Apocalypse Now: The 11 Strangest End Times Predictions

The following article was obtained through the website A & P and written by Pri Kingston.

Throughout history, humanity has been fascinated by the concept of the apocalypse-the cataclysmic end of the world as we know it. Countless predictions, both ancient and modern, have foretold various scenarios for how this ultimate reckoning might occur. In this list, we delve into the realm of the bizarre and explore the ten strangest end […]

The Mayan Calendar:

The Mayan civilization, known for its remarkable mathematical and astronomical knowledge, famously crafted a calendar that seemed to end abruptly on December 21, 2012. Some believed this signified the end of the world, but it turned out to be a misunderstanding, as the Mayans likely intended it as the start of a new cycle. This prediction gained international attention, with some people even stockpiling supplies and preparing for the worst, only for December 21, 2012, to come and go without incident, leaving many both relieved and perplexed.

The Y2K Bug:

As the year 2000 approached, many feared that computer systems worldwide would malfunction because of the Y2K bug. Some doomsdayers predicted that this digital catastrophe would trigger global chaos and the collapse of civilization. Fortunately, it didn’t live up to the hype. Years of meticulous preparation by software engineers and IT experts ensured that the transition into the new millennium was relatively smooth, preventing widespread technological meltdowns.

The Rapture:

A recurring prediction within some Christian circles, the Rapture suggests that true believers will be taken up to heaven, leaving the rest of humanity to endure apocalyptic trials on Earth. Predictions of the Rapture have come and gone, causing anxiety and fervent preparations for the chosen few. Despite numerous failed predictions, some believers continue to anticipate this event, while others have shifted their focus away from specific dates.

The Great Pyramid Alignment:

Some theorists claim that the Great Pyramid of Giza holds secret knowledge about the end of the world. They point to supposed astronomical alignments within the pyramid’s construction that allegedly predict future global catastrophes. While these claims are often made, they remain highly speculative, with no concrete evidence to support the notion that the ancient Egyptians encoded apocalyptic predictions in their architectural marvels. Nevertheless, the mystique of the pyramids continues to fuel such theories and intrigue seekers of hidden knowledge.

Nostradamus’ Prophecies:

The 16th-century French astrologer Nostradamus is famous for his cryptic quatrains, some of which have been interpreted as predicting various disasters. His writings have been scoured for clues about impending doom, though interpretations vary widely. Nostradamus’ predictions have been applied to a wide range of events, from world wars to natural disasters, but their accuracy remains a topic of debate among scholars and enthusiasts.

The Blood Moon Prophecy:

A popular theory in recent years suggested that a series of lunar eclipses, known as blood moons, signaled the apocalypse. These events were linked to biblical passages, particularly in the Book of Joel, and stirred considerable anxiety. Despite predictions that the blood moons would usher in catastrophic events, their passing brought no such calamities, leaving followers of the prophecy to question its validity.

The Hollow Earth Catastrophe:

Among the most bizarre predictions is the notion that the Earth is hollow, with a hidden civilization dwelling within. Some proponents claim that this subterranean world will emerge, causing worldwide devastation. This theory has its roots in pseudoscience and imaginative fiction but has gained a small but dedicated following over the years, with some anticipating a grand hollow Earth revelation.

Planet Nibiru (Planet X):

Conspiracy theories have circulated about a hidden planet called Nibiru, supposedly on a collision course with Earth. Despite a lack of scientific evidence, this prediction has persisted, sparking fears of a rogue planet wreaking havoc. Proponents of this theory often cite ancient Sumerian texts and alleged government cover-ups, though mainstream astronomers have debunked the existence of Nibiru.

Zombie Apocalypse:

While more of a pop culture phenomenon, some individuals take the idea of a zombie apocalypse seriously. They stockpile supplies and prepare for a world overrun by the undead, inspired by movies, TV shows, and video games. Although this prediction is firmly rooted in fiction, it showcases how influential entertainment can be in shaping people’s beliefs and behaviors, even when it comes to apocalyptic scenarios.

The Black Hole Catastrophe:

The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator used for high-energy physics experiments. Some theorists have proposed that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments could lead to the creation of microscopic black holes capable of swallowing the Earth. While scientists argue that such events are highly unlikely and that any black holes produced would be too small to pose a threat, conspiracy theories have persisted, causing unfounded fears of an Earth-devouring black hole.

