2012hoax

Hi Owina;

The idea that the calendar 'ends' in 2012 is a modern misconception. The Maya did not 'end' their calender in 2012 any more than our calendar 'ended' on 12/31/1999.

Another bit that I just ran across recently: The "Mayan" calendar may not be "Mayan" at all. The Maya probably inherited the calendar from a previous culture called the Olmecs. So all of this stuff about how important such and such a date was to the Maya could be all completely bogus.

Just as the owners of this website, I too have done some research on this topic and would like to share my findings.
It's important that we all get together and expose this theory as the Hoax it is..

The date 2012 seems to be based upon false Western interpretations of the Mayan calendar starting with José Arguelles, the man who first introduced the date December 21, 2012 into mass consciousness with his book “The Mayan Factor” published back in the 1987’s. Jose Argüelles claimed he had intergalactic experiences which led him to research the Mayan calendar. He claims that he is “the chosen one” that would sway the world into world peace before the year 1995 by convincing civilization to go back to using a cosmic calendar with a 28 day cycle, as the Mayan’s used centuries ago. To Argüelles, "the irregular 12-month [Gregorian] calendar and artificial, mechanized 60-minute hour" is a construct that artificially regulates human affairs, and is out-of-step with the natural "synchronic order". He proposes the universal abandonment of the Gregorian calendar and its replacement with his own Argüelles' thirteen-moon calendar, in order to "get the human race back on course" by the adoption of "his” calendar of perfect harmony so the human race could straighten its mind out again.

Argüelles' also claims that he believes that our higher powers are of Alien descent and the Mayan people were beamed here from another galaxy and that the rulers of the galaxy have made it clear to him that in order for our planet to survive, he must convince civilization to reconnect to the cosmos and achieve perfect harmony.( sounds a lot like a Movie I just watched. with Will Smith)

After he pubished his book in 1987, several others jumped on the band wagon and began to use this outrageous theory to benefit their own selfish agendas. Argüelles fabricated theory has led an extreme new age movement that has backfired with each organization putting their agenda to the forefront. José Arguelles has even gone as far as bringing his 28 day calendar world peace theory to the UN and then tried to sue the UN when they declined his proposal whereupon he declared the UN an enemy of the biosphere.
I believe that José Arguelles is in part of the appeal of these earth religions to set a worldwide panic on Earth in order to save ourselves from self destruction. It’s fact that he was instrumental in achieving World Earth Day 30 years ago. I am all for reconnecting to earth and taking the necessary steps to stop self-destruction as we see it, but I am appalled at his attempt to throw the world into such a panic that has brought out every nutcase to claim the end of the world in 2012. Does Jose Argüelles' not realize that such a fabricated story could very well lead to a massive catastrophic event, like pushing North Korea into sending their nuclear bomb? Fabrications as such can merely be the breaking point to cause an extremist leader like that of North Korea to use 2012 as the deadline to launch.

The Mayan Calendar is just that, a Calendar or should I say a series of calendars. The Maya had several respective calendars. One of these was a ritual calendar, known as the Tzolkin, composed of 260 days. It contained 13 "months" of 20 days each, the months being named after 13 gods while the twenty days were numbered from 0 to 19. Theory is that this calendar is based on the crops. From planting to harvest is approximately 260 days. The second calendar was a 365-day civil calendar called the Haab. This calendar consisted of 18 months, named after religious events, each with 20 days (again numbered 0 to 19) and a short "month" of only 5 days that was called the Wayeb. The Wayeb was considered an unlucky period and Landa wrote in his classic text that the Maya did not wash, comb their hair or do any hard work during these five days.( sounds like depression to me) . Anyone born during these days would have bad luck and remain poor and unhappy all their lives

Because the two calendars were based on 260 days and 365 days respectively, the whole cycle would repeat itself every 52 Haab' years exactly. This period was known as a Calendar Round. The end of the Calendar Round was a period of unrest and bad luck among the Maya, as they waited in expectation to see if the gods would grant them another cycle of 52 years. A 584-day Venus cycle was also maintained, which tracked the heliacal risings of Venus as the morning and evening stars. Many events in this cycle were seen as being astrologically inauspicious and baleful, and occasionally warfare was astrologically timed to coincide with stages in this cycle. It is believed that Maya rulers planned for wars to begin when Venus rose.

The Mayan people were established as great agricultural civilization and tied many of their weather predictions to account on solar activity which was pertinent to their survival. Many of their details surrounding the calendar were significant to astronomy as it is today. Just like the present day farmers Almanacs, the Mayan Calendar recorded weather, how much rain had fallen etc, etc. and related each years’ events to the positioning of the solar system

There is no doubt that the Maya people were great astronomers and kept track of the solar and lunar years, eclipses and the cycles of visible planets, but It’s no different from today as we have thousands of astronomers watching and recording the solar system, and can predict where each planet will be 20,000 years from now with technology that extends beyond the naked eye. There is no recorded evidence that the Mayan’s predicted the end of the world. Nor do the Mayan people teach this. The convergence I see here is the apocalyptic expectations, if you will, along with the fact that the environment is in the front of many people's minds these days is in part of the appeal of these earth religions to set a panic that we need to reconnect with the Earth in order to save ourselves.

Also I think that it is important to mention that many of the Mayan’s writings were destroyed and only three books remain in existence today. When the Spaniards came across the Mayans, they considered them to have pagan practices associated with the devil. Because of that, they began to destroy most of the Mayan writings of their civilization most notably under the direction of Bishop Diego de Landa. One Catholic, however, intervened and prevented the remaining writings from being destroyed which included the Mayan Calendar. What their records actually were intended to explain is unknown and has been subject to a lot of debate.

According to many scholars, including the astronomer Philip Plait, they clearly state that the Mayan calendar does not end in 2012 at all, that it is like the odometer on your car, as each section of the odometer reaches 9 and then clicks over to 0, the next number to it starts a new cycle, so that when all the numbers again reach 0 all the way across the odometer - the last number will change from 1 to 2 and the new cycle starts all over again. This roll over is exactly what put the world in panic in 1999 when it was thought that the world would go into chaos because we were not prepared to handle the roll over to 2000. (well as you well know that did not happen) but a great many cashed in on the panic)

Sandra Noble, executive director of the Mesoamerican research organization FAMSI, stated in a recent article, that the portrayal of December 2012 as a doomsday or cosmic-shift event to be "a complete fabrication. I tend to agree with her as there is no evidence to support this theory anywhere. Since Jose Argüelles' book, which was a best seller, the subject has attracted doomsayers, end-of-the-world armegeddonists, occultists, and just plain misinformed kooks. Many of these websites exist not to give credible and real information but to make money as most websites do by attracting sponsors.
Everyone now has their own interpretation of the 2012 date and University of Florida anthropologist Susan Gillespie says “the 2012 phenomenon comes from media and from other people making use of the Maya past to fulfill agendas that are really their own." The fanatics have really had a hay day with this one, whether it is the ones that say 2012 will be the day that Christ returns to earth or the ones that say it will be the day the world ends, they all are taking full advantage of a seed that was planted by José Arguelles who claims to be an Extraterrestrial Prophet trying to bring world peace and harmony to earth with a new calendar.

Experts all agree that the information Jose Argüelles has published about the Mayan Calendar is incorrect. There is wide criticism with Jose as his book is not relative to what the Mayans themselves have ever publicly taught throughout history. Jose Argüelles was instrumental in the New Age Movement and is very Pro Alien. His beliefs about the cosmic calendar are that all our world troubles are all associated with the fact that we live by a more modern mechanical time calendar. This theory alone is so far from the truth, as evidence clearly states that the Mayan people were not in perfect harmony using their so called cosmic calendar. The Mayans suffered the same trial and tribulations as we suffer today. They were involved with warfare, disease, economic troubles. They were conquered by the Spanish. They suffered famine, droughts, and eventually ceased to carry on as a civilization.
Regarding internet hype, my best advice is to avoid the internet when researching 2012.There are too many websites that lead people into false acceptance. I do however recommend you watch some of Jose Argüelles you tube videos. You will then see for yourself what a nut case he is.

Argüelles is out to sell books, and has succeeded to pick a topic that attracted millions of readers. Others have seen his success in writing a fabricated story book and now want to cash in on the profits to be made. The internet is now the number one place to make money and if you have a website that attracts millions of readers you got yourself a cash cow.

Note; (The bible warns of false prophets claiming they have been chosen to bring world peace) they call these people the antichrist.

So rest assure that nothing is going to happen on December 21 2012, unless you want to book a huge Event and make some money…get drunk and wake up on December 23 with a huge hangover.

