I was on MySpace and noticed an ad I just had to click on. I didn’t get a screen shot of it, unfortunately, and I can’t seem to get it back, but it said something like "Asteroid impact in 2039 proves Biblical prophecy".
The ad linked to Asteroid2039.com, which says:
Asteroid 1999 AN10 is predicted to come close to Earth in 2027 and 2039. NASA doesn’t think that it will hit. However there is evidence that it will - from the Bible.
Oh boy! You know this’ll be good.
Jesus gives four signs that we should look out for at the time of the end. These are all fulfilled in August 2027.
Matthew 24:29-30:
* The sun will grow dark: a symbolic solar eclipse of Egypt on 02/08/2027.
* The moon will no longer shine: a new moon on 02/08/2027.
* The stars will fall from heaven: a meteor shower from the asteroid (closest approach on 07/08/2027).
* The powers in space will be driven from their courses: the asteroid is deflected and returns in 2039.
That’s right. The end of the world is foretold by a new Moon, an eclipse, a meteor shower, and something incredibly vague. Well, lessee: we get a new Moon at a solar eclipse by definition, and there’s a solar eclipse pretty much every year somewhere on Earth. There are dozens of meteor showers every year. Objects are deflected by others continuously, literally all the time. Otherwise we wouldn’t have orbits.
I guess we’re doomed then. Nuts.
The author has a PDF outlining the whole thing:
The free ebook describes the reasons for this event and predicts that it will impact in one of the Earth’s oceans in 2039.
Well, I did something outrageous: I went to NASA’s Near Earth Object server. Perhaps pride goeth before the fall (I wish religious politicians would remember that particular phrase), but I trust those astronomers more than an ebook preaching apocalyptic doom. About 1999 AN10, the NEO site says (emphasis mine)
New observations are now available for asteroid 1999 AN10, which is gradually moving away from the glare of the Sun. The new data allow a considerably improved orbit to be calculated for this potentially hazardous object, and the revised predictions indicate that this kilometer-size asteroid could pass particularly close to the Earth on August 7, 2027. The passage in 2027 could be as close as 37,000 km from the Earth’s center (just 19,000 miles above the Earth’s surface), but no closer. The miss distance is still very uncertain, and the asteroid could easily pass well outside the Moon’s orbit. The probability of a collision in 2027 is essentially zero.
Hmmmmm. Thoughtful astronomers with decades of experience at mapping out orbits and asteroid predictions, or a breathless web page with vague claims advertised on MySpace.
Yeah.
But wait, there’s more! I downloaded the PDF (man, the things I do for you BABloggees). It’s interesting; it makes lots of claims. For example, he predicts that the La Palma volcano will collapse on December 25, 2007, causing a tsunami which will inundate the East Coast of the US. That’s testable! So we’ll see. I wonder if he’ll update that PDF when nothing happens? It’s a safe bet nothing will happen: the last collapse of that volcano was 750,000 years ago.
He says the asteroid will return in 2039, and the double return matches prophesy as well. The NASA site says:
There is still a very remote possibility that asteroid 1999 AN10 could pass by Earth in 2027 in such a way as to return in the year 2039 on an impacting trajectory. First identified by researchers Andrea Milani, Steven R. Chesley and Giovanni B. Valsecchi, this scenario is still exceedingly unlikely, but the probability of collision in 2039 has now increased to about 1 chance in 10 million.
One in 10 million is way low… the asteroid Apophis has a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting us in 2036, so really, that’s a far, far better bet. And it passes us in 2029, so it too passes us twice. I think the author picked the wrong doomsday rock. But then, he ties in the dates and times numerologically with the Bible too, including saying the 2039 passage is 33 years after he wrote his pamphlet… and that was the age of Jesus when he was crucified.
Ohhhh kay.
The pamphlet goes on and on — it’s 365 pages in length! — filled with such logic.
The PDF author’s name is Alasdair TR Laurie. Curious, I looked it up. The first Google result that comes up for that name is for a second year bioinformatics PhD student at the University of Leeds in the UK.
Wha wha WHAAAA?
Another hit led to this blog entry, which in turn linked to a page by the author himself which verifies it is indeed the same Alasdair TR Laurie. He left the PhD program before finishing, according to comments in the above blog entry.
