On Dec. 21, 2012, the day of the winter solstice, the ancient Mayan calendar runs out and all the planets in our solar system line up single-file with the sun in the center of our galaxy for the first time in approx. 25,800 years.

The Mayans lived in Central America from about 300AD to 900AD. They were meticulous about keeping time and created a calendar based on the lunar cycles which modern experts agree was very precise. Their calendar accurately predicted lunar eclipses thousands of years in advance.

Because of this, people have speculated that the end of the Mayan calendar next week predicts the end of the world.

After watching 10 years of Mayan calendar documentaries, I was fully prepared to write why I believe their calendar does not predict the end of the world. After all, when making a calendar of the future, wouldn’t it have to end some time?

But as I began researching I discovered that the Mayans are not the only ones who predicted Dec. 21, 2012 as a date of worldwide significance.

In the days of ancient Rome there was an oracle believed to speak for the Gods called the Sybil, who lived in a cave near what is now known as Naples. Roman kings and statesmen often went to see the Sybil, asking her to prophesize about anything of importance.

The Sybil wrote an entire book of prophecies, considered holy to the Romans, who believed that she was being possessed by the spirit of the god Apollo. Many of her predictions came true, such as the rise of the Roman Emperor Constantine (whom she called by name 800 years before he was born) and the birth of Jesus (whom she called “a golden child” that would forever change the course of the world).

In her book of prophecies, the Sybil also predicted that the world would last for nine generations of 800 years each and the end of the Earth would come about 10 to 12 years later, set to begin around A.D. 2000.

Convinced yet?

One other such prediction comes from a 5,000-year-old ancient Chinese text called the Iching (which translated means “The Book of Changes”). The Iching is a way to predict one’s future, like a mix of tarot cards and a zodiac horoscope.

When using the Iching, a person would flip a series of coins that would indicate one of the series of 64 hexagrams listed; each hexagram then represents a different prediction listed in the text.

In the 1980s a researcher noticed a pattern running through the 64 hexagrams of the Iching when lined up. He plotted this pattern on a graph, then viewed it as a timeline of recorded history, which is about 4,000 years. The graph’s beginning was around the time the Iching was written, which is also around the time considered by most scientists as the dawn of civilization.

The researcher noticed that when the 64 hexagrams were repeated 64 times in a row, the graph’s peaks corresponded with times of great change and upheaval in the world including, but not only, the fall of the Roman Empire and the two world wars of the 1900s.

The historical timeline graph came to an end on a very specific date–Dec. 21, 2012.

And there are at least another two or three places where 2012 has been predicted to be either the end of the world or a time where an unprecedented change in the world—and the year is nearly over.

Not all of them speak of a Dec. 21 doomsday, however.

One prediction spoke of time travel, the theory being that it will be invented at the end of 2012 and we will have an influx of tourists from the future (the rationale that even with time-travel technology one cannot go back further than the invention of the time machine).

So what does all this mean? Should we spend these final days trying to make friends with someone who owns a bomb shelter?

The most honest answer I can give you is…I have no idea? I tend to be skeptical of most predicted end-of-the-world scenarios, because in my 35 years I have lived through many of them (the Y2K scare and 2011 Rapture come immediately to mind), but I never rule anything out.

To paraphrase Socrates, the only thing I know is that I don’t know jack.

Many of the 2012 prophecies also have a “leading up to it” component that say to be on the lookout for things like war in the Middle East and strange, global weather disasters in the final months before the big day.

That being said, there have been at least 60 earthquakes registering above a 6.0 on the Richter Scale between May 1 and Dec. 1 of this year, in places ranging from New Zealand to Maine. And of course we remember mega-hurricane Sandy from last month. There was also military struggle last month between Israel and Palestine in the Holy Land.

So in closing, everyone have a happy rest of the holiday season, and hopefully we shall all meet again on the other side of this mystical date safe and sound. And if not, good luck and God speed!