- People freaking out over Internet hoax
- Russians start panicking and storing up supplies
- NASA publishes fact sheet on why the world won't end on December 21, 2012
WHILE many are planning their large-scale end of the world
celebrations, others are already hiding under their beds in
anticipation of the Mayan Apocalypse of 2012, according to NASA.
NASA has issued warnings ahead of the reported 'Doomsday' on
December 21 saying some people have been so distressed by reports of the
end of the world they are already not eating or sleeping.It all started because December 21 is the last day in an ancient Mayan calendar, and the internet has been circulating rumours that a rogue planet called Nibiru would slam into Earth, destroying us all.
Last week the Russian Government tried to put an end to the doomsday talk after people started panicking and storing up supplies so they would still have kerosene and matches after the world was smashed to smithereens.
People everywhere were taking it so seriously National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists have been forced to hose down the situation, publishing a fact sheet: Beyond 2012: Why the World Won't End.
"The world will not end in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012," they say.
"Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012.
"This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then - just as your calendar begins again on January 1 - another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar."
While the idea that the world is about to end is bunkum, the anxiety people are feeling about it is real.
NASA Ames Research Center astrobiologist David Morrison has warned that they received emails from young people who said they were too worried to sleep or eat, and some said they were suicidal.
"(Scientists), both within NASA and outside, recognize that this hoax with its effort to frighten people is a distraction from more important science concerns, such as global warming and loss of biological diversity," he writes on the NASA website.
"We worry about the effect of this fear on impressionable children.
"(If) you will just use common sense I am sure you can recognise the lies."