Yahoo News: 2012 Mayan Apocalypse Rumors Have Dark Side, NASA Warns

[lakerslive]

http://news.yahoo.com/2012-mayan-apo...003208647.html

NASA scientists took time on Wednesday (Nov. 28) to soothe 2012 doomsday fears, warning against the dark side of Mayan apocalypse rumors ? frightened children and suicidal teens who truly fear the world may come to an end Dec. 21.

These fears are based on misinterpretations of the Mayan calendar. On the 21st, the date of the winter solstice, a calendar cycle called the 13th b'ak'tun comes to an end. Although Maya scholars agree that the ancient Maya would not have seen this day as apocalyptic, rumors have spread that a cosmic event may end life on Earth on that day.

Thus NASA's involvement. The space agency maintains a 2012 information page debunking popular Mayan apocalypse rumors, such as the idea that a rogue planet will hit Earth on Dec. 21, killing everyone. (In fact, astronomers are quite good at detecting near-Earth objects, and any wandering planet scheduled to collide with Earth in three weeks would be the brightest object in the sky behind the sun and moon by now.)

"There is no true issue here," David Morrison, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center, said during a NASA Google+ Hangout event today (Nov. 28). "This is just a manufactured fantasy." [End of the World? Top Doomsday Fears]

Real-world consequences

Unfortunately, Morrison said, the fantasy has real-life consequences. As one of NASA's prominent speakers on 2012 doomsday myths, Morrison said, he receives many emails and letters from worried citizens, particularly young people. Some say they can't eat, or are too worried to sleep, Morrison said. Others say they're suicidal.

"While this is a joke to some people and a mystery to others, there is a core of people who are truly concerned," he said.

Not every 2012 apocalypse believer thinks the world will end on Dec. 21. Some, inspired by New Age philosophies, expect a day of universal peace and spiritual transformation. But it's impressionable kids who have NASA officials worried.

"I think it's evil for people to propagate rumors on the Internet to frighten children," Morrison said.

Myths and misconceptions

NASA scientists took questions via social media in the hour-long video chat, debunking doomsday myths from the rogue planet Nibiru to the danger of killer solar flares.

In fact, said NASA heliophysicist Lika Guhathakurta, it's true that the sun is currently in an active phase of its cycle, meaning electromagnetic energy has picked up. Large solar flares can impact electronics and navigation systems on Earth, but satellites monitoring the sun give plenty of warning and allow officials to compensate for the extra electromagnetic activity when it hits our atmosphere. What's more, Guhathakurta said, this particular solar maximum is the "wimpiest" in some time ? scientists have no reason to expect solar storms beyond what our planet has weathered in the past.

Nor are any near-Earth objects, planetary or otherwise, threatening to slam into our planet on Dec. 21, said Don Yeomans, a planetary scientist who tracks near-Earth objects at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The only close asteroid approach on the horizon is forecast to occur on Feb. 13, 2013, when an asteroid will pass within 4.5 Earth radii to our planet (for perspective, Earth's radius is 3,963 miles, or 6,378 kilometers). The asteroid is not going to hit Earth, Yeomans said.

Other rumors ? that the Earth's magnetic field will suddenly reverse or that the planet will travel almost 30,000 light-years and fall into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy ? were also dismissed. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles, or 10 trillion km.)

One popular rumor that the planet will undergo a complete blackout from Dec. 23 to 25 earned a "What?" and blank looks from the panel of scientists.

Ultimately, concerns about Earth's fate would be better focused on slow-acting problems such as climate change rather than some sort of cosmic catastrophe, said Andrew Fraknoi, an astronomer at Foothill College in California.

Mitzi Adams, a heliophysicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, agreed.

"The greatest threat to Earth in 2012, at the end of this year and in the future, is just from the human race itself," Adams said.

[bronco67]

I was thinking that even though the world will not end on Dec 21st, a lot of bad shit could happen from nutbags being worked up too much from the idea of it happening. Could be self-fulfilling prophecy.

[PR_Glen]

this is the sole reason why i attack fearbies on this board all the time.. it has consequences.. people DO take these things seriously and this shit hurts people and can even kill them. You can make jokes about people being weak minded all you want, but these people are usually the same as the rest of us, just a bit more vulnerable for whatever reason.

