More Pseudoarchaeology: Nation of Islam, Yakub, The Mother Plane

As part of a longish term project on the roots of pseudoarchaeology in American esotericism, I keep an eye on recent work on the Nation of Islam. My goal with this is to ground some of the concepts present in pseudoarchaeology in certain strands of popular Black culture. This presents an alternative genealogy of pseudoarchaeology which seeks to weaken its association with racist narratives (and ideologies). In other words, my goal with this research is to push back against the whitewashing of pseudoarchaeology by showing that many of the ideas present in pseudoarchaeological discourses — especially those associated with ancient aliens — are rather more expansive and complex than the sometimes reductive arguments made by its opponents.  

I had time on a few flights this weekend to read Stephen C. Finley, In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam (Duke 2022). It’s thoughtful, careful, and good.

What drew me to this book is my interest in the so-called “myth of Yakub” and conversations surrounding the “Mother Plane” or “Mother Wheel.” These “myths” (and I use this term broadly and casually) postulate the existence of a highly advanced Black civilization prior to the current era that was not only responsible for the creation of white people through selective breeding, but also a massive space ship called (variously) the mothership, the mother plane, or the mother wheel. Elijah Muhammed, the founder of the Nation of Islam, taught that the “Original People” existed from the creation of the cosmos 76 trillion years ago. They lived on Earth, Mars, and Venus. On Earth, the Original People congregated in the Nile River valley where they cultivated an advance civilization. Ultimately a rouge scientist named Yakub created white people, who were evil, through the selective breeding of light-skinned blacks while in exile on the island of Patmos.

The Mother Plane, Mother Wheel, or Mother Ship was also a creation of Black scientists among the Original People. It is a massive spaceship that can deploy attack ships when the inevitable battle commences between the nations on Earth at the end of days. One of these attack ships appeared to Louis Farrakhan in a vision and transported him from the Aztec pyramid at Tepozteco Mountain in Mexico to the Mother Plane where he saw Elijah Muhammed and his predecessor Fard Muhammed. Farrakhan retells this story frequently and has regularly claimed that the Mother Plane tracks his movements on Earth and protects him. 

There is a lot to unpack in these narratives which blend history, cosmology, religion, and science to position Black people as both transcendent and empowered on Earth. Finely grounds his study in the careful and respectful consideration of these beliefs to argue that Nation of Islam is a religious movement and not simply a social or political movement (e.g. Black nationalist) as some other critics have suggested. The stories of Yakub and the Mother Plane not only reposition Black bodies as superior to the corrupted image of white bodies, but also as primordial and “Original” as opposed to corrupt product of scientific breeding. The presence of Black bodies on board the Mother Plane ties the original humanity of the Black body to their presence in the broader cosmos and capacity for transcendent existence. In this way, the Yakub and Mother Plane narratives invert white supremacist claims of ugly Black bodies and repositions white bodies as corrupted and evil. The persistent references to the Mother Plane in Farrakhan’s speeches and teaching in the 21st century reminds us that these are not allegorical stories, but literal testimony meant to reinforce Black superiority. 

It is interesting how many of the themes of present in these narratives are also present in pseudoarchaeological narratives. The existence of a transcendent group of extraterrestrial beings who possess superior technology evokes Erich von Däniken’s “chariots of the gods” as well as contemporary television series that promote the idea of ancient aliens as the source for multiple ancient civilizations. Farrakhan’s description of his vision starting at an Aztec pyramid evokes a common theme in pseudoarchaeology that connects pyramids in Latin America with those in Egypt and extraterrestrial visitors even though Farrakhan does not appear to make this connection explicitly.

These narratives form an alternative context for pseudoarchaeology that neither relies upon nor supports on racist reasoning designed to diminish the significance of ancient or contemporary societies. In fact, it presents an alternative cosmology that inverts historical white perspectives on Black bodies and posits not just their superiority, but their capacity for transcendence.