It is a phycological fact that when it comes to death or the world ending people will find anyway to debunk the theory. There is scientific fact that a solar storm is going to hit in 2012. Im not saying i believe it totally but you have to be open to the theory. Your mind cant comprehend stuff like this happening to the world. All the earthquakes that have been happening is sign chalk it up to natural phenomena if you want but keep in mind that the earth has been destroyed 5 times. Im actually 50/50 on the matter but i listen to both sides of the theory. But in my opinion i hope you guys are right with it being a hoax if not were all in trouble

I really wish the initial post in this thread had never been made, since it's counterproductive to the purpose of this website.

As I understand them, that purpose, and this website's methods, can be summarized as follows:

Why does this website exist?
Because there are people who are badly frightened over 2012.

Why are they frightened?
Because they believe some rumor(s) they've heard about 2012.

Why do they believe rumors about 2012?
In most cases, because those rumors are superficially plausible, at least to the frightened person.

How do we allay that person's fears?
By showing that we care about him or her at least as much as the fear-mongers do. One way we do this is by taking the person's fears seriously, and giving real answers that refute the rumors.

I think everyone will see where I'm heading. If the 2012 victim is to leave this site reassured, he or she has to be convinced that we're serious people who really want to know the truth. The initial post is ruinous to that end, not only because it's flippant, but because the average victim of 2012 phobia knows that that post is demonstrably false: the Maya calendar was far from "stupid", and the ancient Maya were not lazy.

Seeing a post like that, and comparing it to the blandishments of the touchy-feely woo-woo gurus, which way is the frightened person likely to jump?

On a somewhat related subject, the article described in the following link indicates that we should be a little cautious about repeating the conventional explanation for the "collapse" of the Maya: that they over-exploited their environment, etc.

http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=2144

I'm not competent to judge the article, but one of the authors sent me some of the peer-reviewers' comments, which were highly polarized. Interestingly, one of the reviewers detected serious inaccuracies in the article, and appeared to disbelieve the authors' thesis, but still recommended that it be published (after correction of the inaccuracies, of course). That reviewer recommended publication because the article had a long-overdue review of paleopollen evidence for the "collapse", and because the scientific community needed to hear the article's thesis that that evidence had been systematically misinterpreted for decades.

The article ignited a firestorm of controversy even before publication, which was held up for about two years.

Ha, this is excatly what I told my 10 year old daughter when she came home from school asking if the world would end in 2012!, I told her the basic theory about the mayan callender and then suggested that they got bored counting all those numbers.

That is about the most unintelligent statement I've seen on here, and it happens to be the first one I saw.

Hello Owina,
The Mayas never said the world was going to end it's just the end of a cycle and to celebrate they did a big party :) then another cycle begins.If you hear somebody saying about Mayan prophecies, big bang ends, the return of a god..etc. it's all not true just lies.

Hi Brant!

On my blog I actually offer to assist with any prosecution or civil action.

I agree regarding the open letter. Once we have a few more pages done there will be an 'open letter' posted that people can sign up to have their name placed on the list of signers.

I remember vividly the radio program of Orson Welles, "War of the World". Everyone was calling in the station to see if it was true. Of course, not. The History Channel is NOT accountable for what parents let their children view. There is nothing obscene in the program, but with children's vivid imaginations could easily be scared. There is no reason for a lawsuit.

I still do not understand why History Channel, a respectable scientific channel, air those documentaries about 2012. What is behind those documentary? Money? What they should say after December 21st, 2012? "Oh, sorry, a mistake" or "Gotcha! I like to scare kids!"
But there is something: they interview scientists (i still do not watched any 2012 documentary from HC, but i cannot imagine a documentary without any scientist talking). But i already watched a Natgeo documentary that was called "2012: Countdown to Armageddon". You can see the documentary page here:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/2012-countdown-to-armageddon-4438

Adam Maloof appears in the doc.
The Natgeo wrote in the above page:

"Adam Maloof has a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Earth and Planetary Sciences and published his thesis in 2004 on "Three non-uniformitarian changes that shaped the Neoproterozoic Earth." He currently is an assistant professor of Geosciences at Princeton University. He has combined field based research with a diversity of geophysical and geochemical techniques to develop a true polar wander ("pole shift") theory for simultaneous climate, sea level, ocean-chemical and magnetic changes circa 800 million years ago.

In one study, Maloof looked at ancient sediments found in the Norwegian arctic and analyzed their magnetization. This experiment suggested that Earth may have lost its balance 800 million years ago and undergone true polar wander at a rapid rate of up to 5000 km per million year. Since 2006, Maloof has embarked on a long-term field project to test the true polar wander hypothesis with magnetic studies of rocks of identical age from elsewhere in the world (Australia).