[seeandsee]

too bad nothing will happen

[baddog]

So, we lose a few emos?

[BIGTYMER]

Laugh now but when I'm living the life in my bunker you'll be sorry!

[NiXXiN]

"Other rumors — that the Earth's magnetic field will suddenly reverse or that the planet will travel almost 30,000 light-years and fall into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy — were also dismissed. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles, or 10 trillion km.)"

the earth is over due for a pole shift as it happens every so often in history. with the added "will travel almost 30,000 light-years and fall into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way" its just makes the question look stupid. i wished they just asked about the pole shift and not poisoned the question.

[Redrob]

This doesn't mean my "Mayan-Zombie-Apocalypse" Sale for survivalists to stock their bunkers with sex toys and dvds will end before December 20th.

[AllAboutCams]

Originally Posted by BIGTYMER

Laugh now but when I'm living the life in my bunker you'll be sorry!

Ill come over and sit on your air pipe

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by lakerslive

http://news.yahoo.com/2012-mayan-apo...003208647.html



"I think it's evil for people to propagate rumors on the Internet to frighten children," Morrison said.

Tell that to the makers of the movie 2012 (and other Hollywood garbage)

[Dirty F]

Yup, i said this a long time ago already. Shit will happen. People like Johnnyclips will snap and kill a few random people.

Next month will see proof again how crazy these people are. Nothing happens so they will make something happen.

[wehateporn]

The fear-mongering gets on my tits...e.g. "Swine Flu Pandemic"..."Climate Change"..."Terrorists" and whatever else they'll come up with next

[Tom_PM]

Nope. End of the world. NASA is wrong. There. Now it's on the internet and therefore true again.

Start prepping people, it's never too late to be seen buying a gross ton of toilet paper.

[ThunderBalls]

More idiocy from the bible thumping low IQ conservative looney bin.

[JP-pornshooter]

Originally Posted by NiXXiN

"Other rumors ? that the Earth's magnetic field will suddenly reverse or that the planet will travel almost 30,000 light-years and fall into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy ? were also dismissed. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles, or 10 trillion km.)"

the earth is over due for a pole shift as it happens every so often in history. with the added "will travel almost 30,000 light-years and fall into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way" its just makes the question look stupid. i wished they just asked about the pole shift and not poisoned the question.

i agree.
didnt the ice age pretty much come about from a previous pole magnetic change..

[Sly]

When is Y2K happening?

[brassmonkey]

woo hoo!!

[J. Falcon]

When nothing happens, people will say the calculations were off by a year or two, or maybe it was supposed to happen last year, who knows?

[Dirty F]

Originally Posted by J. Falcon

When nothing happens, people will say the calculations were off by a year or two, or maybe it was supposed to happen last year, who knows?

There must be millions of people who believe in this shit.
People who have been screaming and crying about it for years.
I wonder how they will feel when obviously nothing is gonna happen.

The thing is the majority of the people who believe in this crap haven't changed their way of life. They go to their job every day, buy the same things, spend money the same way. So even those people must somewhere in the back of their head know it's total bullshit. I mean if you knew the world will end next month you wouldn't be sitting behind your computer right now, on Facebook or whatever.

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by Dirty F

There must be millions of people who believe in this shit.
People who have been screaming and crying about it for years.
I wonder how they will feel when obviously nothing is gonna happen.

The thing is the majority of the people who believe in this crap haven't changed their way of life. They go to their job every day, buy the same things, spend money the same way. So even those people must somewhere in the back of their head know it's total bullshit. I mean if you knew the world will end next month you wouldn't be sitting behind your computer right now, on Facebook or whatever.

I think, in a way, you are wrong. People who have studied the Mayan civilization/history/knowledge understand that it does not talk about an "end of the world" scenario. That is just Hollywood bullshit. The world is supposed to change, not end.

[Tom_PM]

Yep. It's a simple misinterpretation. It means change, not doom, lol.

[Dirty F]

Originally Posted by J. Falcon

I think, in a way, you are wrong. People who have studied the Mayan civilization/history/knowledge understand that it does not talk about an "end of the world" scenario. That is just Hollywood bullshit. The world is supposed to change, not end.

