In this article:

1. Doomsday: According to Prophecy/Predictions.

2. Natural and man made doomsday events.

Doomsday: According to Prophecy

These prophecies include:

Revelation 16:

"And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth… And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea. And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great."

Isaiah 13: 9-13:

"Behold the day of the Lord cometh cruel both with wrath and fierce anger to lay the Land desolate: and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of Heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the Sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the Moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the World for their evil and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the Terrible. I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man the Golden Wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the Heavens, and the Earth shall remove out of her place."

Matthew 24: 21-22; 29, 36:

"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the Angels of Heaven, but my Father only."

Luke 21: 25-26:

"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity and anguish at the roaring and tossing of the sea and the waves; Men's hearts failing them for fear, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken."

2 Peter 3: 10-13:

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness."

Other Prophecies and Predictions

Saint Hildegard (12th Century):

"Before the comet comes (Nibiru/Planet X?), many nations, will be scourged by want and famine. The great nation in the ocean that is inhabited by people of different tribes and descent (USA?) will be devastated by earthquakes, storms and tidal waves. It will be divided (New Madrid Fault?) and, in great part, submerged. The comet will by its tremendous pressure force much of the ocean and flood many countries, causing much want and many plagues. All coastal cities will live in fear, and many of them will be destroyed by tidal waves, and most living creatures will be killed, and even those who escape will die from horrible diseases."

Mother Shipton (16th Century):

Contrary to popular claims, there is no evidence that Mother Shipton was a witch. She was born in England in 1488. She was baptized a Catholic and given the name Ursula Sonthiel. Now, onto some of her predictions.

"The chastisement will come when carriages go without horses and many accidents fill the world with woe. It will come when thoughts are flying around the earth in the twinkling of an eye, when long tunnels are made for horseless machines, when men can fly in the air and ride under the sea, when ships are wholly made of metal, when fire and water great marvels do, when even the poor can read books, and when many taxes are levied for war."

"When pictures look alive, with movement free,

When ships like fish swim beneath the sea,

When man outstripping birds can soar the sky,

Then half the world deep drenched in blood shall die."

"A carriage without horse will go

Disaster fill the world with woe.

In London, Primrose Hill shall be

In centre hold a Bishop's See

Around the world men's thoughts will fly

Quick as the twinkling of an eye.

And water shall great wonders do

How strange. And yet it shall come true.

Through towering hills proud men shall ride

No horse or ass move by his side.

Beneath the water, men shall walk

Shall ride, shall sleep, shall even talk.

And in the air men shall be seen

In white and black and even green

A great man then, shall come and go

For prophecy declares it so.

In water, iron, then shall float

As easy as a wooden boat

Gold shall be seen in stream and stone

In land that is yet unknown."

"For in those wondrous far off days

The women shall adopt a craze

To dress like men, and trousers wear

And to cut off their locks of hair

They'll ride astride with brazen brow

As witches do on broomstick now.

And roaring monsters with man atop

Does seem to eat the verdant crop

And men shall fly as birds do now

And give away the horse and plough.

There'll be a sign for all to see

Be sure that it will certain be."

"For then shall mighty wars be planned

And fire and sword shall sweep the land.

When pictures seem alive with movements free

When boats like fishes swim beneath the sea,

When men like birds shall scour the sky

Then half the world, deep drenched in blood shall die.

For those who live the century through

In fear and trembling this shall do.

Flee to the mountains and the dens

To bog and forest and wild fens.

For storms will rage and oceans roar

When Gabriel stands on sea and shore

And as he blows his wondrous horn

Old worlds die and new be born."

"A fiery dragon will cross the sky

Six times before this earth shall die

Mankind will tremble and frightened be

for the sixth heralds in this prophecy.

For seven days and seven nights

Man will watch this awesome sight.

The tides will rise beyond their ken

To bite away the shores and then

The mountains will begin to roar

And earthquakes split the plain to shore.

And flooding waters, rushing in

Will flood the lands with such a din

That mankind cowers in muddy fen

And snarls about his fellow men."

"Man flees in terror from the floods

And kills, and rapes and lies in blood

And spilling blood by mankinds hands

Will stain and bitter many lands

And when the dragon's tail is gone,

Man forgets, and smiles, and carries on

To apply himself - too late, too late

For mankind has earned deserved fate.

His masked smile - his false grandeur,

Will serve the Gods their anger stir.

