We regret that this action has become necessary. We realize that many people have used the forums anonymously over the years. It is sad that these actions have become necessary at this point.

Well, maybe not so minor. I've added a banner across the Forum Categories page, and at the top of each category, and at the top of the 'New Thread' page, which says:

Please read the Forum Posting Rules before posting.

It's stupid big now. Really, if I make it any bigger, it will be bigger than the title of the site.

So, please, take the hint, before you post here, READ THE FREAKING RULES!!!!

Thanks to Noah Nelson and Turnstyle News.

For reasons I won't disclose here, the attempt failed, and I believe that the hack has been successfuly repelled. However, people should keep an eye on the site, and if they notice unusual activity, notify me right away.

As interesting a claim that this is (and we discuss it in detail elsewhere) it begs the question: Did the Maya consider this alignment significant?

An interesting counter-claim is that the Maya should have picked the December solstice 2010.

Why?

We know that the Maya tracked and predicted lunar eclipses, and the cycles of Venus. Tables of both of these events appear in the Dresden Codex. So, today (December 21st, 2010) there was a total lunar eclipse, and Venus is near its greatest western elongation (which occurs on January 8th, 2011), and the solstice occurs at 23:38 UT… all in one day!!!

From space.com:¹

The total lunar eclipse was the only one this year and the only one in the last 372 years to coincide with the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, which is the longest and darkest night of the year.

So, given that all of this occurs on a single day, is clearly visible to any interested observer (unlike the position of the sun in the dark rift), and that the Maya were clearly interested in both the cycles of Venus and lunar eclipses, why would they settle for 2012?

This site uses Google Analytics to track usage, and the graphs below show the 'Absolute Unique Visitors' statistic. The first graph shows the period of May 1st, 2009 through December 5th, 2010, and the second graph shows the month of November, 2010.

With the exception of a couple of spikes surrounding the movie "2012" as well as a couple of other events, we have seen a steady upward trend in the number of people visiting this site per day. In the month of November, 2010, there were 25,219 unique visitors (not visits, visitors), or about 840 people per day.

Thanks to all of the contributors to the website, and to all of the participants in the forum, for making this site the go-to reference for critical information on 2012!

Now, please excuse me while I go and 'Favorite' that video from my YouTube channel…

Hello!

Today we posted the interview of Dr Morrison, you can watch the video of the interview here (with Spanish subtitles)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiM_rvTxuRM

And the Spanish article I wrote about it, here:

http://www.seti.cl/entrevista-exclusiva-a-david-morrison-de-preguntale-a-un-astrobiologo/

Big hug!!!

Lourdes

In the video Dr. Morrison talks about his new position at the SETI Institute, but he is also asked about how he became involved with debunking 2012, and he expresses his opinion about the people perpetrating this hoax.

There have been several cases in the forums of this site recently where people who agree with the position of this site have not been as respectful as I would like. I tend to take a mostly 'hands off' approach to the fourms, with the occasional deviation for extreme circumstances, but I would like to see the discussion elevated to the point where opposing ideas can be discussed without the opponents getting personal.

There are several regulars in the forum that are able to do this, but there are also several regulars who apparently are not able to do this. I'm not mentioning names either way.

However, as an example of what can happen when the debate is conducted professionally, I would like to offer the following exchange.

First Email

I received the following email from a member and contributor to the website worldwidewakeupnow.com, which is definitely a 'woo' site (in my opinion, of course). However, I decided to 'engage' this person in what I hoped would be a level-headed discussion.

Hey Guys,

Came across your website and I must say you've done a very thorough job, so certainly keep it up I'll be checking back here for more information as often as I can.

However, I'm on the other side of the 2012 coin and have my own website worldwidewakeupnow.com so I kind of disagree with some of the points that you've made on this page. I just need to ask since you put it on your website, what 'proof' do you have that 2012 WONT happen?

Also, can you explain the rise in 'significant earthquakes' according to USGS over the past couple years and hauntingly obvious in 2010.

I'm not here to scare anyone or try to make a profit, I just feel its wrong that most of the world is kept in the dark about this when it is a very VERY possible reality.

The information on the 'planets aligning' you posted is somewhat incorrect too, nobody said all the planets were aligning its the earth being in the center aligned with the sun on one had and a superblackhole on the other.

Though we obviously don't know what kind of effects that will have on Earth I'm willing to bet a good amount of money it'll be something significant.

