Hello, I've recently wondered a bit why is the pole reversal so popular among doomsayers and conspiration theorists. I mean a magnetic field reversal which happens overnight because of:
- Planet X and its comets tail close encounter
- A tremendous sun flare
- A cloud of gas or dust travelling through the galaxy and hitting us every11,500 years
- An asteroid
- Planetary alignment
- Something else
- Just so

What is more, the doomsayers usually claim that the pole shift will cause the Earth to stop spinning and then start again but in opposite direction (and of course that happened 11,500 years ago resulting in a 90% or 99% extinction). I don't know what is their view on evolution and fossil records, because from my understanding only bacterias would servive such a thing and the continents would liquidate.
The slowly fading Earth's magnetic field, global warming, each eartquake and hurricane is always a proof for their claims.

Anyway, was it the almighty Edgar Cayce ("the most brilliant mind of our times") who invented it? I heard that it was to happen between 1958 and 1998 according to him. I could name you a few followers of his idea: Patrick Geryl, Nancy Lieder, John Major Jenkins, some Hindu prophets etc. The date of this event is of course 2012, because it somehow didn't manage to happen before.

Sure there are conspiracy theories to support that claim. If you somehow missed it, NASA is gathering paper books in a bunker in Rocky Mountains I could give you link if you're intersted.
Anyway, what I tend to say is... well, I don't know. What do you think about that?

Dzien Dobry

It's obvious to me that this Pole Shift is a Government conspiracy !
But I don't know which government it is.

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I used to fly in the '70s around Cincinnati, and back then the isogonic line (zero magnetic deviation between magnetic and true North) passed almost right through me home airport. Now there is some 4 degrees deviation in that area.
The magnetic north pole is indeed moving, always has. Somewhere along the line they may need to start relabeling runways and stuff. I suspect the pole switching is something that doesn't happen suddenly, but over a long period of 100s or 1000s of years..

Somewhere along the line they may need to start relabeling runways and stuff.

I just assumed that runway designations are with respect to true north, rather than magnetic north. Is that not the case?

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The magnetic field of Earth comes from the spinning core. We are talking about a 7000km thick ball of iron, 3000 km below the surface. Everything you have mentioned are surface effects, they would not reach the core and if they did they would have order of magnitude too little energy to do anything to it.

We are talking about a 7000km thick ball somehow causing a 12,000 km thick ball to change direction? Just as there isn't enough energy in the above mechanisms to do that to the core, there isn't enough energy in the core to do this to the planet. Besides, if Earth's rotation flipped 12,000 years ago then we would know, since it would have massive impacts worlwide that do not exist.

There was no mass extinction 11,500 years ago. There has been a continuous mass extinction event starting around 13,000 years and contuining to the present day. The extinction rates have been much higher than normal but fairly constant over that time period, but spiked within the last few hundred years. However it is no where near even the 50% extinction during the K-T extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs, and that is the smallest of the "big 5" major mass extinctions up to this point. This extinction event simply hasn't been happening long enough (other mass extinctions occured over tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million years). There is no mass extinction event in history that wiped out 99% of life. The most massive one is the P-T exctinction event 250 million years ago that wiped out 90% of all animal species.


Modern humans existed 11,500 years ago, so obviously that didn't happen

No, it isn't. They are claiming a rapid change in Earth's magnetic field, not a slow one. Slow changes in the magnetic field are well-established. But one happening extremely rapidly is not. Earthquakes are and hurricanes are well-established, but Earth's rotation stopping and switching directions is not. There is a massive difference in time frame and scale that means those things you just listed have no bearing whatsoever on the claims.

Pretty large time frame in human terms, but obviously incorrect. So why do you still believe it if it obviously didn't happen?

And when that doesn't happen, they will push the date back further. That is how it always works, the predicted date comes and goes so they just come up with a new one. People still believe, no matter how many times the predictions fail.

Paper books? That is frankly stupid. If they converted them to microfilm that could fit the entire library of congress in a handful standard filing cabinets. If you put them on silica optical discs you could probably fit them in a single binder. Books are also flammable and due to the use of materials tend to break down relatively quickly. Paper is the worst possible way to stockpile books. I couldn't imagine a worse way, except perhaps if you wrote them on steaks and stored them in a dog kennel.

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Man, thanks for the explanation. But... hehe, I tried to use irony in this thread Perhaps I should emphasised it a little more. I wrote exactly what they claim (their crap about the pole shift). I indeed used to be an ignorant before, but I have gained some knowledge to debunk those lies.

