December 11, 2012: An Apocalypse Primer!

NASA/JPL-Caltech

With the Apocalypse almost upon us, I thought it might be nice to take some time and offer up a brief overview of the impending global cataclysm so that you can all have a better understanding of exactly what the hell is going on as the world around you comes to its ignoble end.  The ensuing information is the result of my exhaustive research (I perused wikipedia and a couple of crackpot sites) on the subject and will hopefully offer some solace as humanity faces the greatest mass hysteria-fueled Armageddon since Y2K…

Don’t delay.  Pack your bags, say your goodbyes, and board that space shuttle for the Mars colony.  There’s no time to waste as… Oh.  You didn’t have the foresight to purchase a ticket to the Mars colony? Well, sorry to say they sold out years ago right after that Roland Emmerich movie came out.  On the bright side, you don’t have to worry about what to pack.  Or kissing anyone goodbye (your own ass doesn’t count) because we’ll all be going together on…

December 21, 2012.  IF the Mayan are to be believed.  No, scratch that.  Technically, they Mayans didn’t make any apocalyptic predictions.  They just happened to create a calendar that ends on the aforementioned date.  But why, you no doubt wonder, THAT particular day?  No one knows for certain but many read dark portents in this ancient decision.  Others, like my writing partners, Paul, figure the Mayans simply figured “Yeah, five thousand years is long enough.  Let’s stop there.”  The Mayans may not have specifically foretold of the end times, but that didn’t stop many “experts” from inferring as much, their conclusions drawn from loose interpretations of similar doomsday prophecies, suspect astronomy, and personal theories occasionally born of far out mushroom trips.

Frightening but true.  The Mayans were not the only ones to predict the world would end on December 21, 2012 be co-opted into loony December 21, 2012 doomsday theories.  The Hopi Indians, the I-Ching (as interpreted by some “psychonaut”), even Nostradamus himself hint at some extinction-level event occurring sometime in the vague future…Oh, let’s pick a date…say…December 21, 2012.

December 21, 2012?  O.M.G.!

Well, that pretty much confirms it then.  With that out of the way, let’s shake things up a little and adopt a totally different tact.  Let’s try applying logic to the the Apocalypse.  Exactly what will happen?  And, more importantly, why?

Hmmm.  It really depends on who you ask.  Many New Age “experts” see the December 21, 2012 not as a date of doom, but as one of regenesis in which humanity will enter a new more enlightened phase, a “culmination in synchronization of individuals plugged into Earth’s eletromagnetic battery as a result of the planet’s passage through a galactic synchronization beam that started in 3113 B.C” (Wiki).  Indian guru Kalki Bhagavin, presumed by his 15 million followers to be the incarnation of the god Vishnu, sees 2012 as the “deadline for human enlightenment” (Wiki).

Other presumptions are decidedly more downbeat:

A galactic alignment will place our planet smack dab in the center of a gravitational pull between our sun and, Saggitarius A, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.  Never mind that the black hole is 30 000 light years from Earth.  Oh, and that this already happened back in 1998.

A massive solar flare will trigger a geomagnetic reversal that will see the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south switch resulting in toilets flushing clockwise in Australia and counter-clockwise in North America.  Never mind the fact that these reversals take anywhere from 1000 to 10 0000 years to complete and don’t happen overnight – like, say, the evening of December 20th, 2012.

A rogue planet (referred to as either Planet X or Nibiru by those in the know) will collide with Earth, crushing half the world’s population (and my dream of some day visiting Singapore) and leaving the other half to a far worse fate.  Never mind the fact that, if there WAS a rogue planet on a collision course with Earth and scheduled to hit us in less than two weeks, someone with a telescope might have noticed THERE’S A PLANET HEADED STRAIGHT FOR US!

UNLESS every single person who noticed has been sworn to secrecy. Which brings us to the next doomsday scenario: An alien invasion! There are rumors that SETI has been sitting on the news that three alien spacecraft have been spotted on an Earth-bound course. Estimated time of arrival?  Oh, around December 21, 2012. There’s even proof (provided by a Denver-based media company) in the form of a picture that shows the trio of UFO’s enroute.  Never mind that astronomer Phil Plait has demonstrated that if the UFO’s “in the photo were as large as claimed, [they] would have had to be closer to Earth than the Moon, which would mean [they] would already have arrived.” (Wiki).

The red super-giant, Betelgeuse, will go supernova, crispy frying Earth and quashing Alabama’s hopes of a repeat National Championship. Never mind the fact that Betelgeuse would need to be approximately 575 light years closer to affect us if it went supernova.

Photon belts!  Never mind the fact that they don’t exist.

But don’t let me rain on your apocalyptic parade.  I’m sure there are far more plausible (though, admittedly, far less popular) doomsday scenarios out there.  Supervolcanoes, a spiteful suddenly sentient internet, and robot monkeys are just a few that come to mind.

So get out there and enjoy the time you have left.  And, if I’m wrong and these doomsday enthusiasts are right, then who’ll be laughing December 22nd?

Obviously, no one.

 

Tagged: 2012, alien invasion, Apocalypse, Armageddon, Betelgeuse, cataclysm, December 21 2012, End of the World, end times, galactic alignment, geomagnetic reversal, Maya Calendar, Mayan prediction, Nibiru, photon belts, Planet X, prophecy, robot monkeys, Saggitarius A, sentient internet, singularity, supernova, supervolcanoes, The Apocalypse, world end