If you have been on Facebook for the last three or four days, you would have probably seen an almost serious looking post or one of its many garbled variations shared as someone’s Facebook status.
Here is a screen grab of one of the versions:
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Various versions of this status have popped up on since 2012, which are just elaborate hoaxes that have plagued the social-network site for years, and you too might have seen them on your FB pages from time to time.
Do you think copying and posting such a short note that seems to contain complicated and official legalese will protect the privacy and confidentiality of your Facebook account from that moment onwards and privatize the photos and videos you post?
In reality, posting such status on your Facebook page will not change any privacy rules.
If you think that posting such a status on your Facebook page is the right thing to do, then why are you still posting photos and other items on Facebook under your banner? Would it not be better to deactivate your account?
Remember that social media is not the place for “private and confidential” information. If you do not give permission to use your pictures, etc., how would Facebook show them to your friends?
When you agree to Facebook’s terms of use, you give Facebook a non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any content you post. You do not need to declare anything about copyright issues since the law already protects you. Hence, any privacy declaration on your part is worthless and does not mean anything.
Facebook addressed the rumours years ago in a fact-checking blog post about the change related to ownership of users’ information or content they post to the site.
Copyright Meme Spreading on Facebook
There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users’ information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been.
On browsing through the mails I received sometimes back, I came across an email similar to the Ontario Lottery Corporation scam email; however, this time purporting to be from Microsoft.
It said, “Please Read Attached Letter…” with the following image attachment labeled “MGS Awarded You 810,000.00 USD”.
MGS Awarded You 810,000.00 USD
If you receive an email with an attachment similar to the above DO NOT RESPOND.
The above image of a giant’s skeleton is in fact a digital collage of three different photos created by a Canadian illustrator using the alias IronKite. It was placed third in a 2002 competition titled “Archaeological Anomalies 2,” run by Worth1000, a website that hosts contests for digital artists. The website asked contestants to create a hoax archaeological discovery.
Blogs, emails, and even a newspaper have used the above “photograph” to give credence and to substantiate their so-called reports that the National Geographic Society had discovered an ancient race of human giants in India.
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Recently, I came across the above image of a news item included in a YouTube video titled “RACE OF GIANTS found in India” uploaded by YTABUSESusers on December 15, 2008. This news, submitted by G. Subramaniam of Chennai, in a less known Indian newspaper called “Hindu Voice” looked dubious. It does not carry the date of publication.
In the article titled “Skeleton of Giant” Is Internet Photo Hoax” in National Geographic News, James Owen wrote: “An often cited March 2007 article in India’s Hindu Voice monthly, for example, claimed that a National Geographic Society team, in collaboration with the Indian Army, had dug up a giant human skeleton in India.”
Subramaniam reported:
“Recent exploration activity in the northern region of India uncovered a skeletal remains of a human of phenomenal size.” The story went on to say “The discovery was made by National Geographic Team (India Division) with support from the Indian Army since the area comes under jurisdiction of the Army.”
However, the monthly, “Hindu Voice,” based in Mumbai (Bombay), published a retraction after readers alerted its editor P. Deivamuthu to the hoax. The editor said: “We are against spreading lies and canards,” and he added “Moreover, our readers are a highly intellectual class and will not brook any nonsense.”
On December 14, 2007, James Owen for National Geographic News wrote: “The National Geographic Society has not discovered ancient giant humans, despite rampant reports and pictures.”
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IronKite used the above photo taken in 2000 of a mastodon-excavation in Hyde Park, New York as the basis for his photo-manipulation.
In December 2007, he told National Geographic News that he digitally superimposed a human skeleton over the mastodon-dig photo. Later on, he added a man holding a shovel and re-colored his clothing to match that of the man in the above, authentic picture. The goal was to make the shoveler appear to be part of the excavation team. “To create the photo collage, I kept most of the wood frame from the dig site and replaced most of the muddy dirt with ground from the skeleton picture, using a fuzzy ‘brush’ to fade the two so no hard lines would be visible,” IronKite said.
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Though the above authentic photograph of the New York State mastodon excavation was not used to create the completed ‘giant’ skeleton image, it served as the foundation for the digital artwork.
Since 2004, this digitally manipulated artwork inspired unfounded reports of archaeologists unearthing a skeleton of an ancient human giant in India. IronKite, the Canadian digital artist, had nothing to do with the subsequent hoax.
