Fish are washing up dead on the beach. Birds are falling from the sky (even on TV). With 2012 approaching—and with it the ancient prophecies of the apocalypse—2012, the Roland Emmerich disaster film chronicling its characters' escape from doomsday in a hovercraft, is starting to seem more and more like a documentary on our near future. But not if NASA has anything to say about it.

"The agency is getting so many questions from people terrified that the world is going to end in 2012 that we have had to put up a special website to challenge the myths," Donald Yeomans, head of NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission said. The site scientifically disproves the catastrophic scenarios depicted in sci-film films, going so far as to rank the most implausible movies. Emmerich's flick is named the silliest:

1. 2012 (2009)

2. The Core (2003)

3. Armageddon (1998) (NASA clearly does not like films about using strategically placed nuclear bombs to solve our astronomical problems.)

4. Volcano (1997)

5. Chain Reaction (1996)

6. The 6th Day (2000)

7. What The #$*! Do We Know? (2004)



While they were at, NASA also singled out of films for their scientific plausibility. Cue paranoia:

1. Gattaca (1997)

2. Contact (1997)

3. Metropolis (1927)

4. The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

5. Woman In The Moon (1929)

6. The Thing From Another World (1951)

7. Jurassic Park (1993)



Read the full story at The A.V. Club.

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