China Doomsday Arrests: 500 Members of 'Doomsday Cult' in Custody
Almost 500 people have been taken into custody as part of China's "doomsday arrests." The people have been accused of being members of a doomsday cult and spreading rumors that the world is about to end, according to Chinese state media.
According to reports more than 400 members of the Almighty God Christian cult have been detained in western Qinghai province, with dozens more brought into custody elsewhere.
Chinese state media have also reported that an incident n Henan province connected to the group has sparked widespread anger and fear. In that incident it as reported that a member of the doomsday cult carried out a knife attack that injured more than 20 children.
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China's state news agency Xinhua has labeled the Almighty God Christian group as a cult, and has said that it was established in 1990 in Henan. It believes in the Mayan Calendar prediction that the world will end on Friday Dec. 21, 2012.
Meanwhile, NASA has released a Mayan Apocalypse video early, ahead of its scheduled release date – showing how confident it is about proving the Dec. 21, 2012 Doomsday prophesy is false.
Dec. 21, 2012 has long been rumored to be the day of the apocalypse, according to Mayan predictions. However, NASA has very publicly rebuked the predictions, and has gone about proving why that date will not signify the end of the world.
A video created by NASA explaining why the world "did not end" on Dec. 21, was originally scheduled to be released on Dec. 22 – the day after the predicted apocalypse. Apparently makers wanted everyone to wake up the morning after and realize nothing had happened and look to the video to explain why.
However, so confident is NASA that its "The World Didn't End Yesterday" is correct, that the four minute video has been put out ahead of time.
The video explains how the idea of the Mayan Doomsday prediction for 2012 first came about, and how it is a huge hoax.
One commenter on YouTube has joked, "The correct title for this video is 'Told Ya So! - Love, NASA."
According to Time Magazine, NASA has been inundated with people enquiring whether the world really is about to end on Dec. 21. Such is the demand for an answer, that NASA has taken the widespread fears of the end of time seriously. Although the scientists at NASA believe there is absolutely no danger of the world ending in just over a week's time, they do fear that a widespread panic about the end of the world could spark irrational and potentially dangerous actions from people.
NASA has even released an official statement on its website to announce that the world will not be ending in 2012: "The world will not end in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."
Furthermore, NASA claims the predictions are a hoax: "The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012—hence the predicted doomsday date of Dec. 21, 2012."
NASA has said that there is no official record of the planet Nibiru, but that if this supposed planet was on a collision course with Earth they would have seen it for at least the last decade and have been extensively tracking its path. NASA also has said that by now, just a week before the supposed impact with Earth, "it would be visible by now to the naked eye."
Watch NASA's video on the Mayan 2012 Apocalypse "Why The World Didn't End Yesterday" Below:
