Unless, that is, you believe Yahoo!News. They posted a credulous "news" article saying that there’s this guy, see, and he thinks that on May 25 Earth will get hit by a comet fragment.
A crop circle told him so. And it’s tied to Bush, and Iran… and duh, UFOs.
If you think I’m kidding, then you don’t know me very well. Read all about it.
Sigh. I swear, one day I’ll get a real job.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
April 16th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
I’ve read that no one knows exactly why it’s breaking up and that it might have something to do with a collision with an asteroid possibly?
If it did, wouldn’t it’s orbit change?
And, at a distance of 6 million miles, how much will it’s orbit change?
April 16th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
Yahoo tries really really hard to be one better than Google, but they are just, well… a buncha Yahoos…
April 16th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Shameless self-promotion:
http://www.wolverinesden.org/2006/04/14/fragmented-logic/
April 16th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Phil,
As a newspaper editor, I can tell you that this is exactly why any “news” story should have, at the very least, two sources. This is propoganda from one man seeking attention, and you are absolutely right in chastising yahoo for publishing such nonsense. Those of us who are sincere and truth-seeking journalists have enough problems with our public perception today without the free and open dissemination of this type of drivel.
Thanks for the opportunity to rant.
April 17th, 2006 at 1:58 am
So the teenagers who stomped the corn down to make this crop circle back in 1995 got lazy and didn’t finish, leaving a drawing of the solar system with no Earth. . . And in consequence, this starstruck lunatic (heh heh) believes the world will end.
Wonders never cease!
April 17th, 2006 at 5:14 am
I always enjoy the logic offered up by such people:
-If we don’t stop destroying ourselves, then alien authorities will be obliged to destroy us, to punish us for destroying ourselves.-
April 17th, 2006 at 6:44 am
Thanks for pointing this out, Phil. I’m now prepared for questions from one of my students who thinks yahoo news is gospel.
April 17th, 2006 at 7:06 am
Phil Plait disses crop circles?…
Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy is just ALL bent out of shape over what he perceives as hokey science let out of it’s cage by Yahoo. So, I read the entire report he’s bent out of shape over….
April 17th, 2006 at 7:12 am
At the end of the Yahoo article, there is a disclaimer “Sponsored by the Exopolitics Institute”. So, not only is this news bogus, it was paid for?
April 17th, 2006 at 7:50 am
Comets prefer late spring/early summer. The last good one hit 30 June, 1908. This one probably wants to beat the wedding season.
Sunda “P73″ Kastagir: Macleod, it’s good to see you again. It seems like a hundred years.
Connor “Tsunguska” MacLeod: It’s been a hundred years.
April 17th, 2006 at 7:50 am
Man, if he had been just 6 weeks sooner in his projection, I wouldn’t have had to do taxes…
April 17th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Hey, not like I’m Franco-bashing or anything, but you left out the fact that the guy is French, hence ties to our idiot president, Iran, etc.
Ok, maybe I am Franco-bashing a little bit, but…
April 17th, 2006 at 8:12 am
the guy is French,
All that means is that he has lots of free time on his hands during strikes.
April 17th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Well now you can see what a serious news organization Yahoo news is. The first one was funny. Because NO ONE can possibly believe that. This one is silly and disgusting. It just alarms people that might not want to double check this guy’s claims with the real guys.
April 17th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Moonage Spacedream said:
>Phil Plait disses crop circles?…
Hmm. Looked at your article.
> Mainly, because although Phil disses crop circles as a means of forecasting future astronomical events, he doesn’t really say why.
Because there’s no objective evidence crop circles are anything other than artwork created by humans stomping down crop stalks, under cover of darkness.
Then when discussing this latest nonsense, you make reference to the “Missing Earth” crop circle that Eric Julien mentions.
http://www.swirlednews.com/article.asp?artID=659
First of all, I find it a convenient interpretation that the crop circle is supposed to represent the Solar System. It is suggestive, being a series of concentric rings (i.e. orbits) with “objects” embedded in them (the planets), and the third ring out not having an object. That circle is surrounded by a plethora of circles of various sizes. Is that supposed to represent the rest of the universe or something?
But what I really like is the next photo linked, labeled “Tichborne 1995″. This formation also shows a central body, a series of concentric circles with objects in them, surrounded by a ring of circles of various sizes. There’s even a labeled version for convenience. It is interesting how “Mercury” and “Venus” are the same size. Even more interesting is that “Venus” appears to be a double body, or have a moon. Then there’s Earth, larger than both, but no moon shown. Finally comes the outer ring of circles of various sizes, with one that is “Earth” sized labeled “Mars”. That’s a fairly inaccurate representation of the Solar System. You really have to read in to get that as our Solar System.
But the best part is the headline:
DATE PREDICTED IN CROP FORMATION APPROACHES – 26/08/2003
That’s right – September 26, 2003.
Of course the author has added this catchy summation at the bottom of the article:
>Mark 6th September in your diaries, then. But don’t come complaining to us if nothing significant occurs… The meaning may be far more subtle than we know – or only become clearer retrospectively.
Great how that works. “The 26th is Very Important… unless nothing happens, then don’t blame us, we didn’t do it.” What a wonderful non-falsifiable claim. Either something significant will happen that stands out, or else it will happen and we won’t notice.
Yeah, that makes all this more credible.
April 17th, 2006 at 8:35 am
It’s the End of the World as We Know It… Again!
Fun France Fact of the day:
An “americain” is a type of sandwich often found in restaurants and streetside food vendors who sell kebabs and other meaty food of Middle Eastern origin. It consists of ground beef, fried, with fried potatoes, served in a submarine roll. Get that? The sandwich whose key ingredient is called French fries in America is named, in France, the American.
I’m here to study theoretical physics, and that sandwich thing still confuses me.
April 17th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Is there any chance, any chance at all, that when absolutely jack happens on 25 May, Yahoo News will print a retraction?
April 17th, 2006 at 9:10 am
Thanks for headlining this one, Phil! It’s good to have someone pointing out the nonsense so that at least some casual observers won’t be fooled by it.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:21 am
This is what happens when you use Bart Simpson as your fact checher. I guess “Brownie, AKA Hell of a job” as out of town at press time.
April 17th, 2006 at 10:07 am
Crank.net rates exopolitics as “crankier.” I think this comet business may move it up to “crankiest.”
April 17th, 2006 at 11:00 am
I think it’d be of interest to do a statistical study of the relationship between the incidence of sophisticatd cereal-graphics & their proximity to centers of higher education.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:18 am
It’s quite possible that it is all true! I heard Earth was supposed to be destroyed for an intergalactic bypass. Maybe the crop circle missing an Earth was just the sketch the engineer was doodling up to show the project manager.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Hey, I’m as off-put by this article as anyone else, but it is, after all, a press release. In the press release section of Yahoo News. “U.S. Newswire” is some sort of PR publishing outfit, and they must have a deal with Yahoo to put their client’s PR’s up in the PR section.
I just want to make sure everyone’s clear on this: Yahoo does not write their own news. They simply aggregate stories from Reuters, AP, Space.com, and a dozen other places. This…misguided…individual’s press release is there simply because the Exopolitics Institute pays U.S. Newswire to post it.
Getting mad at Yahoo over this article is like getting mad at them for a story on bad economic news.
Now, on the other hand, if one is Joe or Jane Netuser and one somehow stumbles across this page, and one has no experience with press releases, I can see how one could fail to notice the tell-tale signs that this is not a real news article. If the outrage here is that Yahoo is not clearly, with a nice disclaimer at the top, declaring that this is just a press release, then yes, I can get behind that.
April 17th, 2006 at 11:35 am
Don’t you mean “credible” instead of “credulous”?
Don’t you mean “incredible” instead of “credible”?
It’s stupid entertainment news, like Paris Hilton falling off a motorcycle, blah, blah.
April 17th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
@Mark Martin:
I’m not sure how strong a correlation the analysis you suggest would actually show. When MIT students made cereal art for the Discovery Channel, they went all the way to Ohio to do it:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/crops-1009.html
The guy who produced the documentary gave us an advanced screening in the East Campus lounge. It was pretty entertaining, but more than a little sensationalistic, like a good idea had been dipped into a bucket of schlock. (The bit with the helicopter “losing power” at the end was staged, for example.)
By the way, that crank.net website has some outright hilarious stuff.