Let me know at your convenience, because this website is so well done I do have respect for the sources and claims that you're making. Its just I don't think the claims made here are 100% accurate

Now, had this appeared in the forums, I feel safe in saying that the author would have been greeted by two kinds of responses: On the one hand, calm and reasoned responses rebutting the points the author raises, and on the other hand insults and jeers.

My first reply

My response, which I hope falls into the first category, follows:

Hi Kyle;

Thank you for the kind words about our website, and thank you for having the courage to step up and engage in a discussion with someone you obviously disagree with. You have engaged in an open fashion and without rancor, and I will do my best to return the favor.

You gave me your name, now let me return the favor. My name is Bill Hudson. I founded '2012hoax.org' and currently serve as the site administrator.

I've taken the opportunity to look at your site, and specifically at your most recent post. I can tell that you have a questioning mind, which is a good thing. Keep that going, it will serve you well.

You ask: "I just need to ask since you put it on your website, what 'proof' do you have that 2012 WONT happen?". My response is that for some of the many claims about 2012 we have absolute rock-solid evidence that it can't happen, and for some of the claims we have no evidence at all, because the claims are so loosely defined that it is nearly impossible to argue against them. However, that is, in itself, evidence that the claims are bogus. If the claim is not subject to falsification, it is not scientific, and is instead based on 'feeling' or 'faith'.

My second point is this: The burden of proof lies upon the person making the positive claim. Asking us to prove you wrong is (in debating circles) a sure sign that your argument is weak. Where we make positive claims ( e.g., that the claimed orbit of Nibiru is impossible ) we back them up with evidence.

A third point is this: You have left yourself an 'out', by qualifying your claim as being a "possible reality". By making it only 'possible' you are now free to claim that it might not happen, or might not happen the way that you said.

> Also, can you explain the rise in 'significant earthquakes' according to USGS over the past couple years and hauntingly obvious in 2010.

That is an interesting claim, because the USGS says almost exactly the opposite. See http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/increase_in_earthquakes.php Perhaps you would like to share your source of that claim?

> I'm not here to scare anyone or try to make a profit, I just feel its wrong that most of the world is kept in the dark about this when it is a very VERY possible reality.

Don't misunderstand the purpose of the website because of the word 'hoax'. I picked the word 'hoax' to be in the website title, because I am aware that there are many people like yourself, who are not seeking to make money by scaring people, who also 'believe in 2012'. People who make money by scaring people get nothing but contempt from me. They are not perpetuating a hoax, they are participating in a fraud.

I picked the word 'hoax' to convey the basic message of the website: "2012 is a hoax". It gets the point across. However, I consider many of the proponents of the "2012 doomsday" to be worse… I consider them to be frauds.

> The information on the 'planets aligning' you posted is somewhat incorrect too, nobody said all the planets were aligning

Actually, some have made that exact claim, that the earth and several of the other planets were going to be in an alignment on December 21st 2012.

> its the earth being in the center aligned with the sun on one had and a superblackhole on the other.

Well, actually no, that's not the purported alignment (although someone may have made that claim, I'm not sure). The most frequently cited 'alignment' is purported to be the earth and the center of the galaxy (the supermassive black hole, if you will) on the opposite sides of the sun. In other words, the sun is supposed to come between us and the supermassive black hole. Even that is incorrect in that it is about 5.5 degrees off, which is about 11 times the diameter of the sun, as seen from earth. But, on the other hand, it 'aligns' to this same extent every year.

> Though we obviously don't know what kind of effects that will have on Earth I'm willing to bet a good amount of money it'll be something significant.

Actually, you would lose that bet. We know the effects quite well, and we can calculate them. The black hole at the center of the galaxy is far too distant (26,000 light years) for it to have any measurable effect on the earth. The 'alignment' which is supposed to occur on December 21st doesn't occur, and even if it did it would cause no effect. The total tidal force of the black hole is calculated at 1/20th of 1 millimeter, and the interposition of the sun would have no effect on that, even if it did occur, and again, it gets as close to alignment in 2010 as it will in 2012, and it did in 2009, and 2008, etc.

I believe we provide the calculations for the force of the tide on the page dealing with that claim.

> Let me know at your convenience, because this website is so well done I do have respect for the sources and claims that you're making. Its just I don't think the claims made here are 100% accurate

I will be happy to correct any errors that are found. I've done it before.

Second Email

There was a second exchange of emails not represented here, where basically we were acknowledging that we would like to move forward with a calm and reasoned debate, and giving permission for each other to post it on the respective sites.

