2012: Hoax and hype debunked by NASA scientist and Mayan elder

Mayan Indian elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun (AP)

With the hype surrounding the upcoming movie release of 2012 and hundreds of books recently flooding the market about the December 12th or 21st, 2012 end-of-the-world as we know it predictions; it’s sobering to find articles by a NASA scientist and an interview with a Mayan elder in the news, clarifying each and every notion, hoax, prediction and tempering the hysteria around this particular date.

In this month’s (October) issue of Skeptic magazine, NASA scientist David Morrison, in his article: 2012 and Counting: A NASA Scientist Answers the Top 20 Questions about 2012, addresses each and every question submitted to the online NASA website about these doomsday predictions.

In answer to the questions about where this modern day prediction started, he gives reference to Zecharia Stichin’s book, The Twelfth Planet, published in 1976 in which Stichin supposedly translated a Sumerian document that identified a 12th planet called Nibiru with aliens called Anunnaki (Nephilum in Genesis), that orbits the inner solar system every 3600 years in an orbit with a semi-major axis of 235 Astronomical Units.

In 2006, when the Sumerian Lexicon was released, these Sumerian documents could be translated by anyone and Stichin’s theories were invalidated. The Sumerians only knew of five planets at the time.
Stichin’s predictions were further hyped up by a self-proclaimed psychic Nancy Lieder who channeled that this planet would enter our solar system in May 2003, which of course, it didn’t and so delayed the event randomly to 2012.

But questions surrounding Nibiru or Planet X still bombard the NASA website and Mr. Morrison mentions the NASA Infrared Astronomy Satellite’s findings in 1983, all the unidentified objects were recognized as distant galaxies or “infrared cirrus.” (See Planet X article on badastronomy.com)

In answer to possible government cover-ups about the existence of this planet, he replies:

Even if it wanted to, the government could not keep Nibiru a secret. If Nibiru were real, it would be tracked by thousands of astronomers, amateurs as well as professionals. These astronomers are spread all over the world. I know the astronomy community, and these scientists would not keep a secret, even if ordered to. You don’t hide a planet on its way into the inner solar system.”

We could probably add to Morrison’s list, the following books mentioned by David Stuart in Maya Decipherment:

“Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth Age of Consciousness (1975), an odd pastiche of Aztec and Maya philosophies wherein he proposed that the “end” of the calendar would somehow involve a transformation of world spiritual awareness and Jose Arguelles in his insanely misguided but influential book The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology (1987).

As far as polar shifts and the Earth’s crust doing a 180 rotation around the core go:
Morrison mentioned the every 400,000 years there may be a magnetic reversal but this has nothing to with the earth doing a flip flop. According to research on lava flows:

“The Earth's magnetic field reverses at intervals, ranging from tens of thousands to many millions of years, with an average interval of approximately 250,000 years. The last such event, called the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, is theorized to have occurred some 780,000 years ago.There is no clear theory as to how the geomagnetic reversals might have occurred. Some scientists have produced models for the core of the Earth wherein the magnetic field is only quasi-stable and the poles can spontaneously migrate from one orientation to the other over the course of a few hundred to a few thousand years. Other scientists propose that the geodynamo first turns itself off, either spontaneously or through some external action like a comet impact, and then restarts itself with the magnetic "North" pole pointing either North or South.”

The doomsday theory based on the alignment of planets?

Well, the Earth and Sun align with the center of the Milky Way every December and the Black hole mentioned in the center of the galaxy is over 30,000 light years away, a bit too far to have any effect on the alignment.

And last but not least a meteor impact?

Well, Mr. Morrison says you can check the NASA website everyday to see if any large asteroids are heading our way. For the time being there aren’t any. (See NASA Near Earth Object Program)

If a NASA scientist isn’t enough to calm any possible fear, the Mayan elder, Apolinario Chile Pixtun mentioned recently in an Associated Press article by Mark Stevensen that:

 “He is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012.”

"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily; they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."

Mark Van Stone of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies says:
"First, let me affirm that the year 2012 does hold particular significance in Mayan scholarship. Those of us who study the ancient and modern Maya — anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, linguists, historians, amateurs, collectors — have been anticipating the end of the Maya Great Cycle for some time. We write it 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ajaw 3 K'ank'in. We have known for half a century that this date probably correlates to December 21 (or December 23) in the year 2012 in the Gregorian calendar."

So, the Long Count will reset to zero-zero-zero-zero-zero on December 21, 2012. Astrologer, Bob Makransky mentions: “It’s just the end of a cycle, a “calendar change” the equivalent of Y2K – with no more spiritual significance than the change of millennium had for us.”

Resources:

NASA Astrobiology Website

David Morrison NASA Astrobiologist

Ask an Astrobiologist Website

Maya Decipherment

Skeptic Magazine

AP article: 2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist

It's Not the End of the World: What the Ancient Maya Tell Us About 2012  Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies Mark Van Stone

Photo credit: In this photo taken Oct. 3, 2009, Guatemalan Mayan Indian elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun gestures as he pays his respects at an altar within the Iximche ceremonial site in Tecpan, Guatemala. Archaeologists, astronomers and modern-day Mayas shrug off the popular frenzy over the date of 2012, predicting it will bring nothing more than a meteor shower of new-age "consciousness," pseudo-science and alarmist television specials. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

See also: Now that the New Age Movement is over, what's next?