If kids ever get to my site, and read long serious articles, they are probably not the sort to confuse an example of how looting can affect police resources (note I said butterfly effect of some looting, not mass looting) with every man for themselves. That's the mistake you just made, so perhaps schools are to blame ;)

What man are you when you fail to realize the your site destroys kids lives?
And it doesn't even bother you!

The result on Google for "odds of a house burning down" says it is 1/16,000

Austen Atkinson (in the book Impact Earth) says the odds of being killed by a comet or asteroid is 1 in 24,000.

So you're claiming that the odds of being killed in space rock impact are only slightly worse than the odds of a house burning down, which happens somewhere probably every single day. Surely even you realize how absurd that is.

I never said it was evidence of anything bigger.

No, you just keep flapping your arms under the strange delusion that an argument increases in veracity proportional to the number of times you repeat it. One might wonder how many more times you will prolong this expansive yet pointless rant.

But if you think the lack of a mass killing from a meteor/comet is evidence that it won't happen, you are majorly wrong.

Nobody said that, in case you failed to notice, but there's no reason to think anything like that will occur anytime soon, and there's certainly no reason to squawk hysterically as you do. I don't know how old you are or what your medical history looks like, but it's going to be bitterly ironic when you leave this world in colossally mundane fashion one day, and the billions left carry on with nary a trace that your crackpot ass ever existed.

What if Tunguska had happened somewhere less remote than Siberia?

Then it would have caused far more significant damage. Of course, surely you're well aware that comparing the detection technology of 1908 to today would be the desperate, laughable resort of a defeated crackpot.

It seems the most common trait between members here is the ability to twist words.

No, I think it's just your remarkable talent for misunderstanding and/or ignoring them.

Given the amount of stuff entering the atmosphere every day it seems more than likely that at least one person should have been killed by a meteorite in the past 10,000 years.

The point is kinda that, in spite of the tons of space crap collected by our planet every day, the odds of being snuffed in an impact are remarkably close to zero.

Given the amount of stuff entering the atmosphere every day it seems more than likely that at least one person should have been killed by a meteorite in the past 10,000 years.

I'm not an astronomer, never have claimed to be one. I think the return of a comet is possible, but not likely. I can't think of anything more boring than watching the skies and I certainly aren't wishing for a comet to arrive, nor do I wish to be proven right.

Of course not, it would disprove your comet claim.
It would show up that all your so called research had been pointless.

If only you had done the effort to study a tiny bit about astronomy, then you would have thrown your 2012 claims down the drain as completely impossible.

If you would have opened an astronomy program you would have discovered that no planets not even the moon align on your date. It is the most astronomical boring day you can find.

But you stay away from any evidences that would disprove your claims. You don't want to hear that you were wrong all those times.

But why that date?

It is a hype, and a hoax. It is a hype YOU helped to created!
Since 2001 you had been promoting THIS day on the internet, and people are running with it because they read your site.

So, this has some significance to the discussion about the Mayan Long Count calendar.
"The Maya are not generally credited with knowing about precession … And indeed we have absolutely no evidence that the Maya knew anything about [it]." http://celticboar.com/texts/2012.html
(PS. There is a nice sun-galactic animation at that site.)

If the ancient Maya knew nothing about precession they would have no way of knowing that December 21 of this year (13.0.0.0.0) would be the solstice.
So that is another reason for saying that the solstice on Dec 21 is just a coincidence - when making correlations with the Long Count.
- -

Makes a lot of sense to me. Why attach any significance to 13.0.0.0.0 (other than the end of baktun 13, and the start of baktun 14 on the next day)? There is one (only one) Maya monument found so far that mentions that date. It suggests that one of the Mayan gods will make an appearance. Some scholars think it will probably be the Maya chief (or elder) *dressed as that god, because there is evidence of that happening in the past.

… By the way, last time I checked on the equivalent of 12.0.0.0.0 (about September 18, 1618) there was nothing significant recorded in history, other than a European war starting in September, which isn't unusual for those times, and it would seem very logical that the ancient Maya knew nothing about a continent on the other side of the ocean.

I have just checked on 11.0.0.0.0 (about June 15, 1224). Nothing recorded.
Also, 10.0.0.0.0 (March 13, 830). Nothing recorded.
It seems obvious that nothing drastic happened to the Earth on *all of the baktun changes from 1.0.0.0.0 (about November 13, 2720 BC) through to 12.0.0.0.0. Certainly nothing that today's doomsayers could have invented.