Kyle's second email follows:

Bill;

Absolutely do that, I feel as though we should all be looking for answers as to what is (or isn't) going to happen together instead of fighting with each other about what will unfold. Just so you know too, I'm not so much a '2012 doomer' as much as I am a 2012 truth seeker I'm not here to tell my viewers one way or another what's going to happen and what to do I'm here trying to find answers as to what could happen for them, until I found you and your website I found nobody credible really to say anything on the opposite end of the spectra as you have.

Getting back to your first email now, the reason I asked you for proof that it won't happen is because I found the following on your webpage:
"This is proof that most of the 2012 books are false. Here is a quote from a subscription e-mail I received… I cannot explain in exact detail, but I have researched. What a joke. "

My mentality after that went like 'ok this guy thinks that because we can't say 100% what's going to happen on that day that it's a joke, so why I don't ask him for his 100% proof that it ISNT going to happen' and sent it as such, wasn't worded the strongest I know to be honest I wasn't really expecting a response back let alone the one that you gave that was truly mind blowing for me! I had figured honestly you were someone who was afraid of it happening (as this is the 'strong argumenters' ive found before stumbling on your site) and came out with this site for similar reasons to the ones of anyone coming aboard on the 2012 topic really.

That link you sent, when you said 'That is an interesting claim, because the USGS says almost exactly the opposite. See http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/increase_in_earthquakes.php Perhaps you would like to share your source of that claim?' literally almost made me fall back in my chair. USGS is the website I use to pull earthquake data on my website (obviously, as its the most credible name out there) and if you look on my page there is a link to USGS's 'Science for a Changing World' that leads directly to the 'Significant Quakes' of 2010. As you can see on that page which is the 'Significant Quakes' section on USGS there are far more then 17 mentioned on the page of the link, although maybe thats the difference between 'major' and 'significant' acording to USGS. Whatever the reason, when I saw that I immediately saw 2012 in a light I've never seen it before and thought that it's all maybe a load of garbage as you suggest.

Just to clarify a few things though, does this mean that the claims of the galactic alignment happening once every 25,800 years is hog wash and that something similar happens ever year with 0 effects felt on earth? I was left uncertain about what you said in your response, is this alignment thats coming, that being (I thought as I was told) The Earth being centered between the sun and the 'super black hole' that is in the middle of our galaxy really isn't happening or it IS happening but it happens every year? I have read similar things on NASA's website, just want to clarify 100% on those.

And now since you've answered the 'knowns' so to speak about 2012 so well I wanted to get your thoughts on some other things, what do you make of people around the world and the rise in vivid dreaming lately? I don't know if you follow George Ure or not, he refers to a website called http://www.nationaldreamcenter.com/ which is people posting their dreams. There also have been studies that show more and more people, for whatever reason lately, are having very vivid and real feeling dreams. Timing is in sync with 2012 so thats why I thought lately all of a sudden people were having crazy dreams.

Another thought too, the solar storms that are coming from the sun in 2012 are expected to be very significant, yes? I heard NASA has confirmed that and have seen more and more articles popping up that we're overdue for some severe solar storms. Earths Magnetic fields have some severe holes in them right now, http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/16dec_giantbreach/

Shields are open….this past summer was the hottest one on record for many areas (see posts under 'extreme weather' on my website worldwidewakeupNOW.com, or if you wish I will forward you the records) if these solar storms are coming and these holes are wide open, does it not spell bad things for all of us here on earth?

Finally, I don't know if you've heard of the 'Denver International Airport Conspiracy' but I've provided a google search for you here:http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=denver%20international%20airport%20conspiracy&aq=1&aqi=g4g-o1&aql=&oq=Denver+in&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=80834014c217cffa&pf=p

I wanted to know what you make of the United States government being on a crash building course for the past 10 years or so, building deep deep DEEP underground survival bunkers some of them hundreds of feet deep some even miles deep. Denver International Airport supposedly sits on top of one of these, and has underground bunkers to Mount Cheyenne http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/cmc.htm which is also believed to be being hollowed out as a survival mountain.

If you have downtime, I found all this via Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory 2012 episode. Not a lot of people know about this show, but he uncovers a lot of government secrets and it turns out building deep underground survival bunkers is one they've been doing for the past 10 years. Here's a link to it on YouTube if you're interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_971272&v=A4IHPmtJXo0&feature=iv to part 1 anyway, all in all there are 6 parts I believe about 50 minutes or so.