Yeah i mean whatever theory they have, they haven't changed their lifestyle in any way whatsoever. Because they must know it's total fucking bullshit.

Btw the world isn't supposed to change. That's bs as well. I so had to laugh recently. This reported went to talk to local people in whatever area these supposed predictions come from and they had no clue what he was talking about

It's purely a white, made up western thing.

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by PR_Tom

Yep. It's a simple misinterpretation. It means change, not doom, lol.

I guess for most of us a radical change represents doom.

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

ADG

[lakerslive]

22 Days and we will find out the truth MOTHER FUCKERS : 321GFY

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

ADG

I'm pretty sure they took all of that into account when they made the calculations.

[anthony78]

I don't believe it, it will be not the end of the world ... see you again on 22nd of Dec guys ...

[PR_Glen]

Originally Posted by wehateporn

The fear-mongering gets on my tits...e.g. "Swine Flu Pandemic"..."Climate Change"..."Terrorists" and whatever else they'll come up with next

yet here you are, posting more fear on a daily basis. You have become what you despise, how does that make you feel?

We all know that the government bends the truth to smooth things along for the masses, but it's no where near as menacing and evil as you profess it to be, not even close. They are just people like the rest of us.

[baddog]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

ADG

Since, Ceasar did not do anything of the kind, I must figure that their math sucks too.

[L-Pink]

Originally Posted by Dirty F

Shit will happen. People like Johnnyclips will snap and kill a few random people.

That's why the silhouette targets I use for shooting practice are of a man on a bicycle.

[Minte]

Originally Posted by baddog

Since, Ceasar did not do anything of the kind, I must figure that their math sucks too.

I always though that if the Mayans were so damn smart, where are they today?

[baddog]

Originally Posted by Minte

I always though that if the Mayans were so damn smart, where are they today?

They got out while the getting was good.

[newB]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

So the Mayan Calendar = the Roman Calendar? Who'd have thunk it?

Pretty funny to think that someone actually put effort into being so wrong.

[EddyTheDog]

I'm still not going Christmas shopping until the 22nd.

I would hate to waste all that money....

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by Minte

I always though that if the Mayans were so damn smart, where are they today?

Nobody knows exactly what happened to them.

[Dirty Dane]

When government agencies tell you to calm down... that's a bad sign

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

The Aztec Sun Stone. Commonly, but incorrectly, shown to represent the Mayan calendar

Almost forgot that jokes are serious business on GFY...

There has been a bogus forward circulating Facebook and Twitter about the Mayan Calendar. It claims that the Mayans were unaware of our Leap Year system, therefore the world should have already ended. The forward going around reads:

"There have been about 514 Leap Years since Caesar created it in 45BC. Without the extra day every 4 years, today would be July 28, 2013.

Also, the Mayan calendar did not account for leap year?. so technically the world should have ended 7 months ago."

While I appreciate the ultimate goal of this forward, whoever wrote it is very misinformed. The current era (known to the Mayans as a baktun) does end on December 21, 2012. However, the world will not end; the calendar simply rolls over to the next baktun. It?s very similar to the Gregorian date of January 1, 2000.

And just like we celebrated the beginning of the new millennium, the Mayans would have celebrated the beginning of a new baktun. This was not something to fear.

Julius Caesar did modify the Roman calendar in 45BCE to include Leap Years. This new calendar was called the Julian calendar. As of the time of posting, today?s date on the Julian calendar is only February 23, 2012. This is because the Julian calendar adds a leap year every four years, meaning that each year is 365.25 days long.

In reality, one solar year is ~365.24219878 days. In order to correct Caesar?s mistake, it was changed in 1582 to a calendar year equal to 365.2425 days. This was done by skipping leap years that were divisible by 100 unless they are also divisible by 400. For instance, the following years would have been leap years under the Julian calendar, but are now skipped: 1500, 1700, 1800, 1900. Likewise, the following leap years were not skipped because they were also divisible by 400: 1600, 2000. This system, known as the Gregorian calendar, is what we use today.

The Mayan calendar is very inaccurate when calculating years. Not only did they not account for leap years, they were completely wrong about how many days were in a year. The Mayan ?tun? is 360 days long, equivalent of 0.986 years.