While I'm on a debunking roll, the fact that December 21 is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is just a coincidence. The months of the previous baktun changes are Feb, Mar, May, Jun, Aug, Sep, Nov, Dec 9. The months of the next 6 baktun changes (after this year) are Jan, Mar, Apr, Jun, Jul, Oct. So next time you see a doomsayer attach some significance to December 21 being the solstice you can ignore them, or tell them they don't know what they're talking about! (Or tell them that Peter says they are talking BS! .lol.)

Then who chose the start date and why?

Since you've insisted on necro-ing multiple threads, I'll repeat this answer, made in another thread, in the hope that you'll see it:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/18959165/The-Astronomical-Insignificance-of-Maya-Date-13000-by-Vincent-H-Malmstrom

Or as Mayan elder Chile Dion Opopul sang:

"Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the Mayan Calander does go on"

Well, I guess there's a gazillion things on the web that can scare them.

For every other kid, I would expect that Hollywood and video games and the evening news have already scared them if they are the type that gets scared.

Oh, so that's all right then.

How about everything else I brought up, though, that isn't just looting - all the things about people dying and disruptions to every day life on a mass scale? Once again, you're hiding and dodging the issue by avoiding my question and pointing out one misinterpretation on my part. Would every kid get scared? No, probably not. But one kid getting scared is one too many.

Also, answer my question: if you're just speculating and you admit you have no evidence for anything, what is the point of your site?

For every other kid, I would expect that Hollywood and video games and the evening news have already scared them if they are the type that gets scared.

It was not chosen. It is a consequence of counting.

Then who chose the start date and why?

But what if eclipses are no longer benign? What if they are triggering deadly earthquakes?

Followed by:

The next lunar eclipses are

June 15, 2011
December 10, 2011
June 4, 2012
November 28, 2012

Book-ending the June 15 eclipse are solar eclipses on June 1 and July 1, 2011. If this cluster of eclipses cause major earthquakes, I would become concerned that November 28 2012, or thereabouts, could bring forth a megaquake.

Oh, and by the way, while no Mayan writings remain to tell us what they believed would occur in 2012, what would destroy humankind at the end of the current Sun/Age… we do know what the Aztecs believed:

Nahui-Ollin (Earthquake Sun) - We are the inhabitants of this world. This world will be destroyed by earthquakes (or one large earthquake).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Suns

'What if' is a great way to get kids asking themselves 'what if' constantly, which can lead to a vicious cycle of fear and anxiety.

Next up!

Infrastructure - banks won't be able to operate, nor will ATMs - they also use GPS for timestamping transactions. Traffic lights won't work, causing traffic jams initially. Police and emergency services will struggle to communicate. Empty store shelves will not be refilled. Almost everyone will be unable to work their regular job.

Water - some cities have gravity-fed water available, but in most places we rely on electrical pumps to get water to our homes. Electricity is also needed at water purification plants. Apart from drinking water, consider that we use it to wash, to flush toilets, and to move sewage away from our homes. Without electricity many sewage plants will not operate normally.

Heating and Cooling - the loss of these could kill people during the winter and summer months.

Energy and Fuel - pipelines can fail, and the normal way to access stored fuel is with an electric pump. While manual pumping might get gasoline out at a gas station, the authorities or thugs will likely be in control.

And then there's a special danger:

Nuclear Power Plants - without electricity there's only diesel generators to keep the plant cool and avoid meltdown. It would not be surprising if the amount of diesel on hand is low, and the ability to obtain more or even ask for more could be low in a dark USA.

Put all the above together and you invoke the butterfly effect… one example is that crime will increase, due to looting. To keep the peace, looters would need to be arrested and jailed. But to operate jails with no electricity becomes problematic - no video surveillance, difficulties in providing food and water and so on - which means a lot more police need to be deputized, removing able-bodied men from other useful tasks. A police chief might decide that looting is a hanging offence…

I credit you for discussing that some preparations have been made, but I'm quite skeptical as we're as ill-prepared as you claim. However, the discussion of people going out and looting was absolutely disgusting. Most people would probably work together…not go around and loot. There'd be some looting, sure, but the way your article is written you make it sound like there would be rioting and looting and every man for himself. Either way, a kid reading this sort of crap would probably not sleep very well the next several nights.

