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Victor Ruiz Garcia / Reuters
A tourist raises her hands during a group meditation ceremony near the pyramid of Kukulkan at the Chichen Itza archaeological site on Dec. 21. Hundreds gathered to greet the sunrise on a day that marked a new age on the Maya calendar.
Tourists, mystics and Maya priests accentuated the positive this morning at Mexico's best-known Maya monument, the El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itza, on a day that some thought would bring catastrophe.
For years, doomsayers warned that the end of a grand 5,125-year cycle in the Maya timekeeping system would signify the end of the world as well. Some feared that Dec. 21 would be marked by solar blasts, earthquakes, superstorms or other planetary disruptions. But the hundreds who flocked to El Castillo took a different message to heart.
"It's not the end of the world, it's an awakening of consciousness and good and love and spirituality — and it's been happening for a while," Mary Lou Anderson, a 53-year-old information technology consultant from Las Vegas, told Reuters.
Reuters reported that the rituals at Chichen Itza began just before the winter solstice, as dawn was breaking. A spotlight illuminated the western flank of El Castillo, a 100-foot-high pyramid that was built sometime between the 9th and the 12th centuries to serve as a temple to the Maya serpent god Kukulkan. Then a group of five English-speaking tourists, dressed in white, made their way across the plain, dropped their bags and faced the pyramid with their arms raised.
As the sun climbed into the sky, a man with dreadlocks played a didgeridoo at the north end of the pyramid, while a group of tourists meditated on brightly colored mats.
The visitors said they came to Chichen Itza not to face the world's end, but to make a new beginning. "I hope something happens to make me a better person," said Graham Hohlfelde, a 21-year-old student from St. Louis, Mo. "If I can get a little cosmic help, I won't turn it down."
Israel Leal / AP
Visitors and the El Castillo pyramid are silhouetted by the rising sun at Chichen Itza on Dec. 21, a day that some feared would bring disaster. Ceremonial fires burned and conches sounded off as dawn broke over teh steps of the pyramid, marking what many believe is the conclusion of a 5,125-year cycle in the Maya calendar.
Victor Ruiz Garcia / Reuters
Traditional costumes as well as T-shirts were worn by those attending Friday's rituals at Chichen Itza's El Castillo pyramid.
Pedro Pardo / AFP - Getty Images
Hundreds of onlookers - some holding mobile phones - raise their hands during rituals at Mexico's Chichen Itza archaeological site.
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This report includes information from Reuters.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Oh Well so much for that...Hey does anyone want to buy any MRE's.......lol
Gulp! I'm beginning to think that cashing out my IRA's and 401k, ...and mailing that "F*** You Loser" letter to my boss yesterday, might not have been wise ???
:-(
Save em' for the next hurricane, earthquake, flood, wildfire, blizzard, financial calamity...you know, the disasters that we know can happen, because they have happened...
Don't let the Mayan silliness put you off of honest preparedness.
How much?
Okay, great! Now that the world isn't ending today, I have to go out and buy Christmas presents! Who do I talk to about this mix-up!!!
Maybe not the End of the World, but during the late hours of Dec. 20th and continuing through Dec. 21st, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has recorded a series of CMEs flying over the solar limb. The source of the clouds appears to be multiple blast sites on the farside of the sun. This means Earth is not in the line of fire. The increasing pace of farside activity, however, suggests that the Earthside might not be far behind. Stay tuned for changes - http://www.spaceweather.com/
Check my post #11 for the true date of the end of the long count calendar. You will note that on that day, the Earth will be on the other side of the Sun. Directly between the Sun and the center of the Galaxy. Also directly in the line of fire of today's Solar activity.
I actually came up with my explanation for the delay of Armagedon as a joke. When the math bore me out, as to the exact date, I thought it a coincidence, but I keep stumbling over other things that are beginning to freak me out. Like your post.
"...the Earth will be on the other side of the Sun. Directly between the Sun and the center of the Galaxy."
As if that meant anything...
Eastern Time Zone Centric: It happens at 11:11 local time (or, in my case, doesn't). Maybe we need to go by Mountain Time?
Ya know, you'd think at least some of these 'end-of-world' prophecies would come true.
