So, here we are, boys and girls…December 21, 2012, the day the ancient Mayans said that the world would end.

Today, at 5:00 a.m., the Mayan Calendar ran out. The Mayans date back 4,000 years. They measured time in 394-year periods known as baktuns. The 13th baktun ends around Dec. 21 — and 13 is considered a sacred number.

People are freaking out around the world, in a scene reminiscent of  Orson Welles’ famous “War of the Worlds” Radio Broadcast on Halloween Night, 1938.

Just ask NASA.

The space agency said it has been flooded with calls and emails from people asking about the purported end of the world — which, as the doomsday myth goes, is apparently set to take place on Dec. 21, 2012.

The myth might have originated with the Mayan calendar, but in the age of the Internet and social media, it proliferated online, raising questions and concerns among hundreds of people around the world who have turned to NASA for answers.

Dwayne Brown, an agency spokesman, said NASA typically receives about 90 calls or emails per week containing questions from people. In recent weeks, he said, that number has skyrocketed — from 200 to 300 people are contacting NASA per day to ask about the end of the world.

“Who’s the first agency you would call?” he said. “You’re going to call NASA.”

The questions range from myth (Will a rogue planet crash into Earth? Is the sun going to explode? Will there be three days of darkness?) to the macabre (Brown said some people have “embraced it so much” they want to hurt themselves). So, he said, NASA decided to do “everything in our power” to set the facts straight.

That effort included interviews with scientists posted online and a web page Brown said has drawn more than 4.6 million views.

It also involved a video titled, “Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday.” Though the title of the video implies a Dec. 22 release date, Brown said NASA posted the four-minute clip last week to help spread its message.

NASA suspected it might have to create such a campaign a few years ago, when the idea of the world ending began “festering,” Brown said. The apocalyptic action movie “2012,” released in 2009, didn’t help, he said.

“We kind of look ahead — we’re a look-ahead agency — and we said, ‘You know what? People are going to probably want to come to us’ ” for answers, Brown explained. “We’re doing all that we can do to let the world know that as far as NASA and science goes, Dec. 21 will be another day.”

NASA has handled high-profile events before, Brown said, including the Venus transit this year, but nothing the agency has had to “debunk” has been this big.

“It’s been a very, very busy week,” he said.

Examiner.com also assures us that we have nothing to worry about:

Will the world end on Dec. 21, 2012? Some say yes, others say no. The first clue that the world will not end on December 21 is that earlier in 2012, archeologists uncovered a cave with Mayan calendar calculations going forward 4,000 years. “The Los Angeles Times” was among those reporting the discovery in May, just in time for the non-end of the world. In fact, the Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0. is a new beginning.

The Mayans never intended their world to end on December 21; their calculations did, however, show the ending of a long cycle (“the long count”) and the beginning of a new 5125.36-year cycle that gives humanity plenty of wiggle room without apocalpses to worry about — zombie, Mayan, or otherwise.

Need more persuasion? Discovery News reported in June, 2012 that another discovery in Guatemala referred to the “end date” but did not foretell a cataclysm. The idea of the world ending on December 21 is a modern invention. Still more? At the time of writing it’s already Dec. 21 in Australia and New Zealand. No reports of their disappearance are in.

What should we, as Christians think about all of this?

Hugh Ross, an astronomer and president of the science-faith think tank Reasons to Believe in Glendora, California who posted a “Response to 2012 Prophecies” at http://www.reasons.org/2012, says the celestial events expected to unleash unprecedented disasters in 2012 – a solar maximum, Venus’s transit of the Sun, a collision of Planet’s X with the Earth and an asteroid impact – are false or blown out of proportion.

Ross says Venus’ gravity is too weak to impact the Earth, astronomers have determined with “considerable confidence” that Planet X doesn’t exist and increased solar activity in 2012 – in the worst case scenario – will only cause temporary satellite disruptions. As far as asteroids, Ross says none of the thousands NASA is tracking are expected to hit the Earth in the near future.

“The Bible makes it clear that the end cannot happen until certain things take place and none of those events, in my opinion, have occurred,” Ross says. “For example, the end will not happen until God’s people fulfill the Great Commission by taking the Good News to all the people groups of the world.”

So, there you have it. It’s just another day. 

After all, when the trump sound, we’ll be outta

Just kidding.

Until He Comes, 

KJ