What Does 'Zimabu Eter' Mean? - The Fourth Kind and Alien Abduction

Many who have watched the film 'The Fourth Kind' have come away with a question unanswered, raised in the movie but left unaddressed, 'Who or what is a 'Zimabu Eter?'

Approximately thirty minutes into the movie 'Tommy' a patient of 'Doctor Abigail Tyler' who has recently undergone hypnosis to uncover the source of what it is that disturbs his sleep each night goes crazy, and whilst holding his family hostage at gun point he demands to speak with Dr. Tyler.

"I know what keeps us up at night!" Tommy tells Dr. Tyler, after explaining that he intends to kill himself and his family, to prevent them ever having to see it again. "Do you know what Zimabu Eter means?" Tommy asks in a highly agitated state "Zimabu Eter, Zimabu Eter, Zimabu Eter... what the hell does that mean? I need to know right now!" and when Dr. Tyler is unable to answer this question he executes his family and then himself.

So what does 'Zimabu Eter' Mean?

With the movie giving nothing away and leaving this intriguing part unanswered all we can do is speculate. And with the importance placed upon the Summerian language as the story unfolds it seems a safe bet to assume that 'Zimabu Eter' is likely of that tongue.

A quick Google search reveals several attempted explanations and translations offered up, such as:

"Viable/Worth Saving" referring to the abductee as being suitable for DNA harvesting.

Whilst another suggests that Zimabu Eter means "Help Us", and is meant to convey the futility of attempting to help the targets of the 'Aliens' who have been chosen and who will not be freed.

But neither of these explanations or the others I stumbled across felt quite right to me, the tone of the word and the fear in its use signified something more, and pointed towards Zimbabu Eter being the name of (as Scott describes the entity as being later) 'the worst that you can ever imagine.'

So whilst completely unqualified to do so I decided to have a stab myself at translating mankind's oldest language, and answering the question 'what does Zimabu Eter mean?'

ZI

Taken from some known translations:

DUMUZI = Son who is life

NINGISHZIDDA = Lord of the Artifact of Life

ZIKIA = Life of Earth and Water

ZISUDRA = His Life Days Prolonged

So at first glance there certainly seems to be some kind of correlation between 'ZI' and 'Life'.

MABU

TAMMABUKKU = Dragons (From the land of Mas)

With the 'Land of Mas' being EDIN or 'The Garden of Eden' (the place that many believers in all things extraterrestrial claim to be the birthplace of the first human slave-race).

So what do we have now, something along the lines of 'Life Dragons of Eden' perhaps.

And as for 'ETER' most assume that this is from the Summerian word 'ETERU" meaning 'Save', and this may well be so. However I found myself drawn to the Spanish word of the same spelling which means 'Ether' in English, meaning the 'upper regions of space' and the substance hypothesized by the ancients as filling all of space beyond the sphere of the moon.

Remove 'Eden' as being anecdotal and what we're left with is essentially 'Life Dragons from Space'.

Could these be the ZIMABU ETER?

Probably not, but it was fun trying to figure it all out, what do you think? (share your thoughts below).