You may have heard of Planet X or Nibiru. Ghostly planets said to haunt our solar system. Today we’re going to look at a forgotten hypothetical planet first encountered on a cool autumn night in 1934.
But this planet, like the astronomer who discovered it, vanished just as quickly as it first appeared, leaving only questions in its wake.
This mysterious celestial body was simply known as the Black Planet.
High up in a dry plateau in southern Peru, winds blast across a strange, alien landscape. It is flat for as far as the eye can see. And excessively dry.
Salt paints the landscape white, mingling with the sand to create a mottled texture of brown and white. The ground is cracked and crunches like frost underfoot as sand swishes around your legs, carried on the strong wind which blows grit into your eyes.
This land, itself a subregion of the greater Atacama Desert, is strange enough. But if you go just a bit further toward the Peruvian Andes, you will find a place beyond this world: a place which very well might touch another.
The Dust Lake. Welcome to one of the most mysterious sites in all the Andes.
In 2006, Miguel Micheals was hiking in the sandstone hills surrounding the town of San Bernardo. The Arizonan night was quiet except for the chirping of crickets and promised to be a pleasant one. Little did Miguel know of the harrowing events soon to come.
In 1789, 9-year-old Benjamin MacMaster was tucked into bed by his mother. It had been a long day for them both. Young Ben sold cigarettes on the streets of Edinburgh while his mother, Sarah, worked as a washerwoman. As usual, Ben asked his mother to check under his bed for monsters. With a weary sigh, she complied. He then asked for her to latch the window even though it was an unusually stuffy night. Sarah did so, then sang softly to her imaginative young son. In minutes, Ben was breathing deeply, his eyes closed.
Ben was woken from his dreams by a tap-tapping on the window. Blinking sleep from his eyes, Ben looked and saw the silhouette of a man with a tall hat staring in at him through the window. The man’s face was completely hidden by shadows but his eyes shone with eerie, white light. The man was rapping on the glass with white fingers as thin as spindles. Ben lay under his blankets, frozen by fright. He was soon drenched in sweat. After struggling for several minutes, he found his voice again and screamed. At once, his mother came rushing into his room with a candle.
Ticket booths for American Expeditions bus company appear in major bus terminals across America every night. Yet, hardly anyone has ever heard of American Expeditions. This is because the company does not exist.