Only three years left till Armageddon?
By: Elizabeth Renzetti
Source: www.theglobeandmail.com

At last month's Cannes Film Festival, pedestrians strolling along the seafront were startled one night by a thunderous roll of timpani and a fountain of water shooting up from the Mediterranean 10 metres into the air.

It was enough to make you jump out of your skin. It was enough to make you think that the world might be ending, especially after reading the giant green letters projected onto the spray of water: "2012," it said. "We have been warned."

The nonplussed French turned to each other and shrugged: 2012, qu'est-ce que c'est?

If they went home and did a bit of research, they would have discovered that 2012 is not just the title of an upcoming disaster movie, directed by The Day After Tomorrow's Roland Emmerich, but also an enormous, complicated network of apocalypse theories, encompassing hundreds of books, documentaries, films and websites, that lead to one conclusion: The world will end on Dec. 21, 2012.

It's true that when you're trapped in a mall in the days leading up to Christmas, the apocalypse may seem a preferable outcome, but why that date, the winter solstice three years from now? In short, it's because that is when the ancient Mayan calendar ends.

More precisely - because the Maya, the people who dominated southern Mexico and parts of Central America from around 2000 BC until Spanish colonization in the 17th century, were phenomenally precise with their math and astronomical observations - it's the last calculated date of one of their interlocking calendars, the Long Count, which begins on Aug. 11, 3113 BC and ends 13 baktun later, on Dec. 21, 2012. (A baktun, one of many Mayan units of time measurement, is slightly longer than 394 years.)

There are competing, but densely interwoven, theories from 2012-ologists about how the Earth will meet its fate - flood, earthquake, rain of fire - and even whether it will mean planetary death or just a brief snooze from which humankind will wake up, refreshed and enlightened, to the dawning of Aquarius.

What the theories have in common is a foot - or at least a sliver of toenail - in science.

One popular theory centres on a heretofore invisible planet called X, or Nibiru, whose orbit will swing it near Earth, causing catastrophic disruptions to our atmosphere.

Others mention a possible reversal of the magnetic poles (a rare occurrence, but within the realm of possibility). Still others talk about how there will be a "galactic alignment" of the Earth, sun and planets on Dec. 21, 2012.

Except, according to Ian O'Neill - solar physicist, producer for the Discovery Channel and devoted 2012 debunker - that happens every year.

The doomsayers "are trying to use science to sound trustworthy, but they're just spouting a lot of rubbish," he says.

What fascinated Mr. O'Neill when he began researching 2012 was how the theorists had taken fibres of history, archeology, theology and astronomy from different cultures, thrown in the occasional episode of near-death experience or crop-circle observation and shaped them into a cataclysmic whole.

This End Time was allegedly foretold not just by the Maya, but also in the I Ching, Hindu scriptures and the Bible (if you read it upside down and with squinting eyes).

The movement includes people who believe that the Maya were space travellers, carrying in their luggage mystical crystal skulls - a belief cannily exploited by the creators of The X-Files: The show's last episode tells of the ultimate alien invasion, which occurs, you guessed it, on Dec. 21, 2012.

These seemingly fringe beliefs have crept into the mainstream. Mr. O'Neill points out, with some despair, that the astronomy sites he writes for get vastly increased traffic when the subject is 2012 rather than, say, the Mars Rover or solar flares (he gets a fair amount of hate mail too).

It's a loopy brand, but a brand nonetheless, and as the date approaches, it's proving seductive for writers - even the ones who don't feel they'll have done their last laundry on Dec. 20, 2012.

Brian D'Amato has just published In the Courts of the Sun, a novel about a game-playing whiz who is transported from 2012 back to 600 AD to learn about ancient prophecies from the Maya.

While there is some post-millennial horror in the book (a dirty bomb at Walt Disney World and a virus-growing psychopath in Vancouver), Mr. D'Amato says he mainly intended to poke gentle fun at the conspiracy theorists.

"Most of that stuff is quite ridiculous - you know, the Earth is going to be swirled into the vortex, there's going to be a rain of red frogs, the poles are going to reverse," he says from his home in Michigan.

Then, after thinking about it for a minute, he adds, "On the other hand I'm not very optimistic about things in general. There's some very scary stuff out there."

The Twelve is a novel set to be published in September by California literary agent William Gladstone; like Mr. D'Amato's, it features the date 12/21/12 prominently on the cover.

Mr. Gladstone represents part of the movement that feels the Maya were prophesying a positive shift - "a galactic transformation that will bring joy," in his words.

"In spite of what some people say," he says, "I don't think we need to worry about doom and gloom."

Ah, but doom and gloom puts teenaged bums in seats, hence Roland Emmerich's 2012 (set for release in November), in which the world's great cultural centres and most of its population are destroyed while the government conducts a nefarious plan to save a special few.

The movie is accompanied by an insidious viral-marketing campaign, including co-star Woody Harrelson appearing on video sites as a modern-day Jeremiah preaching disaster and a fake website for the "Institute for Human Continuity" in which people can apply for the survival lottery.

Not entirely responsible, perhaps, but an effective marketing tool - and less costly than the son et lumière show advertising the movie in Cannes.

Sony Pictures has millions of dollars wrapped up in one disaster egg, so why not play on real-life fears and fan the flames of paranoia?

Ian O'Neill thinks that the release of the movie will only increase interest in what was once a fringe phenomenon.

"I'm not sure I really understand the fascination," he says. "You can be in awe of the nature on this planet and not buy into conspiracy theories. The world is interesting enough already."