated 05-28-03:
Nancy makes a fool of herself by posting images from the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory

How big are these images of the night sky?
Dec 14 image analysis ( removed due to space limitations )
Dec 27 and 28 image analysis
J William Dell points to noise again for Dec 28th
J William Dell points to noise on Dec 27th
Visible in the daytime sky on April 1st, 2003 (where and how to look for Nancy 's planet come mid-late March)
Jan 10th images and two known asteroids
Nancy says it's a moon of Planet X, I say it's a known asteroid (astrometric evidence)
Jan 18th images
Jan 25th images
One Year Ago ( a reminder )
Jan 28th and 30th images ( updated Feb 2 and 3rd )
Feb 3rd images
Feb 7th images ( updated Feb 19 )
Feb 22st Images ( made available on Feb 26th)
March 6th Image
March 7 images ( Naji took six frames, moving the telescope an excessive distance each time. The images require extensive work to align and combine properly. Another example of poor imaging techniques. The combined area will be quite small. No "dust cloud appeared on these images, as in the March 6th "M42" question.
March 8 images ( Five more frames, with the same asinine telescope maneuvering)
March 9 Images (Two images. Animated GIF of the last 4 image dates (March 6-9th)
Nancy's "timeline" (with my comments) - the "Timeline of imaging", and her reasons why you can't see Planet X in the images. This is an excellent illustration of the ongoing deception being perpetrated by Nancy Lieder and J William Dell
March 23 and 24th images Three frames of 20 minutes each, three days from naked eye visible in daytime, and no planet to be found. March 24, 9 frames of 5 minutes each, same results.
April 5 Images Three images taken "around" the coordinates. Mosaics will be created when time allows. Due to typical Northeast spring weather, the last few days were spent maintaining the generator and de-icing. I'll get to these when I have more time. Preliminary quick looks saw no indications of a planet, dust cloud or "moons".
May 6th "Second Sun" Images (more to come if I can find some space here)
May 9th More "Second Sun" images showing how the placement of the sun affects the location of "Planet X"

• The next few months, and what to expect

A Must-read website for the coming weeks, especially for the believers finally seeing the light, and a more recent, in-depth paper on the same subject matter; revisiting and refining the observations of Leon Festinger, et al, by Diana Tumminia, Ph.D.

Below is a short quote from the first chapter of "When Prophecy Fails", by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter.  Copyright 1956 by the University of Minnesota

"A man with a conviction is a hard man to change.  Tell him you disagree and he turns away.  Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources.  Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.

We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief.  We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks.

But man's resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief.  Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen?  The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before.  Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.

How and why does such a response to contradictory evidence come about?  This is the question on which this book focuses.  We hope that by the end of the volume, we will have provided an adequate answer to the question, an answer documented by data.

Let us begin by stating the conditions under which we would expect to observe increased fervor following the disconfirmation of a belief.  There are five such conditions.

1. A belief must be held with deep conviction and it must have some relevance to action, that is, to what the believer does or how he behaves.

2. The person holding the belief must have committed himself to it; that is, for the sake of his belief, he must have taken some important action that is difficult to undo.  In general, the more important such actions are, and the more difficult they are to undo, the greater is the individual's commitment to the belief.

3. The belief must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute the belief.

4. Such undeniable disconfirmatory evidence must occur and must be recognized by the individual holding the belief.
   The first two of these conditions specify the circumstances that will make the belief resistant to change.  The third and fourth conditions together, on the other hand, point to factors that would exert powerful pressure on a believer to discard his belief.  It is, of course, possible than an individual, even though deeply convinced of a belief, may discard it in the face of unequivocal disconfirmation.  We must therefore, state a fifth condition specifying the circumstances under which the belief will be discarded and those under which it will be maintained with new fervor.

5. The individual believer must have social support.  It is unlikely that one isolated believer could withstand the kind of disconfirming evidence we have specified.  If, however, the believer is a member of a group of convinced persons who can support one another, we would expect the belief to be maintained and the believers to attempt to proselyte or to persuade nonmembers that the belief is correct.

These five conditions specify the circumstances under which increased proselytizing would be expected to follow disconfirmation."

In other words, even though Nancy's predictions and prophecies will fail, don't expect her, or her followers, to disappear from the internet. As demonstrated by studies of similar groups, the disconfirmations over the next few weeks will only provide support for the revised predictions (that will no doubt be forthcoming in the future weeks or months) created to induct new members into the continued existence of ZetaTalk. Although this psychology classic was written in the 50's, it's still a mainstay; and the theories have been shown to be consistently accurate over the decades since it was first published.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - the mantra of UFOlogy, pseudoscience and Blind Faith cults.

