Page 13 - 201212 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - December 2012

8 Weird Predictions for End of the World 8 of the Weirdest Predictions for the End of the World io9.com - Lauren Davis We know that the world didn’t end on the 21st of December but it's always nice to remember that there's a firm precedent for the world not ending on schedule. It didn't end in 1844, when William Miller and Samuel S. Snow convinced the Millerites to give away all their possessions (resulting in the Great Disappointment). It didn't end with Y2K, and the Large Hadron Collider didn't suck us all into a black hole. History is lousy with doomsday predictions, from the ancient Assyrians through unorthodox and even heretical. He was anti- comet's tail, which the Earth would pass right this year's self-professed prophets of the Trinitarian and believed that worshipping Christ through, the New York Times quoted French endtimes. But while some preachers wait for the as divine was sinful. Stephen D. Snobelen, who astronomer Camille Flammarion as saying the Rapture (the Western doomsday du jour) and has studied Newton's theological writings in gas "would impregnate [the Earth's] atmosphere other folks fear we've doomed ourselves with great detail, has issued an interesting statement and possibly snuff out all life on the planet." particle physics or nuclear technology, some that sheds more light on Newton's beliefs and More level-headed scientists attempted to apocalyptic predictions are a little stranger than his apocalyptic prophesy. assure the public that Flammarion was wrong others. Here are eight predictions that go and that the concentration of material in the tail beyond the Second Coming, with unlikely Warning from the Planet Clarion (1954): wasn't enough to poison anyone, but that didn't prophets, bizarre pseudoscience, and a few Take one Chicago housewife, add a dash stop the crazy for anti-comet products. Anti- predictions that are way out there—even for of Scientology and a fascination with UFOs, comet pills were sold for a dollar a pop; anti- doomsayers. shake well, and you get one of the early UFO comet umbrellas promised to shield bearers; gas The Prophet Hen of Leeds (1806): cults. Fifty-four-year-old Dorothy Martin mask sales boomed. In cities, Americans Human prophets proclaiming the end of the claimed that she was receiving communications greeted the not-quite-end of the world with world show up everywhere, but when a hen from aliens from the planet Clarion, warning rooftop comet parties. The uproar was starts predicting the apocalypse, people take her that a Supreme Being would cleanse the apparently an inspiration for Sir Conan Arthur notice. The hen in question began laying eggs Earth on December 21st, 1954. Armed with this Doyle's 1913 novel, The Poison Belt. The inscribed with the words "Christ is coming." prediction and a few strands of Dianetics, Library of Congress details coverage about the According to Charles MacKay's book Memoirs Martin gathered her own group of followers, comet's 1910 pass. of Extraordinary Popular Delusions Vol. I, called the Seekers. Martin told the Seekers that Volume 1, this sparked a religious fervor in a flying saucer would come for the true The Jupiter Effect Shakes the Publishing Leeds until its denizens learned the unpleasant believers to save them from destruction. The World, but Not the Real One (1974): truth: some hoaxster had been taking the eggs, Seekers had to show their faith by leaving their Another doomsday prediction with a inscribing them with corrosive ink, and jobs and giving away their money and weirdly scientific pedigree is The Jupiter Effect, reinserted them into the hen's body. I imagine possessions in anticipation of their rapture. On a bestselling book written by Cambridge- that, if the hen truly could communicate through the eve of December 21st, the Seekers gathered educated astrophysicists John Gribbin and her eggs, she'd have some rather crude words in the appointed place and removed all metallic Stephen Plagemann. The Jupiter Effect for the fellow forcing eggs up her cloaca. objects from their bodies to keep from being predicted that the alignment of the planets on incinerated by the UFO. March 10, 1982, would result in geological Isaac Newton's Doomsday (1733): Fortunately, this story has a happier instabilities, triggering devastating earthquakes. This is a doomsday prediction that has ending than a certain more recent UFO Unlike most would-be prophets, however, raised some eyebrows not because of the doomsday cult. When, after several hours, the Gribbin actually repudiated his predictions prediction itself, which was pretty standard (if flying saucer failed to arrive, Martin "received" before the events in question. In 1980, he told heretical) Biblical interpretation fare, but another message from Clarion, claiming that the The New Scientist that his predictions were "too because of its author. While Isaac Newton is Supreme Being was so impressed by the clever by half." That doesn't mean he and remembered primarily for his contributions to Seekers' show of faith that it decided to Plagemann had completely rejected their science and mathematics, he was also a noted postpone the apocalypse. What Martin and the notions; in 1982, they published The Jupiter theologian and a great believer in the occult, other Seekers didn't realize at the time was that Effect Reconsidered, which argued that the though his private papers on matters like they had been infiltrated by social psychologist titular effect had actually predated the planetary Biblical scholarship and alchemy weren't Leon Festinger. Festinger and his colleagues alignment and was responsible for the eruption generally available to scholars until 1991. were interested in studying how the Seekers of Mt. Saint Helens. It was also a bestseller, Newton believed in the Bible as divine would resolve the dissonance that would result although by 1999, Gribbin confessed in his The revelation, but he also believed that it contained from the prophecy's failure. The results of the Little Book of Science that he wished he'd never prophesies in highly symbolic language that study were published in the 1956 book When had anything to do with putting forth the Jupiter required a skilled interpreter (like Newton Prophecy Fails. Effect claims himself) to decode. When Newton's apocalyptic predictions Halley's Comet Spurs Sales of Gas Masks (Continued on Page 14) came to popular attention in 2003, many news (1910): The ‘X’ Zone outlets seized onto Newton's prediction that the Speaking of UFO cults, we need to look New Year’s Eve Special world would end in 2060. While Newton did only as far back as Hale-Bopp to see how a with idly speculate on a date the world might end, he comet can spark predictions of the end of the Rob McConnell didn't really believe in setting dates; after all, world. But in 1910, the apocalyptic predictions human interpretation could be fallible. By his came with a bit of extra authority. After 9 pm Dec 31 2012 to 1 am Jan 1 2013 Anglican contemporaries' standards, however, Chicago's Yerkes Observatory announced that Listen and Watch Newton's religious views would have been deadly cyanogen gas had been detected in the www.xzoneradiotv.com