Page 15 - 201003 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - March 2010

March 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 29/03/2010 11:52 AM Page 15 End of the World NOT Coming 15 The mystery of the silent Three books, three takes on the silence reports. She also has a there an idea of the kind aliens from space. Kasting tends towards the of reaction doomsday believers will have when mainstream view: a few hundred civilisations in Michael Hanlon, contributor our galaxy, separated by vast gulfs of space. The they wake up on either New Year's Day 2013 or Continued from age 14 title of Schulze-Makuch and Darling's well- Dec. 22, 2012, the day after the winter solstice. "Some people will take credit for it, like written and provocative book is self- explanatory. Paul Davies confesses his desire to they always do -- 'it was because I prayed, it was conclude that they are out there - but admits that because I made a sacrifice,' In 1910, Halley's they may not be. Comet came astronomically close to earth. Earth is odd, life odder and intelligent People committed suicide. One man in life the oddest of all. There is great mystery California somehow managed to nail himself to here, and it is not clear we are any nearer to a wooden cross -- don't ask me how -- and solving it than we were 50 years ago. Believing offered himself as a sacrifice for the planet. in aliens is fashionable these days, but that does Fortunately, someone found him in time, and not mean it is justified. It is the result, as Davies took him to get medical care," Larsen tells the says, of sentiment as much as discovery. We Press. may yet be alone. But this, the most awe- "My biggest fear is someone will be inspiring of all possible solutions of the Fermi hurt, either by their own hand or someone's paradox, is surely the one we will never be able else's," Larsen said. [] to prove. [] California company End of the World's Not cashes in on end of the Coming in 2012, Local world fear Professor Says By KATIE HELLER To survive the predicted Mayan calendar end – Vivos is offering underground shelters around the U.S. for about 3,000 people who can then run the rest of the planet. In We Are Not Alone, Dirk Schulze- Vivos is running a countdown on their Makuch and David Darling flesh out the website – 1,000 days remaining – yet, it claims argument that the landers, which touched down the shelters are not just for the so-called end of in 1976, probably did find life. The mainstream time in 2012. Well, if the world doesn’t end explanation for the initial apparently positive then, you can always use the shelter later. findings - some unusual abiotic Martian soil “Millions of people believe that we are chemistry - does not, the book claims, hold up. living in the “end times”. Many are looking for And the Vikings' gas chromatograph-mass a solution to survive future Earth devastating spectrometer, which found no organics in the events,” the company says on its web site. heated soil, leading scientists to rule out the “Eventually, our planet will realize another discovery of life, may have malfunctioned and devastating catastrophe, whether man-made, or never tested any soil at all. a cyclical force of nature. Disasters are rare and Their case for Martian life is fairly unexpected, but on any sort of long timeline, It's not the end of the world as we know compelling; less so, their cases for life on Titan it, says a local professor taking aim at the they’re inevitable.” and other moons of the gas giants. Perhaps the doomsday theory. “The accepted solution to most of the most convincing case is for a biosphere 50 The Mayan doomsday prophecy is a threat scenarios is to find underground shelter,” kilometres above the scorching surface of it says. Venus. The title is perhaps misleading: "not prediction by the ancient Mayans that the world Now, the company says it is building a will end in 2012. But Kristine Larsen, an alone" implies intelligent company, not astronomy professor at Central Connecticut $200 million shelter known as Vivos – the Latin microbes. State University, is debunking that theory, word for to ‘live.’ However many places there are out there “The Vivos complexes are deep- where life could survive, a habitable planet is according to the Bristol Press. underground, airtight, fully self-contained blast Larsen is giving talks and writing not the same as an inhabited one, as Kasting articles about how prophecies make sense only proof shelters, designed to survive virtually any points out. And, as Davies writes, we should no to people wholly ignorant of science and the catastrophe or threat scenario including: natural more assume that evolution tends towards Mayan calendar. disasters, a nuclear blast, chemical and intelligence than it does towards the elephant's "The Mayan calendar ran in cycles. One biological weapons, or even widespread social trunk. There were likely dinosaurs as clever as anarchy,” it says. cats, yet in all those millions of years not one of their cycles is "Bak-tun," called the 'long Each facility costs more than $10 year' or 'great year,' which is 144,000 days reptile learned how to farm or make fire. long," Larsen tells the Press. "Think of it like a million. Each shelter will house 172 to 200 When drawing conclusions about the people for up to a year. probability of alien life, we must always decade or century ending for us. It's much Members who are also co-owners, will bigger than the end of the year." remember that when it comes to hard data we reside in furnished living quarters, with semi- According to Larsen, the current Long have a sample size of precisely one. We have to Year ends in 2012, but the end of one year private bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens. date seen no signals and no messages, and predicts nothing more than the beginning of a Don’t worry if you’re one of those living below found no microbes: nothing, as Davies says, new one. The equivalent, she says, to looking at about getting bored with the menu abundant looks fishy at all. Furthermore, we see no sign our calendar ending on Dec. 31 and believing supply of gourmet foods for 1 year. That of a galactic conquest by self-reproducing von includes gourmet coffee. Neumann machines - proof alone, say some, the world will end too. Unlike Noah’s Ark, animals aren’t the The Mayan doomsday idea is all over that ET does not exist. Finally, we have the place and Larsen has a theory on where it main focus, but there is a DNA depository absolutely no idea how or where life on Earth began. She believes it started with a man named available for every living species on Earth in got started and whether this was a fluke or a Jose Arguelles, a believer in the Harmonic Vivos refrigerated vaults. near-inevitability. If the latter, it prompts the The shelters should be finished by mid- question of why only one genesis, something Convergence, which was supposed to end the 2011 giving plenty of time for the Mayan world in August 1987 after other planets in our Davies tackles in some depth. deadline of life in 2012. [] solar system lined up in a certain way, the Press