Do you think that you (or a family member) is stuck in a UFO / doomsday cult? Visit factnet.org

• About this site, and how I got involved

These web pages are of concern only to the recent images claimed to be of Planet X. My personal views on the social, religious, cult tactics, and financial motives of ZetaTalk and Troubled Times, Inc. are well known due to my vocal critisism of Nancy Lieder and Planet X in 2003. I'm well archived on Usenet as SarahMC, and on IRC as Silk. You can see my views regarding those topics in those forums. (One note here, I've been permanently banned from Nancy's IRC chats, because I asked hard questions that she couldn't/wouldn't answer, and I now appear there under different names to avoid detection). The pages on this site deal only with the images. Offsite links are unassociated to myself, and are offered for convenience only.

I decided to get involved with the Planet X / Pole shift scenario when a friend asked me if they could see Planet X through one of my telescopes few years ago. They had read about it on the internet, and even had some sketchy coordinates. We looked, and saw nothing. However, she did get a good introduction to the constellation of Orion and all the wonderful objects that can be viewed there. After having peaked my interest, I started to look for the information she had found. What followed was my introduction to Nancy Lieder and ZetaTalk, and my eventual labeling as a "paid disinformation agent", a "NASA whore", a "CIA debunker", and numerous other (many quite colorful) names because of my vocal opposition to Nancy Lieder's pseudoscience, her cult, and her financial fleecing of the ignorant and gullible by use of cult tactics and fear mongering.

After June 2003, these pages will be removed. Since that's the latest date that Nancy claims the Earth's poles will shift due to Planet X's close proximity (latest date so far), there'll be no need for these pages. The date and her archived posts on Usenet will be all we'll need to disprove her wild theories. I'm certain that Nancy will re-appear in a few years with some new UFOlogy scam.

• Update, leading to the eventual end of this site

April 20, 2003: I doubt that I'll be updating this site any longer. The reason's being: 1) Nancy's coordinates have fallen so low to the horizon that the hoax images will be obvious, 2) None of Nancy's predictions have come to pass, 3) There's less than a month before the "most terrible day" is predicted to occur, 4) Nancy has seen fit to change her stories on a weekly basis, i.e., Planet X is now an "orange" object, while it's been "red" for the last seven years; and finally, 5) Even the most devout followers of ZetaTalk are finally seeing the hoax for what it truly is. 6) The devout followers of Nancy will no doubt, still follow her after the failed predictions of world cataclysms. See the links above for more information on "When Prophecy Fails", a psychological study from the 50's that still holds true today.

Keeping up with Nancy's ever-changing excuses, backpedaling and constant contradictions is like chasing a 2 year old around the house and cleaning up after them. The only rest you have is when they finally go to sleep. I see ZetaTalk "going to sleep" very soon, only to be re-awakened at a future date.

Of course, we'll have those that will pick up the pieces and start new hoaxes, as well as those already in progress such as Hazlewood and McCanney - who've learned from Lieder's mistakes and who now refuse to give a date or coordinates.

So to all the people that have visited here over the last 6 or so months, take care. I'll be removing the files here after June 1st, the final date of Nancy's predicted cataclysms. Thanks for your visits, your reviews and insights, observations, the support and contributions of knowledge. Of course, if Nancy continues after June 1st, I'll be right there behind her. My email will always be available for contact, and I'll be on sci.astro as always, probably just less obvious.

Update June 3rd, 2003:  Since these pages are still getting a couple hundred hits each day, I've decided to keep the site up for a few more weeks, or until the hit count drops to under 50 distinct visitors daily. The pages are worth leaving up as long as the information here is of interest to people. Zetatalk chats have ended. No rogue planet appeared, and there was no pole shift. Nancy has pretty much disappeared, excepting a few updated pages attempting to explain the failed predictions. Zetatalk followers are falling out by the dozens, including J William Dell, Jan Rypdal, Victoria Ridout,  and many, many others of lesser visibility.

Those few persons left are the truly gullible; the passionately credulous. Those people who have knowingly chosen ignorance over common sense and enlightenment.

Enjoy the next 100 years with my blessings, and remember that ignorance isn't terminal or acquired, it's just an optional choice. Your choice. Let's keep the skies dark and the planet clean.

Sarah MacIntyre (click to send mail)

• Other pages concerning the predictions, history and "science" of Nancy Lieder / ZetaTalk

Open discussion on the Usenet newsgroup sci.astro , please don't crosspost to sci.astro.amateur or other newsgroups in the sci.astro hierarchy

Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy" orbital mechanics and related pages concerning Planet X, and his discussion board
IMOpenminded's website, including image analysis
No Tenth Planet Yet From IRAS
Otto Zork's image analysis
JTR_iv's website, Planet X and the Pole shift, investigating information surrounding Planet X in 2003
skepticalmind.com, focusing on the social, conspiracy, and cult issues surrounding ZetaTalk, updated regularly
Brian Gillbanks, a History of ZetaTalk - a long read, very informative, complete, with recent updates
Tom Smith's page of orbital mechanics and the related mathematics regarding Nancy's planet
A somewhat humourous page concerning the cult-like ZetaTalk, but valid nonetheless
A commentary on some of Nancy's predictions and statements, by Antti
A paper on Zecharia Sitchin's Twelfth Planet
Jason Martel, a Planet X believer, his views on a 2003 "return"