I may be too busy to post tomorrow (currently enjoying a hotel room and a slow start to the morning!), so I thought I would post on this today. With tomorrow’s being November 21, that means we’ll be only one month away from the Great Non-Maya Non-pocalpyse.
Saw a nice admission in the news recently in a sadly pathetic story about town in France that is being forced to prevent people and reporters from flooding it as December 21 approaches because–no kidding–people believe that the mountain on which it sits contains a UFO that will rescue them from the approaching Non-Maya Non-Event of Non-Doom. As the article says, “One online rumor holds that on this day of destruction, Pic de Bugarach [the mountain] will open up to reveal an alien spacecraft, which will save believers nearby. That has local officials worried.” Later, the article points out that they are “worried” about being overrun by “visionaries” and reporters, not little green men.
Feel free to read the article yourself at LiveScience.com: “Mayan Doomsday ‘Safe ‘Zone’ Shut Down.” The admission to which I refer is earlier in the article:
The calendar change would not have been seen as the end of the world by the ancient Maya, scholars agree. But in New Age and other online subcultures, believers have come to expect something major on that day, with predictions ranging from a new dawn of peace and harmony to an explosive doomsday.
“Scholars agree.” Indeed. As I’ve pointed out here over and over, nothing in the Maya writings (and they have possessed an elaborate writing system for many centuries, well before the Spaniards arrived with “Christianity”) nor their many, many carvings indicates that they saw December 21, 2012 in the same way that 2012-ologists do, and credible researchers today agree on this. If anything, Mayan writings say the opposite. And none of the later corrupted writings (such as the Chilam Balam) tie any of their often misunderstood “apocalyptic-style” writings to 2012 or the end of the current calendar cycle, either–again, as scholars continually try to assert to a world of New Agers and Maya-hobbyists who refuse to face facts.
Now, might something actually happen in December of 2012? We certainly are in increasingly cataclysmic times, and, yes, “something” can always happen. In fact, I can predict that no matter what happens or doesn’t happen, certain “prophets” will point to one thing or another to claim they were right: “See, I said (something sort of like) that would (possibly) happen!” or “Don’t you feel the wave of intergalactic peace and love washing over all of us?” [In the first case, we need to coin a word for such folks, as I feel bad abusing “prophet.” Maybe “probphet”? In the second case, I suspect that funny-smelling cigarettes will be passed around while such sentiments are discussed.] But it won’t be because the Maya predicted it.
If you want to know what real scholars say about the 2012 hoopla, poke around the blog here (for instance, this post). However, if you want to know what real prophecy says about the years just ahead of us, poke around here: Tomorrow’s World.
Thoughts En Route 
The funny smelling cigarettes will make them think a helicopter is the UFO, but it will fly away without rescuing them. Oh no!
Something I just received in an occasional newsletter from Simulation Curriculum, the Canadian company that makes the Starry Night series of astronomy simulation programs:
I Was Wrong!
For the past three years, whenever I’ve been asked by members of the public whether anything was going to happen on December 21 2012, I’ve been answering “Nothing of astronomical interest, except for the winter solstice, which happens every year on that date.”
Well, thanks to the lead article by Jay M. Pasachoff in the new Observer’s Handbook 2013 of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, I have learned that another event will happen on this date, a transit of Venus across the face of the Sun.
Wait, you say, that happened on June 5 and 6, and we were told it wouldn’t happen again until 2117. That’s true, if you’re viewing from Earth.
The transit of Venus on December 21 will be visible from the planet Saturn. And, of course, Starry Night isn’t limited to views from only one planet, and can easily take us to Saturn to view the transit.
Point at Saturn, left-click or control-click on Saturn, and choose Go There from the contextual menu. Set the date to December 21 2012 in the latter half of the day Universal Time, and look at the Sun. You’ll have to magnify quite a bit, because Venus is quite small seen from Saturn, but there it is.
Geoff Gaherty
Mr. Smith: NASA apparently recorded this video in advance for Dec. 22, 2012. LOL 😀 It gives a very clean, clear explanation of several relevant things.