APOCALYPSE SELLERS OR STATE "ZERO"

Did you order the end of the world? Yes, you did. And it has been in production for a long time. People did not have time to move away from the "end of the world" the 89-year US preacher Harold Camping predicted for 21 May 2011, and now the humanity has entered a new phase of the Apocalypse 2012, which supposedly was predicted by the Maya.

Get ready! 

But this time the rather vague "end of the world" from the Maya - if their calendar ends on 21 December 2012 this does not mean "finita la comedia" - is exacerbated by the new scenario from a lama in Tibet called the oracle of Shambhala. Recall that, according to this same oracle, in late December, the Solar system planets line up in a row - a unique case, "Fall and winter will be warm, and from 12/21/2012 Earth will begin to pass through the galactic" zero band ". This is a special state of space where any energy extinguished is and cannot flow. Complete darkness and silence come. The electricity and communications will also be out. The darkness will be accompanied by flashes of light, as well as the play of light and shadow. At times it may seem that some figures roam - as if the dead rose from their graves. Ground will shake slightly - like a small earthquake. Some buildings can be destroyed". People, he said, will die because of mass panic and fear of the unknown. Disasters will last two weeks, though the echoes will be felt for some months until the beginning of February.

But date people consider the prediction of the lama to be more accurate. We will not go into the details of a brief educational program for survival, especially because of him almost half the world's population know this today. But let's say that after the letter of the oracle of Shambhala was spread on every conceivable online resource, people were seriously puzzled, and what is striking in the age of information technology, they began to ... prepare. After all, earlier references to the "end of the world" contained no hope for survival, unlike the letter of the lama. Not to mention a real guide to action in order to survive. And off we go. The script is running. They believed. Today, following directions of the lama, with his instructions in their hands people rush to the shops, buying up large quantities of candles, bottled water, canned food, matches, gas cylinders, coal, etc. In general, anything that will help the family to survive these days. Take a note. They are buying up those products that tend to remain unnoticed on the shelves. After all the times dictate their living conditions and, accordingly, the essentials.

In this case, none of those preparing for the "end" want to listen to the voice of common sense, to stop and listen to those people whose job it is to watch the sky day and night. What is it a full parade of planets? What kind of nonsense? No matter how many astrologers look into the sky they can see no parade of planets or a planet Nibiru in their telescopes. And checking out this nonsense is quite simple. "I specifically looked at our model. Anything like that. On 21 December 2012 the planets are placed in a wide angular sector, the parade is out of the question," said the director of the Samaxi Astrophysical Observatory named after Nasraddin Tusi at the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Eyyub Quliyev. According to him, there is no basis for asserting that the Earth will be covered by darkness on 21-22 December. These days will not be different from the others. Quliyev said that the last time the parade of planets took place in 1982, and the phenomenon will be repeated only in 2161. On this day there will not be even a solar eclipse, says the Azerbaijani scientist.

"How much is opium" for the masses or Where to meet the "end of the world"?  

But people continue to believe and prepare. "The end of the world" is the most discussed topic of the season. The so-called Mayan calendar excites minds, and it  completes the history of mankind in 2012. Many people from all walks of life talk at length on this subject, but most of them really know nothing about it. To believe or not to believe the "end of the world" that is allegedly already looming on the horizon?

Azeri retiree Matlab Manafli (name changed - Ed.) lives in Buzovna settlement. He has been preparing for the end of the world for a long time. He does not know what will happen, but he believes that the Earth will not be left without light. He has his own script. " I do not know if the world will end in November or December. No matter what day it may happen, it is necessary to prepare in advance so that it does not catch you by surprise. But it seems to be very clear that the earth will shake. The Caspian Sea, which is nearby, will come out of its banks and flood everything. Showers and then snow are likely. The clouds will close the sky," believes the pensioner.  Matlab is going to wait out the  Apocalypse in a well-fortified basement of his home. It has a water tank, beds for all family members - his wife, two sons, which, however have married since and live separately. The prudent pensioner already stocked firewood, canned goods, tools, biscuits in an airtight container. Has been preparing for five years for the Judgment Day. To the question of whether his sons and their families will have time to reach the refuge when disaster begins Matlab answered that he hopes so. "I think that cataclysms will begin gradually, and they will have time to come to me," said the pensioner.

