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Apocalypse Not? Seems Like It

This morning on a beach in Brazil, some celebrated summer's first day — and the news that the world didn't end.
Antonio Scorza
/
AFP/Getty Images
This morning on a beach in Brazil, some celebrated summer's first day — and the news that the world didn't end.

So, it looks like all that talk about the Mayan calendar and the end of the world coming today was just ... talk.

But the fun continues. NASA's Voyager 2 Twitter feed, for instance, has this:

"END MAYACAL BTUN 12.19.19.17.19 SHUTDOWN:UNIV(12) BEGIN BTUN 13.0.0.0.0 BOOT:UNIV(13)."

So does the reporting. There's this, from The Guardian's ive blog:

"The "official" end of the world website Ognen Jakasanovski points out in a comment, has its clock set to 11:11 and is now reporting: 'We have entered a new era in our existence. A new beginning. A renewed enlightenment.'

"Well there you go..."

And some insist the end, or something, is still near:

"Wait until the dawn on the 22nd; that is when we Maya will speak," Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu said. ( CBC News)

Meanwhile, there's no time like the still-present to look ahead to the next "end of the world" moments. Indian Country Today rounds up some of the "future doomsdays." It seems that 2016 and 2020 are popular years for apocalyptic predictions:

-- There's the "theory" that a geo-magnetic reversal in the summer of 2016 will end most life on the planet.

-- And "Vincent Carthane, who became an ordained minister specializing in hidden wisdom while in prison in 1999, predicts that some form of heavenly encounter, possibly tied to the end of the world, will occur during the year 2020."

We'll get back to you when those things do or don't happen.

Update at 9:15 a.m. ET: You Survived, Now What?

Our friends at the Shots blog offer a "survival guide to help you make the most of life in the wake of worldwide disaster."

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.