Avi Muchnick who runs Worth1000, the web site that sponsored the photo-manipulation contests that inspired this fake photo said: “We have thousands of people who regularly create images like these in image-editing tools like Phoenix and Photoshop. So, it’s no surprise to us when some of these images get passed around the web as authentic depictions of actual events.”
James Owen wrote: “Variations of the giant photo hoax include alleged discovery of a 60- to 80-foot long (18- to 24-meter) human skeleton in Saudi Arabia. In one popular take, which likewise first surfaced in 2004, an oil-exploration team is said to have made the find. Here the skeleton is held up as evidence of giants mentioned in Islamic, rather than Hindu, scriptures.”
I have repeatedly said in my posts on my website “Impressions ~ of what comes to my mind” and in my Facebook page not to believe everything posted on social media websites such as Facebook. Here is one such post with dubious information that is going viral on the social media:
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The above message that I came across recently on Facebook was an outcome of the Delhi gang rape of December 16, 2012 that incited people nationwide, from every strata of our civil society, to demand for strict anti-rape laws. Everyone started exploring the existing laws for punishing the rapists under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Currently, a flood of Short Message Service (SMS) and social medium posts carrying information about a “new anti-rape law” being passed are misguiding people, despite the disclaim by legal professionals and members of the judiciary to the contrary. Even educated folk presume that it is their bounden duty to circulate these erroneous messages to all their friends thinking that it is a major development with the country’s leaders finally caring about the female population in our society.
This Section 233 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860 has nothing to do with “Rape”. In fact, it deals with counterfeiting coins. It states:
Making or selling instrument for counterfeiting coin.– Whoever makes or mends, or performs any part of the process of making or mending, or buys, sells or disposes of, any die or instrument, for the purpose of being used, or knowing or having reason to believe that it is intended to be used, for the purpose of counterfeiting coin, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extended to three years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Since 1997, we have seen in circulation hoax emails appealing with phrases such as: “Forward this message to others and help fund medical care for a sick or dying child“.
Invariably, these messages named a large charity as the benefactor that stood ready to direct monies towards the costs of medical care for a child fighting for life. That trend continued into 2010.
Here is a heart-wringing message I came across on Facebook.
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Everyone with a sympathetic heart wants to help sick children to get better. The message about a little boy or a little girl suffering from some dreaded disease or infirmity certainly tugs the heartstrings of many. Even so, on the internet pranksters play upon the pathos of others for their personal odious amusement.
Search through the archives on the internet failed to turn up any news about the shooting of any young man by his stepfather and his struggle for life in any hospital.
Lamentably, this message is a hoax.
This message does not give the date and the place where this incident occurred nor does it mention the name of the hospital that takes care of the boy.
Similar appeals to save a young life began circulating first through e-mails and later as cell phone text messages and in social websites such as Facebook.
Here are three earlier versions of this hoax message cited by snopes.com:
Version #1:
[Collected via e-mail, February 2010]
Last friday 2-12-10 a 14 yr old boy was shot 6 times by his step dad. The boy was protecting his 2 yr old sister, in whom the step dad was atempting to rape. The young girl was not harmed, bc of that young mans courage & loyalty to his sister. The mom was at work during this time. The 14 yr old boy is now fighting for his life, and the doctors say he will not make it unless he has this life saving surgery in wich the boys mom cant afford. So At&t has agreed to donate $0.45 every time this msg is sent. So fwd & help save a life! (sic)
Version #2:
[Collected via e-mail, February 2010]
Last friday 2/12/10 a 14 y/o boy weas shot 6 times by his step dad. the boy was protecting his 2 y/o sistetr, whom the atep dad was attemping to rape. the young girl was not harmed because of that young mans courage and loyalty to his sister. The Mother was at work when this took place the 14 yr old boy “dominicjamesdaggner” is now fighting for his life, and the doctor says he will not make unless he has life saving surgery in which the mother cant not afford. So, Verizon and AT&T have agree to donate $12.00 everytime this text is sent. (sic)
Version #3:
[Collected via e-mail, May 2012]
