Secretive SpaceX rocket launch 'will probe rogue planet Nibiru'
SpaceX launched their secretive new Zuma rocket from Cape Canaveral Sunday(Picture: Getty)

Tycoon Elon Musk launched his latest space rocket Sunday night – and conspiracy theorists claim its purpose is to help destroy ‘secret planet’ Nibiru.

The billionaire’s government-backed SpaceX Zuma craft blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 8pm ET last night, with little information on its mission.

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And that secrecy has sparked outlandish claims by conspiracy theorists that its aim is gather information on ‘brown dwarf star’ Nibiru to help destroy it and avoid a possible collision with Earth.

A poster on conspiracy website Someone’s Bones wrote: ‘Elon is secretly obsessed with Nibiru, I’ve known him for ten years; I know how the man thinks.

‘The government promised him ‘life after Nibiru’ if he got onboard with their program and promised to keep it all hush hush.

Secretive SpaceX rocket launch 'will probe rogue planet Nibiru'
Conspiracy theorists claim the rocket is investigating rogue planet Nibiru, whose existence Nasa denies

‘That’s why all the payloads are classified; they deal with scientific instruments created to better gauge Nibiru’s time line and the effects that will imperil our planet once it crosses.

‘Granted, I don’t know all the details, but I know what I’ve been told, by Elon and others, and from what I’ve learned privately.’

The poster went on to claim that Elon had ‘met with high ranking military and civilian officials several times during the last two months’.

The Tesla founder has previously said humanity needs to leave Earth and colonize Mars, but has never spoken of Nibiru.

SpaceX website states that its own ambition is to ‘revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.’

Secretive SpaceX rocket launch 'will probe rogue planet Nibiru'
Mr Musk has previously stated he hopes SpaceX will help humans colonize Mars (Picture: Getty/Metro.co.uk)

Nasa has denied the existence of Nibiru, but said there could be an undiscovered ‘Planet X’ in our solar system, far beyond Pluto.

What is Nibiru?

Nibiru (or Planet X) was widely predicted to hit our planet in December 2016, and before that in April 2016, and December 2015.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

Prior to that, it was predicted to smash into our planet to coincide with the Mayan apocalypse in 2012 – and before that, Nancy Lieder, an American website writer who claimed to have an alien implant in her brain, predicted it would destroy the world in 2003.

Nibiru does not exist.

It has never been seen on any telescope, and no credible scientist has ever confirmed its existence.

NASA has thoroughly debunked the Nibiru myth via its Beyond 2012 page, saying, ‘Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax.

There is no factual basis for these claims.

‘If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye.’

Soviet-born American writer Zecharia Sitchin first wrote about Nibiru in his hit 1976 book ‘The 12th Planet’ where he claimed it was inhabited by a race of ‘ancient aliens’ – the Annunaki – who had created the human race.

Sitchin’s work remains in print and has a devoted following around the world.

Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual says, ‘Zecharia Sitchin claims that Nibiru collided with a planet called Tiamat that was situated between Mars and Jupiter. The result was the creation of the asteroid belt and planet Earth.’

‘Nibiru is populated by the Anunnaki, an advanced humanoid race, who visited Earth thousands of years to mine gold in Africa. As an outcome of needing workers to carry out these mining operations they used genetics to create Homo Sapiens.’

‘The popularity of these type of ideas makes it certain that every new discovery by our spaceships will be be minutely studied for any evidence of Nibiru, or any other similar body that might be populated by extraterrestrials.’