However, the date of December 21, 2012, is not based on Mayan tuns. It is based on the total accumulation of days since the beginning of the Mayan calendar. It is commonly accepted that the first date on the Mayan calendar is August 11, 3113 BCE on the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, we must start on that date and count forward in time.
The Mayan baktun is the equivalent of 400 Mayan tuns (years). But remember, their years are only 360 days long. 400 x 360 = 144,000. Therefore, each Mayan baktun is a total of 144,000 days long.

As of the time of posting, the Mayan date is 12.19.19.3.11. The first number represents the baktun, the second number katuns (20 Mayan years), the third number is tuns (Mayan years), the fourth is uinals (20 day ?weeks?), and the final number is the day. I know that I?m making some history nut cringe at my over simplification of the Mayan calendar; I?m using ?years? and ?weeks? to make things easy to understand.

On December 21, 2012, the first number in the Mayan calendar will change from 12 to 13, making it 13.0.0.0.0. The last time this happened was on September 18, 1618, when the current baktun started. As you have already imagined, the Mayan date on that day was 12.0.0.0.0. Obviously, the world didn?t end.

But how do we know that 13.0.0.0.0 will happen on December 21, 2012? First, we need to calculate the total amount of days required to reach the 13th baktun: 144,000 x 13 = 1,872,000 days.

If we start counting from August 11, 3113 BCE, we probably won?t get very far. I don?t know about you, but counting to almost 2 million isn?t something that I have time to do. Instead, use any date calculator to do the math. Sure enough, you?ll always arrive at the same date: December 21, 2012.

Doesn't change the fact that most of us will still be around on 12/22/12...(or will we?)



ADG

[SuckOnThis]

Same dumbasses that believe the stars in the sky at night are Gods sitting at a campfire.

[baddog]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

Almost forgot that jokes are serious business on GFY...



Doesn't change the fact that most of us will still be around on 12/22/12...(or will we?)



ADG

It does not explain who Ceaser is/was and what he had to do with Leap Year.

[Minte]

Originally Posted by J. Falcon

Nobody knows exactly what happened to them.

I suspect that the UFOer's probably have an opinion about that.

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by Minte

I suspect that the UFOer's probably have an opinion about that.

There are many opinions and theories, but few facts.

[wehateporn]

Originally Posted by PR_Glen

yet here you are, posting more fear on a daily basis. You have become what you despise, how does that make you feel?

We all know that the government bends the truth to smooth things along for the masses, but it's no where near as menacing and evil as you profess it to be, not even close. They are just people like the rest of us.

I debunk the stuff that comes from the shadow-government, so as you don't have to fear it.

[Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Minte

I always though that if the Mayans were so damn smart, where are they today?

living in Guatemala is my guess...just without their culture

if the Romans had kept their act together where would the world be today?

[bronco67]

Originally Posted by J. Falcon

When nothing happens, people will say the calculations were off by a year or two, or maybe it was supposed to happen last year, who knows?

They'll say "the End is Nearer".

[2MuchMark]

There's one good take away from all this. People will be partying on the 20th.

[_Richard_]

Originally Posted by baddog

It does not explain who Ceaser is/was and what he had to do with Leap Year.

no explanation on how Caesar had nothing to do with the creation of the Julian Calender?

[DWB]

I would HATE to live in a location that had a decent size earthquake on that day. Talk about shitting in your pants if you are a believer.

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

living in Guatemala is my guess...just without their culture

if the Romans had kept their act together where would the world be today?

Too big and complex to survive.

I suppose every civilization eventually meets the same fate.

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by bronco67

They'll say "the End is Nearer".

The Name of the Rose is one of my all time favorite books. In it, William of Baskerville (character played by Sean Connery's) shares a lot of knowledge. Heretic doomsday cults are an important part of the book (not so much the movie) and, when reflecting on these groups, as he does throughout the entire book, William says something that has always stuck with me."Since the beginning of time man has been predicting the end of the world. Therefore, the world is always about to end."

[Imortyl Pussycat]

Originally Posted by baddog

So, we lose a few emos?

i know i shouldn't have, but i laughed really hard after reading this