Maloof’s research focuses on the relationship between ancient life, climate, and geography. His studies look at physical evidence left by winds, waves, currents, bio-evolution, ocean chemistry, and geomagnetism. Maloof uses this suite of observations to create a maps of Earth’s ancient landscape and climate. Maloof’s studies of Earth are even compared with Mars, a planet that also may have undergone large-scale true polar wander in its ancient past. In one sentence, Maloof works to shed light on the origin of life and the evolution of Earth’s climate."

He has a PhD. in HARVARD in Earth and planetary sciences.
Guys, what do you think?

Well, that certainly was a stirring debate.

Roel;

As one of the authors of this site, I'm surprised that you found it to be lacking in facts. We have worked very hard on debunking various doomsday claims by finding the facts and discussing them in a rational way. Perhaps you could indicate which page you felt to be lacking in facts?

As you know, it is easy to make a claim devoid of any factual basis, but it is much harder to make a case that the stated claim is false. We (the authors of this site) have tried to present the case that the doomsday claims are without any scientific support.

As far as your other points, I'm a bit confused. You appear to be saying that there is a lot of fear and ignorance on various topics, and therefore… what? We should not counter it in this specific topic because it exists in others? That we should not be concerned about the deplorable state of education that does not teach critical thinking skills? That because people get killed every day (in wars, famine, natural disasters) that we should ignore this and concentrate on those?

The argument that the 7 year old boy became depressed after watching one of the hyperbolic shows on the History channel is presented on the main page to make the argument that these shows are in fact causing people, mostly children, to have irrational fears of this make-believe doomsday. In fact, if you follow the comments back you will see that the quote arose out of a 'thank you' posted to this site by his mother, who was able to use the arguments presented here to reassure her son. So, what 'basics' did the mom fail? I did not get the impression that she allowed him to watch the show from her comment but rather that he saw it at one point (perhaps when he was watching something else, or perhaps at a friend's house) and came to her with his concerns. I do not think that your critique of her is warranted.

As far as your final point; Yes, people die over many more ridiculous things than the 2012 hoax. However, I am not willing to allow this nonsense to continue to go unchallenged. I am in a position to do something about the rumors of 2012. I am not in a position to do much about the civil war in Somalia, or the starving populace of North Korea.

Your argument appears to be equivalent to saying that because a larger war is being waged in one part of the world, that we should ignore the smaller ones. That does not make sense to me.

As someone who has contributed to this site in a very small way, Roel Ppelwijk is free to take my comments with a grain of salt. He claims the site is based on opinion, not fact. I beg to disagree.

The major source for the 2012 myth is the assertion that the Mayans (or other Mesoamerican civilisation) predicted something on a global scale for the "end" of their current long count, which is due in late December 2012, probably on the solstice. Yet scholars whose expertise lies in the study of these civilisations categorically deny that there is such a prediction. That is a fact.

Another source is Ms. Nancy Lieder, a woman with next to no scientific training who claims to have been abducted by friendly extraterrestrial aliens sometime in the mid-1990s, when there was a series of such claims. It is a fact that she made such claims. While it is not possible to disprove such claims, they are improbable for thorougly understood physical reasons. She also claims to have been "implanted" with genetic material that allowed the aliens to communicate with her by a process we might call telepathy. Telepathy is another improbability. Simple probability theory shows that the combination of two improbable circumstances is even more improbable than either. So far, that is opinion. Now for some facts. She claimed that the friendly aliens warned her that the Earth would be damaged by a planet she called "X". This was to happen in mid-2003, nine years and six months before the supposed appearance of the same planet in 2012. Since the planet signally failed to appear, her prediction has been shown to be wrong by history. Postponing the prediction to 2012 is unlikely to make it correct.

As of September 2009 the planet should have been visible for several months to astronomers, professional and amateur around the world and in one or other hemisphere. It is not visible.

Another source are the assertions of the existence of a planet known as Nibiru which visits the inner solar system every 3600 years. These assertions were made by Mr. Z. Sitchin who it appears was an economist. Mr. Sitchin combined some Biblical passages with Sumerian creation legends and began to assert that this planet was inhabited by beings known as Annunaki or Nepthilim. At some time in the past, these beings crossed over to the Earth and created humans from the great apes as slaves. That assertion is not supported by the fossil record which indicates the gradual development of modern humans from ape-like ancestors over more than a million years and going through several known stages.

