Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2012 Doomsday Predictions: How Will the World End Next Year? - International Business Times

If doomsday soothsayers are to be believed, the world has less than a year to exist because everything's going to end on December 21, 2012.

There are many theories floating around the Internet about how the world will end next year. The most popular being the Mayan prediction from 1,300 years ago. According to the Mayan Long Count Calendar, December 21, 2012 will mark the end of a b'ak'tun, a 144,000-day cycle. The b'ak'tun that will end on December 21 is the 13^th cycle, a number that started all the apocalypse predictions. The truth is that the Mayan never predicted any cataclysms. The end of the Long Count calendar was just a measure of time for the ancient Mayan. It was Franciscan missionaries who actually attached the end of the world myth to the end of the 13^th b'ak'tun.

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Most popular doomsday scenarios involve astronomical phenomenon. The theories are getting so prevalent that NASAhas been spending a lot of time debunking them and assuring the public that a rogue planet, a black hole and a supernova isn't going to smash our planet into smithereens. One theory has a mysterious Planet X or Nibiru crashing into Earth in 2012. That's one theory that was easily disproven because Nibiru doesn't exist. NASA would have seen that planet years ago. Likewise there is absolutely no chance that a cosmic alignment between the Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way's black hole and the dark cosmic dust will send the Earth into the black hole. The galactic center is 165 quadrillion miles from the Milky Way's black hole much too far for Earth to travel.

As for a supernova exploding next December? Not a chance. Francis Reddy of NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center said on Friday that there is no threatening star close enough to hurt Earth.

"Astronomers estimate that, on average, about one or two supernovae explode each century in our galaxy," says Reddy. "But for Earth's ozone layer to experience damage from a supernova, the blast must occur less than 50 light-years away."

One doomsday theory that's somehow rooted in science involves our solar system's Sun. Doomsday theorists are saying that a massive solar flare will burn Earth next year.

While it's true that the Sun will experience more solar flares in 2012 to 2013 it doesn't necessarily mean that the Apocalypse is upon us. The Sun naturally goes through 11-year cycles of activity and non-activity. The upcoming maximum peak is expected to occur in 2013 but it doesn't mean that solar storms will mean the end of all life on Earth. Humans should be concerned about solar storms because they can disrupt electronics on the planet but industries can prepare for them and government agencies can predict these storms' coming.

Another doomsday theory is the magnetic pole reversal theory. Believers think that the Earth's magnetic field will switch next year to destroy life on the planet by dropping the magnetic-field barrier and exposing life to dangerous radiation from space. According to NASA the planet has survived magnetic field reversals before without a scratch. The flips happen every 200,000 to 300,000 years and they occur over hundreds of thousands of years not in one year.

In the end doomsday scenarios are just theories. 2012 will come and go and end-of-the-world believers will have to think up new ways the world can end in 2013

What 2012 really means

Our world is fascinated by prophecies of doom. Every day the media carry reports of predictions that the next year, decade, century or millennium will bring untold disasters. From a reading of current news headlines, this is difficult to argue against.

And now, we are bombarded by predictions of a disaster associated with what many say is the end of the Maya calendar. But did the Maya actually predict that the world as we know it will be destroyed by some unknown cataclysm on Dec. 21, 2012?

When the Maya abandoned their great cities in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador, they left behind large stone monuments with hieroglyphic writing. These inscriptions were very difficult to decipher as the writing system had not been used since the Spanish conquest when all, but four, of the books written by the Maya were burned. However, based on the four remaining books, early scholars were able to identify some of the gods and goddesses, the numerical system, and most importantly, parts of the calendar. Therefore, while they could not decipher the events recorded on the stone monuments, scholars could read the dates on which these events occurred.

One date that stood out was the day the world was created according to the Maya, Aug. 11, 3114 B.C. The actions leading up to the creation of the world involved the exploits of many gods and goddesses and took place over a long period, 13 baktuns (a baktun is equal to approximately 400 years, so 13 baktuns is roughly 5200 years). On this last day of creation, the Maize Lord, one of the principal Maya gods, reached his hand up into the sky and turned the heavens, which started time. After this act, "real time" started, and this is what is recorded as the first day in the Maya calendar.

Because mythological time ended at the end of the 13th baktun, scholars and writers in the 1960s and '70s, who were keenly interested in the Maya, assumed that the "real time" calendar would also end at the end of 13 baktuns, on Dec. 21, 2012. In 1966, Michael Coe, professor emeritus of anthropology at Yale University, first linked this presumed end of the Maya calendar to a cataclysmic end of the world, as predicted by the Hopi and the Aztec. This idea was later picked up and amplified in 1975 by Frank Waters in his book, Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness. Waters, who also wrote the Book of the Hopi, argued that at the end of 13 baktuns, a catastrophe would completely destroy the old world and a new world would take its place.

