2012 – Six End of the World Myths

The end of the world is near, people! December 21, 2012 is the exact date according to theories based on a purported ancient Maya prediction. And let’s not forget the up and coming movie “2012”.

So ask yourself: Can the ancient Mayan people, whose empire peaked between A.D. 250 and 900 really predict the end of the world in 2012? In fact December 21st? Why didn’t they include the exact time, eh? Or give the location of the first cataclysmic event, eh? Anyway, to continue …..


Myth #1 – Mayans Predict the End of the World in 2012

The Maya calendar doesn’t end in 2012, as some have claimed, and the ancients NEVER viewed that year as the end of time or end of the world. But December 21 (give or take a day) was nonetheless momentous to the Maya. It’s the time when the largest grand cycle in the Mayan calendar – 1,872,000 days or 5,125.37 years overturns and a new cycle begins.

The Maya kept time on a scale few other cultures have considered.

During the empire's heyday, the Maya invented the Long Count—a lengthy circular calendar that "transplanted" the roots of Maya culture all the way back to creation itself.

During the 2012 winter solstice, time runs out on the current era of the Long Count calendar, which began at what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period: August 11, 3114 B.C. The Maya wrote that date, which preceded their civilization by thousands of years, as Day Zero, or 13.0.0.0.0.

In December 2012 the lengthy era ends and the complicated, cyclical calendar will roll over again to Day Zero, beginning another enormous cycle.

Astrologers really don't like this reality because it really does mess up their prediction profitability accuracy.


Myth #2 – Breakaway Continents Will Destroy Civilization

In some 2012 doomsday prophecies, the Earth becomes a deathtrap as it undergoes a "pole shift." (Interactive at http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/ends-of-the-earth-pole-shift-1)

The planet's crust and mantle will suddenly shift, spinning around Earth's liquid-iron outer core like an orange's peel spinning around its fleshy fruit. (See 'The Core'. Great special effects and an example of what you can do with a peach and a can of deodorant!)

2012, the movie, envisions a Maya-predicted pole shift, triggered by an extreme gravitational pull on the planet—courtesy of a rare "galactic alignment"—and by massive solar radiation destabilizing the inner Earth by heating it. Breakaway oceans and continents dump cities into the sea, thrust palm trees to the poles, and spawn earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other disasters.

Magnetic evidence in rocks confirm that continents have undergone such drastic rearrangement, but the process took millions of years—slow enough that humanity wouldn't have felt the motion.

Scientists dismiss such drastic scenarios, but some researchers have speculated that a subtler shift could occur—for example, if the distribution of mass on or inside the planet changed radically, due to, say, the melting of ice caps.

So quite honestly, the Australians and New Zealanders will still have to hop on a plane to visit another country.


Myth #3 – Galactic Alignment Spells Doom! Doom, I Say!!!

In this scenario, the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of our galaxy, the Milky Way, which in good viewing conditions appears as a cloudy stripe across the night sky.

Some fear that the lineup will somehow expose Earth to powerful unknown galactic forces that will hasten its doom—perhaps through a "pole shift" (see above) or the stirring of the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's heart.

Others see the purported event in a positive light, as heralding the dawn of a new era in human consciousness.

BUT, there is no 'galactic alignment' in 2012 or at least nothing out of the ordinary. This time of ‘alignment’ occurs during every winter solstice, when the sun, as seen from Earth (us), appears in the sky near what looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way.

Horoscope writers will be ecstatic as they will contribute the ‘Doomsday Galactic Alignment’ phenomenon to every that goes wrong in your life on that day. My post of “Why Your Mother is More Accurate Than Your Horoscope” will come later.


Myth #4 - Planet X Is on a Collision Course With Earth

Some say it's out there: a mysterious Planet X, aka Nibiru, on a collision course with Earth—or at least a disruptive flyby.

A direct hit would obliterate Earth, it's said. Even a near miss, some fear, could shower Earth with deadly asteroid impacts hurled our way by the planet's gravitational wake.

Here’s the truth: THERE AIN’T NO SUCH PLANET! Nope. Nada. Just not there.

If astrophysicists, scientist and astrobiologist and the other guys with costly graduate degrees, could get together and downgrade Pluto to a floating rock, don’t you think they would be able to see a huge (bigger than a beach ball) flying object coming our way?


Myth #5 – Solar Storms to Savage Earth

Our friendly neighborhood star, it's rumored, will produce lethal eruptions of solar flares, turning up the heat on Earthlings.

Solar activity waxes and wanes according to approximately 11-year cycles. Big flares can indeed damage communications and other Earthly systems, but scientists have no indications the sun, at least in the short term, will unleash storms strong enough to fry the planet.

So no need to stock up on that sun block protection SPF 150+. Or buy marshmallows....


Myth #6 – Mayans Had Clear Predictions for 2012

If the Maya didn't expect the end of time in 2012, what exactly did they predict for that year?

Many scholars who've poured over the scattered evidence on Maya monuments say the empire didn't leave a clear record predicting that anything specific would happen in 2012.

The Maya did pass down a graphic—though undated—end-of-the-world scenario, described on the final page of a circa-1100 text known as the Dresden Codex. The document describes a world destroyed by flood, a scenario imagined in many cultures and probably experienced, on a less apocalyptic scale, by ancient peoples. (See Noah)

And Nostradamus didn’t reference the Mayan calendar in his writings either. Not that anyone has been able to understand what the hell Nostradamus was actually saying……

So there you go. Hopefully a few people can put away their aluminum foil hats as well --- that doesn’t work either!