Amateur star-gazers, UFO hunters and survivalists believe a prophesied encounter between Earth and a large heavenly body known as Nibiru or Planet X will take place by April 2016.
But the doomsdayers are increasingly certain the collision or catastrophic near miss will happen in December 2015.
They say an increase in comets, asteroids and natural disasters is down to the incoming planet and claim to hold evidence Governments around the world are secretly preparing for the impending disaster – by amassing coffins and training soldiers to deal with inevitable anarchy in the aftermath.
A giant asteroid narrowly missed Earth in October and NASA and the European Space agency have admitted preparing a disaster plan for collision with a cosmic missile.
“As it goes by it's going to grab the crust and flight it up over the North Pole.”Followers believe the gravitational pull of the massive passing planet will shift the Earth's continents so different countries are over its north and south poles and cause 600ft tidal waves – before the world is battered by rocky satellites following in Nibiru's wake.
Gordon James Gianninoto, Alien contactee
Alien contactee Gordon James Gianninoto said: "As it goes by it's going to grab the crust and flight it up over the North Pole and let go of it – and when it lets go, the North Pole is going to be the eastern tip of Brasil."
Mr Gianninoto claims China is already preparing for the resulting chaos by building great empty "ghost" cities.
Other conspiracy theorists claim Puerto Rico is stockpiling body bags and coffins, the US Government has been sending out emergency rations of water and self-heating meals and UN peacekeepers – and even Russian soldiers – are being taught English and training in US military equipment on American soil, so they can work together when disaster strikes.
The myth – dubbed the Nibiru Cataclysm – dates back to 1976, when writer Zecharia Sitchin claimed that two ancient Middle Eastern cultures – the Babylonians and Sumerians – told of a giant planet – Nibiru – that orbited the Sun every 3,600 years.
He based this on a translation of Sumerian writing – one of the earliest systems of writing in the world – which is not recognised by other scholars.
Believers linked this to Planet X – a hypothetical planet astronomers suggested could account for unexplained unusual changes in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
His far-fetched claims of a huge astral body beyond Neptune – somehow missed by NASA and other astronomers – got an unexpected boost when NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite found signs of an "unknown object…possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this Solar System" in 1983.
NASA later explained away all the evidence as being from bodies outside our Solar System – leading to accusations of a cover-up.
Then, the following year, dinosaur doctors David Raup and Jack Sepkoski published a paper claiming they had discovered a series of mass extinctions – when a large part of life on Earth is wiped out – roughly every 26 million years.
Two teams of respected astronomers – working independently – came up with startlingly similar theories explaining the cyclical disasters.
They hypothesised that the Sun has a smaller "companion star" in the far reaches of the Solar System and its slow orbit affects life – and death – on Earth.
The small red or brown dwarf was dubbed Nemesis or the Death Star.
Nibiru believers have suggested Planet X may orbit Nemesis rather than the Sun, explaining its distance, orbit – and possible collision course with Earth.
They have also jumped on claims by a team of astrophysicists from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette that another giant planet – like Jupiter or Saturn – lies in the outer reaches of the Solar System.
They used the hypothetical planet – dubbed Tyche – to explain the orbits of comets in the Oort Cloud – an icy cloud of debris surrounding the Sun at great distance.
Self-proclaimed extraterrestrial psychic Nancy Lieder first forecast the astral crash in 1995 – claiming aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system warned her about it via an implant in her brain.
She originally claimed Nibiru would strike in 2003 – but the prediction was pushed back when the cosmic wrecking ball failed to materialise.
Lieder said it would happen in 2012 – matching it to much-publicised doomsday predictions of the ancient American Maya civilisation.
It again failed to appear – but Lieder's supporters across the Internet are sure it will appear by April and possibly even this month.
NASA has repeatedly assured Earth's terrified inhabitants that Nibiru is complete fantasy with no scientific basis.If the planet was due to strike or pass Earth this month, even at some distance, it should be visible to the naked eye by now – let alone by all the amateur star gazers across the globe.
By David Trayner, The Daily Star
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