April 17th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
I think Zapp makes a very strong point. The “article” is a press release. It might be easy to miss, which can be confusing and easily lead one to think this was written by a third party; at arms length, when in reality it was probably written by the person or organization it is about. Anyone can write an “article” like this and say absolutely anything is true. One just needs to be willing to pony up some dough (say $50 to $250, depending upon circulation).
April 17th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
“When MIT students made cereal art for the Discovery Channel, they went all the way to Ohio to do it”
Ah, well, it was an interesting speculation while it lasted. Thanks.
April 17th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Oh No! Paris Hilton fell of a motorcycle in Blah Blah…
April 17th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Tim G:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/credulous
[blockquote cite=]1. credulous – disposed to believe on little evidence; “the gimmick would convince none but the most credulous”
trustful, trusting – inclined to believe or confide readily; full of trust; “great brown eye, true and trustful”- Nordhoff & Hall
2. credulous – showing a lack of judgment or experience; “so credulous he believes everything he reads” [/blockquote]
I think you’re right. The Yahoo!News site was credulous to print it. People would be credulous to believe it. The guy who wrote it (and apparently posted it) may be credulous, but not for the act of posting this. The [i]press release[/i] is not “disposed to believe on little evidence”, so credulous isn’t the correct word to describe it. Ridiculous, silly, ludicrous would all be more appropriate.
And I would have had a hard time telling this was a paid press release rather than a journalist’s article. But then there are apparently grades of “news”. This is news in the sense of, “Breaking News, I just got an award at work!”, not news in the sense of something people care about. It’s self-promotion.
April 17th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
“great brown eye, true and trustfulâ€
Does anyone else feel the juxtaposition of “great brown eye” and some guy who believes in crop circles is more than just a happy coincidence?
April 17th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Uncontrollable laughter I can’t believe Yahoo News would publish that. What are they smoking ( I bet it isn’t ciggerettes)? I got to bookmark this article to look at whenever I’m feeling bored. I really cannot stop laughing. Thanks, BA for giving me this gift of uncontrollable laughter!
April 17th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
I didn’t realize this was a paid press release — it’s not clear at all from the Yahoo page; the top just says Yahoo News. You have to look along the tabs to see that this is a PR.
Wow. So Yahoo just publishes whatever someone pays them to, and it’s news. I’m more glad than ever that I stopped doing my newsletter through them.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
I feel a bit sorry for all the folks falling for this story. They must feel a great deal of panic. The predictions, so far as I know, never come true (anyone know otherwise?). Of course, the wise bottoms put “maybe”s in their predictions now. I still say they’re wrong – moreso than ever for their panic inspiring sensationalizing something that isn’t.
Note that in the comet commentary by the real scientist we find out the closest fragment will be 10,000,000 km from Earth – not the main fragment, or the furthest – the closest!
Finally, the bit that makes me laugh out loud? The bit that the comet “Mysteriously” broke apart! There is little mystery – certainly no indication of foul deeds or alien interferrence. Just a comet whose supporting bits melted enough for chunks to come off.
Anyone want to plan a picnic for Friday, May 26th?
jbs
April 18th, 2006 at 12:21 am
I find the story Mr. Julien has come up with to be very amusing. I think the only problem with it is that he missed the best publishing date by about a fortnight.
April 18th, 2006 at 2:15 am
As long as Bruce Willis is still around we have nothing to fear from comets. I was wondering how long before the NASA mission that had a problem recently that they won’t discuss publicly will be linked to this story.
April 18th, 2006 at 3:27 am
For some reason this reminds me of a UK policy called “Care in the Community”
April 18th, 2006 at 3:33 am
Had a quick look at the link mentioned in the blog re the author, M. Eric Julien, and it doesn’t look too smart.
