You've probably been a little too busy to have heard, but the world will end on December 21.
Some would say this is not before time. However, many might still be unprepared for the event.
As part of Technically Incorrect's public service program, I would therefore like to inform you that a single alien spaceship is ready and waiting to lift you from the Earth when the apocalypse heralds the last calypso.
I am not sure how many people can slip into the spaceship, but -- given that it is of alien origin -- perhaps you will be powderized for the journey and then rehydrated to your full self when you arrive at your new planet.
How did I discover this highly significant information? Well, I wafted to an article from The Independent, which explained that an increasing number of slightly New Age types are preparing themselves for a very new age in the village of Bugarach, France.
This tiny Pyrennean idyll, you see, hosts Pic de Bugarach, an upside-down mountain within which some believe is an alien spacecraft.
December 21 appears to be the chosen date of our final hour thanks to the alleged conclusion of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. I must confess that I know several Mesoamericans and they have never mentioned this calendar to me, which I think is extremely mean of them.
Essentially, this calendar was created by those who believe that the world began on August 11, 3114 BCE (Before the Current Era), according to the Gregorian calendar.
There seem to be more and more people who are buying into this premise (and promise) every day. There are estimates that as many as 100,000 plan to make a pilgrimage -- presumably their final one -- to the upside-down mountain.
No one, though, seems to have provided an adequate explanation of why aliens chose this place to bury a spacecraft or why, indeed, they chose to bury it at all. Couldn't they just swoop down and pick everyone up like a celestial cab?
Pic de Bugarach allegedly inspired both Jules Verne and Steven Spielberg to create their respective sci-fi ouevres. So there must be something to this upside-down peak.
I know that you will immediately go down on your knees and make like a spaceship when I tell you that some American travel agents are offering one-way trips to Bugarach before December 21. As far as I am aware, the price does not include any cost of the alien space flight on that date.
Though you might be keen to scoff at the legend surrounding this mountain, I have embedded video, posted one week ago onto YouTube, that claims a recent UFO sighting over the mountain. Although, to my eyes, it looks like a 737.
Perhaps none of us will be here on December 22 to chat about the Bugarachi Express. Perhaps we will all have disappeared into the center of the Earth, after a series of earthquakes has split our planet into many pieces.
On balance, though, perhaps there is more concrete hope in accompanying Ashton Kutcher into space on a Virgin Galactic flight than in the idea that the upside-down mountain will suddenly split asunder to reveal a fine, shiny spaceship to safety.