What if the end date of the ancient Mayan Long Count calendar was not meant to be taken literally?

The first question you need to ask is this: Dec 21 is also the Winter Solstice (in the northern hemisphere) – the darkest day of the year, so it is a coincidence or deliberate?

The second question is, if the date is deliberate, then why?

If there is a scientific basis to the Long Count calendar, if it is ultimately reflecting a scientific prediction, then there are still more questions:

• Is there anything about a Winter Solstice than can cause a catastrophe?
• Could an ancient culture predict a catastrophe, thousands of years away, accurate to a single day?
• Or is Dec 21, 2012 a symbolic date for a scientific prediction for approximately Dec 2012?

What we do know:

• The ancient Germanic people celebrated the solstice with Yule logs
• The very ancient Newgrange tomb in Ireland is aligned to the winter solstice. As is Maeshowe.
• Christmas was a pagan solstice festival hijacked by Christians

Just as the Christians choose to celebrate rebirth at the time of Easter, the ancient Mayans selected the winter solstice period to be the  end times, with the rebirth to follow:

Christmas is commemorated just after the winter solstice, which is the darkest day of the year. As the hours of daylight begin to increase again, so also the light that comes into the world in Jesus begins our shift out of darkness. Similarly, the ancient formula for determining the time of Easter is to celebrate it on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal (spring) equinox. At this time, spring is in full bloom, and life comes to reign again upon the earth.

My opinion goes like this: both the return of a long-period comet and the cycles of massive solar storms were predictable by ancient cultures – all it took was thousands of years of observations (comets in the sky, auroras at low latitudes) combined with solid math. Neither are likely to be predictable to a certain day after thousands of years, but their best guess could be a specific year. Not wanting to name day, the message that we have received is the darkest day of a year, to represent a small era of prediction.

A massive solar storm, or the return of a comet, could be happening real soon. But I advise everyone to stay on alert beyond Dec 21, 2012 – that might not be a date to take literally.

Dec 21, 2012: The Darkest Day is a post from: 2012 Blog

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Patrick Geryl has shared with me his predictions for the remainder of 2012. They revolve around planetary alignments with the Sun. For example:

Pole Shift: Dec 21, 2012

2012 Solar Predictions from Patrick Geryl is a post from: 2012 Blog

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Better late than never!

In my recent article on the incredible harm a solar storm could inflict on infrastructure, I pointed out that we only have a single line of defense, and the solar storms it detects could kill it:

When warning us about incoming geomagnetic storms, the NOAA’s only source of data is the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite. It was launched in 1997, and according the the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2009, it is “well beyond its planned operational life”. I take this to mean it could fail any time, and there is no backup satellite! And all current safety measures become redundant – we won’t be able to remove vulnerable equipment from the grid before it is too late. “ACE is a single point of failure and it’s old,” said William Murtagh, program coordinator for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. “Every time I have a space weather storm I cringe a little bit that our very own space weather satellite doesn’t succumb to the storms I’m relying on it to help forecast.”

Here’s some good news from NASA – a second satellite is due for launch in 2014, and it will sit at twice the distance of the ACE, which means we will get double the warning of a solar storm.

Essentially a large square of extremely thin metal (it’s one eighth the width of a human hair), the sail can be attached to a satellite to cheaply and constantly produce thrust. With a planned launch in 2014, the sail might be able to fly a satellite close to the sun to study solar flares—and alert scientists when one is incoming.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/30/space-sailboat-could-offer-solar-storm-early-warning-system

Given that it will only cost NASA $20 million, and the ACE needs replacing, and a solar storm could cost trillions in damages (plus millions of deaths), I’d like to expect that thus project will proceed.

Second Solar Storm Detector Launching in 2014 is a post from: 2012 Blog

©2012 2012 Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Lawrence E Joesph, Patrick Geryl and myself would probably be the 2012 catastrophists that have reached the most people. Something we all proclaim is that our Sun is the most likely source of a 2012 disaster:

• Geryl: convoluted math and ancient texts prove that a 2012 disaster is certain
• Joseph: science says a new Carrington event is kinda due, and 2012 has religious aspects as well
• Bast: observations by ancients of auroras at low latitudes could have predicted a 2012 solar storm

We each understand that a solar storm could wipe out power grids and potentially melt down nuclear facilities, leading to many millions of lost lives. That late 2012/ early 2013 is probably the peak of this solar cycle fits well with all three theories. Aside from the “2012 is the year” aspect, many key bodies agree with us:

