12% Of Americans Believe The World Will End On Dec. 21

The world will not end on Dec. 21, says Mark Van Stone, a professor at Southwestern College.

(Actually, the date of all finality is Dec. 23 or 24, depending on competing interpretations of the correlation between modern and ancient Mayan calendars.)

“The best thing about this 2012 nonsense is it creates interest in the Mayan people,” Van Stone told City News Service. “People can go down there and see what the Maya are really like.”

[Click here to read about Lake Elsinore Storm Baseball hosting a “Mayan grand elder,” also known as Wandering Wolf, at 5 p.m. Monday, Dec. 17, at the stadium’s Diamond Club restaurant.]

A misinterpretation of ancient Mayan text by German scientists years ago led to the idea of a calendar that expires this month, signaling some kind of apocalypse, Van Stone said. He said the 5,125-year Mayan calendar cycle, also called a Bak’tun cycle, “goes around and around” but doesn’t appear to end.

But with movies and TV shows on the Mayan calendar permeating popular culture, 12 percent of Americans believe the world will end Dec. 21, according to a poll by Ipsos Global Public Affairs [see attached PDF].

Are you in the 12 percent? Tell us why below.