With the purported 2012 Mayan Apocalypse calculated to take place on December 21st rapidly approaching, thousands of letters have poured into government agencies like NASA from citizens concerned about the end of the world.

Doomsday fears surrounding the end of the Mayan calendar, a possible collision with a mystery “Planet X” theorized by some researchers, and pole shift popularized in the Hollywood movie 2012, have forced the government to issue a rebuttal debunking the claims at their USA.gov web site:

Scary Rumors about the World Ending in 2012 Are Just Rumors

False rumors about the end of the world in 2012 have been commonplace on the Internet for some time. Many of these rumors involve the Mayan calendar ending in 2012 (it won’t), a comet causing catastrophic effects (definitely not), a hidden planet sneaking up and colliding with us(no and no), and many others.

The world will not end on December 21, 2012, or any day in 2012.

Unfortunately, these rumors have many people frightened, especially children. NASA has received thousands of letters concerned about the end of the world. David Morrison, a planetary astronomer and senior scientist for NASA who answers questions from the public about astrobiology, says, “At least a once a week I get a message from a young person ― as young as 11 ― who says they are ill and/or contemplating suicide because of the coming doomsday.”

According to NASA, the old mystery-planet-collision rumor year was 2003, but when 2004 arrived safely, the rumors changed to 2012.

So what end-of-the-world year will the rumor mill make up next?

NASA scientists have set up a dedicated questions and answers page to quell panic surrounding a variety of theories and rumors that include:

• End of the World
• ‘Prediction’ Origins
• Mayan Calendar
• Total Blackout
• Planetary Alignment
• Nibiru/Planet X/Eris
• Polar Shift
• Meteor Strike
• Solar Storms

NASA and the government have taken extraordinary steps to assuage the feelings of fear surrounding potentially life-ending “global killer” events.

Widespread blackouts resulting from solar storms, for example, are of particular concern among many individuals researching potentially devastating scenarios. A detailed 2010 report from the Center for Security Policy found that a wide-spread national level blackout for extended periods of time would leave some 90% of Americans dead within one year should it come to pass. In this case, the public’s fears stemmed from numerous reports warning of powerful solar storms that may hit earth in late 2012 through 2014 during the Sun’s peak solar cycle, as well as from an agency-wide preparedness alert issued by NASA head Charles Bolden which warned employees to think about and prepare for attacks “from outside forces.”

Though NASA claims their organization is not predicting such a blackout and that there is nothing to be concerned about regarding the peak of the sun’s solar cycle over the next couple years, they are actively building a solar shield to protect against massive flares from the sun and have created detailed preparedness plans in the event such a scenario unfolds, leaving many wondering what is actually being discussed behind closed doors.

Moreover, further confusion and distrust stems from NASA’s claims of the impossibility of events such as pole shifts and meteor strikes.

Though pole shifts have clearly occurred in the past, as evidenced by this NASA report, and are likely in progress right now, the NASA debunking page claims, “as far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth – scientists believe a magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia.”

Likewise, NASA says they have “determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs,” in Earth’s vicinity, yet they and the US government are actively preparing for ex-planetary threats such as asteroids.

The government has gone to great lengths to let us know that there are no potential threats on the horizon, but they have invested tens of of billions of dollar into preparedness strategies that include bunkers, food supplies and continuity of government contingencies just in case.

While we are hard-pressed to believe the world will end on December 21, 2012, or even in 2013, nothing is outside of the realm of possibility. Obviously, the government has determined that utilizing billions of dollars at the taxpayer’s expense to build backup plans is a worthwhile investment, which suggests that officials at the top of the homeland security food chain are more paranoid then anyone else.

Curiously, though they are not necessarily traditional end-of-the-world Armageddon scenarios, there is very little discussion and much denial about the possibility of an economic collapse, an elite takeover of the global population through centralized governance, implementation of martial law, and the potential for World War III to go hot, yet the government seems to be fully involved in planning for such activities as well.

Perhaps those who take it upon themselves to research these far-from-equilibrium possibilities are a bit paranoid.

However, with government transparency being as opaque as it’s ever been, the people have been left with no choice but to be suspicious of official stories and paranoid about their government’s activities.