NASA’s so-called "Apocalypse Video" has been released a week in advance of next Friday’s end of the world as we know it – December 21, 2012.
The agency wants you do know the famous Mayan apocalypse prediction is not going to happen. In fact, it’s not even a real prediction they made!
NASA’s video, titled "The World Didn’t End Yesterday," was originally supposed to be released December 22, but made its way online this week.
The four-minute clip explains how the idea of the Mayan apocalypse is a hoax, and that 12/21/12 is just the end of their calendar … before the next one.
Time reports that the space agency has been besieged with questions from citizens worried that their lives are about to end over the last few months.
NASA is taking the fears seriously, not because there is any danger, but because irrational fears can sometimes lead to irrational and dangerous actions.
Its official site features an area dedicated to debunking the claims.
"The world will not end in 2012," NASA writes in its 2012 section.
"Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."
NASA experts go on to explain the origins of the hoax.
"The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth," an expert explains to us.
"This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012."
"It was linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 201s, hence the predicted doomsday date of Dec. 21, 2012."
Nibiru, by the way, is not a real planet.
If it were, NASA says the agency "would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would certainly be visible by now to the naked eye."
Long story short: The world isn’t going to end. You still have to finish your holiday shopping and show up at your mother-in-law’s house on Christmas. Sorry.
Numerologists say the 12-12-12 date was pretty cool though.
What do you think? Is NASA just turning a blind eye to the inevitable fire and brimstone to come in eight days? Will the world end as predicted?