This year’s end of the world will take place in October. There have been predictions about the end since humans became capable of contemplating their mortality. So far, the doomsayers’ all-time winning percentage is .000.

Recent panicky prognostications have included Harold Camping in 2011, the Mayan brouhaha a year later, and John Hagee’s Blood Moons in 2016, all three of which we are still here to ridicule. The latest doomsday centers on the planet Nibiru and the brown dwarf it orbits, Nemesis.

The primary promoter of this notion is David Meade, author of Planet X, the 2017 Arrival. This terrifying tome informs us that this fall will see Nibiru and Nemesis barrel toward Earth. Neither of them will necessarily collide with our planet, but their gravitational pull will lead to massive sinkholes, firestorms, typhoons, and other cataclysmic unpleasantries. Life on Earth will come to an end. The fatal flaw in this idea is the complete lack of evidence for the existence for Nibiru or Nemesis.

Space features so many fascinating phenomenon like dark matter, antimatter, bizarre exoplanets, gravity waves, quasars, and black holes that it’s unfortunate some feel the need to fabricate awesomeness. But such an incentive prompted Zecharia Sitchin to concoct the Nibiru tale in 1976. A self-declared expert in the Sumerian language, Sitchin deduced that some Sumerian writings referenced Nibiru. Through his idiosyncratic translation, Sitchin figured out that Nibiruians resemble three-foot tall humanoids. About 500,000 years ago, they bopped over to Africa to mine gold. While they liked being able to access this precious metal, they disliked the associated work. So they genetically altered our ancient ancestors and used the resultant species as slave labor. So while they (or at least their planet) is coming to destroy us, we can’t be too angry since we wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for them.

The documents also revealed that Nibiru exists in the remotest outskirts of the solar system, but swings by Earth every 3,600 years. That means only about one in 50 generations will experience this celestial visit, but of course, our generation is that one. That’s the way doomsdays and prophecies work. Be they aficionados of Nibiru, Nostradamus, Edward Cayce, or Revelation, believers almost never predict that something will happen 100 or 1,000 years from now. It has to be in their lifetimes or it loses all excitement and meaning. Also, by exposing these coming apocalypses, doomsayers feel some control over it. They can build bunkers, warn others, and get right with a god or alien species in hopes this obsequiousness will save them.

Sitchin was a rare exception to the rule about not picking a doomsday date beyond their lifespan. When a few folks tried to fuse the Mayan and Nibiru doomsdays, he rejected this and said Earth would last until 3012. That saved him from them the public humiliation of failure that his fellow seers suffer.

Setting a date for the apocalypse has its good and bad points. Few persons would have paid attention to the Camping and Mayan predictions if they had been treated like a movie and announced that they were “coming soon.” Pinning down a specific time is more likely to generate publicity, sell books and DVDs, and attract YouTube viewers. The drawback comes the day after when there is indeed a day after. However, this is not the fatal flaw that a rational person would expect it to be. When the end doesn’t come, few believers see this as a failing. Rather, it was just a minor mathematical miscalculation or even evidence that the believers’ conduct leading up to the day placated the god, alien invader, or heavenly body that was going to annihilate us.

Camping recalculated and gave us another date, which his followers accepted. After her followers emerged from their bunkers on Dec. 22, 1954, Marian Keech reassured them that their piety had saved the world, as the extraterrestrial army backed off when it saw there were still some good Earthlings left. Blood Moons came and went, yet Hagee devotees are still snagging his latest book about the approaching end, which now includes the TRUE date. While it is incredible that failed seers get away with this, those they are bamboozling have a strong incentive to let them. Otherwise, their time spent prepping, praying, meditating, telepathically communicating, and giving away possessions would have been wasted.

Sitchin’s creation was floundering in 1995 when alien communicator and psychic Nancy Lieder announced the planet was about to collide with Earth. This fueled a renewed interest and other annihilation-by-Nibiru claims surfaced in 2003, 2012, and 2015. Today, Meade tells us that Nibiru and Nemesis are hidden at the far end of the solar system and following large oval paths, meaning we will be unable to detect them until it is too late.

“This system is not aligned with our solar system’s ecliptic, but is coming to us from an oblique angle and toward our South Pole,” he tried to explain. “This observation is difficult, unless you’re flying at a high altitude over South America with an excellent camera.”

Or maybe if you had a powerful telescope, like the kinds at NASA at Mount Palomar, neither of which have astronomers reporting these celestial bodies. But telescopes would only be needed if Nibiru was staying put. Were it on its way, a clear view of the night sky would suffice. The Washington Post quoted NASA astrophysicist David Morrison as saying, “There are no pictures or astronomical observations of Nibiru, but a planet nine months away from crashing into Earth, cruising within the inner solar system, would be visible to the naked eye.”

Meanwhile, Meade asserts that, “The elite are frantically building bunkers and the public is being kept in the dark to avoid panic.” This is contradictory because, without the ability to see or detect Nibiru, how would the elite know there was something to avoid?

Still, Meade claims “overwhelming” evidence in the form of increased numbers of volcanoes and earthquakes, never bothering to substantiate that this is occurring or explaining how that would prove a planet has left its orbit and will destroy us.

If wanting to know more, Meade’s book is available on Amazon for $13. But I suggest waiting a  year, when it should be considerably cheaper.