I would think that the government would know if its bogus or not…so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that

All in all what really worries me now since you've debunked the earthquake parts for me is the heat aspect, I know for a fact that our magnetic shields are down it was covered by NASA and there's also intense solar storms coming for 2012….

Thank you for your website, your work and for allowing me to repost these interactions for my web viewers, I agree with you that this is the right way and everyone should be doing it respectfully no matter what their opinions on the subject may be.

Look forward to hearing from you,
Kyle

My Second Reply(ies)

My second reply to Kyle is in two parts, simply because I was doing this late at night and ran out of steam.

Hello again, Kyle;

Thanks once again for the email. One thing I can tell you for sure is that the people who can debate issues without attacking the opposite party are becoming an unfortunate rarity. I have some examples of both kinds of people in the forums at 2012hoax.org. I can guarantee you that if you had posted your email directly to the forums that someone, and possibly more than one, would have attacked you personally. I find that unfortunate, and I intend to use this exchange to make the point to those people, that you can debate with someone you disagree with, without calling them 'stupid' or worse.

I am happy to hear that you are a "2012 truth seeker". To be honest, I never accepted the claims of a 2012 doomsday simply because the claims were obvious nonsense to me, simply because of my knowledge of astronomy.

If you haven't read it yet, I provide a bit of a back-story to my involvement in "2012-debunking" at http://www.2012hoax.org/astrogeek and there is a video of me being interviewed by a member of SETI.cl at http://www.seti.cl/entrevista-al-fundador-de-2012-hoax-bill-hudson/ (the page is in Spanish, but the interview is in English with Spanish subtitles).

As far as other 'credible' people, you may want to check out the 'Guest Views' section at the bottom of the left-side menu on the site. There are several scientists giving their views there. I also have a large number of links on the links page at http://www.2012hoax.org/links

Regarding that section… yes, that is essentially my position, although I didn't write that section and would phrase it differently. As I mention in the 'astrogeek' page above, I made my site a Wiki on purpose, because I knew that I would never have enough time to research and debunk all of the claims. One of the really cool things that happens on the site is that people come here looking for information, wind up researching it in depth, and sometimes write up pages debunking the very claim that brought them to the site. For example, the LHC page is being written by a person who was initially frightened of it.

You may have also noticed that we try not to do a 'whitewash' of the claims… where there is a kernel of truth in the claim, we discuss that kernel of truth. For example on the solar flares page we discuss frankly the Carrington Event, and the effects that such an event could have on today's massively electronic society… but then we also discuss the various efforts to study and understand the sun, and the efforts to 'harden' satellites and infrastructure against a modern Carrington Event.

Regarding the USGS and the list of 'significant' events… I'm not sure what criteria they are using to judge the events as 'significant'. Perhaps newsworthiness? I see some relatively small earthquakes on that list ( Small to me, I live in California where anything under a 5 is not news-worthy ). For example, this one: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2010/us2010yua6/

A 3.4? Seriously? That might wake me up, but probably not. But then I see that it was located only about 25 miles away from Washington DC, so perhaps its significance was because it was close to the capitol, in an area not noted for its seismic activity.

If I were you I'd take the next step and ask them what the criteria for inclusion on that page is.

Regarding the 'galactic alignment': Yes, it is absolute hogwash. We examine the four most cited examples of a 'galactic alignment' at http://www.2012hoax.org/galactic-alignment (by the way, I did not write that page either. I just love it when people dive in and tackle an issue like this). We also mention but do not examine two more examples cited by John Major Jenkins. We don't examine them because they are claimed by Jenkins, but he has never provided the necessary details for us to examine them.

The most frequently cited example of the four is the 'alignment' of the solstice sun with the center of the galaxy, as marked by the location of Sgr A* (Sagittarius A 'star') which is the location of the approximately 3- or 4- million solar mass black hole. Again, the solstice sun *never* covers the position of Sgr A* from our vantage point. It comes *close* (5.5 degrees) but never covers it from our vantage point.

The second most frequently cited example of a 'galactic alignment' is the alignment of the solstice sun with the galactic equator. Before you go any further I commend to your attention this discussion between some of the authors of the site: http://www.2012hoax.org/forum/t-162624#post-894328

Any discussion of the sun aligning with anything such as the 'galactic equator' or the 'galactic plane' that does not also discuss the imprecision of the definition is rather pointless. The fact of the matter is that the galactic coordinate system is fairly arbitrary, and the 'galactic plane' and 'galactic equator' were defined at different times by different people, and that there is a considerable amount of error in those definitions.