The Prophecy of Malachy:

The Prophecy of Malachy, a 12th-century prediction attributed to Saint Malachy, allegedly foretells the identities of all the future popes. According to this prophecy, the world will end after the reign of the final pope, known as “Peter the Roman.” The prophecy’s accuracy has been debated, and some see it as a product of interpretation rather than genuine foreknowledge. Nevertheless, it has piqued the curiosity of those intrigued by esoteric predictions.

The Many Futuristic Predictions of H.G. Wells That Came True

The following article was obtained through Smithsonian Magazine and written by Brian Handwerk in .

Born 150 years ago, H.G. Wells predicted, and inspired, inventions from the laser to email.

Science fiction pioneer H.G. Wells conjured some futuristic visions that haven't (yet) come true: a machine that travels back in time, a man who turns invisible, and a Martian invasion that destroys southern England.

But for a man born 150 years ago, many of Wells's other predictions about the modern world have proven amazingly prescient.

Wells, born in 1866, was trained as a scientist, a rarity among his literary contemporaries, and was perhaps the most important figure in the genre that would become science fiction.

Writers in this tradition have a history not just of imagining the future as is might be, but of inspiring others to make it a reality. In 2012, Smithsonian.com published a top ten list of inventions inspired by sci-fi, ranging from Robert H. Goddard's liquid-fuelled rocket to the cell phone.

“Wells's was an imagination in a hurry, he wanted to get to the future sooner than it was going to happen. That's why he's so predictive in his writing,” explains Simon James, head of the English Studies department at Durham University and the editor of the official journal of the H.G. Wells society .

Wells’s ideas have also endured because he was a standout storyteller, James adds. No less a writer than Joseph Conrad agreed. “I am always powerfully impressed by your work. Impressed is the word, O Realist of the Fantastic!” he wrote Wells after reading The Invisible Man.

Here are some of the incredible H.G. Wells predictions that have come true, as well as some that haven't—at least not yet.

Phones, Email, and Television

In Men Like Gods (1923), Wells invites readers to a futuristic utopia that's essentially Earth after thousands of years of progress. In this alternate reality, people communicate exclusively with wireless systems that employ a kind of co-mingling of voicemail and email-like properties.

“For in Utopia, except by previous arrangement, people do not talk together on the telephone,” he writes. “A message is sent to the station of the district in which the recipient is known to be, and there it waits until he chooses to tap his accumulated messages. And any that one wishes to repeat can be repeated. Then he talks back to the senders and dispatches any other messages he wishes. The transmission is wireless.”

Wells also imagined forms of future entertainment. In When the Sleeper Wakes (1899), the protagonist rouses from two centuries of slumber to a dystopian London in which citizens use wondrous forms of technology like the audio book, airplane and television—yet suffer systematic oppression and social injustice. 

Genetic Engineering

Visitors to The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) were confronted with a menagerie of bizarre creatures including Leopard-Man and Fox-Bear Witch, created by the titular madman doctor in human-animal hybrid experiments that may presage the age of genetic engineering.

Though Moreau created his Frankenbeasts through more crude techniques, like surgical transplants and blood transfusions, the theme of humans playing God by tinkering with nature has become a reality. Scientists are working towards the day when animal organs could serve as long-term transplants for human patients, though today human immune systems still ultimately reject such efforts. And controversial experiments known as chimera studies create human-animal hybrids by adding human stem cells to animal embryos.

Notably, the human-animal hybrids Moreau creates eventually do the doctor in, and that ending echoes another common Wells theme. “It's often a warning about the consequences of technology, in particular when you don't think them through properly,” explains James. 

Lasers and Directed Energy Weapons

Martians in The War of the Worlds (1898) unleash what Wells called a Heat-Ray, a super weapon capable of incinerating helpless humans with a noiseless flash of light. It would be more than six decades before Theodore Maiman fired up the first operational laser at California's Hughes Research Laboratory on May 16, 1960, but military thinkers had been hoping to weaponize the conceptual laser even before it was even proven practical.

Wells's description isn't accurate enough to build a working laser, but it resembles both that device and other “directed energy” weapons, such as those using microwaves, electromagnetic radiation, and radio or sound waves, which the United States and other militaries have developed in recent years.

