Doomsday and Market of Phobia

-Meher Wan

  

           As we have entered in 2012, speculations about Doomsday are on full swing in common public to internet. The stories of doomsday got rebirth after the movie “2012” directed by Roland Emmerich, which was based on supposed uncontrolled devastation in 2012. This movie neither talks about the fictional planet “Nibiru” nor Polar shift of earth with appropriate clarity. Presently, there is much amount of material around us regarding doomsday-2012. You can find approximately 200 books dealing with doomsday on book-selling website ‘Amazon’. Many other websites are claiming of doing research for survival of mankind during doomsday crisis. News of this hoax is blossomed on every face of media and public.

       The saga began with the claims that a supposed planet ‘Nibiru’, which was discovered by the Sumerians of Mayan civilization, will collide with our earth in Dec, 2012. A controversial fiction writer Zecharia Sitchin writes about Sumer of the Mesopotamian civilization. He wrote in his many books (e.g. “The twelfth planet”), that he has found the strong evidences of planet ‘Nibiru’ in ancient Sumerian documents. Some so-called specialists of Mesopotamian civilization claim that the Mayan calendar will end in December 2012 and Mesopotamian people were aware of this doomsday. That was the main reason, they had calculated the days of their calendar till 2012 only. Some speculate that magnetic poles of earth will shift their position in Dec, 2012 and this will cause huge destruction. Till now, there are a number of theories regarding doomsday in 2012, which consists change in earth’s rotation axis, huge solar storms, alignment of sun with galactic center, black hole in galactic center, the dark rift in milky-way and many more. The limit was crossed when I read about end of life on earth due to global warming in 2012.

        There is nothing wrong in the fact that Mayan calendar will have so-called end in Dec, 2012. Mayan method of calculating the weeks and years was very hectic and tiring as it was a very long method. Neither had they advanced methods of arithmetic nor the computers as we have today. They could have calculated these spans of time with pen and papers. We can guess the complexity of these calculations by knowing, that in Mayan calendar one Alautun (Mayan unit of time) is equal to approximately twenty three billion days. All the calendars have a sort of periodicity in dates or in other parameters. Some experts and astronomers are saying that Mayans’ calendar system has cycles when their parameters match after a certain time, period of this cycle is 5128 years. Current cycle in Mayan calendar system was thought to have started in 3114 BC and it will end in 2012. According to this theory, the next cycle will end in 7140 AD. This is the point when hype overtakes reality.

         ‘Nibiru’ is a name in Babylonian astrology sometimes associated with the god Marduk. Nibiru appears as a minor character in the Babylonian creation poem Enuma Elish as recorded in the library of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria (668-627 BCE). Sumer flourished much earlier, from about the 23rd century to the 17th century BC. It is a supposed name of a hypothetical planet. Thousands of astronomers all over the globe with Hubble telescope in space are scanning the surroundings of earth with keen giant telescopes in visible, infrared and ultraviolet region. If this planet is to be collided with earth in Dec, 2012, this object should be in visible range of our giant telescopes from at least beginning of this year. If we consider the speculations that Nibiru is orbiting sun in every 3600 years, calculated speed of this object in its’ proposed orbit will be much less than speed of light. Thus, this should be seen by our telescopes spread all over the globe. Unfortunately, no object of this profile has been seen in any telescope till now. If any astronomer had seen it, he was supposed to publish his too much important finding related to whole life on earth.

            Magnetic Pole Shift Theory is also not possible in a very short period of time. This process may take some millions of years. Thus it will also not happen suddenly on proposed doomsday date 21-12-12. Similarly, with the laws of physics, rotation axis of earth will not be shifted suddenly in one day or even one month.  All these types of news are a hoax to create fear and anxiety in general public.

      

    The question is who are responsible for creating these types of hoax in the media, which create phobia and panic in public? Also, what are the benefits of creating these types of hoax? Movies are being released dealing with public fear about many topics from collapse of dams to doomsday. News channels are eager to sell phobia by showing breaking news and special reports with live coverage. A new type of market is evolving in the mean time and that is market of fear. After long sell of the dreams, sex etc, now it’s time to sell fear. I have seen some websites encouraging people to register for a lottery to those who will be saved during doomsday crisis. These websites are encouraging people to spend their money as nothing will remain after doomsday to enjoy or whatever people want without any question of right or wrong. Creating this sort of fake websites is a new advertising technique called “vi­ral marketing”, by analogy with computer viruses. We should understand that these types of hypes are reinforced by cheap market. The world will not end so quickly, it will go on with its direct and indirect contradictions.