The end of the world is nigh - or is it? Carl Johan Calleman points out October 28th as a "day of change"

The end of the world is nigh - or is it? Carl Johan Calleman points out October 28th as a "day of change"

Now it's Carl Johan Calleman's turn to claim that the end of the world is nigh.

All things going to plan, tomorrow will be the end of the world. As the “plan” was set out by some looney tune who lives in a Swedish backwater, I wouldn’t count on it. But just in case Carl Johan Calleman has somehow alighted on the truth, I should at least mention his claims so that you can’t say I didn’t warn you (not that you’ll be able to say anything at all, it being the end of the world).

Calleman believes that the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar is October 28, 2011, and not, as was previously thought, December next year. If you are wondering what on earth – or any other planet, for that matter – qualifies Calleman to make such assertions, then let me enlighten you: in the Nineties, he quit his job as a scientist to concentrate full-time on solving the “age-old thought structures” of the Maya people.

“It seemed to me,” says Calleman on his website, “that it would be of greater value to humanity if I could solve the Mayan calendar, than if I could solve the riddle of cancer.”

I feel a tad sorry for the Mesoamerican Maya, an advanced civilisation who have, in recent years, been made to look as if they couldn’t organise a party in a brewery (or perhaps they could – they’d just send out invites for the wrong date). more