Expert: Philip Stahl - 9/7/2009

Question
QUESTION: iv read so many things on the Mayan Prophecy and it said that the planets will alighn with the galaxy and some other things.  i heard it on the history channel a little while ago telling about it that the world will end... i totally freaked out, is it true? will the world end 12/21/2012??
thanks

ANSWER: Hello,


Aaaaargh! This again!  All over the net, it sometimes seems people are going bonkers worrying about what will happen, whether daylight will "disappear" and all humanity will come to perdition.

My introduction to this bunkum transpired several months ago, when I happened to watch a History Channel program on it. I decided to take the time to view it, in case any questions came up ....say on the astronomy or astrophysics forums.

The main thrust of the program (which went on for two hours) appeared to be that there existed a concordance between certain quatrains penned by Nostradamus, and the Mayans' own prognostications based on their astronomy. At the heart of both was that on the day of note (December 21, 2012) the Sun would dawn and its rays would be reinforced by the "dark rift" of the Milky Way galaxy.

As with astrology, the error made is one of specious symbolic association. Because the Milky Way has a "dark rift" which the Sun will be aligned with on some occasions (about once every 100 million years) then it must follow if the Sun's light is aligned with the dark rift something awful (i.e. "dark" or foreboding)  must happen. Perhaps, as the introduction to the program suggested, there will be no dawn on that day and the end of sunlight as we know it!

Poppycock! This is no different from insisting that because one's "birth sign" (say Leo or Cancer) has Mars in it, then one is facing a violent day (according to many astrologers) - merely because Mars is "blood red" in color. (Actually, Mars is not blood red in color, it is ochre or rust-colored, on account of the large amounts of ferrous oxide).

The Mayan 2012 program was clever, however, in that it really didn't expatiate or concentrate on the "dark rift" alignment and wandered off instead to considering a whole raft of disasters that Nostradamus' quatrains might foretell. Such as, accelerated global warming. Or, some disaster - like an asteroid or comet strike - which heralds a nuclear winter. (In this case, the Sun is indeed blotted out, but by the trillions of tons of dust hurled into the atmosphere following a collision with a 1-2 mile rock from space- which may last for years and result in mass starvation on account of crops dying worldwide)

In a way this is cheating, because the intro led the viewer to believe or accept a direct causal link to the Sun's alignment with the dark rift. But if global warming or an asteroid collision is responsible for our end, then clearly it has nothing to do with any alignments with a dark rift. This is simply an obfuscation. A distraction, a red herring.

Neither is tying in Nostradamus or his quatrains very helpful, since the way they were written left open a multitude of open interpretations. I can think of no better example of a kind of poetic Rorschach blot than any of those quatrains. But dragging in Nostradamus has the beneficial effect of adding a layer of mystery. An exotic sounding name.....add the Mayans....and Voila! Something *must* be going to happen.

The program also mentioned the reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, which indeed could cause a lot of consternation - given our atmosphere would then be exposed to all the Sun's radiation and energetic particles (at the midpoint of reversal when the field ceases to exist or is at a minimum).

But again, this has absolutely nothing to do with any alignment of the Milky Way's dark rift with the Sun. To suggest such a connection is to practice unwarranted extrapolation which is not based on any credible astrophysical or astronomical data.

In effect, the Mayan 2012 alleged catastrophe is in the same class of pseudo-science as the 'Jupiter Effect' which was widely circulated nearly 25 years ago.

As I have said numerous times before on this answer forum, there are genuine threats to humanity out there, among which the two most prominent are a) large asteroid collision, and b) the runaway greenhouse effect. The tragedy is that by focusing on fake catastrophes like the Mayan 'end of daylight', people will fail to attend to the real threats by avoiding taking effective actions now. Say like cutting back on consumption of fossil fuels to abate or delay the onset of the worst greenhouse gas warming.

Or, by writing letters and making calls to congressional representatives to get off their duffs and re-fund the 'Project Space guard' program which had attempted to develop improved methods of monitoring asteroids, and also implement ways to deflect them if they threatened Earth.

Hope this helps!




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: so basically its not true until some major disaster happens sometime way after the 12-21-2012 thing? sry i get freaked out real easy and needed a experts help so at least to calm down...

Answer
Well, there is nothing to be "freaked out" about. It is all super-hype, designed to sell .....whatever: books, movies and what not. (I understand a movie based on this offal is actually supposed to come out later this year).

In 1982-83 people were also "freaked out" about the Jupiter Effect, and feared monstrous tectonic shifts and huge earthquakes and tidal waves. None of it happened. I spent most of my available free time at the Harry Bayley Observatory in Barbados, using an orrery to show that the claimed alignment was not a genuine one at all and that the total tide produced on the Earth (from Jupiter) would be about 1mm.

Eventually, by the 5th public lecture people had calmed down enough so that they could sleep at night. Some years later the author of the book 'Jupiter Effect' retracted all or most of the nonsense.

So no, there is nothing to worry about. You can calm down and sleep the sleep of the just. I know I will, unless my brain turns to ponder global warming, that is!