One thing is for sure: at the end of 2012, you can throw out your Mayan calendar, as it will no longer work. Many years ago in southern Mexico, I bought my wife a beautiful silver Mayan calendar, you know, a big concentric circle with rabid hamsters and birds, and a really angry guy in the middle with somebody's beating heart on his tongue. I even had a guide on how to interpret said calendar. Well, those things are a bargain now that they are about to expire like the cottage cheese in my fridge.Okay, now for some amateur anthropology. Someone can correct me if I am making mistakes:The Mayan calendar has two functions: to keep track of the passage of days, and to count down the years. It's this countdown cycle that we are interested in. Just as the Chinese calendar counts down through twelve signs of the zodiac, the Mayan calendar counts down 52 astronomical events, one per year. At the end of 52 years, the coundown meter advances another notch. The Mayans did not/do not approach their new year with happy celebration: it's a time of potential bad luck and a time to be on your guard. Every 52 years, this gets magnified. In 2012, the entire countdown comes to a stop, meaning that all of the 52 year cycles on the circular calendar have been used up. If you are a fan of arcade videogames, you'll be familiar with the concept of "rolling" a game. You reach a score on a single credit so high that the game can't keep track, and it starts at zero again. Brag, but fact: I remember the day I rolled "Spy Hunter", that game was awesome! Anyhow, we are going to roll the Mayan calendar.Apparently, this has happened before. The calendar expires at precisely the same time that southern Mexico, the sun and the moon line up with the Xibalba, the astral plane of eternal fear for the Mayans (and us). We see Xibalba as the dark rift in the Milky Way, and the portal to this place is somewhere in Orion. When we line up with Xibalba, the portal will open, allowing the Old Gods direct access to Earth. Then, they will pass judgment on us. If we are good (everyone praises my Reviews), we can start a new calendar, and a wonderful new Age Of Man will begin that will last an entire calendar, many thousands of years. If we are bad (everyone sends me e-mails complaining that I forgot to count the number of spars on the pontoon, as they are obviously incorrect), then the Old Gods will destroy Mankind and start again with new Men and Women. The bad news is that we are in the sixth incarnation of Mankind, which means we have failed the Old Gods' test five times already. How the Mayans know anything about the exctinct Ages, I do not know, but I would guess that they are using mathematics and astronomy to interpret unwritten history. Leading up to 2012, we will have a couple of close passes to what the sky will look like when Xibalba opens. Right now in the night sky is a close approximation of the celestial events that will take place in 2012. Or it would be if it wasn't raining every night. That the Haiti earthquake coincides with one of these near passes with Xibalba is interesting. Haiti is fairly close in latitude to Mexico, and the timing of the quake is close to the bad news cycle of the Mayan calendar. Like many important things in life, the earthquake in Haiti is a test. Maybe you believe it's a test of the Old Gods, or other supernatural or holy forces. I will certainly not discount that. Maybe it's a force of nature, with the planet placing direct force on people. That's an option, too. Many will question whether or not this test was "designed", or whether it's an unavoidable physical occurance. I say that's beside the point. The real test is how we respond to this situation, as individuals, as societies, and as a species. If anything, the Mayan calendar shows us that. Jeff ShylukSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

Thanks, Jeff, interesting read. Let me just add two or three thoughts of mine, loosely related to the original question and what you wrote.First of all, the quake in Haiti wasn't the first there, nor will it be the last. It's all about plate tectonics, and the island being on a very sensible zone. So, if the original poster thinks it is a sign for or of something, he views it as a singular event. Which it isn't.Second, there is a strong notion in our society that catastrophic events are a revenge or a sign of nature for our misbehaving. This would imply that the planet has a will, a goal and is an entity with a mind of its own. It isn't. Some catastrophic events are forseeable (like people building on land where floods have to happen or - like in my home country, where avalanches will happen. None of them are reactions to an action, but just inevitable because we decided to do this or that. Some just happen. None of them is punishment brought on us by the planet. These things happen because we weren't smart or anticipating enough.My final thought is: If you meet a thousand people who tell you they can levitate themselves with the power of their mind, and they never do when they tell you that they will do, it's a fairly safe bet to assume that noone can levitate himself by the power of his mind. Now, in my lifetime alone (which is a little over 45 years now), I have had knowledge of app. a dozen dates when the world should have come to an end, be it from religious groups or even a scientist who was teaching at the university and then postulated that a metorite will distroy our planet in 1998 (he is still alive and well - I always wonder how he explains that to himself). Given that I only witnessed a tiny fraction of doomsday dates that have been brought up during the span of our civilisation, I am pretty sure that the next fifty thousand dates will be wrong as well. I firmly believe that the world will come to an end either when nobody expects it or when nobody is there anymore to expect it :-).(I hope my english is good enough to let you know what I wanted to say).

(I hope my english is good enough to let you know what I wanted to say).

Your English is excellent. Well done!You also answered my question. As we're the same age I now know that I've survived 12 end of the world situations :(

I find it funny that most people think the end of humanity will be some cataclysmic event, when the end comes it will probably very long and drawn out. boring

I find it funny that most people think the end of humanity will be some cataclysmic event, when the end comes it will probably very long and drawn out. boring

I couldn't agree with you more. The neglects in parts of Africa is a good example of that. It takes unsustainability to create a decline in the worlds population and the process is very slow.

