Reports of Our Demise Premature

"Now is the end. Perish the world." - Beyond the Fringe

We tend to sleep through announcements of the end of the world. Our default state is: "Wake us when it's over." As a result we completely missed out on the Niburu flap until it was put to bed by David Morrison at Nasa:

For months, weird stories have circulated on the Internet predicting the close passage by Earth this month of a Planet X sometimes called "Niburu", or in some versions a giant comet. I have even seen it linked to both Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), although why either of these is relevant is not clear to me. This news note is for those who may have heard such rumors and wondered if there was any reality to them. The simple answer is that these are lies. There is no such object.

All we can say is "Whew! That was a close one." Still, we'll keep coming back because, as the comedy routine above tells us, "We're sure to get a winner one of these days." The only problem is that it won't be from outer space. It will be homemade.

Posted by Vanderleun at June 26, 2003 9:37 AM | TrackBack