And last:

Even without the possible return of Comet Caesar, dark comets are the leading contender for triggering a predictable 2012 cataclysm. Comets were known to the ancients - we have many ancient texts providing us with descriptive names like "fire from the sky" - and their cyclical nature makes it easy for any civilization with mathematical prowess to predict. Thousands of hypothetical dark comets remain undiscovered in modern times, and if we do find one on a collision course with our planet, we may only have a few years, or even a few days, to prepare. And those times will be times of mass panic.

Kids reading this, and this entire article, would likely basically read 'we could all be killed by something that might be coming, but it also might not, I don't know! But if it's coming we won't spot it until it's too late anyway and then it'll be every man for himself!' But that entire article would likely plant the 'what if' cycle in a child's head and haunt them.

It's not worth it. Your site is a travesty and you're typical of 2012ers. Hide behind baseless speculation, shift the burden of proof, use logical fallacies, and pretend you're just seeking the truth. Take real world phenomena and blow them way out of proportion. Yes, earthquakes, comets and solar flares are real, but they've been going on since the dawn of humanity and we're still here. It being 2012 and all that ancient civilization crap (appeal to antiquity fallacy) doesn't give your speculation any basis in anything resembling reality. If it's not likely to happen and you admit you have no evidence and only speculate, then what is the point for your website?

The ancient Mayan Long Count calendar ends on a particular date. That is a fact.

Wrong. A bak'tun, a Meso-American unit of time (like our week, month or year) ends on or around our date of December 21, 2012. The Long-Count itself continues for billions, if not trillions, of years.

Some people think it is the end of the calendar,

Who? None of the preeminent Meso-American scholars that I'm aware of seem to think so.

You, John Major Jenkins and Patrick Geryl can come together and decide Tortugeuro 6 foretells the birth of Justin Bieber. If that's what you mean by "some people," sure. Who cares?

whichever date it is was chosen by somebody, once upon a time.

It was not chosen. It is a consequence of counting. If I invent the blosterschlup and define it as 47 solar years, there is no inherent significance stated or implied by any particular blosterschlup 2,888 years from now falling on a Thursday. That you imagine some significance is precisely that: your imagination.

I figure that is indisputable.

You figure wrongly.

There is no evidence

No shit, which is why nothing you say here is even remotely compelling. I've seen twelve-year-olds come up with better fiction.

A mystery I have tried to solve.

No, it's a mystery you have tried to create out of thin air, much like a fiction writer.

…rather than just saying I write about solar storms, comets and earthquakes, which I think are real phenomena.

Some people think it is the end of the calendar, others liken it to Dec 31/Jan 1, a rollover.

And that's all the significance the date has - the end of their calendar and the rollover to the next calendar cycle. No mystery, no nothing, nada, zip.

Regardless of what anyone thinks it means, or even which date the end of the Long Count calendar correlates to - whichever date it is was chosen by somebody, once upon a time. I figure that is indisputable. There is no evidence why that date was selected is, so therefore it is a mystery. A mystery I have tried to solve.

Also, if I was a kid, I'd be pretty freaked out by this )http://survive2012.com/index.php/eclipses-and-earthquakes.html) and this (http://survive2012.com/index.php/comet-caesar.html) and also this (http://survive2012.com/index.php/solar-storms.html). Kids generally do not have critical thinking skills and probably wouldn't be cognizant of the fact that your site is a load of hogwash.

I keep saying may/might because there is no proof, no evidence, and I am merely speculating.

I'm just trying to solve the mystery of why Dec 21 2012 was chosen.

It wasn't "chosen" any more than every other Gregorian correlation to Mayan cycles. This is what the people who actually study the ancient Maya have found time and again, and you find links to a number pertinent scholars scattered all over this website. If you disagree with the established majority and its preponderance of evidence, then you need evidence of your own. Simply claiming that something might be possible in some magical land of your own imagining is not an argument. It's simply the raving a deluded crank.

My mission has been to find what may have been predicted

How many more times do we have to say there was no prediction?

So why do you have a bee in your bonnet about such a highly improbable event?

My mission has been to find what may have been predicted, regardless of remote that may be. To me it is a worthy exercise.

How about the kids who are alarmed by your website but don't e-mail you?

Well, I guess there's a gazillion things on the web that can scare them. If there is something in particular I have written that you think will especially scare children, please share.

