Sony Pictures set up a website for an organisation called the Institute for Human Continuity which predicts a cataclysmic denouement for Earth three years from now.
It suggests that "after two decades of rigorous research from the world's top astronomers, mathematicians, geologists, physicists, engineers, futurists, we know that in 2012 a series of cataclysmic forces will wreak havoc on our planet".
But the site has been so successful that hundreds of people have been convinced that something terrible is about to befall the planet.
Dr David Morrison, a senior scientist at Nasa's Astrobiology Institute, said he had received more than 1,000 inquiries from worried members of the public.
But the media has no power.
Only crazy conspiracy theorists think otherwise.
And since it as no power to influence and manipulate there is no point in critiquing its content or wondering who runs it.
So just doze back off and let the electronic waves of counter-cultural morality wash over you.
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