Note that wealthy people are preparing as well, but more thoroughly. Many media write that they pay a lot of money in order to meet the Armageddon in an underground bunker behind a multi-ton door. Prices are approximately as follows: a sleeper under the ground - about $ 25,000, a small apartment in the same place - almost $ 1 million. In the US these have been on sale for a long time. "From nuclear war, with the exception of some direct hits, that is, it is designed to autonomously exist from 6 months to a year," an American product sales manager says about their goods. "There are living corners, a lounge, library, some movies, there are boxes equipped with TV, although there will be no TV then," he told the American media.

A bunker for 2000 people is under construction somewhere near Moscow region, and its exact location is secret. Vendors of places for the Russian Noah's Ark do not want outsiders to storm the refuge as in American films in the event of a catastrophe. Customers for this construction project are going to move into the bunker closer to some events.

The media - news agencies, newspapers, Internet resources, various publishing houses - are happy to play the game of "doomsday". They exaggerate with gusto this topic, coming up with scenarios that are worse than the previous ones, blowing it all out of proportion in order to scare and consequently to tame viewers and readers, whose anxiety will become a source of income for the authors of the rumors. 

On the Internet there are even timers counting down the time remaining until the "end of the world". Users commented in different ways on colourful graphics that demonstrate how quickly time flies by. A well-known insurance company has decided to use the end of the world to promote their own brand among the youth. It has created a group with the motto "get insurance from the end of the world" on one of the social networks websites. The page has almost 16,000 patrons, who relish in new commentary on cartoons and compete in humour. The site with the straightforward title "2012" positions itself as the source of all the truth about the "end of the world", which the official media hide from the doomed humanity. However, a section of the portal is dedicated not the apocalypse: the creators here quite casually woo potential advertisers by the attention of 400,000 - 600,000 monthly users. Another resource that promises the whole truth about the "end of the world" offers a full ten scenarios for the death of all living things - from a volcanic eruption to nuclear disasters, pandemics and the invasion of "Indigo Children". Similarly varied is the catalogue, which the creators say offers goods that will help a person to survive the Judgment Day. The collection includes a double tent, a sleeping bag of the "ocean" colour, lanterns with various capacities, a thermo cup labelled "Adrenaline" and emblazoned with a picture of a mammoth, a set for cutting fish and more. The merchants are willing to offer our customers salvation even in the event of a deadly epidemic. Experts in the field of Internet advertising admit that there are a lot of products, such as various unlicensed dietary supplements and miracle pills, with sellers who would be happy to advertise them wherever people go. And if the time to throw the users information about why the "end of the world" will indeed come is well chosen, they can buy some pills that ostensibly will help them survive the Armageddon.

Idea of an end of the world 

There are more done a dozen scenarios of an Apocalypse and many of them have turned into Hollywood scripts. However, even scientists believe that a big asteroid hitting the Earth is not a sci-fi. So what exactly did the Mayans predict for 2012? And who was the one who promoted this date that today has the entire world going crazy? 

It turns out that the idea itself came from the US, the country that has often served as an exporter of some scenarios. Then it all grew into a mass hysteria worldwide. People dig bunkers, Italians  bought 400 hectares in Yucatan. A German mathematician,  Joachim Rittshtig, who devoted to the study of the Mayan civilization more than 40 years, said that the date of 21 December 2012 is an unintentional error of American researcher Linda Scheele, who died 13 years ago. "A terrible  mistake!  Maya  never  make predictions, they wrote history. There was a terrible accident, accompanied by a solar eclipse and an earthquake, the city sank into the ground by 14 metres. This was interpreted as a forecast and not as a description of events that have already happened. These erroneous conclusions drawn by Linda Scheele are still used by American scientists," says the mathematician. 

Catastrophic scenarios in the US have become extremely popular after the 11 September 2001. It was then that frightened Americans began to massively build bunkers and buy customized armoured cabins. Today the end of the world is well selling brand. Calendars of various  apocalypses has been compiled up to the year 6079. In 2018 comes the end of the world according to Nostradamus, in 2036 - the Earth's collision with the Apophis asteroid, but December 2012 remains the most well-promoted date.

Many are starting to joke about it, offering to those who are seriously discussing it a loan for 1000 per cent with maturity in 2013. Meanwhile, less than 40 days remain until the end of the world. And probably not so far in the future a day will come when a newspaper classified on 22 December 2012 will say: "I sell  candles  and flour in unlimited quantities with home delivery".