For a sample time of 700 years (1300 - 2000) and taking into account the northern hemisphere observing bias, the Earth impact rate for all comets was computed to be 2.3 ± 0.73 x 10-8 impacts per year or an average of 43 million years between impacts.

So why do you have a bee in your bonnet about such a highly improbable event?

BTW, every email I get from concerned kids and parents, I tell them it is unlikely to happen and they shouldn't worry about it.

How about the kids who are alarmed by your website but don't e-mail you? Some of them might come here and ask us, but what about those who simply sink into pit of depression and contact nobody? Do you feel good that you are doing this or are you claiming it never happens? You can't, you know.

At the distance of Jupiter, an inactive cometary nucleus with a diameter of one kilometer and a
geometric albedo equal to 0.04 would have an apparent magnitude fainter than 24 near
opposition and, hence, would be well outside the detection capability of current NEO search
telescopes. Even if a long-period comet should be discovered at the distance of Jupiter’s orbit, it
would take only nine months to reach Earth’s orbit. Hence, warning times for Earth-threatening
long-period comets are measured in months, not years.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/neoreport030825.pdf

Jupiter is 4.2 AU from Earth, so I guess 4.2 AU = 9 months, is roughly the same as 3.31 AU = 7 months. I've always said that if there was a visible comet heading for us in December 2012, we'd see it 6 months beforehand. So if one isn't spotted anytime soon, I concede that only leaves dark comets.

BTW, every email I get from concerned kids and parents, I tell them it is unlikely to happen and they shouldn't worry about it. I don't tell anyone they are going to die any more than the US government tells people in California that an earthquake will kill them. I promote practical preparations, just in case. There's a massive difference, so please don't accuse me of telling kids something unless you can back it up.

I'm just trying to solve the mystery of why Dec 21 2012 was chosen. If you think it is was just a random date, that's fine. If you refuse to accept the possibility that it may have been deliberately chosen, then you are narrow-minded. If you do accept the possibility, then perhaps someone trying to discover why is a worthwhile mission?

For the 100th time, there is no evidence - if there was y'all would be at a different forum debating the existence of zombies or something.

It seems the most common trait between members here is the ability to twist words.

I've spent 14 years trying to crack the 2012 mystery.

Why have you wasted your time in impossible things while you could have set up a network with astronomers and physics to simulate and calculate the possible locations. Why did you not go out at nights and searched for comets yourself?

Here you see the equipment a lot of amateur astronomers have right now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62jqvTZ1ibI&feature=fvst

A lot of comet hunters are amateurs.

You clearly don't even understand the physics of comets and the orbit. That is the first thing you should have learned.

Edit:
Comet hunting from your chair.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/1000comet.html

In addition the WISE database is online and you clearly have not found your hidden comet in the dataset as evidence.
http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/allsky/

Edit2:
Here you go, access to WISE images:
http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/applications/wise/#id=Hydra_wise_wise_1&projectId=wise&startIdx=0&pageSize=0&shortDesc=Position&isBookmarkAble=true&isDrillDownRoot=true

Now go and find your dark comet and come back with facts.

Everytime I hear someone having a reference to a paper, the paper itself debunks the claim.

588 AD, 10 people, China

10 people, no global scale!

1490, supposedly 10,000 people, China

Supposed!

1511, Franciscan monk, Cremona, Italy

1 person, no global scale!

1650, Another monk (!), Milan, Italy

1 person, no global scale!

1647-54, 2 sailors at sea

2 pêople, no global scale!

1790, A farmer and cattle, France

1 person, no global scale!

1825 , A man, India

1 person, no global scale!

1827, A man, India

1 person, no global scale!

1874, Child, China

1 person, no global scale!

1879, Man in bed, Indiana, USA

1 person, no global scale!

1879, Farmer, France

1 person, no global scale!

1897, Horse, West Virginia, USA

1 animal, no global scale!

1907, Entire family, China

5 people, no global scale!

1908, 2 people reported, Tunguska

2 people, no global scale!

1911, Dog, Egypt

1 animal, no global scale!

1929, 1 member of a bridal party, Zvezvan, Yugoslavia

1 person, no global scale!

