The balloon boy saga was one of those stories that baffled me.

Although the media frenzy has died down considerably, last week you couldn’t get away from news reports out of Colorado that began when it was claimed a large helium balloon had escaped and was carrying a 6-year-old boy with it.

As it turned out, the boy was not in the balloon and there were no injuries. However, the story kept morphing as it was learned the boy’s father, Richard Heene, was a long-time publicity hound, and there were indications the whole thing may have been a hoax designed to attract attention.

In the great scheme of things, none of this is very important. Yet the story took on a life of its own, with news organizations scrambling over each other to get the latest scoop on this family.

Amid all of these stories one captured my attention. A friend of the father (who was paid to tell his story), claimed Heene believed the sun would explode in 2012, and he was trying to raise enough money to build an underground bunker in order to survive the event.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this report, because it makes no sense. It’s my understanding that if the sun exploded, the Earth would be burned to a crisp. A bunker would provide about as much protection as a piece of tissue would if you fell into a vat of molten iron.

But the reference to 2012 is interesting because, in certain segments of society, this is the latest date of the apocalypse — or something similar. Most of us recall the Y2K scare, where the coming of the new millennium, and its typical end-of-world prophecies, combined with concerns our modern society would collapse because of a computer glitch.

It seems that in order to save memory, many computers lacked the programing to recognize 2000 as a year, and they were likely to switch back to 1900 as the perceived date. This was supposed to paralyze the planet’s computer grid and disaster would ensue.

If you missed all of that happening, you weren’t alone.

History is littered with all manner of predictions and prophecies that the world would end on certain dates. Many religious cults have been based on this notion.

Such cults seem to have a steady supply of gullibility to keep them in operation. I recall reading about a public opinion poll a few years ago that revealed a majority of Americans believed the world would end in their lifetimes. I would find it hard to plan ahead with that sort of mindset.

To expect the end of time to occur during one’s existence on this planet is the height of arrogance. It reflects a self-centeredness Americans have become famous for, but it also reveals a startling lack of understanding of history and time.

Here’s a news flash: The world will go on long after we are all gone.

The 2012 apocalypse scenario is based on the ancient Mayan calendar, which supposedly ends in December of that year. The Mayans were obsessive stargazers and — as a result — developed a calendar that was remarkably accurate for an ancient people.

They even recognized that a year, at least in terms of agriculture, is 365 days.