• NASA: “NASA has warned that a peak in the sun’s magnetic energy cycle and the number of sun spots or flares around 2013 could generate huge radiation levels. The resulting solar storm could cause a geomagnetic storm on Earth, knocking out electricity grids around the world for hours, days, or even months, bringing much of normal life grinding to a halt.”
• US Space Weather Prediction Centre: “North America or northern Europe may be without power from between days or weeks, to perhaps months and, in extreme cases, there are estimates that it could last years”
• NASA (again): …power grids may be more vulnerable than ever… Interconnectedness makes the system susceptible to wide-ranging “cascade failures.” …more than 350 transformers at risk of permanent damage and 130 million people without power.
• National Academy of Sciences: “The report warns of widespread failures in telecommunications, electric power, banking and finance, and transportation; even water supplies could be disrupted”.
• Scientific American: “Ice cores suggest that such a blast of solar particles happens only once every 500 years, but even the storms every 50 years could fry satellites, jam radios and cause coast-to-coast blackouts.”
• IEEE:” If we do nothing—if we stand by and wait for politicians to appreciate the risks and act on them—we may witness one of the worst catastrophes of all time“

I’ve written a new article that looks at how the power grids of North America, Europe and Australasia could go down for months on end, leading to great suffering and misery – 2012 Solar Storms.

And if you think our governments have it covered, think again, and think Hurricane Katrina and think Fukushima – both preventable.

BTW, if you are serious about preparing for the worst, get my survival ebook.

2012 Solar Storm = Long-Term Power Blackout is a post from: 2012 Blog

©2012 2012 Blog. All Rights Reserved.

As you can see, this X5 flare is much bigger than the X1 flare that occurred just 20 hours ago. As a comparison, last August we had an X6.9. The major storm of 2003 had an X17.2 flare, whilst the 1989 flare that took out a power grid in Canada was an X15. The biggest recorded in modern times was an X20.

Earth orbiting satellites detected an X5-class solar flare at Mar 7, 00:28 UTC. Radiation storms and radio blackouts are possible.

Another Solar Flare Alert is a post from: 2012 Blog

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Earth orbiting satellites detected an X1-class solar flare at Mar 5, 04:13 UTC. Radiation storms and radio blackouts are possible. X-class flares are much more significant that the C-class and M-class flares that other doomsday sites make mention of. X1 is still pretty small, but if any X-class flares happen I’ll blog about them ASAP. The NOAA charts below are self-updating, so ignore them if you are reading this 3+ days beyond the post date.

XRay Flare Alert is a post from: 2012 Blog

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Suspected on killing a couple and a police officer, before being gunned down was Drew Ryan Maras, an author who was working on a book covering conspiracy theories and 2012 when he died.

BlogTalkRadio are replaying their interview with Drew from September last year:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radionsearch/2012/02/01/drew-r-maras-rest-in-peace

Meanwhile physicist Michio Kaku has spoken out again about the risk of a solar flare removing the technology of the last hundred years from our lives. Yet Congress has not approved the funding that would keep the USA safe from harm. His weekly video is titled  We Are Sitting Ducks for Solar Flares

Updates on Drew Maras and Michio Kaku is a post from: 2012 Blog

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The above trailer is for a TV series in development. Here’s the official synopsis for The Carrington Event:

Joseph Carrington runs an organic mini-farm on the outskirts of a large, southern town. His rustic lifestyle means he is a bit removed from his family: his wife has spent the last decade pursuing a career in pediatrics; his teenage daughter, Tracy, wants nothing more than to be moving on with her life in a big city; his 10-year-old son has been raised on television, video games and abundance.

It´s a typical day of drama and duties when a solar storm cuts power to the farm. Soon after they discover that all electricity and communications in town are at total blackout as well: Cell phones do not connect, battery powered radios get only static, nothing is transmitting from television networks. There is no way of knowing what is happening outside their encapsulated environment, except by word of mouth.

All things in the outside world descend into chaos without electricity and communications. Resources diminish. For most a struggle of life and death ensues. The family must pull together and overcome their differences. They must discover what is happening and how they can survive.

I really hope they picked up by a TV network, because, well, developer Rob Underhill explains:

When I was on Empact Radio, one of the coolest things that was said was at the ending, where he said, “Well I really hope your show gets picked up, because you could have a panel of the top scientists telling you that the doom and gloom is coming, but no one is going to care. But, if you do a popular TV show on the event, everyone is going to pay attention, and something might actually happen.”

It could be a great TV series, and one for 2012ers and Preppers to watch, but the awareness it would bring to this NASA-warned possibility could literally save millions of lives. Here’s a few more quotes from Underhill, from an interview.

Yes, we based a lot of it off of the NASA reports and other expert opinions on how things would transpire. And then he had to decide how to take some of that and just turn up the dial from the actual Carrington Event.