Your list predicts clearly that no global event will happened cause by asteroid

Now lets compare it to a list of none-asteroid events:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disasters_by_death_toll

For example take animals.
400 – Leopard of Panar (Northern India)
200+ – Gustave (crocodile) (Burundi)
150 – Leopard of the Central Provinces (Central Provinces of India)
135 – Tsavo maneaters (Kenya)
125+ – Leopard of Rudraprayag (India)
113 – Beast of Gévaudan (France)
50+ – Tigers of Chowgarh (India)

or stampeed:
4,000 – mass panic at air raid shelter, during Japanese bombing of Chongqing, most deaths caused by suffocation (Chongqing, China, 1941)
1,426 – stampede by pilgrims inside a pedestrian tunnel (Mecca, 1990)
1,389 – Khodynka Tragedy at coronation of Nicholas II, (Moscow, 1896)
953 – Baghdad bridge stampede, (Baghdad, Iraq, 2005) (note: because the stampede was triggered by reports of a bombing, this figure is also included in the higher estimate for casualties of the War in Iraq)
800 – 1954 Kumbh Mela stampede, crowd crush at religious festival (Allahabad, India, 1954)
357 – Phnom Penh stampede (Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2010)
362 – stampede at the stoning of the devil ritual (Mecca, 2006)

And after 14 years you can't even calculate or simulate a simple comet's orbit. You probably lack any physics knowledge. And since you lack the physics, I will tell you where that comet needs to be in order to get here at that time; That is 3.31 AU from the sun right now.

Edit:
This is the only distance that any mysterious object have to be, no matter how big or small in order to get near Earth.
http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/8462/12052012184630.jpg

As I often state - there is no evidence. I don't need evidence, for me the possibility is sufficient for concern

There is nothing to debate, you don't have anything except dreams and wild claims to start with.

And the worst is that you claim to know how to survive it all while you have absolutely no facts to base your survival on. You have complete useless survival guides.

While I accept the lack of evidence ruins it for many, nobody on the planet (to my knowledge) has come up with a more plausible hypothesis for why they chose Dec 22 2012 in a catastrophic context.

It is a hoax! There is no catastrophic context.

Far more worse catastrophes will happen on many different dates caused by natural causes that are normal. Floods, heat waves, dust storms, Earth quakes, droughts. The same type of catastrophes that you find in any year of any century. 22 dec 2012 is just any day with as much rick as any other day.

In addition, ANY prediction claimed to be from the Mayans have failed utterly for 100%.

• Edit: An obvious, "if they exist" goes here. I was hurrying out the door when I wrote this.

The majority of books that I refer to, refer to reputable sources in turn. For example half of the meteorite impacts listed in Rain of Iron and Ice have the New York Times as their source. Presumably that is acceptable?

I shy away from referencing books that do not list their sources (for example the works of Sitchin).

All I have said is that it is possible that an ancient culture could predict the return of a long period comet, not that they did. I can't even prove that modern science can predict that, for they never have (long period comets take too long to return…). The Mayans and Egyptians, through pyramids and calendars, have certainly demonstrated enough mathematical prowess to work it out, but we do not know if they understood the orbital mechanics.

It's only a guess at what the Dec 21 2012 date might mean, if it ever was meaningful.

Regarding the meteorite deaths - ticktock asked me to cite one instance, so I provided a dozen or so. A handful of recent deaths wouldn't worry many people. It's the bigger, less common, impacts that are a concern. They might not be recorded in written history, but surely you aren't suggesting they don't occur?

My argument is that (ancient culture gives us a date) + (ancient culture had scientific skills) + (global catastrophes have happened before) might = hang on to your hats.

I've spent 14 years trying to crack the 2012 mystery. While I accept the lack of evidence ruins it for many, nobody on the planet (to my knowledge) has come up with a more plausible hypothesis for why they chose Dec 22 2012 in a catastrophic context. And that's why y'all are here, to debate that very thing. So I'm sharing.

Add to that the theory of dark comets (that we wouldn't see coming), and the possibility that an ancient culture could have predicted the return of a long period comet (if Halley could do it, so could the Maya or the Egyptians), and cometary impact is something worth preparing for, just in case.

I challenged you to give evidence for these claims. Instead, you switched to generalized chances of dying from objects falling from the sky. This only indirectly addresses dark comets, and definitely does not address whether an ancient culture predicted the 'return' of such an object:

Most obviously, the issue of ancient cultures is not a matter of probabilities. Either the Maya, or the Egyptians, predicted such an event or they did not. Unless you have evidence they did, then your claim is invalid. It's that simple.