This topic got my interest a bit, because here in Poland we've got a lot uneducated people to believe it all and to indoctrinate others. Really, it's a big problem. Whenever there is a news about some disaster or global warming on our Yahoo-like services, there dozens of comments, like:
"I'm sorry people, but there will be a pole shift in 2012, a 3 km high tsunami will wipe us all." or "2012 is coming, the pole shift is inevitable. NASA already knows that and is collecting 'paper books' in the mountains for the next civilisation so that they don't have to start from nothing".
Or the best one:
"Nibiru is passing the Earth in 2012, it has a tail of comets and will couse a pole shift and a bombardment of comet's pieces. Secret report of US government says that Nibiru was first spotted in 1983, it was near in 2003, now it will not spare us. But there is still hope! ETs living on Nibiru named Samuel and Olivier contacted Lucyna Łobos, the famous medium, she has sessions with them and with reliable audience that can confirm that she's not lying (BTW, one man in this audience used to say that sun goes supernova in 2012). The ETs said thet she must go to Egypt, the Cheops pyramide, where she will find secret tomb of Cheops and a key to the labyrinths in his mummy's stomach (!). In those labirynth below the pyramid, she will activate something special that will connect Earth to Mars (or whatsoever)...." uff, enough. I didn't make this story up. My God, I don't know why is this woman doing this, maybe she hopes some freaks will give her money so that she can dig in Egypt, but I really don't think anyone will let her touch the pyramids.

Well, this is what many people believe in Poland, not only teenagers.

I think the reason for the 11,500 BP date is because that is around the time of the mythical Atlantis.

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I think the reason for the 11,500 BP date is because that is around the time of the mythical Atlantis.

Atlantis isn't mythical, it's in the Pegasus Galaxy. I seen it on TV so it must be true.

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Enter the World of Athran

the olympics were in Atlantis in 1996

the olympics were in Atlantis in 1996

Sure that wasn't Atlanta

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It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Sorry, I make this mistake always

I believe that currently 2012 is the popular date amongst doomsayers because that's when the Mayan calendar enters a new epoch (much like the Western calendar changing from 1999 to 2000). Recall that there were a number of people prediting the collapse of civilization in 2000 as well.

One Planet X (at the board we generally shorten it to PX) believer predicted the end of the Earth on May 15, 2003. If you search the BAUT around this time you will see a lot of threads by both believers of this nonsense and people who were looking for answers because they had heard about it and were scared. It is very enlightening and the believers use all the same arguments that we are starting to see now: Government cover-ups, world leaders building secret bunkers, pole shifts, etc.

Needless to say nothing happened in 2003, and none of these PX-doomsayers has shown any evidence that their 2012 predictions have any basis in reality either.

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That's right. It's all about Mayan calendar. Each doomsayer thinks he has decoded their pictograms correctly, and he knows what is going to happen in 2012. Atlantis is also an argument. It is widely believed by them that Atlantis is under the ice of Antarctica! I think Plato had thought Atlantis up.
Damn, I wish we had someone like Phil Plait in Poland.

The Polish government, obviously. Time to have a chat to Warsaw.

I mean, it's obvious - 'Pole Shift' is an anagram for 'Polish e.f.t.' Now, e.f.t. is an acronym for Electromagnetic Field Transduction (I know this because I once heard Geordie La Forge say it), so the Poles are going to move the, um, poles by electromagnetic field transduction and... pay for it by electronic fund transfer... umm ... with the help of the Illuminati (and the reverse vampires).

I mean, why haven't NASA just come out and denied this if there wasn't something behind it???

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AGN Fuel, Some of my best friends are Poles apart from others....or should I re-write that ...Some of My best friends are Poles. Apart from others that I know.

Anyway. I also saw something on telly (so it must also be true) about the flux lines around the earth.

There is a change in the magnetic fields and we are seeing the North and South starting to swap. As we all know, rocks show this is a normal process (for the earth).

I also learned that the area with the weakest flux field is the Bermuda region.

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No, if your electrical system fails and the only thing working in the cockpit is your magnetic compass, it turns out to be easier to find the runway using magnetic north.

As an example, here are the magnetic and true headings for runway 9L-27R at the Oakland, CA airport:

Runway heading: 096 magnetic, 112 true 276 magnetic, 292 true

Ehh, so this is Polish government behind the Pole Shift. Now it's clear. I should have known better. There is a saying - "charity begins at home", now I can change it to - "conspiracy begins at home".

Come to Denver...they have 16L&R, and 17L&R, all pointed 350/170 (no dummy...your OTHER right!!!)
Atlanta Hartsfield also has such a setup I believe...

In answer to the original question:
"I've recently wondered a bit why is the pole reversal so popular among doomsayers and conspiration theorists."
I don't know why. Sometimes I think they confuse a magnetic pole reversal with a physical planetary pole reversal. As the Earth's magnetic field weakens, the strong dipole will break apart into a number of mini-dipoles which will cancel out much of Earth's magnetic field strength. A similar process happens regularly in the sun. In this weakened state the pole will sometimes change magnetic polarity. The magnetic field strength has been dropping significantly over the past century but it is still quite strong compared to the normal field strength exhibited over the past 2 million years. The Earth's magnetic field strength shields the Earth from Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR). As the field weakens, it will allow greater cosmic ray penetration. Recent published studies have shown a link between GCR flux rate and cloudiness. It is my opinion as the Earth's magnetic field weakens to its nominal value, the Holocene interglacial will come to an end and the Earth will again slide back into a glacial period in the present Great Pleistocene Ice Age.

The atmosphere also shields the Earth from GCR.

