Death planet approaching

A couple of days ago, I looked at the fascination we have with things that are dangerous -- tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, supernovas.  Today we are going to consider the fact that this fascination is apparently strong enough that if there are no horrible natural disasters forthcoming, people feel the need to make one up.

This comes up because of a link sent to me by a loyal reader of Skeptophilia wherein we find out that in South America, they have their own version of Nibiru, the fabled tenth planet (or ninth, if you agree with Neil deGrasse Tyson and leave Pluto out of the mix) that visits the inner Solar System every so often, sowing chaos and destruction.  Sort of like the way your least favorite relatives come to visit, bringing along their horribly-behaved children, resulting in a thousand-dollar bill from the plumber just to get the toy cars unstuck from the u-bend in the toilet and the wads of LaffyTaffy out of the bathroom faucet.

Turns out that the South American version of Nibiru is called "Hercolubus."  And over at a site called the Alcione Association, we find out that Hercolubus is on its way, and boy, are we in for it:

Hercolubus, a planet so called by the sages of antiquity, is a gigantic world, 5 or 6 times bigger than Jupiter. In the past it put an end to the Atlantean civilisation and it is approaching Earth again. 

The impending approach of this heavenly body to our solar system will happen soon, so that everybody will be able to see.  It will bring about great upheaval in all corners of our planet.

Well, we wouldn't want any corner to feel left out, so I suppose that's fair enough.

In its present encounter, the progressive approach of Hercolubus will bring about all type of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tidal waves, which will become more and more frequent and intense until total devastation comes about.  When Hercolubus moves near the Earth, its gigantic gravitational force will attract the molten magma towards the Earth’s surface so that earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions will increase in number and will reach unheard-of magnitudes.

What strikes me about all of this is that these people really don't understand how gravity works.  Do they think that the gravitational pull on liquids is stronger than on solids, for some reason?  It reminds me of the explanation Tom Weller gave in his phenomenal spoof of middle school science textbooks, Science Made Stupid (and if you haven't read this, go immediately to this site and read it, but don't try and drink anything while doing so or you'll be buying a new computer).   He explains the tides thusly:

We sometimes speak of the tides causing the oceans to rise or fall. Of course, this is a fallacy.  Actually, it is the land that rises and falls. 

As the Earth rotates, the moon's gravitational attraction is greatest first on one side, then the other.  Land masses, being rigid, are pulled up or down accordingly.  Oceans, being liquid, are free to flow back to their normal level.

We then find out that "Hercolubus" is going to cause the pole to shift.  We can already see it starting, because the ice caps are melting, or something.  Because clearly the ice melting at the poles will affect the magnetism of the core of the Earth, which will in turn cause the whole planet to turn turtle, kind of like a kayak capsizing.

The reality is scary-looking enough.  [image courtesy of NASA]

So how are we going to escape all of this bad stuff?  Apparently, what we all need to do is to learn how to do astral projection:

Along the course of history, different people with Awakened Consciousness have told about such cosmic phenomenon.  A very clear and current example is the little book entitled ‘Hercolubus or Red Planet’ written by V.M. Rabolu, the great Colombian researcher in esotericism. T hat book can be qualified as a ‘document about the future written with full consciousness’. 

Based on his direct and conscious experience, its author, V.M. Rabolu, teaches us in his book the systems to eliminate our psychological defects and the techniques for astral projection as the only existing formulas to face the forthcoming times.

So I guess the idea is that when "Hercolubus" comes and everything on Earth kinda goes south, we can just astral project ourselves right the hell out of here.  Although that does bring up one problem; isn't the idea of astral projection that your soul goes away somewhere, and your body gets left behind?  It'd be a little inconvenient if your soul goes for a vacation on, say, Neptune, and comes back to find that your body has been obliterated by all the molten magma being pulled around by Hercolubus's crazy strong gravity.

You can see how that would kind of be a bummer.

Anyhow, here's one more thing for all of us to worry about.  The whole Nibiru thing seems to have calmed down some, especially now that 2012 has come and gone without the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse showing up.  But Hercolubus seems to run on its own timetable, so I guess we're not out of the woods yet.  My advice is to work on "eliminating your psychological defects."  Then, even if V. M. Rabolu is wrong about Hercolubus and the Earth flipping over and everything, at least you'll be less defective, which sounds like a good thing.