What is "hercolubus"

Hercolubus, in the Latin American pseudoscience scene, is a giant planet that supposedly will approach the Earth with catastrophic results, similar to the Nibiru/ Planet X claims.

Its most recent promoter is the Colombian New Age author V.M. Rabolu (real name: Joaquin Enrique Amortegui Valbuena, 1926-2000). According to (a promotional video of) his free book, Hercolubus or Red Planet:

• on a previous approach, it wiped out Atlantis and a civilization that inhabited it, which inspired all global flood myths
• its proximity will cause volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and ultimately - a pole shift
• it will also cause a deadly epidemic that "official science" will be powerless to stop
• the only escape is... "the elimination of psychological defects" and... astral projection
• Those "who work on their spiritual regeneration" will be "taken to a safe place".

Hercolubus or Red Planet was written in 1998/1999, but Rabolu apparently picked the idea from his "teacher" - Samael Aun Weor, who in the 1970s preached about Hercolubus being the end of the world in religious terms, as a punishment for the "shameful humanity that deserves the karma that approaches" and that "did not want to listen to the voice of the prophets". Being the founder of a theosophy/ anthroposophy-influenced New Age " gnostic" church, he also threw Atlantis and the Kali Yuga into the mix. In his version, Hercolubus is a part of the "distant solar system of Tylo", which he identifies as Barnard's Star. Needless to say, despite his claims to the contrary, Hercolubus is not an accepted scientific fact.

ZetaTalk quotes a Hercolubus prophecy to bolster its claims about " Planet X", though they cite another origin - the channeled prophecies of other South Americans. In the Brazilian version, the planet is orbiting an invisible star called Tia and enters the Solar System every 6666 years.

In recent times, some of the 2012 supporters have outright conflated it with the already conflated pair Planet X/ Nibiru. It's not that they have a great choice of actions - it's either that, or claiming that there are multiple incoming planets.