Does planets’ position in zodiac constellations drive the occurrence of human wars? A retrospective test of non-natal astrology

The lack of descriptive and predictive effectiveness of natal astrology revealed thus far does not rule out the possibility that the position of planets in specific areas of the background sky influences human behavior regardless of birth date. This study compiled a list of war events that occurred throughout the twentieth century, which were used as proxies for a state of violence in the global human community at particular moments in time. Ecliptic right ascension (RA) values of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon at the beginning day of each war were distributed across 12 sections of the ecliptic of 30º span each. East RA boundary of Aries was set starting at 23° from the vernal equinox in agreement with sidereal astrology. A total of 210 war events were collected for the analysis. The observed and expected war counts when planets were transiting through each zodiacal constellation were statistically similar in all cases (P values from 0.076 to 0.658). In addition, the occurrence of wars when two planets were in conjunction in specific zodiac constellations was in agreement with their expected positions according to regular planetary movement. Independently of astrology beliefs and planetary dynamics, wars showed a weak trend, though significant, towards occurring more frequently later than earlier in a year (slope: 0.78 [95% CI: 0.12, 1.48]; r ²=0.408; P=0.025). In conclusion, even though the study design favored the astrological theses, no relationship between war triggering and the positions of planets transiting through zodiacal constellations was found.