And they will send the Dragon back

To light the sky - his tail will crack

Upon the earth and rend the earth

And man shall flee, King, Lord, and serf.

But slowly they are routed out

To seek diminishing water spout

And men will die of thirst before

The oceans rise to mount the shore.

And lands will crack and rend anew

You think it strange. It will come true."

"And in some far off distant land

Some men - oh such a tiny band

Will have to leave their solid mount

And span the earth, those few to count,

Who survives this (unreadable) and then

Begin the human race again.

But not on land already there

But on ocean beds, stark, dry and bare

Not every soul on Earth will die

As the Dragons tail goes sweeping by.

Not every land on earth will sink

But these will wallow in stench and stink

Of rotting bodies of beast and man

Of vegetation crisped on land.

But the land that rises from the sea

Will be dry and clean and soft and free

Of mankinds dirt and therefore be

The source of man's new dynasty.

And those that live will ever fear

The dragons tail for many year

But time erases memory

You think it strange. But it will be."

Johannes Friede (13th Century):

"When the great time will come, in which mankind will face its last, hard trial, it will be foreshadowed by striking changes in nature. The alteration between cold and heat will become more intensive, storms will have more catastrophic effects, earthquakes will destroy great regions, and the seas will overflow many lowlands. Not all of it will be the result of natural causes, but mankind will penetrate into the bowels of the earth and will reach into the clouds, gambling with its own existence. Before the powers of destruction will succeed in their design, the universe will be thrown into disorder, and the age of iron will plunge into nothingness. When nights will be filled with more intensive cold and days with heat, a new life will begin in nature. The heat means radiation from the earth, the cold the waning light of the sun. Only a few years more and you will become aware that sunlight has grown perceptibly weaker. When even your artificial light will cease to give service, the great event in the heavens will be near."

Blessed Rembordt (18th Century):

"God will punish the world when men have devised marvelous inventions that will lead them to forget God. They will have horseless carriages; they will fly like birds."

The Ecstatic of Tours (19th Century):

"Before the war breaks out again, food will be scarce and expensive. There will be little work for the workers, and fathers will hear their children crying for food. There will be earthquakes and signs in the sun. Toward the end, darkness will cover the earth. When everyone believes that peace is ensured, when everyone least expects it, the great happening will begin."

Michel de Nostredame (16th Century):

As with Mother Shipton, there is no solid evidence to back up the claims that Michel de Nostredame was an occultist or magician. He was born in the South of France in 1503 and was baptized a Catholic. A member of the Third Order of St. Francis, he enjoyed the friendship of Pope Pius IV. He was a devout Catholic all his life, and he died in 1566.

"I find that learning shall be at a great loss, and that so many great floods shall happen before the universal conflagration, that there shall scarcely be any land that shall not be covered with water, and this shall last so long that except from what lives on mountains and in waters, all shall perish. Before and after these floods, however, there shall be such scarcity of rain and such a great deal of fire, and burning stones shall fall from heaven, that nothing unconsumed shall remain. The world shall be so diminished, and so few men shall be left unearth, that not enough will be found to plow the fields, and these will stay in fallow as long as they had once been tilled."

"For seven days the great star shall be seen, As if two Suns in the sky should appear. The big Mastiff shall be howling all night, When the Pontiff shall go into exile. (The Comet, the earthquakes) … During the time the hairy star appears . . . Struck from heaven, shaky peace, shaking earth ... (The Rain of Stones) … New downpour, sudden, impetuous, Unexpected, shall hinder two armies. Stone, Heaven, Fire, shall fall over the sea …"

"... plague, long famine and wars, and still more floods from now until the stated time. Before and after these, humanity shall several times be so severely diminished that scarcely anyone shall be found who wishes to take over the fields, which shall become free where they had previously been tied. This will be after the visible judgement of heaven..."

"… because now the sword of death approaches us, with pestilence and war more horrible than there has ever been - because of three men's work - and famine. And this sword shall smite the earth and return to it often, for the stars confirm this upheaval and it is also written: I shall punish their injustices with iron rods, and shall strike them with blows."

"The Great Star will blaze for

Seven days, The Cloud will cause two

suns to appear.

The Huge dog will howl at night

When the great pontiff will

Change lands."

"During the appearance of

The Bearded Star, the three

great princes will be made

enemies. The shaky peace on

earth will be struck by fire

from the skies. Po, The

winding Tiber, a serpent placed

on the shore."