However, ignoring all of that, the solstice sun *does* in fact 'align with' the galactic equator in 2012. But, it also aligns with the galactic equator in 2011, and 2010, did in 2009, and 2008 etc. Because of the effect of precession, the position of the sun on the solstice gradually creeps around the sky, completing a full circuit in 26500 years (approximately). For about 40 years, the sun (which is about 1/2 a degree wide from our vantage point) touches the galactic equator. In fact, the 'alignment' occurs every year between 1978 and 2021, with the closest alignment of the center of the sun and the galactic equator occurring in 1998.

Here's a small collection of facts about the "alignment":

The winter-solstice Sun is closest to the Galactic equator in 1998. This presumably corresponds to the Meeus/USNO calculation. The distance from the Sun to the Galactic centre at that time is 6.4396 degrees (measured in apparent place).

The winter-solstice Sun has cleared the Galactic equator by 2021.

The winter-solstice Sun is closest to the Galactic centre in 2219, with a couple of years either side also candidates for this epoch because of nutation. The distance to the Galactic centre at the 2219 solstice is 5.6367 degrees, 0.8029 degrees closer than in 1998.

The winter-solstice Sun and Galactic center share the same apparent-place meridian in 2225.

Patrick Wallace
Starlink Project Manager
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK

In summary, the 'galactic alignment' is bogus… or at least it is not 'exact'. The same "not-quite-an-alignment" occurs every year, and depending on which version you pick, was either closest in 1998 or will be closest in 2219.

I can't address 'vivid dreaming', it's not happening to me, and I have no expertise in that area to even begin addressing it.

The whole thing about 'Solar Storms' in 2012 is yet another claim that drives me up the wall. First of all, understand that the sun goes through cycles. The primary cycle is actually a 22-year magnetic cycle. As the cycle moves through it's course the sun's magnetic activity gradually winds up, becoming more active, with more sunspots and solar flares and coronal mass ejections, etc. This culminates with the Solar Maximums. The quiet periods of the cycle are the solar minimums. At Solar Max the sun's magnetic field is a tangled mess, with dozens or even hundreds of 'north poles' and 'south poles'… in fact each sunspot (each of which is generally larger than the earth) has a north and south pole. As it progresses through solar max, toward solar minimum, the sun's overall magnetic field settles down in the opposite polarity of the last minimum. At minimum the sun gets the closest to having a single 'north' and 'south' pole. The entire magnetic cycle (north to south, and back) is composed of two minima and two maxima.

Additional details are found at http://www.2012hoax.org/solar-flares

In 2006, a group at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) published a paper theorizing that the next solar max would be larger and stronger than 'normal'. In their opinion at the time, it would be the largest maximum since the mid 1950s.

What happened next was one of the biggest 'out-of-context' misquotes I've ever seen. Various groups began proclaiming that NASA predicted the next solar maximum to be the biggest one in decades, and that it was all going to happen in 2012. NCAR is not NASA, although they may get some NASA research grants. In 2009 NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) made their prediction (The official one) that the next solar max would not occur until 2013, and that it would be less active than normal, not more.

So, NASA did not make a prediction. NCAR made one and NOAA made another.

I'm going to address the rest of these topics tomorrow, if you don't mind. Falling asleep now. I hope my email still makes sense in the morning. :-D

Bill.

And…

Hello again, Kyle;

Continuing my followup where I left off…

I agree that weather patterns are changing. But where you have cited some examples of extreme weather, I'll also mention that California and Japan both had record cool summers. Weather patterns are complex, with many variables, and predicting them in the short term is notoriously difficult. However, there does not appear to be a correlation between solar weather and earth weather. I have seen some sites make that claim, but generally they cherry-pick the dates, so that there appears to be a correlation. For example, if I said that on September 15th a solar flare hit the earth, and just two days later a tropical storm ravaged the island of Bermuda (by the way these are random dates) then the reader might think that there is a correlation. However, all of the times that I have examined these claims the author ignores the data that doesn't fit. In one case the claim was made that solar flares fired up a particular hurricane, and ignored the solar flares that did not correspond to a weather event, and ignored the weather events that did not correspond to a solar flare.

I'm curious as to what you mean by 'sheilds are open'. Do you refer to the South Atlantic anomaly (which has been known about since the 1950s, or are you referring to the THEMIS sattelite data, which observed an unexpected reconnection event in the tail of the earth's magnetosphere, or are you referring to something else?