It sounds like what we have here is a young man who was a promising young scientist but then converted to fundamentalist Christianity. The page he wrote would be typical of the ramblings I see on many crank sites, including the religious flavor of it.
I am not a psychologist, but I don’t think you need to be to draw general conclusions here. I’ll note that in the U.S., at least, religion gets far more of a pass than it deserves. At least, Judeo-Christian religions do; in some cases a Muslim can’t even wear a turban without drawing stares and suspicion. But still, if Laurie were in the U.S, he might actually gather a following. I certainly don’t intend to give him a forum here, but I wrote this entry as a cautionary tale.
The obvious tale is of pseudoscientific nonsense substituted for reason, of course. But there is something pernicious when such nonsense is wrapped in religion; it gets through far more filters in peoples’ heads than it should. Pick any religion, and it’s not hard to come up with a specific belief that defies common sense (and would also be ridiculed by a different religion), yet people in general don’t question it because it’s what someone else believes.
I think it is entirely correct to question beliefs. Each and all of them. It’s required, in fact.
I know very few if any readers of my blog would think that Laurie is anything but a crank, but sometimes it’s good to know about them, be aware they’re out there. Out of such things can doomsday cults sprout… and while they have never, not once, ever led to a real doomsday (and many, many cults and religions have made such claims), it might as well have been doomsday for many of the members of such cults.
Always be aware of others’ beliefs, especially when it comes to doomsday prophecies. They sometimes take a dark, dark turn.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Don’t doomsday prophecies always take a dark turn? Days of Doom tend to be pretty dark, generally, I find.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:38 pm
“Days of Doom tend to be pretty dark, generally, I find.”
Not if we are doomed because of a supernova, or a gargantuan CME that wipes out the earth’s atmosphere…But I’m sure Phil will have a whole chapter in his new book about whether doomsday will be black, white, purplish, Noodly, or a sort of neutral gray.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:48 pm
I don’t get all these biblical apocalyptic types. The bible is quite clear about when the second coming is supposed to take place.
When the discicples asked when the second coming would happen, Jesus said this:
Matthew 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mark 13:30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
Luke 21:32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.
Seems pretty straightforward to me, the second coming happened sometime in the first century AD. Oh, wait…
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Sadly there are plenty of religious cranks in my home country of Great Britain too, and in my old home town of Leeds, no less. The good thing is that they are a tiny minority and hold little sway in a much stronger secular society.
Mind you, when I was at Manchester University back in the early eighties I very briefly got involved with a student charismatic Christian group — for about a week — until I witnessed a very serious discussion as to the identity of Antichrist. I believe the favoured candidates of the day were the Ayatollah Khomeini and Pope John Paul II. No doubt they prayed for my soul when I didn’t show up again.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:25 pm
haha, the things religion does. How do people actually take this seriously, its mind boggling. Another way religion blinds people and stops them from thinking. In other countries where people are actually sane, free from religion, crazy Christians are seen as CRAZY. We’re in the 21 century, we have robots and technology that can find people anywhere on the map, but we’re still praying to an imaginary guy, amazing.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Humm just I thought. Is it Sikhs that wear turbans not Muslims.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Do muslims wear turbans?
I thought it was sikhs who wore turbans.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 pm
What was this entry about? Doomsday?
Sorry, I couldn’t read it due to all the smoke here in Southern Cal.
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/193857main_wildfire_oct22_full.jpg
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Would the ad, perchance, still be in your browser cache? Unless it’s Flash-based.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:51 pm
>>> Is it Sikhs that wear turbans not Muslims.
Why is it either/or?
The turban is very important to the Sikh faith, and it’s used to, among other things, manage men’s hair because because of something about not being allowed to cut it after they’ve been initiated and received their decoder ring or whatever.
In the Islamic world, the turban is worn mainly by Muslim scholars or sometimes to indicate high social status.
The fun and wacky Taliban imposed the wearing of black turbans which I think means a claim of direct decendency from Mohammad.
You see a lot of those checkered scarves, too, in the Middle East, especially the Gulf. Dunno what that means. Dinnertime, perhaps.
And now I present the most AWESOME turban of all time:
http://www.mediamatic.net/attachment-18606-nl.html
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
The sheer number of Doomsday prophecies out there now is staggering. Apparently, the Earth will flood in 2012, burn in 2015, suffer a plague in 2019, and now will get hit by asteroid(s) in 2027 to 2039. I think the Ring of Fire is supposed to erupt in 2010 as well. Not to mention, of course, the number of times we’re supposed to have wiped ourselves out by now.