14 YEAR OLD BOY WAS SHOT 6 TIMES BY HIS STEPFATHER, THIS BOY WAS PROTECTING HIS LITTLE 2 YEAR OLD SISTER WHO WAS ABOUT TO BE RAPED BY THIS POOR EXCUSE OF A MAN. THE LITTLE GIRL DID NOT GET HURT THANKS TO HER BRAVE OLDER BROTHER. THEIR MOM WAS AT WORK WHEN ALL THIS HAPPENED. NOW THIS BRAVE YOUNG MAN IS FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE, BUT DOCTRS SAY HE WILL NOT SURVIVE UNLESS HE GETS AN OPERATION WHICH IS VERY COSTFUL AND WHICH HIS MOM CANNOT PAY. ALL FACEBOOK COMPANIES HAVE AGREED TO DONATE 45 CENTS FOR EVERY TIME SOMEONE POSTS THIS TO THEIR WALL, SO PLEASE PASTE AND PASS THIS ON SO THAT TOGETHER WE CAN HELP SAVE THIS BOYS LIFE (sic)
The first two versions mention a date (2-12-10) when the shooting supposedly occurred while the third version does not mention a date . The second version even quotes a name for the victim as “dominicjamesdaggner.“
According to the current version of the message, an ante of 45 US cents would be paid by “Facebook Companies” for each forwarded message. In Version #1, cited above AT&T also offered the same amount per forwarded message. Version #2 of the message surpasses these two offers; it states that Verizon would pay a fantastic $12.00 as ante per forwarded message. And the third version says: “ALL FACEBOOK COMPANIES HAVE AGREED TO DONATE 45 CENTS FOR EVERY TIME SOMEONE POSTS THIS TO THEIR WALL…”
The message “shot 14-year-old boy”, circulated on the web similar to the hoaxes that used the name of the American Cancer Society, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, or some other large social or business entity. The pranksters even roped in McDonald’s and Pizza Hut in the Justin Mallory hoax: “… epileptic in need of long-term care … ” and AOL and ZDNet in the Rachel Arlington hoax: “… brain cancer sufferer in need of an operation …“
Please, do not immediately believe that whatever appears on Facebook or any other site on the web as 100% true. First, verify the news. If it is true, and you want to help, then give your money or your time for the cause.
So, from now on, refrain from forwarding worthless messages to others. Well-intentioned forwarding of messages does nothing towards helping a sick child; however, it does make the day of the prankster who initiated the hoax.
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Last updated: 29th December 2011
First published: 4th October 2004
Article written by Brett M. Christensen About Brett Christensen and Hoax-Slayer
So called “cough CPR” is not a technique recommended or condoned by medical professionals.
An email forward that offers spurious advice about how to survive a heart attack has been continually circulating around the Internet since at least 1999.
Example
Subject: IMPORTANT read this! Cough CPRA cardiologist says If everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people, you can bet that we’ll save at least one life.Read this… It could save your life!! Let’s say it’s 6.15 pm and you’re driving home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You’re really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately you don’t know if you’ll be able to make it that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.
HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE
Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell as many other people as possible about this. It could save their lives!!
BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS ARTICLE TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS POSSIBLE
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The message outlines a technique for surviving a heart attack while alone that involves vigorous coughing. According to the email, a cardiologist has advised forwarding the message to others to save lives. However, the alleged cardiologist is not named, nor is there any reference to a reputable medical institution. In my opinion, use any life-critical “medical advice” that is not supported by credible reference material with extreme caution.
Please note that the cough procedure outlined in the email is not, in itself, a hoax and has been researched and tested by medical experts. In fact, so-called “Cough CPR” might be beneficial under certain controlled circumstances. However, this does not mean that the advice in the email message is valid and useful. The most important factor to consider is that, according to medical experts, cough CPR should only be performed under strict professional supervision.
According to the American Heart Association, “the usefulness of ‘cough CPR’ is generally limited to monitor patients with a witnessed arrest in the hospital setting”. The American Heart Association article also notes:
The American Heart Association does not endorse “cough CPR,” a coughing procedure widely publicized on the Internet. As noted in the 2010 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care, “cough CPR” is not useful for unresponsive victims and should not be taught to lay rescuers.
Moreover, the Resuscitation Council in the UK “knows of no evidence that, even if a lone patient knew that cardiac arrest had occurred, he or she would be able to maintain sufficient circulation to allow activity, let alone driving to the hospital”.