Second, the 'theory of dark comets' has little to do with the string of minor strikes and deaths ensuing from the direct impacts. (Which, BTW, aren't mitigated by much of the sorts of 'preparations' people often talk about.) The culprits are simply so small they are under the detection level.* Any statistics gathered from these strikes cannot be simply assumed for other types.

Put simply, if you want to pretend 2012 is particularly significant (high risk), you have to have evidence.

• Edit: Except the 1490 China strike, which is specifically noted as 'supposedly', and is quote open to debate as in paper Yau, K., P. Weissman, and D. Yeomans. "Meteorite Falls in China and Some Related Human Casualty Events." Meteoritics 29, 864-871.

Also, there aren't any asteroids we need to be concerned about for the foreseable future. The WISE program, and others, has assured us of that. NASA's 'Near Earth Object' program agrees :-
"No one should be overly concerned about an Earth impact of an asteroid or comet. The threat to any one person from auto accidents, disease, other natural disasters and a variety of other problems is much higher than the threat from NEOs."

(Personally I'm not worried about Apophis. But ask me again (if I'm still around!) *after* it makes its harmless close approach on Friday, April 13, 2029. By then it will be clear if it has passed through the imaginary 'keyhole'. It will also be clear if a mission will be launched to nudge it a little to ensure that it will make another harmless close approach in 2036.)

Remember: "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence…" The 'people' making these claims cannot supply scientific evidence to backup their claims. They are shamelessly trying to make money from the books, videos, and other things. They have traumatized many people. I cannot forgive them for that.
- -

588 AD, 10 people, China
1490, supposedly 10,000 people, China
1511, Franciscan monk, Cremona, Italy
1650, Another monk (!), Milan, Italy
1647-54, 2 sailors at sea
1790, A farmer and cattle, France
1825 , A man, India
1827, A man, India
1874, Child, China
1879, Man in bed, Indiana, USA
1879, Farmer, France
1897, Horse, West Virginia, USA
1907, Entire family, China
1908, 2 people reported, Tunguska
1911, Dog, Egypt
1929, 1 member of a bridal party, Zvezvan, Yugoslavia

All are described in detail in Chapter 13 of Rain of Iron and Ice by John S Lewis, along with plenty of near-misses. Some more recent ones are listed here:
http://www.icq.eps.harvard.edu/meteorites.html

I presume you'll respond by saying they are meteorites and not comets/asteroids. Well, in case you were not aware:

A meteor, commonly called a shooting star and falling star, is the visible trace of a meteoroid as it enters the atmosphere. If it survives impact with the Earth's surface, then it is called a meteorite.

It doesn't matter what it was before - if it makes impact it becomes known as a meteorite. So even the 1200m diameter Meteor Crater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Crater was caused by a meteorite.

The result on Google for "odds of a house burning down" says it is 1/16,000
http://healthsourcenw.com/faq.html

Austen Atkinson (in the book Impact Earth) says the odds of being killed by a comet or asteroid is 1 in 24,000. That's because when a big one does strike, it will kill a lot of people. Less common, but kills more = similar odds. And then he points out that the odds of contracting mad-cow disease is 1 in 15 million, yet that scared most of the world enough to ban the importation of British beef.

1 in 24,000 is roughly the same odds for dying as a result of a plane crash. I’m not alone in worrying about this every time I board a plane…

The only difference between house fires and killer comets is that house fires are commonplace, and that prompts us to take out insurance. People react after seeing someone else's tragedy - more so than what some boffin says in a science book about something that probably won't happen in their lifetime.

I know everyone here keeps asking me for evidence, which is crazy because if there was evidence (that something terrible would happen this year), it would be beyond debate. I guess some people won't do anything without prior evidence, and that's just the way their brain works.

But, moreover, your response is a diversion to attempt to, sadly, get around the burden of proof you acquired when you made these claims.

So once again, how about try again. You are holding the positive claim. Is there a 'dark comet' coming our way? Show that it IS. Did the ancients predict it would return. Show they DID. It's really simple, back your claims.

I've never said it is likely - just possible.

A pink elephant singing happy birth day is also possible.

Half a point.

For that matter, they also cannot definitively state that Earth won't be destroyed to make room for a hyperspace bypass.

Now on the scale of probabilities, rogue comets are a lot more probable as a danger than hyperspace bypass construction crews. By the same token, NEOs, by definition, are a lot more probable as a danger than rogue comets.