And the two constants in all of these ‘prophecies’ are 1) The belief of the prophet, and 2) The inaccuracy of the prophecy.
Sometimes I think the prophets would be happier if we did wipe ourselves out. At least then they’d be able to say “I told you so. See my book for details. $29.95 at the nearest Post-Apocalypse store.”
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Phil, you certainly give of yourself for us. Have a lighthearted story about librarian credulity: http://www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/story/328790.html
Some vandal is getting away scot-free cause librarians would rather believe it’s ghosts that keep moving things when no one’s around.
Ok, in retrospect, perhaps it’s not so lighthearted as faith (in humanity) crushing. I wonder what led to the one employee becoming a former employee and if it’d be motivation to tell a ghost story to cover for vandalism.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:14 am
If you see a guy with a turban, he is more likely to be a Sikh than a Muslim.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:40 am
I love dropping by your blog. Could you help me convince the CraftZombie how important our space program is and how little we spend on it compared to everything else? I don’t think I did a real good job. Let her know at http://craftzombie.com/wordpress/?p=227. Thanks
October 24th, 2007 at 2:15 am
It strikes me that you’d have made a good detective or investigative reporter considering the amount of work you’ve put in to this story. The only trouble is, if you continue at this rate you’ll never get your book finished!
October 24th, 2007 at 3:14 am
So, this is going to happen in 2039? Then we need not worry, since the Year 2038 Bug will have caused the collapse of civilisation anyway.
October 24th, 2007 at 3:30 am
“It sounds like what we have here is a young man who was a promising young scientist but then converted to fundamentalist Christianity.”
Reading the ‘about this author’ page it’s pretty clear that Mr Laurie has has a psychotic break (Satan talking to him; references to John Nash), and that his subsequent association with fundamentalist Christianity is merely a means of feeding his delusion. Tragic.
October 24th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Any belief is open to scrutiny, challenge, and/or ridicule. It’s really simple: beliefs are choices. Choices are subject to reason and correction. Traits, OTOH, are not, such as skin color and gender. That’s why it’s perfectly OK to ridicule religion but not race, politics but not sex.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:06 am
…another sign of the apocalypse: Al Gore winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion!
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:17 am
Fascinating.
A few years ago only Arthur Clarke fans and Discovery Channel viewers knew the meaning of “tsunami”, but after the last one, the thing became a common word, and religious wackos are predicting new ones every year.
A friend of my mother forced her husband to quit a job as a Director, at Citibank, to move from Rio de Janeiro to a remote are deep in the country, because her personal guru (here it comes) predicted a big tsunami in the South Atlantic, and the city would be destroyed. When? Last year. I´m still waiting.
I wonder… why nobody notices the “prophets” never predict anything beyond their current level of knowledge? Not a single submarine, not a single Challenger or Columbia disaster, not a single Apollo XIII. No AIDS, no atomic bombs, nothing. Medieval prophets only talk about… medieval menaces.
BTW: I have somewhere a nice pamphlet from Jehova´s Witness (is it ok to say jehova?) explaining how the world will end with a nuclear confrontation between America and Communist Russia.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:23 am
The Biblical theology was wrong as well!
According to the scriptures, there will be no signs and no one will get any hint that the second coming will be about to happen.
So from the Faith end I am with Phil 100% on this
October 24th, 2007 at 5:55 am
In the last 48 years, I have had countless dialogues with Christians, asking them if they realized that they are Christians 99% of the time because of where they were born, not because of any research in comparative religions or logical options. One person came to me years later and said that our conversation had made him start thinking about this and he had then realized what a bunch of nonsense all religion is. My point is that it is usually a waste of time to argue with most Christians. They are happy being a little nutty, and logic be damned. The real concern is that these brainwashed and misled people not control politics, and that is a fight that will never be won but which must never be lost.
“He walked on water? Really? Are you sure he wasn’t using a kayak? Raised the dead? Wow, so they had CPR back then? And this was all documented by….well, what?”