A victim would probably be better off directing his or her energy towards other life saving options such as seeking immediate help or calling the emergency number. The American Heart Association article also states:
The best strategy is to be aware of the early warning signs for heart attack and cardiac arrest and respond to them by calling [the emergency number in your country]. If you’re driving alone and you start having severe chest pain or discomfort that starts to spread into your arm and up into your jaw (the scenario presented in the Internet article), pull over and flag down another motorist for help or phone [the emergency number in your country] on a cellular telephone.
Despite a contagious rumor, coughing doesn’t prevent a heart attack. An e-mail that spread around the world like a contagious disease a few years ago claimed that anyone who feels heart attack symptoms while alone should cough “repeatedly and very vigorously, repeating a breath about every two seconds…until help arrives, or (a normal heartbeat returns).”
Wrong, says the American Heart Association.
“It’s right up there with voodoo as far as I’m concerned,” says Dr. Cary Fishbein, a cardiologist with the Dayton Heart Center.
Another version of the message arrives as an email attachment rendered in Microsoft PowerPoint format. Someone has taken a lot of trouble to convert the original message into an attractive presentation complete with graphics and sound. In spite of the probable good intentions of the creator, the advice presented in the PowerPoint version is as equally spurious as it is in the email version. The PowerPoint version falsely attributes the information to an article in the “Journal Of General Hospital, Rochester”. However the Rochester General Hospital denies that such an article exists and has included the following statement on its website:
Important Notice Regarding the article “How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone.”
Hundreds of people around the country have been receiving an e-mail message entitled “How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone.” This article recommends a procedure to survive a heart attack in which the victim is advised to repeatedly cough at regular intervals until help arrives.
The source of information for this article was attributed to ViaHealth Rochester General Hospital. This article is being propagated on the Internet as individuals send it to friends and acquaintances – and then those recipients of the memo send it to their friends and acquaintances, and so on.
We can find no record that an article even resembling this was produced by Rochester General Hospital within the last 20 years. Furthermore, the medical information listed in the article can not be verified by current medical literature and is in no way condoned by this hospital’s medical staff. Also, both The Mended Hearts, Inc., a support organization for heart patients, and the American Heart Association have said that this information should not be forwarded or used by anyone. Please help us combat the proliferation of this misinformation. We ask that you please send this e-mail to anyone who sent you the article, and please ask them to do the same.
Thus, the “advice” presented in this email forward is not condoned by medical experts and it certainly should not be forwarded to “as many friends as possible”. Forwarding this sort of misinformation is irresponsible. Using the procedure outlined in the message in place of immediately seeking medical help could actually cost a life and not save it.
Mumbai: An Indian woman gave birth to eleven 11 kids baby boys few days ago. Resources have been told that few of them were test tubesbabies but it really seems strange at once. It was also rumored that 6 were twins. Doctors were really surprised, shocked and glad to have successful delivery. Well it’s a blessing of God, who gives 11 baby boys to one woman. 21st century record of 2012 year, if the report is true.
Isn’t the above news a soup of ludicrous statements? A blog that I am familiar with echoed the above news as follows:
Parsi Woman gives birth to 11 boys #Believeitornot
by XXXXXXXXXXX
ELEVENTH WONDER OF THE WORLD
A PARSI WOMAN GIVES BIRTH To 11 Baby Boys At ONCE at Surat Hospital.
A 25-yr old Parsi Woman gave birth to eleven (11) baby boys on 6 Feb 2012. Doctors were really surprised, shocked and glad to have a successful delivery.
11 baby boys to one woman. 21st century record of 2012 year.
After a while, the website scrapped the post; perhaps they would have realized it was not true.
In fact, the photograph taken on 11/11/11 at the Nadkarni’s 21st Century Hospital & Test Tube Baby Centre in Surat shows the 11 babies born on that day placed side by side.
Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman (born Natalie Denise Suleman) an American woman came to international attention when she gave birth to octuplets on January 26, 2009, in Bellflower, California.- six male and two female children conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF).
This revelation also helps to bring to light how any news can be twisted such as this American woman being imaged as “a Parsi woman.”
For now, let’s forget all the small planets and focus on Jupiter. It makes one complete trip around the Sun every 11.861773 years. There’s a new theory put forth by Dr. Rollin Gillespie which shows that Jupiter, and to a smaller degree the other less massive planets, may trigger the 11 year cycle of sunspots and solar flares.
