Officials ban doomsday followers from French village
Cult ... followers believe world will end on December 21
Published: 16th November 2012
A FRENCH village has banned a Doomsday cult from heading to a "mystical mountain" that followers believe will save them from extinction.
Thousands of "weirdos" believe Bugarach, south west France will be the only place they will survive if the world ends on December 21.
They say a nearby mountain contains a garage for UFOs that will whisk them to safety "in another dimension" while the rest of the planet perishes.
Bugarach mayor Jean-Pierre Delord said his village of just 200 people had now become "overrun with esoteric weirdos" hoping to survive in six weeks time.
He said: “The mountainside is swarming with hippies, many of them naked, who drop litter and make a mess.
“This is no laughing matter. If 10,000 people turn up on December 21, our village will not be able to cope.”
After one hippie died climbing the mountain earlier this year, Mr Delord quipped to the French media: “The end of the world came a bit earlier for him than he expected.”
Regional prefect Eric Freysselinard has now issued an order barring anyone from climbing the mountain, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, on "Doomsday".
He said: “It will be closed off for three days before and two days after the world is supposed to end.”
Earlier this year, France’s Mission for the Fight against Sects also placed Bugarach under scrutiny due to concerns over possible mass suicides.
And it warned people in a report not to be taken in by "New Age clap-trap" being peddled by cult leaders.
Their report also stressed that December 21, 2012, would be the 183rd time the world had been predicted to end in the last 2,000 years.
The coming date has been predicted by Mexico’s ancient Mayan calendar, which says the world will be destroyed by solar flares and a collision with another planet.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4648192/bugarach-bans-doomsday-followers-from-village.html#ixzz2CViZmdmF