There have been a couple of events observed recently where particles from the sun were observed to penetrate deeper into the magnetosphere than was expected. In one case the polarity of the CME was expected to reinforce the magnetic field of the earth, but instead it 'ripped a hole' in it (as the news report went). BUT (and this is my main point) these are transient events. They occur, and then when the CME has passed the magnetic field of the earth reesablishes the magnetosphere. In addition, none of these events can cause destruction on the earth, with the exception of radio communications and (in the most extreme cases) surges in power lines.

The big report out of the government with regard to the power grid and solar events was an analysis of an absolute worst case scenario, where a massive geomagnetic storm is triggered with zero warning, and the worst possible theoretical events take place. It was published as part of an effort to convince the administration to invest in beefing up infrastructure (protecting crucial transformers, etc) as well as beefing up early warning systems. Interestingly in the wake of that report NASA launched STEREO and SDO, both studying the sun in depth.

On the whole 'Denver International Airport' thing… I've seen the show. I'm not convinced. This is one of those things that seems to take off from some fringe conspiracy theory and grows legs in popular culture. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no evidence of extensive underground structures at DIA other than those expected for a structure of that size and function. The 'expected underground structures' can be quite extensive though. An airport requires many miles of underground service tunnels for electrical, water, sewer, data, etc.

Other than the word of one contractor who sells the things, the show only presented rumor and assertion that the bunkers exist.

The other place that the show went was to an undisclosed location that they spotted on google earth. I don't know if you caught what the security guard told the people at the gate… he said that they had to be cleared by 'northrup security'. Northrup is a defense contractor. They build (among other things) airplanes, including the F15E eagle. So, it appears that the show visited a test and development site for Northrup.

In the age of satellites, I would expect the planes that Nortrup was working on to be hidden underground.

Also, I'm curious about the claimed connection between DIA and Mt. Cheyenne. Why would they build tunnels or other structures to DIA (over 40 miles away as the crow flies) when Fort Carson Army Air Field is right next to Cheyenne? I keep hearing these ideas that such-and-such a mountain is a survival complex, when really it's a secured facility. Yes, it has the ability to operate independently of the rest of the U.S. for extended periods of time, but that's because it is a nuclear command and control facility.

I've seen the "Conspiracy Theory" episode. I don't think that it is credible. In the world of debate, claiming 'secret knowledge' is called 'Special Pleading', and it is a fallacy of logic.

I'd love to hear your responses to these, as well as any additional details you can provide. I have to say that this is an enjoyable exchange so far.

Hope you are doing well, and look forward to hearing from you again soon.

Bill.

Ok, so I wasn't harsh, I restricted myself to hitting some of the major points I wanted to make, and I refrained from insults against his intellect and education. I used some of the basic rules of conversation that have been around since Dale Carnegie: I found things in his emails that I agreed with, and complimented him on those, then I began discussing the points where I disagreed with him.

What has been the result?

A website where people who 'believe in 2012' go to has posted this same discussion with links back to our site. A person whose opinion I disagree with is engaging in a discussion of ideas, and not a clash of personalities.

There is more to come in this discussion.

While I was at SETIcon, I was delighted to be interviewed by Lourdes Cahuich of SETI.cl. That interview has been subtitled in Spanish and is now available here. So if you can't live another day without hearing what I sound like, and seeing what I look like in person, now's your chance!

Here is the transcript of that episode:

This is Bill Hudson with 2012hoax.org, once again talking about the great 2012 doomsday hoax, and the need for the amateur astronomy community to respond to it.

Last time I spoke about thinking outside of the box, and looking for opportunities to take the message into places you might not normally think of, and I used the example of my daughter who had taken it upon herself to write an article about the 2012 doomsday hoax for the sparklife blog at sparknotes.com.

This time I’m going to talk about how the message that the “2012 doomsday” is a hoax is going out even farther afield.

I was recently contacted by Lourdes Cahuich, who identified herself as being with the website http://seti.cl . She was asking for permission to translate the pages from http://2012hoax.org into Spanish. I immediately agreed, and by the way if anyone out there wants to translate the site into other languages, you should know that the entire site is published under the Creative Commons, non-commercial, share-alike license, and you do not need specific permission to republish it, so long as you reference 2012hoax.org.

Within a few days, the first page went up, and soon after that the second, and then the third. Now, seti.cl Is hosting several pages from 2012hoax.org, translated into Spanish by volunteers.

I began poking around at that website, and I found that in addition to the pages from 2012hoax.org, the site also had translations of numerous pages from other websites.