October 24th, 2007 at 7:15 am
No need to be worrying about an asteroid in 2039, since the Earth will have already been destroyed on 21-Dec-2012.
http://www.google.com/search?q=december+21+2012
October 24th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Good refutation, but the news release from the NEO group is a bit old (1999). It doesn’t look like they did an update as the orbit was refined. New data’s been coming in and the asteroid is currently looking to miss us by 1 lunar distance, and the size of the error bar needs to be multiplied by 1,500 to potentially impact the Earth. In comparison, the error bar for Apophis needs to be multiplied by about 70 to include the possibility of an Earth impact.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:42 am
Tom:
> New data’s been coming in and the asteroid is currently looking
> to miss us by 1 lunar distance
Hmm… What are the odds that it impacts the moon? (And would it hit the visible side, giving us an incredible show?) I seem to recall seeing a show years ago which included a segment about a (14th/15th century?) monk apparently documenting a lunar meteor strike.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:43 am
“The pamphlet goes on and on — it’s 365 pages in length! — filled with such logic.”
Hmmm 365 days in a year….gotta be a message there.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Well, Google can be your friend, even if it does find articles that question whether such an impact actually occurred.
http://www.google.com/search?q=meteor+moon+impact+monk+witness
October 24th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Zowie! Reading this guy’s website is both hypnotic and disturbing. Either he is nuttier than squirrel poo or he’s a satirical genius.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Not that I’m agreeing with the doomsayers (I never do), but I DID uncover a very old CNN article about that volcano.. Interestingly enough it predates the 2004 tsunami that nailed southeast Asia, making me surprised they used such a “big” word before any significant tsunamis had made the news in recent times (that I can recall anyway).
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/08/29/tidal.wave/index.html
They actually name-drop scientist names, instead of doing the usual “scientists reported” crap. Interesting to note that one scientist said that we should have effective tsunami warning systems. I guess it takes a bit of an incident for that to materialize.
Reminds me of the big deal that was made about Harrison Lake (49.18 N 121.47 W)(and a fairly deep lake) about ten years ago. Some geologists had figured that one of the mountain faces at the north end of the lake was unstable and that if it were to slide into the lake, the resulting wave would destroy the resort town of Harrison Hotsprings (sitting at the southern tip of the lake). Of course, speculation should never be turned into a news report. CNN is famous for it, and they cause all kinds of hysteria over miscalculations and misconceptions. In fact hoax and doomsayers probably do a lot of mining at CNN.com in order to come up with their schemes.
And now THIS link,
http://www.lapalma-tsunami.com/tsunami.html
That’s more like it.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:03 am
I’m saddened by the fact that several members of my own family would find this seriously disturbed man’s logic to be reasonable.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Why do so many religious people have such a boner for the end of the world? You’d think that after a few millennia of failed apocalyptic predictions, they’d begin to catch on.
It’s amusing how every generation seems arrogant enough to believe that it will be the last.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:39 am
And to think, if it wasn’t for my distaste of Kool-Aid, I could be riding in that space ship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet…
October 24th, 2007 at 10:17 am
freqforce: “Why do so many religious people have such a boner for the end of the world? You’d think that after a few millennia of failed apocalyptic predictions, they’d begin to catch on.”
IMO, it is because they fear their own mortality…and if such an apocalyptic event were to occur they would be proved right and no longer have to fear death.
But, hey, let’s face it: one day there will be a final apocalyptic event: an asteroid collision, the sun becoming a red giant…something will wipe out humans on this planet. Let’s hope by that time we have moved our species out into space as well.
October 24th, 2007 at 10:20 am
iNTERESTING!!!!!! BUT CONFUSING!
October 24th, 2007 at 10:41 am
>>> He walked on water?
Saw a bumper sticker just this morning:
“Next time you think you are perfect, walk on water.”
Of course I forced the car off the road and delivered a righteous smackdown unto the driver. She was feistier than most of the old ladies I’ve fought, but I prevailed in the end. I said, “I’ll give you perfect, grandma!”
And when I say all that, when I mean is: “I rolled my eyes and continued driving quietly down the freeway to my exit.”
October 24th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I’m somewhat sad to read that site, because that hits quite close to home for me. It looks like that guy got schizophrenia onset during his PhD, or at least a strong form of schizotypy. His age seems to be pretty much the typical period for the onset too…
October 24th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
“The pamphlet goes on and on — it’s 365 pages in length! — filled with such logic.”
Did you mean to say “filled with such nonsense” or “filled with such crackpottery”? Or were you afraid you’d be sued?
