Locals Have Mix Reactions To New Zodiac Calendar
BOSTON (CBS) - Some offhand remarks by an astronomer from the Minnesota Planetarium Society are causing quite a stir in the astrological community. Usually, those two worlds don't mix. But this scientist's comment that there might be a need for a thirteenth sign on the zodiac has a lot of astrologers seeing stars.
The current twelve zodiac signs with which we are all familiar were created two millennia ago. They are based on the sun's position in the sky. In the past two thousand-plus years, the earth's axis has shifted. That leads some to claim the current calendar is off by about a month.
The "new" calendar would look like this:
- Capricorn - Jan 20 to Feb 16
- Aquarius - Feb 16 to Mar 11
- Pisces - Mar 11 to Apr 18
- Aries - Apr 18 to May 13
- Taurus - May 13 to Jun 21
- Gemini - Jun 21 to Jul 20
- Cancer - Jul 20 to Aug 10
- Leo - Aug 10 to Sep 16
- Virgo - Sep 16 to Oct 30
- Libra - Oct 30 to Nov 23
- Scorpi0 - Nov 23 to Nov 29
- Ophiuchus - Nov 29 to Dec 17
- Sagittarius - Dec 17 to Jan 20
Scorpio would be dramatically shortened, and the new sign squeezed in between it and Sagittarius. That's big news to the nearly one-third of Americans who claim to believe in the powers of astrology, according to a recent Harris poll.
WBZ went in search of people who think the new calendar is a good idea; we came up short. No one was in favor of the new sign -- and no one was willing to part with the birth sign with which they have identified for so long.
WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong reports.
Alex Palermo of The Original Tremont Tearoom in Boston says it's much ado about nothing.
"It's an insult and a joke," said the psychic. "This is the way it's been for thousands of years; you don't mess with something that works like that way."
Palermo says the psychic community has been buzzing about this story, with most seers saying a new sign doesn't make sense.
"I think in three months from now we'll be on to something else, you know, Atlantis is rising, they'll find a new crystal skull. This is just the psychic story of the week."
So, what to do? One school of thought is that the change only affects people born after 2009. But there seems to be large consensus among astrologers that if you are happy with your current star sign there is no need to change. They say astrological charts have compensated for the changes in calendars all along.
