Remember 2012? Some of you will and some of you won’t. But 8 years ago the media was filled with tall tales that the world could be about to end. The reason being that a Mayan calendar predicted the end of times in the year 2012, December 21st, 2012 to be exact. There was even a Hollywood movie based on the prediction. Thankfully, as you may have realised, the world did not come to an end and things continued as they always had.
Some scholars/conspiracy theorists are now though suggesting that the calendar was interpreted wrongly, and that the year 2012 was a misreading by scientists. Instead the real end of the world as predicted by the Mayan calendar is to take place in 2020, this weekend to be precise!
Scientist Paolo Tagaloguin wrote on Twitter, outlining why the 2012 date was wrong and why the 2020 date is correct:
"Following the Julian Calendar, we are technically in 2012. The number of days lost in a year due to the shift into Gregorian Calendar is 11 days. For 268 years using the Gregorian Calendar (1752-2020) times 11 days = 2,948 days. 2,948 days / 365 days (per year) = 8 years."
In a since deleted tweet, scientist Paolo Tagaloguin reportedly said: “Following the Julian Calendar, we are technically in 2012.
— JL Bookings (@jlbookings) June 13, 2020
“The number of days lost in a year due to the shift into Gregorian Calendar is 11 days.
By bizarre coincidence this weekend, June 21st, is also the time at which much of the world will experience a ‘ring of fire’ eclipse. Spooky stuff!
Now while 2020 has certainly been one of the craziest years we have ever experienced, with much of us being locked down due to a global pandemic, bushfires raging across Australia, social unrest, and the ever increasing fall-out from climate change, other scientists have been quick to dismiss the new ‘calculations’ as bunkum.
NASA has previously debunked Mayan conspiracy theories, calming a lot of nerves. They even released an official statement stating:
"The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth … This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 – hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012."
NASA went on to say that all such theories are entirely unsubstantiated on scientific grounds:
"For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012."
NASA were certainly correct in 2012 and we are certain they are correct now. With all the problems of the world maybe it is time we start focusing more on what we can fix here and now instead of wasting our time worrying about supernatural predictions.
Sleep easy!
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