Mayan apocalypse countdown: 1 month 'til doom
By Stephanie Pappas
Published November 21, 2012


Are you ready for the end? Or perhaps a new beginning?

Either way, buckle up, because today marks the one-month countdown until the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse, set for Dec. 21. That date corresponds to the end of the 13th b'ak'tun, or 144,000-day cycle, on the Maya Long Count calendar, marking a full cycle of creation, according to the ancient Maya.

Over 3,000 books and countless websites claim that the Maya predicted the Earth will be destroyed on December 21, 2012 -- the coming Winter Solstice.

This milestone has triggered both fear and excitement in some subcultures, particularly online. Some believers see the day as a true doomsday, when the Earth will be destroyed in a planetary collision or other major disaster. Others see it as a day marking a new dawn of peace and unity.

All of this excitement stems from two ancient texts found in Central America and dating back to the heydays of the Mayan Empire. One calendar inscription was found on a monument made around A.D. 669 in Tortuguero, Mexico, and refers to the coming of a god associated with cycle changes on the Dec. 21 date. (Of course, since December is an invention of western calendars, they didn't use quite those terms.)

A second inscription, unearthed this year in Guatemala, refers to a struggling king who called himself the "13 k'atun lord," an effort to tie himself to the 13th b'ak'tun of Dec. 21, 2012. This was likely a public relations move designed to shore up support after the king suffered a crippling defeat in battle a few years before.

In neither text were apocalyptic predictions made. But when westerners caught wind of the Mayan calendar, they mixed in their own end-of-the-world mythology, much of it stemming from Christianity, and created a new legend, according to University of Kansas Maya scholar John Hoopes.

Apocalypse predictions are a fairly frequent occurrence in western civilization. Most recently, radio preacher Harold Camping gained notoriety after predicting Judgment Day on May 21, 2011 and the end of the world on Oct. 21 of that year. Camping had initially claimed the world would end in 1994, later asserting he had gotten his Biblical math wrong; the real date, he said, would be Oct. 21, 2011.

The real Mayan Empire did actually end, of course, albeit slowly and not on anyone's predicted timetable. Environmental evidence suggests that drought helped crumble advanced Mayan cities and may have kept them from rebuilding once their political institutions collapsed.
Read more: Mayan apocalypse countdown: 1 month 'til doom | Fox News

French village faces influx of apocalypse believers

A French mayor has expressed concern over an influx of New Age believers to his village who are convinced they will escape the end of the world in 2012.

Jean-Pierre Delord, mayor of Bugarach, says rumours are circulating that the village offers shelter from an impending Armageddon.

Bugarach is a small village of about 200 people in south-west France.

The mayor says that in recent years the village has attracted visitors looking for alien activity.

Now it is seeing visitors who predict that the end of civilisation is due to occur in two years' time, he says.

They believe the world will end on 21 December 2012, the end of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the ancient Maya calendar.

'Esoteric visitors'

Mr Delord says he has raised the issue with regional authorities.

"I'm worried because the population of our village is only 200 people and... we risk having a flood from all the corners of the earth," he told RTL radio.

"There are already some websites in the US with some people selling tickets for trips to Bugarach. They are doing some business, and people are already organising visits and prayer and meditation workshops, etc," he added.

"A few hundred coming every year isn't a problem, is it? But we mustn't have thousands coming altogether."

Many of the visitors believe that a group of aliens is hiding in a cavern in Bugarach's 1,231m mountain who will leave when the world ends and take them with them, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sigrid Benard, who runs the Maison de la Nature guesthouse, said she was seeing a rise in those who held the belief.

"At first, my clientele was 72% ramblers. Today, I have 68% 'esoteric visitors'," she told AFP news agency.

The myth of a 2012 doomsday originates in claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth, according to the US space agency Nasa. That theory then became linked to dates in the Mayan calendar.

However, Nasa states on its website: "Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than four billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."