” Eric Julien (aka Jean Ederman) is the author of La Science Des Extraterrestres (”JMG Publications, France, 2005) which is currently being translated into English as “The Science of Extraterrestrials”. He has worked professionally in the French aviation industry. While a military air traffic controller at Reims Air Base, France, he tracked a UFO travelling at 15,000 knots/hr. He is also a certified director of international airports (Airport Senior Manager) recognized by the National School of the Civil Aviation and Aéroports of Paris. etc etc…”
With the credentials mentioned, I guess they can be checked, but the giveaway I think was the velocity quoted – 15000 Knots per hour! Nobody says ‘knots per hour’, least of all a supposed Airline offical. If it a misprint for kilometer/hr., then maybe, and the scale would be more realistic tho 9 or 10 thousand mph is still pretty wild. Ship and aircraft velocities are always measured in Knots. Period!. ( Maybe proof that the Alien Commander doesn’t know this! )
Of the subject and with a few minutes to go to set up recording of a local tv brroadcast of the attack of Science Teaching by the Creationists, a program I notice was made in Britian, so could have been aired also in the States in the meantime. I think it does show David Attenborough, I guess defending Science. This is on SBS in Australia, just starting even as I type.
Ivan.
April 18th, 2006 at 4:04 am
Well, of *course* May 25 is the end! It’s Towel Day!
Don’t Panic . . .
April 18th, 2006 at 7:40 am
How to sell a book that has no intrinsic value:
1) Make a wild assed prediction
2) Say the extraterrestrials(or devils/angels) made you say that
3) Then postulate that IF ENOUGH PEOPLE BELIEVE THIS FECES, the “extraterrestrials” will undo what they’ve done so no one will be the wiser
4) Now there’s a done deal.No matter WHAT happens, the writer wins,,,money/fame, thy name is stupidity.
Gary 7
April 18th, 2006 at 8:35 am
What is it about may and the end of the world coming together frequently? Seems like i remeber a couple of other “end of the world coming” stories that were also May.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:34 am
People choose May as the end of the world to avoid the spring cleaning that their wives put them up to….
“Listen Dear, why bother? The world gonna end soon anyway”.
It doesn’t work of course, just like your mother would make you wear clean underwear.
April 18th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
What interested me the most about this whole tale was Dr Phil’s article about it on the BA website. Yes, yes, I mean the astronomy doctor Phil, not the spill-your-guts-out-on-TV one.
Anyway, according to Phil, sizeable chunks of ice enter the atmosphere all the time, and they must cause absolutely spectacular fireballs, yet they are almost never seen. I have always loved meteors, especially bright ones which can be both beautiful and a bit scary. Wouldn’t mind seeing one caused by a car-sized chunk of ice!
Anyway, I don’t know to which extent Dr Phil reads all the comments here on his blog, but if he reads this, consider it to be one request to go into this for us. Why are such bright fireballs so seldom seen? My personal guess is that however bright, they can only be seen from a relatively small area on earth, and statistically, the chances are 70% that they fall over open ocean. There are also still vast unpopulated areas where such things can fall without anyone noticing.
But of course, my guess might be spectacularly wrong. I have a long history of such wrong guesses: in the weeks before Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter, my personal guess was that nothing much would happen, and that we probably wouldn’t even be able to observe the impact from here. Was I ever wrong!
Anyway, thanks for yet another quirky and interesting topic, and do let us know if you can find out more about the impending end of the world…
April 19th, 2006 at 4:31 am
Has anyone seen ’spinoffs’ of this article in other newsmedia yet? Even if it’s in the last 30 second ’smarmy, lighthearted, feelgood’, or ‘moment of zen’ section, it’s bad, simply because of the aforementioned panic that may brew. Are any of you being asked to comment professionally? I hope so.
…And of course, there’s all of those gutters, garages, and trashcans that will go uncleaned!
April 19th, 2006 at 5:18 am
Its the end of the world as we know and I feel fine
April 19th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
I hope it comes soon I hate fighting dandylions
April 20th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
Brian,
Thanks for saying “something” about comets and cometary material.
The simple fact here is that the comet is continuing to crumble as we speak, Fragment B is getting dimmer not brighter.
I’m seriously wondering if we may really get a nice meteor shower out of it even though everyone thinks it’s not going to come closer.
These small pieces of comet or smallish asteroids or large meteors do hit the atmosphere all the time and some are bright enough to get caught by military satellites that are constantly monitoring for nuclear explosions.
During April each year many fireballs are seen so much that it is a real “Meteor Shower”.
I wonder if some of these April Fireballs are the same as some of the fireballs caught by these military satellites.
April 23rd, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Thank you for this explanation of the article…I heard about it via a chat room in Pal Talk.. hosted by The Prophet of Doom, and was interested in the background of the prediction. A simple search brought me here.
