For students today, the remains of 21st century Earth offer more questions than answers.  Why did these odd creatures annihilate a garden planet that seemed designed especially for them?   What were the elusive goals that defined their lives, and drove them to work so hard toward such puzzling self-destruction? One clue may be in the riddle of a tradition they called “X-Mas.”

Fully a third of their working lives was spend to sustain their government.  More was required for housing, food and health care.  But these efforts were surely supplementary to their most important goal – spending the final third of their disposable income buying useless merchandise that was exchanged in a single morning of orgiastic consumerism.

Although we can never completely understand the compulsions that turned their planet into a burned-out cinder – we may have come closer by recently decoding the following important symmetrical relationship:

X-MAS = SAM-X

The site pictured above -- now restored to its original condition -- suggests a temple, or huge church where they may have gathered to practice their mysterious religious beliefs.  This small step may have brought us closer to understanding the enigmatic creatures that once lived on the dead world Earth.