Throughout history, humanity has been captivated by predictions of doomsday scenarios that foretold the end of the world. Despite these dire prophecies, the world has persisted. Delve into 10 intriguing instances when apocalyptic forecasts failed to come to fruition, leaving us standing strong.
December 21, 2012 – Mayan Apocalypse
This was one of the most followed doomsday predictions. The apocalypse was based on the ancient Mayan calendar and the famous saying that the end of the Mayan calendar falls on the 21st of December, which marked the beginning of a new cycle after 5,125 years. The belief gained popularity to the point that a man in China built an ark worth $100,000 in preparation for doomsday.
September 6, 1994 – Harold Camping
On a bright sunny afternoon in 1992, an evangelist and radio broadcaster named Christian Harold Camping released a book called 1994. The book was all about the coming of Jesus Christ in September 1994. Camping was a brilliant bible teacher, which led to the attachment of trust to his prediction when he said that all his knowledge came from the Bible and he was 99.9 per cent certain that the world would end on the said date. Upon the failure of his first prediction, he talks about rapture on October 2nd of the same year before shifting it all to March 31st of 1995.
May 5, 2000 – Richard W Noone
Richard W. Noone was an author of repute who claimed that the world would end on the 5th of May 2000 in his book 5/5/2000: Ice, The Ultimate Disaster. This caused widespread confusion in the world owing to the calibre of the person that made the prediction. He stated that there would be alignments of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and Earth for the first time in six hundred years. He linked the planetary alignment to bad omens that would cause the end of the earth to shut down and the human race to go extinct. Unfortunately, none of these happened on the day he predicted, which caused mass distrust in his saying.
January 1, 2000 – Y2K
You might have heard of this popular doomsday prediction by a computer bug related to the storage of calendar data. There was a widespread belief in the prediction by people who believe in the theory that the turn of the millennium would be identified by a crash in the world’s computer system crash. The prediction states that when the time comes, the clock will tick from 99 to 00, leading to a plane clash and the demise of the entire population. Nothing much happened on this day except a small glitch in the disgusting clock displaying 1900 instead of 2000.
March 25, 1988 – True Way
True Way is a religious movement founded by a Taiwanese spiritual leader, Hong-Ming Chen. This was created to balance Christianity, Buddhism, Taiwan Religions and UFO conspiracy theories. This gained widespread attention and support among many people, even outside Taiwan. During one of Hong Chin Men’s sermons, he proclaimed that God would show up on an unmanned United state television channel on the 25th of March 1988 to announce the end of the world. He further prophesized that millions of angels spirit would would descend on earth to kill the human race. Until today we are yet to see the coming of God or the millions of angels that would end the world.
April 10, 1910 – Halley’s Comet
Panic gripped the whole world during the first sighting of Halley’s Comet on the 10th of April 1910, leading to a mass outcry that it would secret toxic elements or make a collision with the earth that would cause the end of the world. The panic was so monumental that it became widespread through various newspaper publications with headlines such as “Comet May Kil All the Earth Life”, say scientists. This led to a series of supplications and sacrifices by a group based in Oklahoma who tried to sacrifice a birthing to avert the world’s impending end.
1813- Joanna Southcott
Joanna Southcott was a divinely inspired woman who constantly heard a strange voice that predicted 1814 as the end of the world. Before that time, she successfully predicted the 1799 and 1800 famine amidst severe crop failure. Joanna started publishing pamphlets to grow her ministry which later led to a monumental number of followers of around 100,000 people. In the early morning of 1833, she announced to her congregation that the birth of her son in 1844 would signal the last day on earth. She died the following year at the age of 64 years old.
October 22, 1844 – Millerism
This day was noted as the second coming of Jesus Christ when he would descend from heaven and close the chapter of the work. This was the preaching of a religious leader named William Miller in 1831. The man attracted a large number of people, up to 100,000 followers, with his assurance preaching that Jesus would descend from heaven in 1843 and take everyone back to heaven. Upon the failure of his 1843 prediction, miller announced that he missed a calculation and that the real date would be on the 22nd of October 1844, which never came to materialise to date.
February 5, 1524 – The Great Flood
Among the most hilarious doomsday story was the pronouncement by a rebounded German astrologer and mathematician, Johannes Stroffler; he predicted that a great flood would submerge the planet on the 5th of February 1524; he further stated that the earth would be in alignment under a water sign called Pisces. As a respected astrologer, the world was left in panic upon this announcement, leading to widespread confusion after more than a thousand pamphlets were shared to prepare for the end of the world. Von Igglehem, a German nobleman, went ahead to liquidate all his investments and built a giant three-story ark in preparation for the end of the world. On D-day, other than a sprinkling of rain in the morning, there was no sign of a flood.
September 10, 2008 – Large Hadron Collider
The widespread belief then was that the starting of the large Hadron collider would cause the demise of the earth. Additionally, several conspiracy theorists opined that the LHC would create a large black hole that would submerge the world. This led the mass outrage and a series of lawsuits against the developer. The Hadron Collider has neither produced any black holes nor black holes.
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