Mr. Sitchin supports his assertions with special readings of cuneiform tablets. These readings are universally condemned as wrong by scholars of the Sumerian culture. I should point out that some cuneiform tablets have been read since the 19th century, so the art of reading them is not new and there is a large archive of translations that existed independent of, and prior to Mr. Sitchin's readings. He also refers in particular to one clay plaque, probably a cylinder seal impression which he claims shows the Sun with planets orbiting it. This has been claimed as an "acccurate" model of the solar system. Since all the supposed planets are about the same distance from the supposed "Sun", then it is not "accurate". Further, the generally accepted authorities insist that the central mark claimed by Mr. Sitchin to represent our Sun is different from all other known representations of the Sun in such Sumerian art and is the conventional Sumerian mark for a star. Now it is possible that Mr. Sitchin is correct, and all the other scholars are wrong. It's a fine romantic notion that a single amateur can be right when dozens of experienced professionals are wrong. But like most romantic notions, it is rarely true.

In addition, the idea of an inhabited planet which is only in the inner solar system every 3600 years is highly improbable. If the planet followed the laws of planetary motion known since Kepler's time, it's orbit must be fantastically elongated and it would spend most of it's time well beyond the orbit of Pluto in the dark and cold of interstellar space. Any seas would freeze, most of any atmosphere would as well. Those are facts. The development of a space faring civilisation under such trying conditions is improbable. The development of any life at all seems highly unlikely. That is opinion based on historical and chemical facts.

Secondly, if the orbit of such a planet was in or near the plane of the ecliptic, interactions with the gas giants in our system would have either regularised it's orbit or ejected it from the solar system millions of years ago. That is a fact. It is of course possible that the orbit of such a planet is at a large angle to the ecliptic. That would minimise interactions with the known planets, but not eliminate them and regularisation or ejection still might have happened.

If Nibiru was due in 2012, then like planet X it should have been readily visible for several months. It is not visible. That is fact.

Finally Mr. Sitchin is on record as claiming that the next visit from Nibiru is not due until after 2085. Another fact.

Now if the concern was being felt by just one or two seven year old children, then all this is probably a waste of time. But it is not. There are about 30,000 questions on Yahoo! Answers about these fraudulent predictions. Many of them from internal evidence such as spelling and grammar, or simple statement come from children of 11 to 15. In most cases none of these children have any scientific education or certainly not enough scientific education to reject even the most obvious nonsense in thse predictions. They don't know that astrology is nonsense. The have no idea of orbital mechanics. Physics and chemistry remain closed books to them. The don't know there is a difference between rational science and irrational or money grubbing charlatanry. Yet hundreds of other web sites and YouTube clips tell them that it is all true. The potential for suicide or abandonment of education through despair is right there. Someone should take some kind of stand and the authors of this site have done so.

I am sorry, but people die over more ridiculous things than 2012, let's fix those first.

By all means, do fix the violence in the Middle East. If you can pull it off, you have my enthusiastic support.

GC2009;

We are not using only one child to indicate that this needs to be debunked. I suggest you read the opening page again. The issue is much larger than you imagine.

I also suggest you visit Astrogeek's blog entry on this to see how he became involved, or simply go to the Yahoo! Answers Astronomy & Space section and see the number of questions about 2012 being posted there. You can also read David Morrison's entry on the NASA website about the 2012 questions and answers, or his article from May 2008 in Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

If you still think that this is not a "real" problem, fine. Have a nice day.

Your insistence that we 'focus on the real problems' is (as a friend points out) a false dichotomy. Denying that the 2012 doomsday rumors are a problem simply because there are other, perhaps bigger problems says that 'either this problem or that problem' should be addressed, instead of 'both problems'.

The 2012 doomsday rumors may not seem like a real problem to you, but based on the comments on Astrogeek's blog and on the comments here, it seems to be a real problem to many other people. The example of the 7-year old arose from a mother who was thanking the authors of this site for providing the information she needed in order to reassure her child! Yet you choose to criticize. What, exactly, are you criticizing? The 7-year old seeing the program? The mother using information on this site to reassure her child? The fact that this site exists at all?

You guys really did your research into this. I also got really sick of these twisted people like Sony Pictures (or Columbia, whichever it was) specifically advertise the world will end in 2012. I know it was a fake advertisement now, but it really made me question the theory to be true. These people are sick to make these advertisements just for money and not tell the whole truth like a rating symbol or something. I got 2 words for you sellers advertising crap about nothing: **** YOU!!!

Joanne, you are welcome!

what are you saying??? the last thing buging me about 2012 is a pole shift, are you saying a pole shift will occur?