Going back a bit, I like this claim as reported by Effendi:
What is more, the doomsayers usually claim that the pole shift will cause the Earth to stop spinning and then start again but in opposite direction (and of course that happened 11,500 years ago resulting in a 90% or 99% extinction). I don't know what is their view on evolution and fossil records, because from my understanding only bacterias would servive such a thing and the continents would liquidate.

Imagine the energy required to suddenly stop and reverse the Earth's rotation. We'd still be cooling off 115 centuries later... Of course, this would have the side benefit of preventing the Astros' bullpen from coughing up yet another lead.

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The 11,5000 year ago date originated because that was aprroximately the end of the Younger Dryas cold period and saw a rapid temperature rise occur in the northern polar regions (as shown by the Greenland Ice Cores). Because those writing popular "alternative history" books have little or no understanding of climatology they assume that such a temperature rise must have had a catastrophic origin and to have affected the entire planet. A pole shift (physical as opposed to magnetic) is then presented as the most likely explanation (they convenitently ignore the fact that if a shift such as they propose did occur, Greenland should have got colder, not warmer ... )
It's also used as the date for the Pleistocene/Holocene transition.

There is no evidence of any increase in animal mortality rates around that time. The megafaunal extinctions (most famously the mammoths) occurred over a long period and, in northern areas at least, appear to have been caused by increases in precipitation rates leading to changes in vegetation and competition from more efficent grazers such as bison and caribou - which saw their populations expand at the same time that horses and mammoths were in decline.

So, in answer to the question "why is the pole reversal so popular among doomsayers and conspiration theorists" the answer is because they can't be bothered to study the science and hard evidence that exists surrounding the termination of the last Glacial and instead jump from assumption to assumption with their feet never once touching reality .....

Oh, and a pole shift is also the only possible explanation for the millions of non existent flash frozen mammoths that haven't been found in the Siberia permafrost

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sts60 writes:
"The atmosphere also shields the Earth from GCR."
That is correct. But when the Earth has a lower magnetic field strength, it allows less energetic cosmic rays to penetrate into the atmosphere and affect the Earth's cloud cover.

Oh, agreed. I wasn't disputing or diminishing that effect.

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"Slapping a guy on the head is just as funny now as it was eighty years ago."

Hmmm So I guess that the Solar System is really an Apple Disk II Drive, after all it uses GCR (Group Code Recording) as its recording technique

So the Pole Shift is the great Liquidator?

[Runs and hides under the nearest desk]

Baseball...... hmmmmm now I get it, Baseball is the great Cosmic Equalizer

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Hmmm So I guess that the Solar System is really an Apple Disk II Drive, after all it uses GCR (Group Code Recording) as its recording technique ?

Well, they both spin around... Darn that acronym degeneracy anyway!

So the Pole Shift is the great Liquidator?

[Runs and hides under the nearest desk]

Desk won't do it. You need to find your nearest Official Planet X Pole Shift Shelter.

Baseball...... hmmmmm now I get it, Baseball is the great Cosmic Equalizer

Well, I'm not really worried about the bullpen anymore. I'm worried about the whole lineup equalizing around .224 or thereabouts.

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"Slapping a guy on the head is just as funny now as it was eighty years ago."

Does anybody know if any of these people have been asked if they "believe" in the conservation of energy and angular momentum? I expect the question would bounce off them or sail over their heads, but I think it would be fun to listen to them explain how an object passing by the earth imparts such a large change in angular momentum without tearing both bodies apart.

Welcome to the board Rincewind. Unfortunately many PX believers don't let anything like reality get in the way of their delusions and come up with all sorts of things, off-the-cuff, to explain away issues brought up by pesky scientists and critical thinkers.

Believe me, people like this lady are not going to trouble themselves thinking too much about angular momentum.

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Welcome, Rincewind!

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"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Although they will give you the opportunity to recode your '12 strands of DNA' for only $219. Why do I suspect that a few of Nancy's followers are a strand short of a gene....?

Well? Are you?

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"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

Oh, I see this thread has been revived. As for those frozen mammoths:
This is the main arguement of killer sun flares idea supporters. They say that we're going to witness that in the following years. I don't know whether this it's all wrong, but from my observations, those people are very agressive when they talk about it on some climate forums and scold anyone who's trying to get a word in edgeways. This is a typical behaviour of pesky doomsayers.

I found a guy called Patrick Geryl who's writing fussy books about so called Orion Prophecy. In his view the pole shift (as described before - The Great Liquidator) is going to happen because Orion, Venus and other stars (yes, Venus is a star for him) will have a special alignment which affects the sun in such a way that it causes a superb nitro meca hyper sun storm. The proof is Mayan Calendar and Egyptian Calendar (he thinks that he found date 2012 in Egyptian glyphs). As he says, the pole shift happened 9000 something BCE, and it killed 99% of human beings (who lived in Atlantis) and animals. He claims that he found this date also in Maya calendar and in Egypt.
I think this man needs some debunking. I've never heard of any reliable scientist saying Egyptians mentioned year 2012 anywhere.