I reckon this means I have to go to work. :(
Yes, thanks science - for nothing! If only you eggheads had believed, we would have gotten a proper holiday time off.
Gee, the only apocalypse that did occur today happened in the programming offices of the History Channel, Discovery Channel, NATGEO, SYFY, etc. Now what are they going to do with the countless hours of doomsday prophecy programming? They obviously cannot show these programs again. This prediction of the end of the world is like the weatherman calling for 2 feet of snow, and then you wake up the next morning to sunshine, and temps in the 60's!
This is better than the Great Disappointment of 1844.
ctrl-alt-del. Reboot started.
I keep telling everybody that the reason the long count calendar doesn't have leap year is because the Earth was a little closer to the Sun, making it's orbit six hours a year shorter. If you do the math to include an extra day every four years to get to the foreseen point in space. The true end of the current age is scheduled for June 21, 2015.
"I keep telling everybody that the reason the long count calendar doesn't have leap year is because the Earth was a little closer to the Sun, making it's orbit six hours a year shorter."
And you would be wrong.
Earth's orbit is slightly elliptical anyway, always has been, and there's no reason to think it's characteristics have changed during human existence....or for billions of years. The days are lengthening, due to tidal interactions with the Moon, and that's an excruciatingly slow process, as well. And just as with man-made satellites, energy from somewhere would be required to push Earth into a higher, slower orbit. Where did it supposedly come from?
Earth days simply don't divide evenly into Earth years...and there's no reason why they should. (same for any other planet) It took quite a few cultures time to figure that out. And even 365.25 isn't quite right. That's why years divisible by 400 (like the year 2000) that would normally be a leap year,are not, in order to correct the error that slowly builds up. And because it's still not a perfect adjustment, every 3600 years even that rule has to have an exception...
"The true end of the current age is scheduled for June 21, 2015."
Not maxing out my credit card before that date, either...
Time to re-issue the Maya calendar.
"dawn broke over teh steps"
Were teh kittehs there? *groan*
Mankind has long been obsessed with his own destruction.From ancient times up until the present. From shooting stars, believed bad omens that foretold the doom of a side in battle,to natural disasters like plagues, floods, fires,famine or earthquakes that were seen as the wrath of some divine being.So folks constantly tried to give offerings, keeping a constant eye to the sky, waiting for the next awful destruction to wipe out humanity.A faint race memory seems to haunt man, he can't quite escape from, that he is marked for death on every side.
It just depended on the myths, stories, legends or cultural beliefs each civilization uses to explain what was seen in nature and their history.It would be easy to take the part of a vanished civilization's culture and put ones own belief system onto it.
The result is like a structure , but without the complete detailed concepts or ideas behind them. Like the skyscraper buildings in a city, without the furnishings inside. For those who seem addicted to only look for disasters and the end of the world, they will place inside, all their fears, their expectations that humanity is doomed to be wiped out at any time. By so many different causes, that are just waiting. Because they see no hope for man, he is beyond worthy of rescuing. And so must pay the price for his great evil works to each other and the world.
For those who are open and seek only to learn what is true about the Mayan prophecy, they will be able to see the long count of numbers simply ending and starting over.Without prejudice, having still some faith in mankind. It is all about what the truth is, and not prejudging another culture nor civilization.
The bottom line, is these people still see life as being worthy to live for.Having something to stay connected to.That is the ultimate difference between the two groups.According to expert psychologists who study people believing in this and other previous doomsday prophesies, against those who don't.
The question is, really, how many people actually think that they will actually be held accountable for their actions and activities? It is a matter of faith and trust, it is our faith that HE will return, and we trust that HE will not kill us all when HE sees what a mess the human species has made of this planet.
Through the course of time, there have been many abuses of power, and those that carried out those abuses will surely be held accountable, one of the most interesting of the prophecies of the book of revelation, is that two of three shall perish, pardon the phrase, but, "OH MY!", that is probably gonna be messy.
As we are so close to the end days, if you are in the business of making bodybags, you might want to consider adding a second shift, there might not be a lot of people that can afford to pay for them, but it appears there are a lot of people that will be needing them.