In just a few days the jails are full. The town police -the sheriff – he has to start deputizing people to keep up, and that causes problems of course. And they have their own problems at the jail, because you know they stop getting outside communications, the water’s not running and so that becomes an issue. Then of course, people only have about a couple of days worth of food in their house, so everyone wants to raid the store to stock up as much as they can. So there are a few times that we visit the major store in town where there are people causing problems from the very outset and also later on. Then, we also have some gang factions that start to get opportunistic as well.

Trailer: The Carrington Event is a post from: 2012 Blog

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There are several doom’n'gloom news services out there that report every solar flare as if it will cause the end of the world.

SpaceWeather.com has informed us:

Departing sunspot 1402 unleashed an X2-class solar flare today, Jan. 27th, at 18:37 UT.

Now X-class flares are the worst, but they range from X1 to X9:

X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.

To put today’s flare in perspective, this is from SolarHam.com:

The latest solar flare ranks # 7 in the list of strongest solar flares during Cycle 24. Below is the updated list showing flare size, date, year and sunspot number.

X6.9 – August 9 2011 (1263)
X2.2 – February 15 2011 (1158)
X2.1 – September 6 2011 (1283)
X1.9 – November 3 2011 (1339)
X1.9 – September 24 2011 (1302)
X1.8 – September 7 2011 (1283)
X1.7 – January 27 2012 (1402)
X1.5 – March 9 2011 (1166)
X1.4 – September 22 2011 (1302)

The Carrington Event of 1859 is described well by Scientific American:

At 11:18 a.m. he witnessed an intense white light flash from two locations within the sunspot group. He called out in vain to anyone in the observatory to come see the brief five-minute spectacle, but solitary astronomers seldom have an audience to share their excitement. Seventeen hours later in the Americas a second wave of auroras turned night to day as far south as Panama. People could read the newspaper by their crimson and green light. Gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke up and ate breakfast at 1 a.m., thinking the sun had risen on a cloudy day. Telegraph systems became unusable across Europe and North America.

The two solar flares led to a pair of CMEs. Coronal Mass Ejections are what we really need to worry about, and two hitting Earth at the same time (again) would be catastrophic. A new article from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers describes the possible effects of another major solar storm:

Luminous fingers of intense red, green, and violet light flicker and pulse across the northern and southern skies like a vast cosmic conflagration. Within minutes, millions of people are tweeting, texting, and blogging about the wondrous sight. But then the sky turns a deep blood red, and fascination turns to panic.

…Those huge currents disturb Earth’s normally quiescent magnetic field, which in turn induces surges of current in electrical, telecommunications, and other networks across entire continents. Streetlights flicker out; electricity is lost. A massive planetary blackout has occurred, leaving vast swaths of North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia without power.

Within a few months, the crisis has deepened. In many areas, food shortages are rampant, drinking water has become a precious commodity, and patients in need of blood transfusions, insulin, or critical prescription drugs die waiting. Normal commerce has ground to a halt, replaced by black markets and violent crime. As fatalities climb into the millions, the fabric of society starts to unravel.

While it is easy to dismiss Patrick Geryl, Lawrence E. Joesph and myself as scaremongers, when serious engineers tell us that the fabric of society could unravel, people should pay attention.

NOTE: The Carrington Event meant the Northern Lights were seen as far south as Panama, and generally speaking the bigger solar storms are mean auroras are seen closer to the equator. The ancient Mayans could have kept track of visible auroras and noted a pattern, enabling them to predict a storm for 2012.

X2-Class Solar Flare – But Don’t Worry! is a post from: 2012 Blog

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Planetary magnetic fields are generated by flows in the hot, liquid iron cores of the planets. Measurements made by Mariner 10 in 1974/75 showed that Mercury also has a magnetic field. According to the standard models, the dynamo effect in its metal core should generate similar field strengths to those on Earth. Mercury’s magnetic field is 150 times weaker than that of our planet, however. This has recently been confirmed by the Nasa space probe Messenger.

How can the large discrepancy in the field strength be explained? This question has now been answered by a group headed by Karl-Heinz Glassmeier at the Technische Universität Braunschweig. The solar wind – a constant stream of charged particles – plays a significant role. At an average distance from the Sun of only 58 million kilometres – around one third of the distance of the Earth – Mercury is much more exposed to these particles.

“We must keep in mind that Mercury stongly interacts with the surrounding solar wind,” says Daniel Heyner, lead author of the article published in Science and doctoral student at the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) in Katlenburg-Lindau. This interaction drives strong electrical currents in the magnetosphere of the planet, whose magnetic fields counteract the internal dynamo effect.

It’s really hard to gauge from the article whether a short-term change in the solar wind could cause our magnetic poles to flip, but it sounds like it could at least be the trigger. Or to put it another way, a massive spike of particles from the Sun is unlikely to have zero affect of the core of Earth.

Solar Storm Causes Pole Shift? is a post from: 2012 Blog

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