Thousands of mystics, hippies and spiritual wanderers will descend on the ruins of Maya cities on Friday to celebrate a new cycle in the Maya calendar, ignoring fears in some quarters that it might instead herald the end of the world.
Brightly dressed indigenous Mexican dancers whooped and invoked a serpent god near the ruins of Chichen Itza late on Thursday, while meditating westerners hoped for the start of a “golden age” of humanity.
Fears of mass suicides, meteorites, huge power cuts, natural disasters, epidemics or an asteroid hurtling toward Earth have circulated on the Internet ahead of December 21.
Chinese police have arrested about 1,000 people this week for spreading rumors about December 21, and authorities in Argentina restricted access to a mountain popular with UFO-spotters after rumors began spreading that a mass suicide was planned there.
Doomsday Predictions
There is a long tradition of calling time on the world.
Basing his calculations on prophetic readings of the Bible, the great scientist Isaac Newton once cited 2060 as a year when the planet would be destroyed.
U.S. preacher William Miller predicted that Jesus Christ would descend to Earth in October 1844 to purge mankind of its sins.
When it didn’t happen, his followers, known as the Millerites, refereed to the event as The Great Disappointment.
In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult, believing the world was about to be “recycled,” committed suicide in San Diego to board an alien craft they said was trailing behind a comet.
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