2012 and the maya

[Tommy Allison]

The whole Maya end of the world thing is so that the baby boomer generation of shysters can bilk people out of their money. After that, it will be the GenX-ers doing the same, because stupidity hates a vacuum.

[peter222999]

I must admit there are some real coincidences in all the events coming
so close together. Or perhaps this will be a definitive time in our
History.

www.ufotshirts.com

[auntiegrav]

Originally Posted by peter222999

I must admit there are some real coincidences in all the events coming
so close together. Or perhaps this will be a definitive time in our
History.

www.ufotshirts.com

"The End of Cheap Oil" pretty much says enough

[Aponi]

The Maya weren't alone in placing significance on the year 2012. Many ancient prophecies by both individuals and cultures have done the same. It wasn't really about destruction and the end of the world so much as it was about the beginning of a new age—something they believed had happened several times before. I think they looked on it as a positive, natural occurrence. The Mayan calender was extremely accurate, though, and it does make you wonder. I don't know whether anything will happen or not, but I plan to be paying attention, just in case.

[derekcbart]

Hi Aponi.

Can you please provide details on what other cultures place significance on 2012?

I am only aware of the Maya and the Wikipedia page for 2012 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012) doesn't list any other cultures either, only some authors who predict various things, but they all seem to have used 2012 because the Maya did.

As I wrote earlier even the Maya didn't place any special significance on 2012. That's just when they need to buy a new long count calendar.

Thanks.

-Derek

[Aponi]

"Can you please provide details on what other cultures place significance on 2012?

As I wrote earlier even the Maya didn't place any special significance on 2012. That's just when they need to buy a new long count calendar."

Derek, I'd be glad to give you more details. I'll need to go back through some old notes though, to make sure I'm being accurate. I'll try to post something in a day or so. As for your comment on the Mayan significance of 2012, I think you're right, from their perspective. It did signal the entering in of a new age, but they didn't look at it as an apocalypse, as we seem determined to do now. Personally, I think a new age just might do us all a world of good.

[derekcbart]

Hi there.

Actually, the Maya did not view 2012 as entering a new age. That's just when the longest of their long count calendars ends. The Maya used several types of calendars and the calendars could be integrated with their other calendars. Some were only a few days long, some were a few years long, and then the longest is 5000 years long. It is this last calendar that "ends" on December 21, 2012, but it ends the same way as our calendar "ends" on December 31st. We don't feel that the world is going to end on December 31st, we just need to buy a new calendar for the next year. The 5000 year Maya Long Count Calendar just gets reset for another 5000 years on December 22, 2012.

I feel that it is this basic misunderstanding of how the Maya created and used their calendars that has led to so many people thinking that the Maya predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012. They didn't. Their calendar system just renews on that day.

-Derek

[Chuckleberryfinn]

2012 is just another date on the calendar. Those who see something significant happening on the 2012 winter solstice will feel very foolish when nothing happens. I would encourage you to start making an excuse for yourselves now.

How short our memory is! Just a few years ago, people were sure that 2000 was a significant date, cosmically. Then it was 2006. Now it's 12. Before 2000, there were about a thousand other dates that passed without incident.

I am almost deterred by such foolishness from the entire field of UFOlogy. Then I remember cases like the 1986 Japan Airlines incident, the August 27, 1979 Marshall County, Minnesota Vehicle Interference and Physical Traces Event, the May 14, 1978 Ocala Radar-Visual Case, and a few others which demonstrate unequivocal evidence of alien intervention.

[peter222999]

Increased solar activity seems to be a given, but the rest seems to be a stretch

[auntiegrav]

Originally Posted by Chuckleberryfinn

I am almost deterred by such foolishness from the entire field of UFOlogy. Then I remember cases like the 1986 Japan Airlines incident, the August 27, 1979 Marshall County, Minnesota Vehicle Interference and Physical Traces Event, the May 14, 1978 Ocala Radar-Visual Case, and a few others which demonstrate unequivocal evidence of alien intervention.

I know what you mean. My personal interest in the field started out technical, and I try to keep it that way, but drift into the philosophical way too easily. My technical interest is in the physics and I continue to look for information about the possibilities of our universe that can be usefully applied. Personally, I don't care so much whether what is seen in the paranormal or the conspiratorially denied world is alien, government, or otherwise so much as I want to know HOW it works and how I can build it.
The rest is just marketing and religion (redundant, I know.)
If the Mayans had a calendar that worked over thousands of years, I want to know what else they knew that has been forgotten. I am skeptical of anything that claims to predict the future, but interested in how a Device was used to convince people that it could be done, and how that Device was arrived at.
The same goes for UFO's; filtering out all the anal probe stories and cattle mutilations and LITS (lights in the sky) to find tiny bits of information that relates to how they got here, what effects that witnesses feel, see, and hear, and what branches of the government seemed to be involved is daunting at best.
That's what keeps me interested, despite the side-tracking that inevitably comes with extraordinary claims and unusual evidence.