“Many think that in some way [the Martians] are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically absolute non-conductivity. This intense heat they project in a parallel beam against any object they choose, by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the parabolic mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light,” Wells wrote.

Typically, Wells was more interested in what the effects of his future ideas might be, rather than working out the technical details, James stresses.

“He'll kind of take one element of scientific understanding of the world and tweak it. So in The Time Machine, if you think of time as the fourth dimension, what if you could travel in time as freely as in the other three? Or, in The First Men in the Moon, what if you could make a material [Wells called it Cavorite] as impervious to gravity as other materials are impervious to heat? You just take that one thing, and see what follows from it,” James explains.

(Today's leading science fiction authors still use this technique while at work shaping the future of tomorrow. In fact, some companies commission “design fiction” to see how innovative ideas might work if they become fact in the future. “There is nothing weird about a company doing this—commissioning a story about people using a technology to decide if the technology is worth following through on,” says novelist Cory Doctorow, whose clients have included Disney and Tesco. “It’s like an architect creating a virtual fly-through of a building.” )

Atomic Bombs & Nuclear Proliferation

Wells reveled in the potential benefits of technology but also feared their dark side. “H.G. Wells was probably the writer who saw most clearly in the early 20th century the possibility of total war,” says Eleanor Courtemanche of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (A new physical and online exhibition there shows off an extensive Wells collection.)

Wells recognized the world-changing destructive power that might be harnessed by splitting the atom. The atomic bombs he introduces in The World Set Free (1913) fuel a war so devastating that its survivors are moved to create a unified world government to avoid future conflicts.

Wells's bombs differed from those actually developed by scientists with the Manhattan Project. They exploded continually, for days, weeks or months depending upon their size, as the elements in them furiously radiated energy during their degeneration and in the process created mini-volcanoes of death and destruction.

Wells also clearly saw the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and the doomsday scenarios that might arise both when nations were capable of “mutually assured destruction” and when non-state actors or terrorists got into the fray.

“Destruction was becoming so facile that any little body of malcontents could use it; it was revolutionizing the problems of police and internal rule. Before the last war began it was a matter of common knowledge that a man could carry about in a handbag an amount of latent energy sufficient to wreck half a city,” he wrote. 

Where Wells Was Wrong—At Least So Far

Wells rejected the idea that the future is unknowable, writes esteemed science fiction writer James Gunn, who also helped to pioneer university study of science fiction.

“He believed that it was possible, through the use of what he first called "inductive history" and later "Human Ecology" (defined as the working out of "biological, intellectual, and economic consequences"), to chart the possibilities of the future and to push people into making sensible use of those possibilities. He was the first futurologist, the man who invented tomorrow,” wrote Gunn in The Science of Science-Fiction Writing, published in 2000.

But Wells did have other big ideas that haven't come to fruition, though of course there's always the chance that his vision extended farther into the future than our own time. As of this writing we've not been invaded by Martians. Human invisibility also remains elusive—though science is making progress in that direction. The time machine, an invention introduced in a 1895 novella, hasn't been worked out either.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment to Wells was the failure of his idealized political vision, a world government, which he described in A Modern Utopia (1905)

Wells was a committed socialist who hoped that a global “New Republic” would assure peace in perpetuity. Wells, who died in 1946, lived long enough to learn that this imagined future wasn't likely to ever come true, so he took a very active role in fostering international cooperation wherever he could.

“After World War II broke out, it was another slap in the face to the idea of a world state ever coming off,” James says, “so Wells started a campaign for universal human rights. I believe it was Wells writing letters to The Times that started the process that eventually led to the United Nations declaration of world rights in 1947.” Wells also laid out his vision in The Rights of Man (1940), and his draft declarations on the topic were used to help write the formal UN document. 

Courtemanche adds that Wells's idea of world government, while never reaching his Utopian ideal, actually did come to fruition in at least some small ways.

“Think of all the international agencies that sprang up after WWII in hopes that some kind of international framework would keep world war from happening again,” she notes. “Bretton Woods, the IMF, NATO, the European Union -- none of these were truly global, but they were definitely steps toward the more peaceful and organized world society that Wells envisioned.”