I became intrigued, and contacted Lourdes to ask about doing an interview regarding the response to the 2012 doomsday hoax in Latin America. Lourdes politely declined, but put me in contact with Tiare Rivera, who is the founder of the website. We had a delightful conversation in which we each explored how we each got started on our respective paths of “astronomical activism”. Here is a portion of that interview:

[Begin Interview]

Bill: Hello, how are you?

Tiare: I’m doing fine. We have a sunny day here in Chile, a very… a little bit cold, but everything’s fine here.

Bill: How did you decide to start seti.cl, and what’s the relationship between seti.cl and the seti institute?

Tiare: Well, I started the idea of seti.cl… I was looking for seti communities here in Chile and in Latin America, but I wasn’t able to find any of them. So I found a website called SETI.cl, but it was actually dead. There was no one there. So I decided to create this idea again, of this SETI community, of science, and science outreach. So I started to look for websites who were talking about this subject, and I found one on overclockers.cl. And, well, I found Claudio Jerez and Oliver Prostran, who help me with the idea of creating, or recreating seti.cl . We started the website in 2008, and now we have a new design, and we have translators. They are volunteers who use their time and their efforts to make translations into Spanish of many scientific websites.

Bill: Oh, very nice! So that is the primary purpose of seti.cl, to translate scientific websites into Spanish for the Spanish speaking communities?

Tiare: Yes, we have permission from many websites to translate, we have Universe Today, Bad Astronomy dot com, Ciencia Kanija which is a Spanish website, and they help me with free translations too, (science for citizens dot net, or planet quest from NASA, so we are trying to make more access, more information available to our spanish speakers. We also create interviews from scientific or from [amateur] astronomers who want, or who are interested in science, and we try to make a more human side, we try to show a human side, of what are their dreams or why are they doing what they do. Sometimes they don’t even earn too much money, we have amateur astronomers who give free talks, and we try to understand why are they interested in science and why kids should follow their path.

I had the opportunity to work in a school last year, it was an incredible experience. I started as a secretary, I started doing a replacement there. But the director, the school principal, saw that I was very interested in astronomy and in science, and she let me work on the school library, and you not only give books there, you can also give classes. So I got very interested in teaching science, with fun videos, I don’t know… “The Big Moon World”… that’s kind of old, but I showed them those videos to kids, astronomy videos too, so kids were very interested. We even made a school project where 15 kids were able to make a question to Astronaut Jose Hernandez from Mexico, and he was able to answer this question in orbit. So as you can see there are many scientific projects you can do, and there are many ways to encourage kids to learn more about science. And you know, in a classroom, well in public schools here in Chile we have 45 kids in one classroom, many of them are very encouraged by the schools to be taught in arts areas, like dancing and singing or … i don’t know… choreography or cheerleaders in your country, but science, it’s not very popular here, so we need to encourage a few kids, maybe there’s one kid or two kids interested in science, and we need [to] take them and teach them.

Bill: Are you also an amateur astronomer? What is your background besides working at the school?

Tiare: Well, I’m an accountant, which is nothing to do with science, but when I was eleven years old I watched the movie “Contact”, and I got interested in SETI and astronomy. Then I started to read and watch documentaries about SETI, and I used to see the SETI guys with huge radio telescopes behind, and I used to think “Wow, that must be a really cool job”, but then I started my accounting studies, but always with this science curiosity. And now it’s getting stronger, so I have this website SETI.cl and it’s becoming part of my life. An d now I realize that I need to go to this path, to this road of science and education.

Bill: That’s excellent, I think more people need to follow that example.

Tiare: You can make a big change in a kid’s mind. It’s incredible to see them get interested in science, and in astronomy, and it’s very important to create and to encourage science outreach around the world, and especially here in Latin America.

Bill: So I was very happy to have some of the people associated with your website contact me and request to be able to translate our website, 2012hoax.org, into Spanish, but I was curious, what has been the feedback, or the concern from Chile about the 2012 rumors?

Tiare: Well in Chile we have a lot of American culture. We see your American movies, and we have TV/Cable and we see a lot of your TV shows, so there is the same concern that you have in America about the subject, especially kids are very [sensitive] about this, so we mst take action about this subject. There are a lot of people who don’t have access to scientific information to see the other side of the coin. So, it’s very important for us to do this scientific outreach. So we must take action and teach kids that nothing’s going to happen, there’s going to be another calendar in a few more years, so we must take action about all this. Here in SETI.cl, everything’s for free, they can take our articles, our translations, and do the science outreach wherever they are. It’s very important for us to create this totally for free. We have very good translators here. It’s amazing because they could charge me for doing what they do but they don’t because they know the purpose of SETI.cl, and it’s very important to continue this amazing job.