Here’s how it works.
Solar sleeve
The barycenter is not a single point in the Sun. Because the Sun is a rotating gaseous sphere, the barycenter forms a vertical, cylindrical “sleeve” that is partially inside and outside the main solar body. All of the planets have such a “sleeve,” one inside the other, depending on their relative mass and the location of their barycenters. The particular sleeve representing the mass of Jupiter intersects the solar surface at 35.9 degrees North and South. This is precisely where sunspot and flare activity begin and end during each 11 year cycle.The new cycle has already begun with the recent observation of a solar spot with reverse polarity. But some surprising activity on March 27, 2008, showed some huge eruptions with M-class radiation at about the equatorial region of the Sun. [ See Solar Map]. These surprising eruptions suggest a barycenter of disturbance from an object even more massive than Jupiter, placing the “sleeve” outside the Sun. Could this be the beginning of the Galaxy’s effects (keep reading to learn more about this) on our Sun?Scientists have noted that when Jupiter and Saturn are aligned on the same side of the Sun, the solar maximum (the period when we have the most sunspots and flares) is at its weakest; when they are on opposite sides of the Sun the solar maximum is at its strongest. The positions of these two planets on December 21, 2012 are ideal for extreme solar activity.
Position of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21, 2012.
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The alignment that happens on December 20, 2012
We recently learned that we had overlooked an even more significant alignment that we are presenting here for the first time [Above]. There is a straight-line alignment of Jupiter, the Earth, the Sun and (most significantly) the Galactic Center (a black hole). This alignment happens on December 20th, 2012 — just a few hours before the actual “doomsday.”
These cylinders are usually quite orderly because the planets adhere to a narrow plane, called the ecliptic which resembles a thin plate extending from the equator of the Sun. The planets hang out here because (in simple terms) this is the zone where the gravitation of the system is the strongest. (see below)
The planets orbit the Sun in a narrow plane called the ecliptic.
But nature is never perfect. The Sun rotates at a slight angle (7.25 degrees), much as our Earth does. As it wobbles, it tilts the sleeves, causing them to clash with each other and eventually disrupt the surface. Having the barycenters of the two most massive planets, Jupiter and Saturn, in maximum misalignment is especially disruptive. This disturbance, to put it simply, works its way to the surface and erupts in sun spots and solar flares or CME’s (Coronal Mass Ejections).
Solar tube
The last solar cycle was at its maximum in 2001. Each active solar cycle has a period when the flares are strongest, usually happening near the solar equator, called the “solar maximum.” This is significant because the next “solar maximum” event will coincide with December 21, 2012. But wait — there’s much more!
Solar flares are pieces of the sun which leap into space, discharging radiation and strong electrical currents that travel outward into space. They often fall back to the surface of the Sun. Sometimes, a very strong flare, called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), actually leaves the Sun and this deadly mass shoots out from the Sun towards the planets like a bullet. Usually these CME’s don’t hit anything but occasionally they hit a planet like Earth. Some believe a powerful CME once hit Mars.
Most solar flares are small. But even a small flare can be dangerous. In 1989 a flare hit the North American continent and fried electric lines, zapped power grids in the US and Canada, and created large power blackouts. Flares can also effect our moods and physical health. In theory, a large flare impacting the Earth could zap the ionosphere (there goes all the satellites, cell phones, GPS…) and irradiate the surface, killing every living organism that it touched.
Solar flares and sun spots have an average cycle of 11.120412 years (estimated from one “solar maximum” to the next). Right now, 2009, we are just entering the active period of cycle number 24, after an unusually long period of quiet solar activity. This quiet period led some people at NASA to conclude that cycle 24 would be a very quiet cycle — contradicting the earlier predictions they made for an extremely violent cycle. Now they have redacted their call for a quiet cycle since the activity has again commenced. The scientists who study the Sun have also recently announced that they have measured the solar currents, deep inside the Sun, which correspond the Dr. Gillespie’s barycenter currents. But to date they have not been able to agree what causes these deep currents of solar material.
The small discrepancy between the average 11.120412 year solar cycle and the 11.861773 year period of Jupiter is close enough to be significant but suggests that something else is also influencing solar disturbances. Sure, it could be attributed to the various positions of the other less massive planets, but it could also be something even more significant — the Milky Way.
