Category Archives: Bad Science, UFO’s and Modern Myths

The Scream

Every day, I see more and more adverts and announcements promising apocalypse in the year 2012.  Some genius in Hollywood has capitalised on this with a blockbuster film about it, and I’m seeing more and more unrelated junk science theories being lumped together as proof that the Mayans were right.  But there’s a lot of other junk out there as well, everything from New Physics theories that get published in glossy paperbacks to UFO sightings.

Countering all this are a large number of skeptical science articles, using fact and logic to pour scorn on anybody who believes all that stuff.  And frankly, it’s counter-productive.  If you’re not sure what to believe and are looking for answers, I doubt you’re going to listen to the guy who insults you for asking.  So in these pages I hope to challenge most of the apocalyptic theories and the explanations behind them using facts and simple logic.  No ad hominem attacks, no jokes at the expense of believers.  With luck, people will actually read this, and maybe I can help dispel some of the darkness.

X37-b Launch

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Mysterious light spotted in the sky – evidence of “Secret” US Airforce spaceplane. Image Credit: Greg Roberts On Tuesday 11 December, at around 8:40pm SAST, people across the Cape Town area looked up and saw something marvelous in the sky.  A shining apparition of light, spreading out from a point and slowly fading, prompting many to phone their local observatories and astronomy clubs to ask about UFO’s. The story reminds me of a similar event several years ago, in Norway … Continue reading →

The Mayan Calendar

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

The foundation of all the doomsday prophecies slated for December 21, 2012 (or December 23, depending on which calculations you use) are based on the assumption that the ancient mayans knew when the world was going to end, and structured their calendar accordingly.  The final day of their calendar corresponds to 21 December (or 23rd) by the Gregorian calendar which we use in the modern western world. The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on 24 February, 1582, … Continue reading →

Is it really going to happen on 21st December 2012?

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Editors note: Back in 2012, this was easily the most popular section of Urban Astronomer.  Now, two years later, hardly anybody seems to even remember what all the fuss was about.  Still, since these sorts of doomsday prophecies tend to recur (the prophets have book sales to sustain, after all!), I’m keeping it all up as a reference.  If you stumbled upon this page looking for information on some other doomsday story, foretold by the ancients, then please stay and … Continue reading →

2012: My official position

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

About two years ago, I was quite passionate about the next predicted apocalypse. There were a lot of people talking very loudly about ways in which the world was expected to end come 21 December 2012, and I (along with much of the online scientific community) devoted many pages to refuting some of these claims. I suspect however that the only reason so many people took the issue seriously in the first place was that Michael Bay made one of … Continue reading →

Nibiru (part 1)

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

(This article was originally written in the run-up to the big 2012 apocalypse hoax.  Since then, people are still convinced that Nibiru is out there and visible to people like me in the Southern Hemisphere.  Let me state up front:  It’s not there, and I can’t see it.  I can see comets only a few kilometers across, and I can see galaxies millions of light years away, but there is no major planet barelling through the Solar System towards us, … Continue reading →