Bill: What do you see happening as far as the future of the 2012 debunking over the next couple of years?

Tiare: Well I think this is going to get worse, I mean, the concern is going to keep going, TV shows are going to keep showing the bad side, that
we’re going to die, and the earthquakes, and all these things that have happened to us are part of “2012”, which is not true! Because as you may know I lived [through] the earthquake here in Chile, it was 8.2 in my city, and it looked pretty much like the end of the world, I must say! It was a very traumatic experience. But we know that Chile, for example, it’s an area of earthquakes, and we must note that this is normal here, and this is not the end of the world [or] any sign of it. But we must do much more outreach, we need to do it, because things are going to get more serious and people are going to be influenced by TV and popular media.

Bill: Yes, I think it was only a few minutes after the earthquake hit that I started seeing commentary on twitter that obviously this was a sign of 2012, this massive earthquake in Chile is obviously a sign of 2012, so they didn’t wait long before blaming it on 2012, and completely ignoring the fact that that area has had huge earthquakes, as a matter of fact the largest recorded earthquake belongs to Chile, it was the 9.6 in 1960.

Tiare: That was in Valdivia, in Southern Chile, it actually swallowed entire families, the ground opened beneath their feet and swallowed them, and I thought it was going to happen to me, I thought I was going to die beneat the ground, and yeah, that looks like the end of the world, but it’s not the end of the world, it’s just a tragedy that we have, and it will continue here in Chile, and we have several quakes, there was another big one just this morning, so this is not the end of the world, and we need education, education and science are together in all this.

[End of Interview]

If you’d like to hear more clips from this interview, please stay tuned to 2012hoax.org. I’d like to thank Tiare Rivera, and the folks at SETI.cl for translating various valuable websites into Spanish. They’re doing a great service.

That’s all for this time, this is Bill Hudson with 2012hoax.org.

Something unusual happened yesterday: I attended to an astronomy talk in my city. Considering that I live in Chile that should be normal, but most of the astronomical excitement is concentrated at Northern Chile and I live at the center.

The young astronomer who gave this talk is called Rodrigo Herrera and he was born in my city, Rancagua. He is studying his doctoral degree in Maryland US, and he took a few days off from his summer holidays to come back at these southern lands. Thanks to the efforts of the local municipality he was able to give a talk about the "Invisible universe" to some students and general public, and of course, some local educational and cultural authorities.

His talk was focused on 3 main areas: The construction of the ALMA Observatory, the study of our universe at different wavelenghts and the scale of the universe, which was very inspiring and impressive for those young students. But, solar flares and the end of the world at 2012 was inevitable. His first warning was a full page cover from the most popular newspaper in Chile mentioning a "solar tsunami" coming toward us, on which he explained the bad use of the phrase and how media tends to scare and exagerate these astronomical and normal phenomenona; being able to calm down the increase of questions that started to arise after watching the newspaper cover.

Then, he started to debunk the arguments about 2012 issues, explaining that most of this industry is moved by money supported by false "scientific facts". Rodrigo has studied some of the old Mayan references, so he was more than prepared to calm down this anxiety. Then, he gave me the microphone to be able to talk to students, about the alliance between my site seti.cl and 2012hoax.org and the free spanish material they will be able to find to increase the "real" scientific knowledge about this area. Besides, I recommended to always search, investigate about everything they have a special curiosity and not just to claim as true the first thing they hear from popular media.

Fortunately, Chile is not under such a paranoia yet, most of the questions at the end of the talk were about multiuniverses, black holes, the twin paradox and an incredible interest in science and physics.

Science is still part of young people minds, which is an inspiring impulse to continue our job.

--
Tiare Rivera Taiba.-
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http://www.seti.cl
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arroway
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The first one was a direct message from one of our site members, who said:

website got press at Morrison's talk at ASP meeting. Put in #ASP2010 in twitter search to see lots of comments from astronomers re 2012.

The hashtag #ASP2010 did indeed reveal several astronomers talking about 2012. I messaged them, and hopefully once they recover from the after-conference party they'll make contact with us.

The second message was a public message from Nancy Atkinson from Universe Today, which said:

@2012hoax David Morrison just promoted your website as the best resource for questions about 2012

David, if you are reading this, I am personally honored and humbled, and I'm sure that all of the contributors to this site feel the same way.