The Galactic Alignment of December 21, 2012 – M31 Andromeda
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The Perfect Storm
Our solar system is part of a huge disc shaped collection of stars and planets called the Milky Way. We’re located somewhere on the edge of the disc, slightly on top of the narrow disc. But very soon we’ll be moving to the bottom of the disc. This change, from top to bottom, begins on December 21, 2012.
Yes, that’s right. On the same day when our Sun is at it’s solar maximum, something will happen that’s never happened for thousands of eons of time — the ecliptic of our solar system will intersect with the Galactic plane, called the “Galactic Equator” of the Milky Way! [See star chart].
If you imagine our solar system as a bunch of peas on a plate, with a huge meatball in the center, imagine the Milky Way as a city-size pizza with the “Guiness World Book Record Meatball” in its center!
Prior to December 2012 we have been drifting on the top of the pizza, never really able to see the bottom. The plate and pizza are not parallel. They are moving at different angles. We’ve been drifting down, down, down… and on December 21st, 2012, we will be exactly on level with the crust — forming an “x” at the Galactic Equator where galactic gravity is the strongest. After 2012, if we are still here, we will be passing through the bottom zone, viewing the Milky Way pizza from the South.
Yes, there’s even more!
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By some amazing coincidence, not only will we be intersecting with the Galactic Equator, but we will be doing this precisely aligned with the center of the Galaxy where there is maximum mass! More mass means more gravity. More gravity means more influence from those barycenters in our Sun. That means exponential increases in solar disruptions — all coinciding on the same day! Whew!
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[Above: The Hercules Cluster of galaxies. This group of galaxies is held together by the gravitational attraction or “pull” of each individual galaxy on the others in the group. This demonstrates the enormous gravity contained in a galaxy, such as our own Milky Way.]
IMPORTANT NOTE: Many people do not understand the alignment of the solar system’s ecliptic with the Galaxy’s equator. This is because the phenomenon called “the precession” is described as the shifting of background stars due to the “wobble” of planet Earth. In fact, it is not only the planet that wobbles but the entire solar system that wobbles. Many web sites try to debunk the alignment by claiming that it is just the Earth that will be aligned with the Galactic center and the equator. They fail to recognize recent discoveries that show that all of the planets move with the Earth and the Sun against the background stars — including one star: Sirius. Some astronomers suggest that Sirius may, therefore, be part of our solar system.
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An apology and acknowledgement
OK. This has been a “lightweight” description of what’s going to happen. It has been simplified to the point where some scholars and scientists could argue about my presentation. But the main facts are true. The date, December 21, 2012, is a special day. It represents the maximum possible influences for solar flares that the universe can provide. Undoubtedly the Mayans, or the civilization that influenced them, somehow knew about these things.
Over the last decade, I have written a variety of stories about such things as underground cities and government actions that could only make sense if there were no future. I cannot help but think that maybe they, like the Mayans, know about these things. I’d specifically like to suggest that readers take another look at the underground complex at Yamantau that the Russians are building. Could this be a haven for surviving a solar blast? And the “doomsday seed bank” that’s being filled deep inside an Arctic island. And what about past events? Did the Hopi go underground to survive a similar event thousands of years earlier? Should we be going underground also?
It’s also important to stress that December 21, 2012 is only the “solar maximum” but that the gravitational effects of the Galaxy have already started to assert their influence on the Sun. The drift towards alignment with the galactic equator is relatively slow and, in truth, has already started. But the precise culmination of this, plus the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn all make 12/21/12 an ominous date.
I especially want to thank Dr. Rollin Gillespie, a man with whom I corresponded for ten years and who first developed the idea that planetary multi-body systems could be at play in the causation of solar flares. More of his work can be read on a special page on Viewzone. I would also direct your attention to the following two news reports of the discovery of gamma rays coinciding with the Galactic equator (through which we will be shortly passing) and the alarming report that our planet’s magnetic shield (guarding against, among other things, gamma radiation) has been damaged.You may want to continue reading the second part of this article for more details on what to expect.
Please let’s have your input on this important issue. It’s only three years away. Who knows, perhaps the influences of these disruptions will begin well before the solar and Galactic maximum is reached. We may not have that much time left. Here are some additional links to stories that may help understand the possibilities facing our planet and us.
Note: Since this article was first published, viewzone has received more information on “doomsday,” including visual and scientific evidence that a solar “extinction event” happened in the past.
ViewZone asked me to write a story about the Mayan Calendar. There is a common belief that the calendar holds a prophecy that the world will end in 2012. I knew very little about the whole topic when I began doing the research. I like to think I had an open mind. My investigation began with mainstream archaeology and expert interpretations of the calendar. But it soon took a turn that made my hair literally stand on end. I am now convinced that these prophecies are true.
To understand what is likely to happen to Earth and its people, you will need to remain calm and try to follow the facts. It’s not as simple as some people describe. It requires an understanding of some fairly complicated science, but I think I can explain this in a way that you will easily understand.
End-time stone
The Calendar — A Description
First, the Mayan calendar is also sometimes called the Aztec Calendar. This calendar is recorded as a carving on the Aztec “sun stone,” currently on exhibit in the National Museum of Anthropology and History located within Chapultepec Park, Mexico City. There’s a lot we could say about this carved stone but most of those details are irrelevant to the “end times.”
Our modern calendar, called the Gregorian Calendar, has days, weeks, months and years. In the Mayan Calendar it’s more complex. In fact, it’s really three calendars at the same time.
First there’s a religious calendar that takes 260 days to complete a full religious cycle. There are 20 “weeks” made up of 13 days. Each week has a special name, a graphic logo and unique meaning associated with it. This reminds me of the Chinese years which cycle through “the year of the rat” and “the year of the monkey,” etc., each with it’s special image and meaning.
Graphic logos for each of the 20 religious weeks.
Next there is the solar calendar. This has 365 days, like our modern calendar. It’s divided in 18 months of 20 days each. At the end of the cycle there’s five special days considered to be unlucky because they don’t belong to any month. Each of the months has a special name, graphic logo and some special significance, similar to the icons for the weeks in the religious calendar.
So it is possible, for any specific date, the calculate the religious week and the solar month and to predict the influences that might be guiding fate. But that’s not really what’s involved with the prophecy of 2012. To understand that we must look at the third calendar, called the long count.
While the first two cycles could be thought of as cogs or gears (see below) revolving through time, the long count is a linear number of days, starting from the first day, “1,” and counting through each day to the present. Any day in history can be recorded using the long count and, with some simple mathematics, the corresponding religious week and solar month can also be found.
In writing this article, I thought about creating a javascript program that would do this calculation. My friend, Gene Matlock, then told me that when he was in Mexico, he found a place that sold wooden, mechanical calculators with gears that did just that. He said that Mexicans sometimes used these mechanical calendars to foretell the future or to find auspicious times for special events like marriage or births. Anyway, although it might be nice to know the religious and solar significance, it’s the long count that foretells Doomsday.
End-time wheels – Cog or “gears” can be used to compute the religious and solar cycles for any date.
The days of the long count are numbered with an unusual system. Instead of writing numbers as we do, from right to left with each place being a multiple of 10 (i.e. 10000, 1000, 100, 10, 1), the Mayans had only 5 places.
The first place recorded a number from 0 to 20. To the left, the second place could have a range from 0 to 17; the third from 0 to 19; the fourth from 0 to 19 and the last from 0 to 12. The numbers were written from right to left, like our system, separated by a dot. Instead of multiples of 10, the first place had a multiple of 1 (like our system); the second place a multiple of 20; the third a multiple of 360; the fourth a multiple of 7200 and the fifth a multiple of 144000.
So a long count number, for example, could be written as 4.12.5.9.0 and would be calculated as follows:
(4 x 144000) + (12 x 7200) + (5 x 360) + (9 x 20) + (0 x 1) or a long count of 664,380.
It’s not too difficult to realize that the maximum number which can be recorded this way would be 12.19.19.17.20, although some researchers like to write it as 13.0.0.0.0. This amounts to a long count number of 1,872,000 days or 5125.36 years of our modern calculations. Obviously, the calendar is very old!
Over the years, archaeologists have found carved monuments that recorded the long count for known dates in Mayan history. Once a date was fixed in time, it was easy to determine “day 1” as August 11th, 3114 BC. And it was also easy to calculate the date at which the calendar would end — December 21st, 2012.
