Ten failed ‘end of world’ predictions

by Padma EDIRISINGHE

Browsing through the Internet, for want of anything better or worse to do, I came across this caption, “Learn what you can do to help save the Tiger”. Gods, I thought this message comes, when we have just got rid of the Tiger. Reading further I was relieved to find that it was issued by the WWF and had no connection to embroiling us again in the most disastrous phase in our history.

Message ended there only to present a new caption, this time titled “Ten failed doomsday predictions”. The feature encases this sentence, “One thing the doomsday scenarios tend to share in common is, THEY DON’T COME TO PASS”. Thank the gods for that too.

I deduced the features - presenter to be a Benjamin Radford designated as Live Science’s Bad Science columnist. It was the first time I learnt that there is a category called Bad Science. He writes “Most prophets of doom come from a religious perspective though the secular crowd has caused its share of scares as well. He has not bothered to comment on the West’s obsession with Doomsday while the East seems to ignore it. Anagatha Vamsa Deshanava, is supposed to touch on it describing the horror details of the end of the world but I do not wish to elaborate on it not having digested it properly.

But the Christian West seems to go merrily or drearily on the topic. Strangely the first prophet or prophetess of doom is a hen., namely the Prophet Hen of Leeds, 1806.

Of course, she lived and cackled about in the city of Leeds in England, just a normal hen who never dreamt of getting into the wizardly. Internet. But she did create a sensation when she began to lay eggs flaunting the phrase “Christ is coming”. That meant the approach of Judgement Day. All those in an around the city began preparing for the end, till it was of found out that it was a brilliant hoax.

Then in 1843 again people of New England started giving away their possessions. The English both in the mother country and daughter country do seem very gullible. This uproar over a Doomsday signal was caused by a Bible obsessed farmer named Miller who pronounced that the world would end in 1844. We know that nothing of the sort happened. In fact four years later the English trespassing in our country were going on flexing their muscles before the poor oppressed men of Uva till the 1848 rebellion erupted and uncovered Sinhala muscles too......

Next came the prediction that the world would end in 1891. Actually the announcement had been made in 1835 by the Founder of the Mormon church. He had claimed to have had a dialogue with Almighty God who informed him that 56 years later the world would end just after the vision of Jesus. No such vision took place and we survived the year 1891 and subsequent years.

I am not sure whether the Mormon Church in the heart of Colombo, was erected before or after this prediction. Anyway it is a curious testimony to the diversity of the cultures in our capital..

Things seemed more credible towards 1910 when even a scientific analysis was attached to doomsday. In 1881 an astronomer had discovered that Hayley’s Comet that would appear in 1910 includes a gas deadly to the world. Even the New York Times reported it. Hayley’s Comet came and went like a harmless baby.. And needless to reiterate the human tribe stayed on.

In the fifth prediction the writer quotes the Bible, “Matthew 24:36. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven” but one Robertson ignored that and informed his 700 Club TV show that the final Judgement Day would come at end of 1982...

The world went on despite all these ominous warnings.In fact it had catapulted to a wizardly repertoire including air traffic, computers, TVs, spacecrafts and what not. A comet Hale - Bopp appeared in 1997 and a rumour spread that an alien spacecraft was following it and would end the world soon. A cult named Heaven’s Gate spread this rumour. No such alien space craft appeared and the cult’s 39 members committed suicide, disappointed!

The famous astrologer Nostradamus next predicted that the world would end in 1999. Many dwellers of the Land of Cherry Blossoms much affected by this prediction (due to a Japanese translation of the book conveying the message) even had got into underground bunkers. They crept out unharmed later and the world went on.

January 1, 2000 was another predicted day for world’s end and the role of computers was adduced to this. Many grew concerned that computers might bring about doomsday for computers may fail to note the difference between 1990 and 2000. It threw into confusion many, some opting even for bunkers for the simple reason that locating the year would be impossible.! Logic could be that with the non - located year in the computer humans could vanish.! So much computers have gripped the human. This was named the Y2K bug.

Robertson goes on, to May 5, 2000. “In case the Y2K bug didn’t do us in, global catastrophe was again assured”. A writer did it this time, one Noone who predicted that the Antarctic ice mass would be thick on May 5, 2000 and the planets would be aligned to the heavens making everyone succumb to an icy death. Did any one fall subject to such a misery? Not to my knowledge.

In 2008 too the world was to end. According to a Church minister. “There will be a maximum time of two years remaining before the world will be plunged into the worst time of all human history”. The minister Weinland calls himself “End time prophet of God”.

But nothing happened in 2008. too making the human now very sure of his “Immortality”.

A popular children’s tale is about a tiger. No one in the village fringing a forest knew whether he was real or not. But the villagers when they wished to alarm somebody used to say,” There the tiger is coming!”. Finally no one paid any heed to the warning. Then one day the tiger actually came to the village and devoured all including the prophets! Ominous?

Could be...