© Sony Pictures Home Entertainment SURF'S UP: A wall of water engulfs Sydney in this Doomsday prediction. Would a $5000 seat in a bunker protect you from this?
Massive earthquakes, shifts in the Earth's poles and devastating solar flares will be among events faced by the global community this year, according to the group, which describes itself as a "survival community".
Group organiser, NSW refrigeration mechanic Simon Young, said the entry fee went towards concrete and other materials to construct the bunker, believed to be in mountains near Tenterfield.
The group points to Egyptian texts, Bible passages and a frozen mammoth as evidence the world will undergo massive physical change around December 21.
© The Sunday Mail, QueenslandAlien invaders provoke global chaos in Independence Day. Who can forget Will Smith's classic line: "Welcome to Earth" as he punches the daylights out of an alien who has crash-landed in Arizona.
When asked about the bunker project, set to be 1.2km above sea level to avoid predicted catastrophic sea events, Mr Young said he believed it was the best chance of survival.
"It's to get ready for 2012," he said.
© The Sunday Mail, QueenslandScene from 1998 film Deep Impact.
The bunker is expected to be completed just before December when the group anticipates sun activity and tectonic shifts to wipe out most life on Earth.
The group's website, which features poems from 16th Century prophetess Mother Shipton, has had more than 28,500 hits as 2012 paranoia mounts.
© The Sunday Mail, QueenslandActor Kevin Costner in 1995 film Waterworld.
"It is believed that there is a correlation between the sun's cycle and magnetic fluctuations, and pole shifts."
The site lists the discovery of a frozen mammoth among a body of "evidence" towards the presence of an undiscovered planet in the universe that the group believes could alter the Earth's poles.
© The Sunday Mail, QueenslandActor Bruce Willis (C) in the 1998 film Armageddon.
"Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012," their website states.
"Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.'
I've heard of rooms in some bunkers going for at least ten times that.
But, what is the Sunday Mail really trying to do with this article?
There are several very real scenarios that don't involve ETs or asteroids where it might be awfully nice to have a bunker to retire to for a few weeks, months, or years.
How about food riots? How about a nuke going off in the neighborhood? How about your country getting attacked by another?
Beyond that, this article plays on popular ignorance. Any one who LOOKs knows that this planet has experienced about five major extinction events, per the fossil records, and many more minor events. Humans have been on earth for tens of thousands of years, minimum. Why don't we have historical or archaeological records for that whole time span if things have always been OK?
Why reassure the public when you don't really know what will happen? Or DO they know what will happen? And here we are, confident in what our scientists have told us, then one day getting wiped out because an asteroid hit or some such and we weren't prepared for it. Convenient way to reduce the population!