The ‘Comalcalco Brick’ [right], is the second fragment known to reference to Dec. 21, 2012 or Dec. 23, 2012.
The date inscribed on the brick is a ‘Calendar Round’, a combination of a day and month position that will repeats every 52 years. The brick date does coincide with the end of the 13th Baktun; Baktuns were roughly 394-year periods and 13 was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas. The Mayan Long Count calendar begins in 3114 B.C., and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.
The third glyph on the brick seems to read as the verb huli, “he/she/it arrives.”
Both inscriptions on the Tortuguero tablet and the Comalcalco brick — were probably carved about 1,300 years ago and both are cryptic in some ways.
The Tortuguero inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation. However, erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible, though some read the last eroded glyphs as perhaps saying, “He will descend from the sky.”
Trust me, just because the calendar ends doesn’t prove that time, or the world, or life will end. We need to look carefully at December 21, 2012 and try to understand why the Mayans never calculated a date beyond this point in time. To do this we must move from Archaeology to the science of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
It’s all about the Sun
It’s ironic (or maybe not) that the Mayan Calendar is often called the “sun stone.” While the calendar does have “solar” days, acknowledging the 365 days it takes for Earth to rotate around the Sun, it is also true that the Sun plays a key role in the final day of the “long count.” To understand what will happen to the Sun on December 21, 2012, we need to review some scientific terms like “ecliptic,” “barycenter,” and “sunspots.” These are important in the discussion that follows. We’ll start with the most difficult one first.
Terms we will encounter…
What is the Barycenter?
You’ve no doubt heard that Earth revolves around the sun. Well, actually, that’s not quite true!
Have you heard the term “center of gravity”? It’s a technical-sounding term for something pretty simple. It’s the exact center of all the material (that is, mass) that makes up the object. For example, if you have a straight stick, like a ruler or yardstick, there’s a place at the middle where you can balance it on your finger. That’s its center of gravity.
But the center of gravity may or may not be the point that is exactly in the middle, distance-wise, of the object. Some parts of the object may be heavier (denser) than others. If you have something like a sledge hammer that is heavier on one end than the other, the center of gravity will be much closer to the heavy end than the lighter end.
To get an idea of where the center of gravity is, rest the ends of any object like the ruler or a pencil on one finger from each hand. Slowly move your fingers together without dropping the object. Your fingers will meet underneath the object’s center of gravity. You can balance the object on one finger at that special place.
The actual center of gravity could be close to the surface or deep inside, depending on whether the object is flat like a ruler or a dinner plate, or “three-dimensional,” like a box or a ball. And if you let the object spin (like when you throw it), it will try to spin about that point.
In the case of the Earth and the sun, both bodies actually revolve, or spin, around the very center of the mass (similar to center of gravity) between them. This point is called the “barycenter.” Earth and the sun are “connected” by the gravity pulling them together. It’s just like the light end and heavy end of the sledge hammer. Compared to the size of the sun, Earth is about like a flea on a cat! So the center of mass between the Earth and the sun is almost–but not quite–the very center of the sun.
In the case of a planet the size of Jupiter, which is 318 times as massive as Earth, the barycenter of Jupiter and the sun is a bit further from the sun’s center. So, as Jupiter revolves around the sun, the sun itself is actually revolving around this slightly off-center point, located just outside its center. Thus, a planet the size of Jupiter will make the sun (or any star) appear to wobble a tiny bit. This picture shows you that the center of mass and barycenter can be slightly different points. It isn’t meant to be very accurate!
We can take advantage of this bit of knowledge and look for large planets in other solar systems by learning to detect this type of tiny wobble in the star’s position.
For now, let’s forget all the small planets and focus on Jupiter. It makes one complete trip around the Sun every 11.861773 years. There’s a new theory put forth by Dr. Rollin Gillespie which shows that Jupiter, and to a smaller degree the other less massive planets, may trigger the 11 year cycle of sunspots and solar flares.
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However, the monthly, “Hindu Voice,” based in Mumbai (Bombay), published a retraction after readers alerted its editor P. Deivamuthu to the hoax. The editor said: “We are against spreading lies and canards,” and he added “Moreover, our readers are a highly intellectual class and will not brook any nonsense.”
Impressions 