NASA slammed with calls over December 21 doomsday fears

As the last time zones still bearing the December 21 date near their end, it seems safe to say that the day will pass in its entirety sans the worldwide apocalypse many were predicting. NASA will certainly be happy to see it pass, having been slammed with massive quantities of calls and emails from concerned people who feared the world was nearing its end.

According to NASA spokesperson Dwayne Brown, the space agency normally gets a combination of 90 messages/phone calls a week from the general population in relation to a question. In the days leading up to the December 21, however, the agency has receiving up to 300 messages a day specifically asking about the possible apocalypse.

NASA, of course, has been fighting the misinformation for awhile now, aiming to do everything in its power to bring the facts to the public's attention rather than myth and fears. The agency went so far as to dedicate a page of its website – called Beyond 2012: Why the World Won't End – to dispelling the myths. It has attracted almost 5 million page views.

What kind of questions have people asked? Just about everything related to the situation that you can imagine, including concerned questions about whether people would commit suicide the day before the alleged doomsday out of fear. Others asked if Earth would be hit by the so-called Planet X or Nibiru, or if all the lights would go out when the clock struck midnight. As it turns out, Friday was just the uneventful start of a long holiday weekend.

[via LA Times]