People are crazy. They will believe anything. Say the Elenin hype on the net. Some of these people are rather good, and they manage to make coincidences believable, and ignore things. I laughed my ass off when the 'Nirubu, black star, the end of all things' burned up when the tiny comet burned up almost completely when it got too close to the sun.
However, it was a nice set up they produced, when it was still far away. That this star orbits the planet every 10000 years or so, and gravitational forces creates havoc when it passes. And this is the origin of religion supposedly, and of course, the star is intelligent, more like a ship. Disasters coming from the sky that humbles humans through devastation. All those six days black etc. It kind of make sense it's just an orbiting planet if not the writings are drunken babble.
I still have not understood if planets can orbit in such an extreme elliptical path, it seems comets can, but those are so small. I even think the orbiting planet is unlikely. Certainly a black star.