The world will end on Dec. 21, 2012. Or will it? Thanks to the U.S. government, you no longer have to fall asleep on Dec. 20 wondering if there will be a tomorrow to wake up to. The government is trying to dispel doomsday rumors in the best way it knows how: a reassuring blog post on its official blog.
In the post, "Scary Rumors About the World Ending in 2012 Are Just Rumors," the government attempts a rare feat and tries to matter-of-factly level with Americans.
"False rumors about the end of the world in 2012 have been commonplace on the Internet for some time," says the government in its post.
"Many of these rumors involve the Mayan calendar ending in 2012 (it won't), a comet causing catastrophic effects (definitely not), a hidden planet sneaking up and colliding with us (no and no), and many others. The world will not end on December 21, 2012, or any day in 2012."
"Unfortunately, these rumors have many people frightened, especially children. NASA has received thousands of letters concerned about the end of the world."
"At least a once a week I get a message from a young person - as young as 11 - who says they are ill and/or contemplating suicide because of the coming doomsday," said David Morrison, a planetary astronomer and senior scientist for NASA who answers questions from the public about astrobiology, according to the government blog post.
Morrison used to just answer one question a day from folks curious about evolution, the origin of life on earth, the mysteries of space. Unsurprisingly, anxiety and paranoia regarding the rumored 2012 doomsday date have ramped up in recent years, focusing virtually all of the questions on doomsday 2012 and the rumor that Earth will collide with another planet, an idea known as the Nibiru cataclysm, a supposed apocalyptic event in which Earth will collide with a massive rogue planet.
"I think it was about 4 years ago, early in 2008, I started getting 5 questions a day about 2012, and now it has increased," Morrison told ABCNews.com. "The most common question is, 'Will the world end on December 21, 2012?' I find that strange because the idea of the world ending is absurd. Do they really think, 'The world is ending, but if I build a bomb shelter in my back yard, I'll survive'?"
Morrison's answered so many questions about Nibiru and doomsday 2012 now that he's added a disclaimer to the "Ask an Astrobiologist" page on NASA's website, noting he has now answered 400 questions about the two subjects alone, and to please read these before submitting a new query.
According to NASA, the Nibiru rumors may have originally emerged in 2003. The old mystery-planet-collision rumor year was 2003, but when 2004 arrived safely, the rumors changed to 2012, says NASA.
NASA released a video earlier this year explaining why the Mayan calendar doesn't accurately predict the apocalypse, and that the myth that the planet "Nibiru" is heading toward Earth is easily disproved because astronomers have detected no such planet.
"The most specific questions are about this rogue planet Nibiru," said Morrison. "I think, if it were four years ago, you could say, 'maybe.' If it were real at this point, it would be the brightest thing in the sky."
NASA now maintains a page specifically to debunk doomsday 2012 rumors concerning the theory that the Mayan calendar predicts the apocalypse. The organization says rumors that suggest the Mayan end of days are based on misinterpretations of the Mayan calendar. Many wrongly assume the world will end on the 21st of December because the Mayan calendar "ends" on this day, but in reality it just marks the start of a new cycle.
"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," NASA explains.
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