However, it is Jose Argüelles that is most closely associated with the 2012 phenomenon. Argüelles wrote a best-selling booking in 1987 called The Mayan Factor. In this book, he focused on the end of the 13 baktuns as a moment of transformation from one world order to another (guided by extraterrestrials from whom the Maya are descended, but that is another article).

It is this concept of a new world rising from the ashes of the old that seems to resonate with people today. Books, articles, movies, documentaries, and websites have tied an array of events, both fictional and factual, to 2012, including solar flares, shifting magnetic poles, astronomical alignments, recent political events, and, sadly, all-too-real natural disasters. Even the current economic crisis in Greece has been linked to 2012, although it is unclear what new world order will result from this calamity! Indeed, it seems clear from the reams that have been written about 2012 that we are unhappy with the world we have created and want a "doover."

Yet, what did the ancient Maya say about such a significant event in their future? Surely something as noteworthy as the end of the world or the coming of a new age of consciousness would have been recorded on many monuments. But in all of the thousands of texts left by the Maya, only one includes any information at all about this momentous future event.

The single example comes from the site of Tortuguero in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. There, on Monument 6, the Maya recorded the end to the 13th baktun. Interestingly, it was not even the main point of this inscription, but an addendum, comprising only eight glyph blocks at the end of a text that originally consisted of more than 156 glyph blocks. The focus of the text was the dedication of the building associated with the monument by the king of Tortuguero, Bahlam Ahaw (Jaguar Lord). This type of prediction into the future is fairly common in Maya texts and serves to contextualize the main event in the inscription.

So what exactly was written in the final eight glyphs on Tortuguero Monument 6?

The Maya recorded that on Dec. 21, 2012 the 13th baktun will end. Bolon Yokte', a god of transition associated with the ending of time periods, will witness the ceremonies conducted on this day and will be "invested," presumably by the descendants of the king, Bahlam Ahaw. Based upon the rituals of contemporary Maya, scholars interpret this passage to mean that the future king of Tortuguero would have brought out an effigy of the god, Bolon Yokte', dressed it in ritual clothing and placed it on display to watch the ceremonies conducted in honour of the end of the 13th baktun.

Ironically, what is missing from this passage is any mention of the end of the world. There is no catastrophe predicted and no rise of a new world order foretold.

Further, the Maya predict other events far into the future, well beyond 2012.

For instance at the nearby site of Palenque, on the West Panel in the Temple of the Inscriptions, the Maya recorded the date of Oct. 23, 4772 in the future to contextualize the accession of the great king, K'inich Janaab' Pakal (Sun-Eyed Flower Shield) on July 26, 615. And at the magnificent city of Tikal, located in the heart of Guatemalan rain forest, the Maya carved the date of Jan. 29, 5,039,131 on a stone monument commissioned in the 6th century by the king, Kalomte' Bahlam (Emperor Jaguar).

So while the Maya certainly envisioned the 13th baktun ending, just as we anticipate that the third millennium will end on Dec. 31, 2999, they in no way thought their world would end.

And this is what is so interesting about the 2012 prophecy. It is our culture that is captivated with apocalyptic predictions of all sorts, religious, political, economic, and environmental, and we invented this doomsday scenario, not the ancient Maya.

Kathryn Reese-Taylor is associate professor and graduate program director in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Calgary.

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Monday, January 2, 2012

Mayan doomsday scenario 'exploited for cash' - YouTube

Mayan doomsday scenario 'exploited for cash' - YouTube: ""

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20 minutes online - twice the earth shook in the Grisons region - East Switzerland

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WITHIN TEN HOURS

02. January 2012 03:19; act: 01/02/2012 08:54Print

Twice the earth shook in the Grisons

First met on the afternoon of New Year's Day occurred 15 kilometers southwest of Davos in the Landwassertal an earthquake of intensity 3.3. In the night then shook the earth from west Zernez.

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In the canton of Grisons has trembled for the second time in about ten hours the earth. On the night of Monday 16 km west of Zernez GR was an earthquake with a strength of 3.5 on the Richter scale registered, as the Swiss Seismological Service (SED) at ETH Zurich announced.

InfographicHazardous areas, the worst earthquake in history

The quake occurred at 2.42 clock accordingly and 55 seconds on the Albula Pass, as the site of the SED is to be found. The Seismological Service assumes that the shock "was felt nationwide" are. Were with a quake of this strength, but no damage to be expected, it said.

Earlier in the afternoon of New Year's Day in the Grisons, the earth shook violently. 16.34 Earthquakes around the clock service, a quake measuring 3.3 in Landwassertal registered some 15 kilometers southwest of Davos GR.

Earthquakes are not unusual in Switzerland. Until 27 December, the earth quaked at Delémont in the canton of Jura. The quake had a magnitude of 3 on the Richter scale.

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