Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries

2012: The Maya Apocalypse (2012x85)

Air date: Jan 07, 2012

According to the ancient Maya of Central America, we are all doomed. The countdown to the apocalypse began several thousand years ago and time is running out. The Mayan understanding of astronomy was startlingly advanced, and some of the indications found in their calendar that a cataclysmic happening will come about in December 2012 are compelling. In this film, Paul Murton travels to America to explore how the phenomenon now better known as ‘2012' has swept across the internet with hundreds of websites featuring frightening predictions - all envisaging a different take on the impending world cataclysm. Murton examines how this terror has spawned ‘survival communities' in which people hoard food supplies, learn how to defend themselves and build bunkers to see them through the impending apocalypse. To discover who the Maya really were, he visits the ruins of the ancient Maya city of El Mirador in Central America to see where the civilisation was founded and gain an insight into why they believed the world would be on the threshold of destruction in 2012 - specifically 21st December at 12pm. Murton commented, ‘This city has been at the heart of vast and thriving civilisation thousands of years ago yet today it is covered by jungle. Perhaps we should consider the possibility that our own civilisation could meet a similar fate?'