It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Yet another doomsayer is forecasting doom and destruction for Thursday 25th May. I hope not cos I've got Friday off, it's also the late May bank holiday and Si and I are going oop north to visit friends in East Yorkshire.

This time we are all supposed to die because a fragment of comet Schwassman-Wachmann is supposed to hit the Atlantic. Why haven't we heard of this before? Why no grave interviews with Heather Cooper and Sir Patrick Moore or indeed my old Astronomy lecturer David Hughes? Well it's complete guff for one thing, being peddled by a former military air traffic controller called Eric Julien - for a precis of his claims this is highly enjoyable and if you want to see him make a fool of himself in his own words then I recommend his site. I particularly like the way that they cite crop circles and premonitions as if they are almost hard evidence.

For why it's not going to happen I recommend Bad Astronomy an oasis of rational thought and cool science blog.

But let me leave you with one of the comments from the blog - possibly, in my humble opinion one of the best comments ever.

Evolving Squid says:

I wonder if the doomsayers realize that although the odds of actually being struck by a comet piece are small, the odds of being struck by a comet piece while naked but for a tinfoil hat, with one'’s entire body smeared in vegemite and marmalade, and with an extension cord up one'’s rear end, in the shower while listening to the “"Blue Danube”" waltz and dancing the macarena in front of a live web cam are vanishingly small.

Thus, in order to ensure their survival, they should do all those things.

May 21, 2006 @ 10:19 pm