The countdown begins today and the end of the world is exactly one year away.
That’s right, we are now exactly one year away from December 21, 2012, the date dubbed doomsday. December 21, 2012 marks the end of an era according to Mayan Long Count calendar. To many, including major film producers, it has been interpreted to mark the end of humanity too.
Many doubt the end of the world will really happen, like many other doomsday predictions including the most recent by Harold Camping. Camping predicted the world would end this past May and again in October. He also predicted the world would end in the 1990s.
Doomsayers have predicted a slew of cataclysmic events they say will go down in December including a killer solar flare and geomagnetic reversal as well as massive earthquakes and tsunamis. Movie producers have also hopped on the bandwagon, cashing in on doomsday with movies like “2012” and “Day After Tomorrow.”
But on a serious note, many others who didn’t believe the previous doomsday predictions have become believers of December 21, 2012.
So, what makes the 2012 prediction different? According to ABC, the Mayan civilizations had a talent for astronomy and created what has been called the most accurate calendar in the world that begins in 3,114 B.C.
ABC also reported that an ancient stone tablet was discovered in the 1960s in Tortuguero, Mexico, that describes the return of a Mayan god at the end of the 13th period, which ends December 21, 2012.
Still, others say the end of the world isn’t going to happen for a number of reasons.
One good reason why the world won’t end is that the prediction may have been misinterpreted. The Mayans never predicted the end of the world and some archeologists argue that the date actually marks an end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar not the apocalypse.
And as we previously reported, this April, the Mayas released a letter saying something similar.
“Contrary to popular belief, the living elders of the Maya do not agree that December 21, 2012 is the end of their calendar. A new “Sun” represents the beginning of a new Long Count cycle in the calendar system of approximately 5,200 years.” the letter reads.
Click to read more about the letter
Another reason, according to a recent study by an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara, the date may also be inaccurate and at least 60 days off, reported Discovery.
