They are misinterpreted as events that will happen as if ancient man could see into the future any more than we can. We can imagine the future and write science fiction stories so who knows, maybe in 2,000 years people will read the ancient texts of HG Wells, Kim Stanley Robinson and Greg Bear and say that they predicted the future and such and such event that they wrote about is about to happen.
Prophecies are made up with the imagination of the writer based on things they have seen and witnessed. It's really no big mystery. Armies could come from the west, so could eagles and bears. Monkeys could wear gold hats and come from the north with fireballs. It's early science fiction just as stories told around the campfire for millenia play off of human emotions of happy, sad, fear, inspiration and so on.
"Stars will fall from the sky". How do you suppose they envisioned that? Well they spent more time out doors than we do and had plenty of time to watch stars as the watched over sheep or for raiders and thieves.
"The sky will go black". Have you ever seen video of the reporter that got caught way too close to the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption? The sky is black. Same if you are near a massive forest fire or even some distance away from each event and the wind brings the smoke and ash your way.
Ancient people, as far as we know, couldn't even envision the size of the planet. They only knew their area of habitation and stories of far away places, but a Laplander certainly didn't know about Australia any more than the Mayans did. When these people predicted great calamities they were on a different scale than we interpret them. For them the whole world would consist of Central America and into the South of North America.
Tales of caution told to little kids about gingerbread men and talking geese are just that but who knows maybe in 800 years those texts will be looked at as prophecy and bulletin boards will be lit up with warnings of a gingerbread man apocalypse.

[edit on 30-3-2009 by mandroid]

ok..
I see a difference between stories (science fiction or not) and prophesies, cause a prophesy shall go hand in hand with a vision.

BUT:

I believe also that in every story is a little bit true inside.

So you are right, the old scripts are stories, which got legends etc.. But there is also a difference between sawing visions like nostradamus etc had and wrote it down and written stories (as the mayas had oftly...)


Nia

-Prophecies are written because humans cannot see the future (futures).
-Prophecies are written to secure humans in their lower mental sphere.
-Prophecies sometimes creates anxiety wich can disturb human psyche.
-Prophecies are fun to read, but we cannot stay attached to the form.

Cheers!