Question

Is the Doomsday 2012 hoax being covered by the newspapers and other traditional media?

Stories about 2012 are beginning to appear, stimulated by the opening of the movie 2012 on November 13, and also my own answers in Ask an Astrobiologist. The entire “20 questions” summary from this astrobiology webpage is printed in Skeptic Magazine this month (as the cover story).

Joel Achenbach wrote a story in the Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/15/AR2009101503745.html] titled “2012: Eh, It's Not the End Of the World”. He wrote in part: “The world is not coming to an end on Dec. 21, 2012, contrary to the viral Internet rumor propounded by pseudo-scientists, hoaxers, Hollywood movie promoters and assorted void-between-the-ears people who wouldn't recognize a scientific fact if it tried to abduct them.... This is no joke to David Morrison, senior scientist for NASA's Astrobiology Institute. He's counted 200 different books for sale about 2012. As the author of an online feature called Ask an Astrobiologist, he's gotten nearly 1,000 e-mails from people who think something dire is about to befall the planet. One teenager wrote to Morrison that he'd rather commit suicide than see the world destroyed.... Ensuring that no bad idea goes unexploited, Sony Pictures has leaped into the mix with a $200 million blockbuster, "2012," coming out on Friday the 13th of November. The trailers show the entire planet coming unglued. The movie doesn't explain why, exactly, but we do see that Los Angeles falls into the sea. A tsunami obliterates a Tibetan monastery high in the Himalayas. The dome of St. Peter's tumbles into the square and smushes a throng of Christians.... Astronomer Edward Krupp of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles debunks 2012 in the November issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, lumping it in with previous cosmic prophesies, such as the "Harmonic Convergence" of 1987.”

This story is featured also in the British publication The Independent. [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/relax-the-end-isnt-nigh-1804340.html]. The author, Steve Conner, focuses on the marketing for the film 2012, especially the website for the Institute for Human Continuity. He writes ”There is nothing on the website instituteforhumancontinuity.org to indicate it is a hoax. It states that scientists are tracking a "planet X" on the fringes of the Solar System and mixes real scientific phenomena with complete fiction, such as a simulation of planet X's near-Earth trajectory. The website urges people to sign up to a lottery guaranteeing every person of the planet an equal chance of survival in 2012 with the offer of a place in one of the Institute for Human Continuity's "safe havens". Only a small Sony Pictures copyright notice at the bottom of the screen and a link to the film's own website give any hint that this is a purely fictional website.” He quotes Vikki Luya, Sony's publicity director, saying: "It is very clear that this site is connected to a fictional Movie. This can readily be seen in the logos on the site, including the Sony Pictures Digital copyright line and the reference to the '2012 Movie Experience'. It is also evident in the user-generated videos, as well as the numerous online references to this marketing campaign.”

The Los Angeles Times for Oct 16 also carried a report on the 2012 hoax. Reporter John Johnson quotes Ed Krupp, director of Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory, in his cover story in the November issue of Sky & Telescope debunking the 2012 predictions. Johnson also contacted Sony Pictures about the fake Institute for Human Continuity. A spokesman, Steve Elzer, told him, “We believe consumers understand that the advertising is promoting a fictional film.”

David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist
October 19, 2009