Phew! NASA Says the World is Not Ending in 2012

Take THAT Roland Emmerich! The problem with these end-of-the-world movies, like 2012, is that when they come out people sometimes freak because they actually believe the world is coming to an end. The marketing strategy for the upcoming Roland Emmerich film doesn't help either, since it seems the studio wants people to believe the 2012 Mayan prophecy -- so much so that they've gone and created a whole slew of fake websites and Facebook pages tied to the film and tied to the Mayan legend. Of course, this sort of fluff may help the film's box office take when it hits theaters, but it certainly doesn't help the folks at NASA who've been fielding thousands of emails from people who, thanks to the movie and its marketing plan, think the world is ending in 2012.

Says NASA scientist David Morrison, "I don't have anything against the movie. It's the way it's been marketed and the way it exploits people's fears." To dispute some of these claims, Morrison has taken to a new online column where he's been answering questions about 2012 and the mysterious planet Nibiru.

So what does he really think about the Mayan calendar ending on that specific date in 2012? In his column, Morrison says: "Calendars exist for keeping track of the passage of time, not for predicting the future. The Mayan astronomers were clever, and they developed a very complex calendar. Ancient calendars are interesting to historians, but they cannot match the ability we have today to keep track of time, or the precision of the calendars currently in use. The main point, however, is that calendars, whether contemporary or ancient, cannot predict the future of our planet or warn of things to happen on a specific date such as 2012. I note that my desk calendar ends much sooner, on December 31 2009, but I do not interpret this as a prediction of Armageddon. It is just the beginning of a new year."

Have you been taken in by the marketing strategy for 2012? Do you now believe the world is ending in 2012? According to Warren Betts, whose company helps push out the real science stories tied to movies, Sony definitely crossed a line promoting 2012, even though studios have been doing this sort of stuff for years (1999's The Blair Witch Project is cited as an example). Says Betts, "I think people are really, really worried about the world coming to an end. Kids are contemplating suicide. Adults tell me they can't sleep and can't stop crying. There are people who are really, really scared. People are very gullible," he added. "It a sad testimonial that you need NASA to tell you the world's not going to end."

What do you think? Are people stupid if they believe the world is actually going to end in 2012, or is Sony in the wrong for creating a marketing campaign that deceives people into thinking the world inside the film really does exist?

[via Discovery]