I’m not aware that anyone on tumblr buys in to or actually believes the whole DECEMBER 21st 2012 APOCALYPSE hoax, but I feel as though it’s a duty of mine just to clear up some facts about it, just in case.

Before I dig in to the steaming pile of money-grabbing shit that is the December 21st hoax, let me get one thing out of the way;

The world ending on December 21st of this year is a HOAX. It has always been a hoax. People like to scare people in to buying things. It’s an easy way to make money. Mass hysteria is profitable.

Moving right along.

• Why do people legitimately believe that the world will end this year?

The December 21st hoax has been around for ages. I remember first hearing about it sometime in 2006. Believers or perpetrators of the hoax like to solicit three main reasons for the end of the world. Those reasons are:

1. A rogue planet, aka “Nibiru” or “Planet X” is supposedly on a collision course with earth.
2. The Mayan Calendar has predicted the end of days through the use of its long count calendar.
3. Either the Earth, the Sun and the center of the Milky Way Galaxy will be aligned, or the all planets will come in to alignment on December 21st.

Albeit, there are a few other reasons the world is supposedly coming to end, but as for the main reasons, there’s only those major three. 

People have been trying to make money by convincing people that these three things will cause the end of the world since as early as 2003. This is an extremely distasteful practice, and the people trying to turn a profit off of the fear this can cause in the general public should be ashamed of themselves.

There has even been cases of suicide due to the hysteria behind the 2012 hoax, to put in perspective how destructive and heinous perpetrating this hoax can be.

• Are these reasons at all true?

To put it simply, no.

None of these reasons have a single grain of scientific evidence or fact to back them up.

• 1. Nibiru/Planet X 

This is my absolutely favorite reasoning for the December 21st hoax, because out of all the bullshit people will try to shove down your throat when it comes to this hoax, this one makes absolutely no sense at all.

Since 2003, pseudo astronomers and psychotic ramblers alike have been claiming that there is a rogue planet on a collision course with Earth. The original prediction date was for some time in 2003, and when that didn’t go as planned, the collision was rescheduled for December 21st to coincide with the Mayan Calendar false prophecies. 

The fact of the matter is, if an object that large had been heading to Earth for all of this time, astronomers would have been tracking it for ages. They would have seen it coming from light years away. Furthermore, if it was so close to hitting us and causing a loss of world-wide life, it would be visible by now to the naked eye.

NASA has confirmed that this a wide-spread lie. There is no Planet X.

• 2. The Mayan Calendar

Look at any calendar on a wall in your house. Look at your computer’s calendar, or your phone’s. Every modern calendar ends on December 31st. The calendar then resets, and we have approached a new year and the date is once again January 1st.

Generally, this reset of the calendar tends to not bring about the end of all life on Earth as we know it.

The same logic can be put behind the Mayan Calendar.
The Mayan “Long Count” calendar is what the hoax uses to convince people that the world is ending. There are MANY calendars in Mayan culture, such as the Calendar Round, the Tzolkin or the Haab. The Long Count was used for uniquely identifying important dates in history, not predicting the end of days.

The Long Count calendar has never predicted the end of the world.

Furthermore, the Mayan Calendar is not as accurate as is often depicted.
When compared to the solar year, the Julian calendar had an error rate of 1 day every 128 years. The modern Gregorian calendar is substantially more accurate, with an error rate of 1 day every 3,300 years. In contrast, the Maya calendar, which did not use any system of leap days, had an error rate of 1 day every 4 years when compared to the solar year. 

• 3. Planetary/Galactic Alignment 

The third and final reason people will claim that the end is nigh, is that on the date of December 21st 2012, there will be a planetary alignment. 

When you realize that there is no way that can happen because space science is capable enough to predict the position of the planets ages before they actually arrive at their destinations (and when you realize that planetary alignment has happened on dates in 1962, 1982 and 2000), people might try to tell you that the Sun, Earth and the center of our galaxy will align on December 21st.

For once, this is true. The Sun, Earth and the approximate center of our galaxy do align this year on the predicted date.

This happens every year, without consequence.

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In conclusion, the December 21st apocalypse theory is a hoax. It is a scare tactic being employed by authors, directors and even companies that know how to make money off of mass hysteria. The world will not end.

A good website to learn more about the hoax is 2012Hoax, which is the most complete, in-depth webpage for debunking every aspect of the hoax.