It depends on which particular 2012 prediction (or prophecy) you are referring to, Alice. There are many different ones. Many have to do with various ancient Amerindian traditional stories from North and South America, as well as other ancient cultural tales. Many have to do with a polar shift of some kind and/or a reversal of the Earth's direction of rotation on its axis. I don't think I have ever heard of the "galaxy alignment" story before. If someone concocted that one with deliberate intention to deceive people, then of course it's a hoax. If not, if they are sincere about it and they believe it for some reason, then it's not a hoax...they are (I would think) simply in error.

The word "hoax" means a deliberate attempt to deceive. People are often wrong in their predictions of future events, but they're not trying to deceive anyone if they actually believe what they're saying, in which case...it's not a hoax. It's just wrong, period.