2012: Is it Possible?

Much attention is being given to the Mayan prophesy of the end of the world as we know it in 2012. Many Christians are re-reading their bibles to compare the predictions, and current events to the book of Revelation and other prophetic passages. Concern over world and government affairs fuel further speculation about if we are in the "last days", as predicted by Jesus and other passages of the Bible.

If it were just the Mayans who were predicting a catastrophic event in 2012 it would probably be ignored, but further research has revealed other sources that also predict some kind of world shaking event in the same period. What is the truth?

A movie was just released based on this prediction that while very imaginative and with spectacular special effects is wildly speculative about what will happen. First, it is not certain whether the Mayans predicted the end of the world or just a changing of the guard of an era. They divided the history of the world into cycles of approximately 5125 years each. The last cycle, or long count began on 11 August, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or 6 September in the Julian calendar (-3113 astronomical).   according to the  Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.

This would all be just so much speculation except for a number of things that seem to come together at the same time.

The 11 year sunspot cycle, which amateur radio operators like myself love for worldwide communications, and which disrupts satelite and TV communications, has its next maximum close to this date. This is when solar activity on the surface of the sun is at its greatest. We have had solar flares in the past which were devastating to power grids and high frequency transmissions and such a flare that caused even more damage is possible.

 According to solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Wikipedia, "Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago," says. The actual maximum has been known to not occur exactly on time and has in the past been late.

The Mayans were also astronomers 'par excellente' and accurately predicted a very special event  for our solar system that only occurs every 26,000 years. As the sun orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy it oscillates up and down through the 'galactic plane'. Picture the galactic plane as flat, like a thick pancake and our sun and its planets bobbing up and down through this area every 13,000 years.

The area of the galactic plane has a greater density of interstellar matter to pass through than when the sun is at either the top of the bottom of this cycle. It is well known by astronomers and physicists that as the sun passes through a greater density of interstellar matter, it will tend to 'heat up' the surface by a very small amount.

Whether this will add to the solar activity in a significant way or not is not entirely known. It is strange that the Mayan predicted this precise event hundreds of years ago, without the modern instruments we depend on today.

Another possibility is that the earth's magnetic poles are about to reverse. This has happened many times in the past according to geologic records. Evidence is mounting that it is about to happen again. No one knows for sure what the effect will be.

The movie, 2012 explained all the events that happen as due to increased solar activity and a giant solar flare that heated up the earth's core with a flood of 'Neutrinos', with a microwave-like effect. NASA has said this is impossible, but  Neutrino's are "ghostlike" particles that can pass through any matter supposedly without an effect because they are small and without a charge. Yet both the US and the Japanese have attempted to "detect" these particles as 'flashes of light' in huge underground tanks of liquids for years. "Flashes of light" are an effect. Which is it? No effect, or the effect we have been looking for, for so long?

Who is to say that for neutrinos, on something as huge as the earth's core, which is composed completely of Iron and heavy elements, there wouldn't be an effect of significant proportions, such as a 'microwave effect'. There would certainly be SOME "collisions" of the particles,  with an object as dense and heavy as the earth's core, with some form of energy given off. How can we say "no effect" to an event we have never encountered inside or outside of the laboratory before.

We also have another possibility that is overdue according to geologic evidence. That is the Yellowstone supervolcano threat. With events happening, on average, every 600,000 years, and the last one 640,000 years ago, it can happen tomorrow, or not for another 50,000 years.

All of these threats make it hard to say that 2012 is impossible and that it couldn't happen.

While reading the book of Revelation I noticed a passage I have mulled over many times, considering what it could mean. Revelation chapter 21, verse 1 says, "And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth, for the first heaven and the first earth has passed away."

God told Abraham, "I will bless thy seed as the stars of the Heaven". This makes clear that when God speaks of Heaven, He is talking of the universe and the stars. It is possible that our view of the heavens will change after 2012. It will not be a change that we will see or notice as "different", except it will be a symbolic "new heaven". How?

When we pass from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1 we celebrate a new year, even though there is little physical difference between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31. It is a symbolic change.  If the "heavens" are above us in the sky we look at each night, we will be looking at a symbolic 'new' heaven in 2013 because the heaven that was above the galactic plane before that time will then be on the opposite side of it from us. The 'new' heaven will be the sky that is "below" the galactic plane, on the same side as the sun and the solar system. Don't look for that difference in the sky because it will look no different, but our earth will theoretically and symbolically have a new 'sky' above it, in much the same way that we observe the moment that the sun passes through the Winter Solstice, as the beginning of a new season.

What about a 'new earth'? If a natural catastrophe occurs around that time also, such as the Yellowstone event, or an asteroid collision, of which several have been near misses lately, or a "Pole Shift" as some expect, we would then have a 'new earth'. The bible predicts that there will be a time such as has not occurred since the 'foundation of the world' in the last days. All of these events could qualify for that title.

While there have been many times that some have pointed to and said "We are in the last days", and were wrong, it is not impossible that something catastrophic can happen in 2012. Maybe it is all just a media blitz and speculation. Perhaps not.