Saying that something is 'scientifically possible' and we should therefore prepare for it, is meaningless. Hyperspace Bypass construction crews are 'scientifically possible'. Am I going to spend a second worrying about them? No.

As an amateur astronomer I'm also more aware than most laypersons of the scale of the solar system. I frequently spend my spare time trying to communicate the sheer volume, and huge distances to kids. The scale of the solar system convinces me that the danger presented by rogue or long-period comets is so minuscule that it does not warrant consideration as a serious danger.

I will grant that there is some danger present from short period comets, some of which do approach earth. In particular the parent bodies of meteor showers should be sought and discovered, and tracked. These, by definition (again) are NEOs, and fall under the same search parameters as the rest of the NEOs, including asteroids.

Rather than worrying people about low-probability events, I would rather people worry about the things that are actually killing them. In the developed countries, that would be cardio- and cerebro-vascular disease, and cancer.

As far as preparation, I would like to know what amount of preparation would help you to survive if we were struck by something the size of Hale-Bopp (~60km) or even Swift-Tuttle (~26km)? Our best hope in that kind of nightmare scenario is early detection (back to NASA looking for things in space) and potential deflection.

Ultimately, risk management is all about what is actually dangerous (heart attacks, strokes, cancer, fatty food, bad drivers) than these big, scary, but ultimately extremely unlikely events. I live in Earthquake Country (a.k.a., California). I take reasonable precautions and preparations for earthquakes. I don't make preparations for tornadoes or hurricanes. What you are asking people to do is to stop worrying about the things that are really dangerous, and focus instead on your contrived scenario.

Yes, I know, you didn't say it would happen, only that it could happen. Well, the chances are that you will live a long and healthy life. If you don't, the chances are you will die from one of the causes I list above (they account for over 50% of deaths in developed countries).

…and they do not provide the same assurances for comets.

Because they don't have to. Impact probabilities are calculated for Near-Earth Objects, a class that includes comets, as already explained to you.

But given that somebody, once upon a time, chose Dec 21 2012 to be meaningful

That simply is not true, until you get into the 20th Century.

it's worth considering the possibly that they were predicting the return of a comet.

Where's the prediction, man? C'mon, stop paying coy.

I believe I have written the only serious article regarding the possibility of a comet being predicted for 2012 - just search for Comet Caesar…

There are no predictions for a comet in 2012, ancient or otherwise. Of course, if you disagree, then all you have to do is list the prediction(s), explain why it is relevant, and explain why your interpretation is correct.

And as I keep saying, of course there is no evidence

We know, and that's a pretty significant problem for these wild claims of yours. Unfortunately, you don't seem to differentiate very well between reality and your imagination.

But that it is possible is worthy of investigation.

You imagination is not worth investigation, unless you produce evidence.

And yet when it comes to the human species, we put virtually no effort into insuring our continued existence. That bothers me.

Of course the odds of a comet striking us this year is incredibly low. But given that somebody, once upon a time, chose Dec 21 2012 to be meaningful, it's worth considering the possibly that they were predicting the return of a comet. If they did, such a comet might still be undetected.

I believe I have written the only serious article regarding the possibility of a comet being predicted for 2012 - just search for Comet Caesar…

And as I keep saying, of course there is no evidence - if there was there would be some serious panic going down. But that it is possible is worthy of investigation.

But NASA can't assure us that there will be no cometary impact in late 2012, because if that comet existed they might not have spotted it yet.

The chance of a comet is laughable small since asteroid tend to orbit in a plane an comets are coming from a sphere. Also they tend to have an elliptical orbit and very rarely is near the Sun.

How about try again. You are, in truth, holding a positive claim. How about bringing some evidence for it. Is there a 'dark comet' coming our way? Show that it IS. Simple. Did the ancients specifically predict the return of this object. Show that they DID. Simple.

Barring that, we can talk about the dragon in my garage all day. Because that's all your claim really is.

The comets that do pose a risk to us generally fall into the same classes of orbits that other Near Earth Objects do. They are also subject to the same detection methods. Long period and rogue (single-pass) comets pose very little risk… there's just too much space in space.

I would not say that NASA's NEO program "ignores" comets, given that they openly discuss them here, and are funding the work of scientists like Dr. Peter Jenniskens who is trying to identify the parent bodies (i.e., comets) of meteor showers by back-tracking the meteors.