I must say I was highly entertained by the method used to de-bunk the article! As my whole family enjoys watching the skies during meteor showers-regardless of the time of year or the temperatures …even I know that we are subject to many hits…usually too small to notice–but they make for a good show in the sky as they burn their way down!
A few summers ago, at the Jersey shore, a small meteor passed between two lifeguards, sitting on their tower to impact on the beach in front of them..maybe the size of a walnut, there was no damage, or explosion,..just a splat when it hit… (it was the lifeguards good fortune that neither of them had their heads in the way when it passed between them!) It’s a shame more people dont check out what they read…but I thank you for providing an answer–so easily found and understood, on this web page!
April 24th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
P. Edward Murray, this page suggests there might be a meteor shower.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/24mar_73p.htm?list237669
Astronomer Paul Wiegert (from the University of Western Ontario) doesn’t think so, but it is possible depending upon the cause of the breakup.
April 26th, 2006 at 7:06 am
2006 Comet strike prophecy?…
A lot of concern has been made of the recent Yahoo news article citing reputable sources reading crop circles and predicting the end of the world as we know it. I was having some fun with this as more hocus…
April 26th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Thank you “nobadyimportant” #16945 for your post on
April 24, 2006 @ 6:11 pm – my sentiments exactly!
Mr badastro “at” badastronomy.com, NOPE? Your only “proof” is to discredit the article from Yahoo!News?
I swear, you will never qulify for a real job!
April 26th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
It’s tempting to delete trolls like that, but it’s good to let people know what I’m fighting against, too.
April 28th, 2006 at 8:51 am
You know what, today NASA released images from Hubble showing the break-up of this comet.
You can view the vids here: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/18/video/
And you can see and animation of the comet’s path relavant to Earth in the coming month.
Note in the videos that the fragments that have broken off the comet are SLOWING DOWN. Now, if the comet is supposed to be 7 million miles at closest point to Earth, wouldn’t it stand to reason that fragments that are slowing down my lag far enough behind to cross the Earth’s path at the same time.
If so, this would lend credance to the quack’s phrophecy that a fragment would be thrown off course by the chaos and turbulence of break-up, possibly putting said fragment on a collision course.
And, even if not, this whole event should be a sobering reminder that this type of scenario could, in fact, happen one day. What are we going to do to stop it?
April 28th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Sorry, forgot the link to the animation:
http://www.shadowandsubstance.com/
April 30th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
hear the sonic booms?? I bet its the comets!! (lol just kidding although its a good hypothesis)
May 5th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
personally, I hope you leave them up there just for pure entertainment value
May 7th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
I am very happy I found this site. It gave me the chance to read all about the story from many points of veiw! To nobadyimportant there has to be something said for all the scientists who knew about the tsunami!!! Do you think that was easy for them to not help to sit back and know people were going to die by the thousands? You think they sleep as well as you do tonight? Why would you think if they did tell the population this wave was coming that every one would politly get out of the way?
Fact: Tell me that a giant Tsunami is coming and watch me be patient! Wrong I will kill and do whatever to survive….Human nature…..Survival! So if the world would like to think something is or is not going to happen who are you to critisice them to wake up? Maybe you need to wake up and see sometime’s not knowing….is where people find PEACE!!!
May 9th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
I think that there will be a comet on that day because i had a vision of it
May 25th, 2006 at 8:13 pm
I could’nt believe the amount of easily impressionable minds at my place of work
that julien fellow is a character i actually thought alot of his research was intriguing until the extaterrestrial and political rants your site is the real article i’ll be telling my co-workers where to get “real” information, oh yeah today is actually May,25,2006 and im still standing,one more thing so much for plausible Mr. Julien has deleted his site.
April 21st, 2007 at 6:42 pm
[...] Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy is just ALL bent out of shape over what he perceives as hokey scien…. So, I read the entire report he’s bent out of shape over. The short end of it is that according to crop circles, the world will end May 25 of this year. I decided to risk copyright law and post Eric Julien’s entire report so that you all can come to your own educated and knowledgeable conclusion. Mainly, because although Phil disses crop circles as a means of forecasting future astronomical events, he doesn’t really say why. So, here it is. Enjoy. I am adding a countdown ticker over there so you’ll know how to plan your schedule around the end of the world as we know it. [...]