NASA Adds Video to Effort To Dispel Dec. 21 Mayan Apocalypse Myth

Certain that the looming Mayan apocalypse isn’t going to happen (whew!), and in hopes of quelling worldwide fears, NASA has released a video explaining the Dec. 21 doomsday as a misconception.

The four-minute video, which was released 10 days ahead of the purported Armageddon on the Friday after next, contains expert testimony meant to dispel the theory. The video was supposed to be released the day after Dec. 21 — sort of an I-told-you-so for the myth’s staunch believers — but NASA decided to put it out early.

“If you’re watching this video, it means one thing: the world didn’t end yesterday,” a calming, confident voice says in the video.

The video backs up the claim that the world will continue to spin with explanations from John Carlson, founder and director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy and a few NASA scientists.

The video says that the Mayan calendar resembles an odometer in a car — it’s cyclical. Doomsday is based off this repetition.

According to Mayan theology, the world was created on Aug. 11 in 3114 B.C. By Dec. 21, 2012, the calendar starts over. This was a significant interval in Mayan theology, but not a destructive one, said Carlson, who has been studying this phenomenon for more than 30 years.

In the video, Don Yeomans, head of NASA’s Near Earth Objects program, says that no asteroids or planets are headed for earth. David Morrison, a NASA astrobiologist, says that if there was an object approaching the Earth, people would be able to see it at this point.

Likewise, the sun isn’t a threat either — the sun has been flaring for billions of years without adversely affecting the Earth, another scientist said.

NASA also has an entire section of their site dedicated to debunking the Mayan claim.

“For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence?” the website asks. “There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.”