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TOP LIST OF FAILED WORLD-END PREDICTIONS

Religious Apocalypses

Since time immemorial people have associated the expected Day of Judgment with attractive figures: 33 years (after the crucifixion of Jesus), 666 (the number of the Beast), 999 (the inverted number of the Beast), 1033, and 1666 were characterized by the anticipation, based on different interpretations of the Bible, that the end of the world will come. Many prophets interpreted Scripture and called it in 1013, then 1492, then 1584, then 1844. In 1914, according to Jehovah's Witnesses, the Armageddon with the ascension of the righteous in heaven was to happen. When members of this religious movement realized that the expected event does not materialize they twice sought to postpone the Armageddon - in 1915 and 1916. Then as the Jehovah's Witnesses leader changed, the new date was called - 1918. However, in spite of another failure, Jehovah's Witnesses have rebelled and appointed Armageddon now in 1925. In order to avoid another embarrassment, the Prophet cancelled his prediction before the "X date". After many years, the idea of a religious apocalypse was revisited by members of the "White Brotherhood", which promised in 1993 the end of the world and committed self-immolation in St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. members of the sect "Revival Movement of the Ten Commandments" in Uganda picked up the baton. In 1995 several hundred members of the sect committed suicide. Armageddon was re-appointed for 2000.

Cosmic scenario

Year 1900 worried the people in various corners of the Earth as never before. According to predictions, comet Halley had to fall to the Earth on 18 May 1910. A parade of planets was expected in 1919 and in this connection solar flares and the self-immolation of the Earth were predicted. An American priest schedule the Armageddon for the 21 September 1945 - the whole Earth would evaporate and the humanity turn into ectoplasm. Indian astrologers frightened everybody that the end of the world will come in 1962 as a result of the parade of planets.

Nuclear explosion

As a result of scientific developments a new horror story was made up - the humankind will be destroyed by a powerful explosion. An Italian paediatrician in 1960 persuaded his followers that Americans are about to detonate a secret bomb and they hurried to the mountains, where they built a shelter. Another nuclear explosion was prophesied for 1980. And Americans began to sow panic again and built another shelter in the mountains.

TOP LIST OF FAILED WORLD-END PREDICTIONS

Years 1990-2010

The mankind that loves round figures slated more than world-end scenarios for the last twenty years and the change of the millennium. Mentioned as reasons were the day of judgment, the second coming of Christ, the Earth's collision with a comet. There is another horror story - the invasion of unfriendly aliens. Herbert Well's book, "War of the Worlds", fuelled these sentiments and it was made into a film in the early 2000s.

The movie Terminator slated the end of the world for 1997. The reason - an out-of-control military computer, Skynet. Only in 1999 (the inverted number of the Beast) there were 13 world-ends. And in 2000, at least 7 Apocalypses. The year 2000 includes the so-called Error Y2K, on which Bill Gates and several governments made good money. A nuclear war was to begin in 2004 according to the film Terminator 2. And then it was moved to 2005 by the film Terminator 3.

In 2006, they promised the Earth's collision with asteroid Icarus. And something special was prophesied for the date of 06/06/06. In 2007, they expected the arrival of  another comet to explode in Nevada an arsenal of nuclear warheads and cover the entire planet with sand.

In 2008-2009, the human race was very worried about the Large Hadron Collider - waiting for that black holes to destroy the Earth. In 2009 Nostradamus had appointed the Armageddon. In 2010 - again, the Large Hadron Collider, as its accelerator was launched at full capacity.

Of course, different world-ending prophecies allowed fraudsters to play on people's fears. Of the last high-profile cases, you can think of end of the world that was to come on 21 May 2011. Someone Harold Camping first organized a mass of followers by highlighting the preparations for the end of the world by radio. Then he began to collect money from them for advertising posters. It was expected that on 21 May 2011 the dead will rise from their graves, 2% of the righteous will immediately ascend to heaven and the rest will remain in the world to experience the horrors of the next massive earthquakes, floods and fires. When the end of the world did not come, this gentleman stated that the final end of the world was on 21 October. When asked to return the money Camping responded that "we're not done yet, why return the money?". When the end of the world did not materialize on 21 October, Camping said, "Well, I'm sorry, guys."