The United States government has released a blog post in which it debunks the Mayan prediction that the world will end this month.
The post, entitled Scary Rumors About the World Ending in 2012 Are Just Rumors, says that people have no need to be afraid about an apocalypse occurring anytime soon.
“False rumors about the end of the world in 2012 have been commonplace on the Internet for some time,” the government writes on USA.gov. “Many of these rumors involve the Mayan calendar ending in 2012 (it won’t), a comet causing catastrophic effects (definitely not), a hidden planet sneaking up and colliding with us (no and no), and many others.”
“The world will not end on December 21, 2012, or any day in 2012,” it reiterates.
The post also outlines that it has concerns about how some react to doomsday prophesies.
“[T]hese rumors have many people frightened, especially children,” it continues. “NASA has received thousands of letters concerned about the end of the world.”
“David Morrison, a planetary astronomer and senior scientist for NASA who answers questions from the public about astrobiology, says, ‘At least a once a week I get a message from a young person ― as young as 11 ― who says they are ill and/or contemplating suicide because of the coming doomsday,'” the blog explains.
It states that others have made predictions in years past about the end of the world that were obviously incorrect.
“According to NASA, the old mystery-planet-collision rumor year was 2003, but when 2004 arrived safely, the rumors changed to 2012,” the government writes. “So what end-of-the-world year will the rumor mill make up next?”
The blog does not mention whether the government believes in the return of Jesus Christ as outlined in the Bible, nor any of the events detailed in the Book of Revelations.
As previously reported, however, the United States military did use a mock “zombie apocalypse” on Halloween as a training exercise in how to deal with disasters and terrorist activity. A “zombie apocalypse” is a purported end of the world event where the dead come back to life in mass numbers and attack the living upon the earth.
“Obviously, we’re not expecting a zombie apocalypse in the near future, but the effects of what might happen in a zombie apocalypse are probably similar to the type of things that happen in natural disasters and man made disasters,” said Joe Newman of the Project on Government Oversight. “They’re just having fun with it. We don’t have any problems with it as a teaching point.”
Photo: Wolfgang Sauber