Is this the start of the end of the world

A two-year count-down to the end of the world began yesterday for Bugarach, a village in the Corbières hills, east of the Pyrenées. A lot of people believe that the mountain just above the village has been assigned by extra-terrestrials as a place where the chosen few can survive Armageddon.

That may sound like the fantasy of an average cult, but the scenario, based on the supposed end of the Mayan calendar, is all too real for Bugarach, in the Aude département. With two years to go before the fatal 21st of December 2012 -- decreed by the Mayan calendar -- the village is already awash with would-be survivors and sundry new age pilgrims.

They are being drawn by the supposed mystical properties of the 4,000 foot Pic de Bugarach, an outcrop of rock that has long inspired legend, from the middle ages to Jules Verne and Stephen Spielberg. New arrivals, drawn by internet sites, are setting up new age businesses, sending up property prices and upsetting the locals with their rites.

Jean-Pierre Delord, the mayor, sounded the alarm yesterday over what he sees as the chaos that will result if thousands descend on Bugarach to escape judgment day, denoted American-style on the net as 12-21-12.

"I am beginning to wonder what is going to happen as 2012 approaches, when I see people moving in and already reserving their lodgings." Delord told the local press. "It may be necessary to call in the military to control the crowds, like in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind," he added.

Gilbert Cros, the deputy mayor said pilgrims had replaced hikers on the peak. "This gives us a bad image. We have other things to sell: the landscape and local food products."

The Mayor's talk of Spielberg's 1977 UFO classic is not idle since the director is said to have been inspired by the Pic de Bugarach. There is no confirmation but Wikipedia states flatly that Spielberg dreamed up Close Encouters at Bugarach. As in the film, extra-terrestrials are at the heart of the local "mystery". Many have been sighted in the area, according to videos and end-of-the-world sites on the internet. A huge metal space craft lies under the mountain ready to spirit the chosen few to safety, say believers. "It is an extraterrestrial space base underground. The beings have a human aspect," says an unidentified expert, who quotes a "secret" Nasa study on Youtube.

The pilgrims who have set up home in tepees and yurts around the village are certain that the spot has been chosen as a life-boat for the global "cataclysm" which was predicted by the Maya and recounted in the popular 2008 disaster film 2012. Mareva, a 19-year-old clad in a sari, told a radio station yesterday: "I feel something very strong, as if nature is telling us a lot of things here."

Bugarach's role in the 2012 cataclysm is open to debate. The area, in the old heartland of the mediaeval Cathar sect between Carcassonne and Perpignan, is given to strange tales. The Knights Templars, the Israeli Secret Service, the late President Mitterrand and Nazi leaders are all said to have had a hand in the Bugarach mystery.

The state is taking the threat of a Bugarach rush seriously. The Gendarmerie is preparing its crowd-control plans and Miviludes, the state agency which tracks dangerous cults, is studying Bugarach and the "Apogalypse movement". "The past has taught us that this kind of belief can lead to tragedies," Georges Fenech, the agency's head, told le Figaro.

ilovesleep wrote: »

It was predicted that 2012 would be the end.
Is this the start of it? Global econmic mess
Weather forum is predicting an iceage.
Countries will probably all break out in war and kill each other.