So, as Dr. Anthony Aveni (http://anthonyfaveni.com) says, "unless you have been living under a rock on another planet" you are aware that the Maya Long Count is set to turn over tomorrow. 

Along with that turning of the odometer there have been many predictions, not all suggest doomsday by the way. Nearly all of the prophecies and predictions come from non-Maya westerners who really have absolutely no connection to the Maya.

Today, I am going to debunk the bullshit. First, lets talk about the doomsday people, shall we?

Most of the the doomsday scenarios can be found in one book: Apacolypse 2012. Written by a man named Lawrence Joseph. He proclaims to provide the hard scientific evidence for the calamities portrayed in the movie 2012. Pretty heavy stuff, no? Well, all his "science" turns out to be complete bullshit, I'll address them one at a time.

1) There will be a planetary alignment on 21 December 2012 and the opposing gravitational forces of Jupiter and Saturn will pull the Earth apart. BULLSHIT, Jupiter and Saturn are so far away that they have nearly immeasurable gravitational effects on us. Venus, which is much closer has enough effect to cause 1/500 of an inch of tide water (compare that to the Sun 1ft and the moon 2ft). Sorry, nothing to see here.

2) The magnetic poles are going to reverse causing major disruptions. Well, it is true that in the past the magnetic poles have reversed, the last time was some 700k years ago. Unfortunately for Lawrence Joseph, who did not do his homework, geologists tell us that this is a very long process that does not happen in 1 day--more like 3000 years. So, don't expect any calamities.

3) The sun's activity will be so violent we'll experience hell on earth! OK, the sun goes through 11-year cycles of peaks and valleys of sun spot activity. Yes, 2012 was a maximum in the cycle, but it was a much lower maximum than we have experienced in the 50s or 60s, yet the planet survived those. Also, if you go to NASA's website right now, you will see that we have moved passed the maximum and the sun is not very active right now.

4) A planet is going to crash into us. This is the most absurd of the speculations. Such a planet would have been visible to the naked eye months ago. I would think it would be visible in the daytime on the eve of it crashing into us. No, NASA and every single amateur with a telescope have not been lying to us to cover it up, there is no planet Niburu.

OK, that pretty much takes care of the doomsday scenarios, what about the new age prophets who talk about harmonic convergence and galactic alignments. Well, that's pretty much bullshit too.

These ideas have been promoted by Jose Arguelles and his pupil John Major Jenkins, and professor John Hoopes suggests it came from LSD induced philosophizing. 

The premise is that the Galactic plane ( y = 0 on the axis of our spiral galaxy) will intersect with the Ecliptic (the apparent path the sun follows in the sky, cause by our revolution around it). In any case, once these things are perfectly aligned (something that supposedly happens every 26,000 years) then a beam will be sent to us from the center of the galaxy and we are all going to transform into something better. Sorry to let you down again, but although the sun will actually appear to set in the center of the Milky Way, the actual alignment was more like 21 December 1998. Anyone who knows anything about the ancient Maya astronomers knows they would be insulted being associated with such a faulty alignment. 

So, what do the ancient and modern Maya people tell us? Stay tuned for the next post.