Year 2012: End of the World

If I had a nickel for a every theory about how the world is going to end in 2012, I would be sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere right now. I have not had the time to break down the convoluted logic that has lumped the Nemesis star into the Planet X theory or what they have to do with 2012. By all accounts the answer is that they are entirely unrelated except to those who wish to sell you a book explaining their esoteric connections. The really important word in that sentence? Sell.

I have however found this report which analyzes a theoretical connection between the “Nemesis” star and a cyclical pattern of mass extinctions that seems to occur roughly every 27 million years. How this is tied into 2012 I cannot imagine as it is widely agreed upon that if this cycle does occur again, it is not due for another 16 million years. If we as a species cannot find a way to spread beyond the confines of Earth to a “safe” location in 16 million years, well, we deserve that extinction.

That report is pretty darn technical, so to break it down, the researchers have ruled out the possibility of the Nemesis star as the cause of the cyclical extinctions because it is too regular. You see, due to the distance between our planet and the Nemesis star, if some kind of energy was being emitted from it that caused those extinctions, the number of gravitational fields and celestial bodies that would effect whatever might be transmitted would result in the cycle being more erratic than it actually is. That is right, the cycle is too reliable to be caused by a celestial body as distant from us as the Nemesis Star.

The Nemesis Star has lately been tangled up in the theories of “Planet X” or “Nibiru” which assert that a planet or nearly planet sized celestial body will collide or nearly collide with Earth causing a polar shift. If anything, I think this is an excellent example of how these various scenarios and theories tend to bleed together in the statements of those who are trying to assert their truth. The theory began with Nancy Lieder of Montana who asserted that she had received information from aliens of dire importance. It seems she initially argued that the Hale-Bopp comet was a false cover for an impending calamity. Later she would cite 2003 as the year of Earth’s inevitable doom. Now apparently the date has shifted to 2012 to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar’s current cycle which has been embraced by pseudo-scientists, new age crazies, and countless others as the new “hip” date to predict the end of the world. Frankly, the idea that a celestial body 4 times the size of the planet Earth could be kept secret is patently absurd. Between the communication systems available today, the number of amateur astronomers, and the sad state of international political relations, an object like that would certainly be common knowledge.

If you’re thinking that perhaps there is a secret “Ark” program like in 2012, well, that wouldn’t work either. If a mass that size collided with our planet it would not be feasible to maintain the resources to support the population of elitists and specialists for the amount of time required for Earth to become hospitable to human life after such an impact. Essentially, the long running hysteria people have had about an impending Apocalypse continues today, and the conspiracy theorists that cite Planet X, Nibiru, and the Nemesis Star as the cause are far more concerned with reinforcing their own preferred world view than actually looking at the data and facts. Either that, or they’re just looking at their bank accounts.