Take Me To Post Comment Form For those who thought that the "hippies" disappeared in the 1970s comes this story from the UK publication "The Independent" titled "Hippies head for Noah’s Ark: Queue here for rescue aboard alien spaceship."

According to the article:

"A mountain looming over a French commune with a population of just 200 is being touted as a modern Noah's Ark when doomsday arrives – supposedly less than nine months from now.

A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers – or esoterics, as locals call them – have descended in their camper van-loads on the usually picturesque and tranquil Pyrenean village of Bugarach. They believe that when apocalypse strikes on 21 December this year, the aliens waiting in their spacecraft inside Pic de Bugarach will save all the humans near by and beam them off to the next age."

For decades, there has been a belief that Pic de Bugarach, which, at 1,230 metres, is the highest in the Corbières mountain range, possesses an eery power. Often called the "upside-down mountain" – geologists think that it exploded after its formation and the top landed the wrong way up – it is thought to have inspired Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Since the 1960s, it has attracted New Agers, who insist that it emits special magnetic waves.

Further, rumours persist that the country's late president François Mitterrand was transported by helicopter on to the peak, while the Nazis, and, later, Israel's Mossad, performed mysterious digs there. Now the nearby village is awash with New Agers, who have boosted the local economy, though their naked group climbs up to the peak have raised concerns as well as eyebrows. Among other oddities, some hikers have been spotted scaling the mountain carrying a ball with a golden ring, strung together by a single thread."

Read the entire story at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hippies-head-for-noahs-ark-queue-here-for-rescue-aboard-alien-spaceship-7584492.html

So whether you're "a true believer," a "hippie," or just someone who is concerned about the happenings on December 21st, it looks like France might be an interesting place to visit during the upcoming months.