It is complete BULLCRAP. The world is not going to end in 2012. We have more of a chance of dying from this stupid LHC ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider ), because they are trying to do something that has never been done, which is collidng two atoms together. You already cannot split an atom without a massive explosion, and now they are trying to do this, to discover quarks, which are smaller particles that apparently make up an atom, electron, neutron, proton, or something like that.. Why must people do such stuff for "science". Sometimes is better not to cross the line with knowledge. Just face the fact, we will NEVER be able to discover, know everything. The Myan civilization disappeared. They probably ran out of time to make a 2012 calender, since they were probably busy piercing the crap out of their faces. The simply did not get around to create another cycle. Also, this thing about the sun, moon, and galaxy, or whatever aligning, is bullcrap as well. They are telling me, that all these billions of years the earth has been around this has never happened before? lol, I bet it has happened more than once. I bet every day, week, month, year, decade, century, and/or eternity we align with the sun, moon, and some other unknown Galaxy and still nothing happens. People need to stop worrying themselves, and scientists need to stop trying to find every single thing about this world. Lets put it this way.... if NASA is planning ahead of 2012, then the world is probably not going to end. :(... and to the OP, I recommend you research what actually causes an earthquake, and earthquakes have been happening since the beginning of time, and they can happen ANYWHERE. It just happens to be that some places are on faults such as some parts of California being on the San Andreas fault, and some places are a little farther away where it would be very rare. Earthquakes are nothing new. Move on...

Stupid Mayan's, if they would have just went out an bought a new calendar , none of the 2012 nonesense would be going on......

"...............We have more of a chance of dying from this stupid LHC because they are trying to do something that has never been done, which is collidng two atoms together............"Eh? Colliders have been used for decades doing just that--colliding two atoms together. The LHC is simply trying to collide the atoms faster. Also, the splitting of atoms is just one part of a nuclear explosion. A sustained chain reaction needs to take place, even the LHC won't accelerate enough atoms to cause that to happen. The splitting of one atom, even a thousand, is not enough to cause a sustained chain reaction--for that you need critical mass. My father was a nuclear physicist from about 1960 into the mid 90's. I am no expert, I chose IT as a career, but my father shared what he could about his profession and I have much of the reading material he left behind after he passed away. I daresay I can recognize when expertise on the subject is insufficient such that it can cause one to come to the wrong conclusions. -John

Hello,Haiti earthquake is a sign of 2012 destruction? If this true then what can we do?

Start drinking if you by into that stuff :(P.S. When I looked out tonight I don't recall seeing a full moon, I think it's time to get off this train. :(

"...............We have more of a chance of dying from this stupid LHC because they are trying to do something that has never been done, which is collidng two atoms together............"Eh? Colliders have been used for decades doing just that--colliding two atoms together. The LHC is simply trying to collide the atoms faster. Also, the splitting of atoms is just one part of a nuclear explosion. A sustained chain reaction needs to take place, even the LHC won't accelerate enough atoms to cause that to happen. The splitting of one atom, even a thousand, is not enough to cause a sustained chain reaction--for that you need critical mass. My father was a nuclear physicist from about 1960 into the mid 90's. I am no expert, I chose IT as a career, but my father shared what he could about his profession and I have much of the reading material he left behind after he passed away. I daresay I can recognize when expertise on the subject is insufficient such that it can cause one to come to the wrong conclusions. -John

.....(I daresay I can recognize when expertise on the subject is insufficient such that it can cause one to come to the wrong conclusions). Amen....if you feel you know something, and know it well, just watch the news the next time your favorite subject becomes the topic, you will enjoy the BS these folks can put out.......I use to work in the nuclear field many nuclear moons ago, and the movie China Syndrome, God Help Us :(

I am wary of Valentines day, as it seems to me like every time I try to approach a girl, I get shot down...As for 2012, there's a facebook group I joined, called "Shut up the world won't end in 2012". Please understand that I am a cynic at this point. I've gone through several "Doomsday" events already, and am not convinced. Doomsdays only tend to wind up putting money in the pockets of those spreading paranoia. If I'm wrong about this one, well I'll probably be dead. If I am dead, that means I will not be still alive, and thus it will not be a triumph, nor a huge success, and it will not be hard to over state my satisfaction. In other words, the polar opposite of this song:

seems to me like every time I try to approach a girl, I get shot down... Son, I think you nn a different approach...try a PRA instead of the ILS..... :(

The Myan civilization disappeared.

Actually, they didn't disappear. In fact, my wife just returned tonight from Guatemala where she had been for a week on a medical mission providing health care to a lot of, and only, Mayans.This topic has brought to mind a very important event!!! Spread the word! The AVSIM 2012 convention will be a one day event on the 20th of December, 2012! That evening we'll hold one hell of a party.

Sometimes is better not to cross the line with knowledge. Just face the fact, we will NEVER be able to discover, know everything.

But we must always continue to push to build our knowledge and move away from ignorance and superstition.

The 2012 doomsday theory is brought to you by the same people who created the Y2K Theory as a means of getting people to purchase useless things like Generators.How many people bought a generator in 1999 and didn't use it?I even sat on the Y2K team at my company in 1999 to go over our systems to ensure we were Y2K ready, what a waste of time (and money) that was. There was never any risk, we just had a very nervous CFO at the time.

This 2012 scare is a load of old rubbish.