October 24th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
[…] a commenter over at Phil Plait’s blog (where he’s discussing a wing ding of a doomsday prophet) I […]
October 24th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I’m with “has” on this one. Mr. Laurie would not be the first young, male grad student to have a psychotic break. The religious zealotry, delusions, and prolific writing point to schizophrenia. Sadly, I’ve known two young men - both brilliant - who were diagnosed with this disorder while they were in university, and they exhibited the exact same behavior as Mr. Laurie.
This example of irrationality should be pitied, not mocked.
October 24th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
* The sun will grow dark: a symbolic solar eclipse of Egypt on 02/08/2027.
No solar eclipse occurs on 02/08/2027. An annular eclipse does occur two days before, on 02/06/2027, and this eclipse is not even visible from Egypt.
Note: A total solar eclipse does occur for parts of Egypt on 08/02/2027, about six months later. It is a long eclipse, nearly 6-1/2 min max. duration, since it belongs to the same Saros cycle as the long Asia-Pacific eclipse coming July 2009.
* The moon will no longer shine: a new moon on 02/08/2027.
The Moon is New on 02/06/2027, two days before the above date (when the annular eclipse occurs) so the Moon will be a two day old waxing crescent, probably clearly visible low in the west on the cited date.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Just for the record, there are many Christians who are not whacko, who appreciate and support science, who endorse and encourage the teaching of evolution, etc… We also understand the existence of God cannot be proven and that the bible was written by humans and should not be interpreted as an historical document. We are generally quieter about our faith, which is why the nutjobs get all the press.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I just hae to say that Muslims don’t wear turbins, for the most part. The Turbin is significant in Sikhism, not Islam.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
One thing Howard Cohen points out (possibly without realizing it) is that the dates in the old world go DD/MM/YYYY; in the U.S. we do dates MM/DD/YYYY so the events are in August (as the narrative describes) not in February.
It is of course a stretch, and just another nut job out there making noise.
As for turbans they are only wore by the Sikhs as part of a religious attire. Muslims in many parts of the world coincide with geographic areas where turbans are a particular fashion, so yes Muslims wear turbans and in many cases, but it isn’t a pillar of that religion.
October 24th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
If you have several tons of Internet bandwidth to misuse, I would recommend checking out http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/167 , where the top 10 ways the world could end are discussed, and more importantly, How They Can Be Prevented.
Caution: Following this link could cause the rest of your evening to evaporate. Some of the talks on the site are excellent. (The one on the Cassini mission is excellent)
October 27th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Texas_JAM,
I never said our space program wasn’t important.
-CraftZombie
November 1st, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Have you considered contacting the author and betting money on his predictions? Let’s see if he’ll put his money where his Bible is.
November 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
PDF seems to have increased in length to about 400 pages now. Completely different from anything I have ever read! I checked these signs out and they do seem valid… Maybe doomsday after all…
Matthew 24:29-30:
The sun will grow dark: a symbolic solar eclipse of Egypt on 02/08/2027.
The moon will no longer shine: a new moon on 02/08/2027.
The stars will fall from heaven: a meteor shower from the asteroid (closest approach on 07/08/2027).
The powers in space will be driven from their courses: the asteroid is deflected and returns in 2039.
December 26th, 2007 at 7:44 am
So, here it is, 9:01pm PST on December 25th, 2007, and I’m wondering whether this wacko’s deluded prediction came true? (I set a reminder for myself about this months ago, just to make sure I could wander back here and be the first to jab the moron in the ribs.) Will I be hearing reports of a major catastrophe all over the news tomorrow? He’s got three hours left before he becomes a laughingstock in everyone’s minds but his own relentlessly deluded one….
January 1st, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Hi Guys,
Sikh men aren’t required to wear turbans, but part of the dress code involves wearing their hair long and they use the turban to keep their hair in place - so the turban’s become symbolic of them being Sikhs and there’s been controversy over Sikhs wearing the turban with police or military uniforms or whether they should remove it in legion halls.
With Islam, in some cultures, some form of head covering for men and women is considered part of the recommendation to ‘dress modestly’ - generally it’s brimless like a fez because the forehead is supposed to touch the ground in prayers.
April 9th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
2039……
is going to happen
look deeper…for the answers, that are hidden to the naked eye…and from you
We are going to experience it definately
April 9th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
THAT WAS JUST A COMMENT