2012 Mayan Calendar Doomsday Flop: Dec 21 Joins List of End-of-the-World Date Predictions that Went Kaput
The world prepared, but the Mayan prediction that the world would end on Dec 21, 2012 did not come to pass. With the global buzz that accompanied the run-up to the Doomsday, the date would definitely be added to the list of end-of-the-world predictions that fizzled out.
Armageddon forecasts are no longer new to mankind. There have been several similar failed predictions in the past few decades, but apparently people are still hoodwinked into believing in these doomsday scenarios.
As a result of fears that the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar would result in solar flares, planetary alignment, asteroid hits on earth and power disruption, hundreds of believers in the prediction flocked to mystic mountains in France, Serbia and Turkey in the hope that they would be spared the apocalyptic scenarios.
Although the non-believers - who either went on with their usual lives unmindful of the grim outlook or partied the night away - were the majority, many still monitored the situation by checking on newscasts and reading newspapers for the latest update.
On Friday morning, to confirm that the prophecy failed, people asked Tourism Australia through its Facebook page if Australians survived since the land down under is one of the first countries in the world to witness sunrise.
To celebrate the end of the 5,125-year cycle of the Mayan Calendar and the start of the 13th Baktun, about 3,000 people witnesses Mayan priests light ceremonial fires near the main pyramid of Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza in Mexico.
Actors in Mayan costumes and headdresses performed elaborate dances amid pan pipe music, which critics dismissed as a show to benefit tourists and media.
"For us this isn't a show and isn't about tourism, it is something spiritual and personal," News.com.au quoted Sebastian Mejia from the Conference of Maya Ministers.
Even national leaders such as Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina and Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla attended an official ceremony to mark the start of a new Mayan calendar, while Bolivian President Evo Morales arrived on a wooden raft and led a festival that made an offering to Earth at a small island in the middle of Lake Titicaca.
Here are some glimpses of how celebrations of the world not ending happened in different towns such as in Xocen, Mexico
Macau, China
Tikal, Guatemala
and in different parts of the world.
With the epic prediction failure, the Mayan Calendar Doomsday forecast would be included in the list of top end-of-the-world prophecies that went kaput. Here's a revised list of failed doomsday predictions for the 20th and 21st century in chronological order.
1. Halley's Comet - 1910
2. Christ's Kingdom Prophecy by Jehovah's Witnesses - 1914
3. Judgment on the World by Pat Robertson - 1982
4. Heaven's Gate Cult - 1997
5. True Way Taiwanese Cult - 1998
6. Y2K - 2000
7. Big Bang from the Large Hadron Collider - 2009
8. The Rapture by Harold Camping - 2011
9. Mayan Calendar End of 13th Baktun - 2012
With Dec 21 having come to pass, Mayan experts and scientists reiterated that the civilisation's calendar did not predict an end of the world scenario.
"The whole thing was a misconception from the very beginning. The Maya calendar did not end on Dec 21, 2012, and there were no Maya prophecies foretelling the end of the world on that date," The Telegraph quoted Center for Archaeoastronomy Director John Carlson.
"Think of it like Y2K. It's the end of one cycle and the beginning of another cycle," Reuters quoted James Fitzsimmons, a Maya expert from Middlebury College in Vermont.
