If you are reading this, congratulations. You have survived the latest prophesied doomsday for our poor planet. For weeks now, the darker corners of the media have been abuzz with the latest predictions that the end of the world was coming.
Some suggested it would coincide with the 21 August total solar eclipse that swept across the US. Others that the apocalypse would be on 23 September, for no other reason than 33 days would have passed since the eclipse. Lo and behold, here we are. Always keen to move on, conspiracy theorists have or for the no-show.
Prophecies of doom aren鈥檛 new. At the turning points of centuries or millennia, someone always comes out of the woodwork to claim that the end is nigh. Others predict the end of days based on how immoral and violent society has become, although, recent decades have been relatively peaceful compared with most other historical periods.
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Some of the most recent predictions come from numerological trickery and religious texts. In 2012, we were told that the ancient Mayans had predicted the end of the world on 21 December, when some cosmic event, such as a black hole, or a rogue planet called Nibiru (or Planet X), would hit Earth. The only true disaster was that the year inspired a pretty bad Hollywood movie, a special-effects extravaganza with little in the way of scientific accuracy.
Look who鈥檚 back
But in 2017, the doomsayers said Nibiru was back and again on a collision course with Earth. This time, the source material was the Bible, with conspiracy theorist David Meade interpreting some numerological coincidences as a prediction of Earth鈥檚 destruction. Predictably, some corners of the media lapped it up, ringing alarm bells with messages of doom and gloom.
With a heavy sigh, science has brushed off and recycled the same messages as in 2012, pointing out that if Nibiru was truly wandering the solar system, we would know about it. Dedicated telescopes constantly scan the heavens for asteroids and comets, charting the orbits of those more than a few hundred metres across that could be a potential threat to us. Yet they have seen no sign of Nibiru.
In fact, if Nibiru were to collide with Earth, it would have been obvious to the naked-eye for years, but no one, including professional and amateur astronomers who stare at the sky night after night, has seen anything like a wayward planet heading our way.
False balance
A search online reveals that several more Armageddons are predicted for the next few decades. As scientists, it is easy to roll our eyes each time these appear in the media, but it is important to remember that prophesies of doom do frighten people, and suicides related to purported cosmic events are not unheard of.
We must continue to call out nonsense and pseudoscience when we see it, but, as in other scientific debates, the media has a part to play in accurate and balanced portrayal of science.
There is enough scary stuff going on here on the surface of Earth, without some imagined threat from a non-existent planet, based on mathematical trickery drawn from mystical texts. Unfortunately, this won鈥檛 be the last time we hear about planet Nibiru and the upcoming destruction of Earth.
Read more: The end is always nigh in the human mind
