As asteroid nears, Mayans now claim they meant world would end today

Preceded by a booming celestial fireball that injured hundreds of people in Russia earlier today, the approach of an asteroid scheduled to be at its closest point to earth this afternoon was really the event they had in mind when they claimed the end of the world was near, the Mayans now claim.

“That December 21st thing was just a Beta test to see what kind of numbers we could get,” said Bob Payne, spokesman for Mayans for Monetization Through Social Media.

Payne said the tests went well enough that the Mayan descendants organization is ready to take full responsibility for the havoc about to be wreaked on the planet unless a sufficiently large deposit is made immmediately to a special bank account they have set up — and new calendars can be printed in time.

Scientists have said the Mayan prediction is once again entirely false, to which Payne responded, “Did you see the video of the fireball this morning?”

This afternoon’s asteroid, 2012DA14, is predicted to pass closer to earth than any other sizable body every recorded.

“But there is no connection between this morning’s event and this afternoon’s; it is a cosmic coincidence,” a spokesman for the European Space Agency said.

To which much of the world has responded, “How do you make a deposit to that special account?”