"MABUS will soon die,

Then will come a horrible

slaughter of people and animals

At once vengance revealed coming

from a hundred hands

Thirst and Famine when

The Comet shall pass"

"After a great misery for

mankind, an ever greater approaches

The great cycle of the centuries

renewed, it will rain blood, milk,

famine, war disease

In the sky will be seen a great fire

dragging a trail of sparks."

"The great mountain, one mile

in circumference, After peace,

war, famine flooding...

It will spread far, drowning

antiquities and their mighty

foundations."

"Then shall there be against the Church a greater persecution than ever was. And thereupon such great epidemics shall develop that more than two-thirds of the world shall perish, so much so that no one shall know the owners of the fields and houses, and grass shall grow in the streets of the cities knee-high and even more.

"In those days of desolation the largest cities will be depopulated, and he who would return therein shall be struck by the wrath of God. And the Sacred Place shall be turned into a stable for cattle, large and small, and put to profane uses. O what a calamitous time shall it be for women with Child! (Cf. Matt. 24:19).

"For God's mercy will be poured forth only for a certain time, my son, until the majority of my prophecies are fulfilled and this fulfillment is complete. Then several times in the course of the doleful tempests the Lord shall say: Therefore I shall crush and destroy and show no mercy; and many other circumstances shall result from floods and continual rain of which I have written more fully in my other prophecies, composed at some length, not in a chronological sequence, in prose, limiting the places and times and exact dates so that future generations will see, while experiencing these inevitable events, how I have listed others in clearer language, so that despite their obscurities these things shall be understood: When the time comes for the removal of ignorance, the matter will be clearer still."

Edgar Cayce (20th Century):

The first sign of this change in the Earth's core would be the "breaking up of some conditions" in the South Pacific and "sinking or rising" in the Mediterranean or Etna area. Cayce forecast that, by the end of the century, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco would be destroyed. He said that "the greater portion of Japan must go into the sea" at this time, and that northern Europe would be "changed as in the twinkling of an eye." In 1941, Cayce predicted that lands would appear in the Atlantic and the Pacific in the coming years, and that "the coastline now of many a land will be the bed of the ocean. Even many of the battlefields of (1941) will be ocean, will be the sea, the bays, the lands over which the new order will carry on their trade as with one another."

"The earth will be broken up in the western portion of America. The greater portion of Japan must go into the sea. The upper portion of Europe will be changed as in the twinkling of an eye. Land will appear off the east coast of America. When there is the first breaking up of some conditions in the South Sea and those as apparent in the sinking or rising of that that's almost opposite same, or in the Mediterranean, and the Etna area, then we many know it has begun."

"As to the material changes that are to be as an omen, as a sign to those that this is shortly to come to pass - as has been given of old, the sun will be darkened and the earth shall be broken up in divers places - and then shall be proclaimed - through the spiritual interception in the hearts and minds and souls of those that have sought His way - that His star has appeared, and will point the way for those that enter into the holy of holies in themselves. For, God the Father, God the Teacher, God the director, in the minds and hearts of men, must ever be in those that come to know Him as first and foremost in the seeking of those souls..."

"There will be the upheavals in the Arctic and in the Antarctic that will make for the eruption of volcanoes in the torrid areas, and there will be the shifting then of the poles -- so that where there has been those of a frigid or the semi-tropical will become the more tropical, and moss and fern will grow."

"Watch New York, Connecticut and the like. Many portions of the east coast will be disturbed, as well as many portions of the west coast, as well as the central portion of the United States. Los Angeles, San Francisco, most of all these will be among those that will be destroyed before New York, or New York City itself, will in the main disappear. This will be another generation though, here; while the southern portions of Carolina, Georgia, these will disappear. This will be much sooner. The waters of the Great Lakes will empty into the Gulf of Mexico."

"The waters of the lakes will empty into the Gulf, rather than the waterway over which such discussions have been recently made. It would be well if the waterway were prepared, but not for that purpose for which it is at present being considered. Then the area where the entity is now located (Virginia Beach) will be among the safety lands, as will be portions of what is now Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and much of the southern portion of Canada and the eastern portion of Canada; while the western land -- much of that is to be disturbed as, of course much in other lands."

"If there are greater activities in Vesuvius or Pelee, then the southern coast of California and the areas between Salt Lake and the southern portions of Nevada, we may expect, within the three months following same, inundation by the earthquakes. But these are to be more in the Southern than the Northern Hemisphere."

Doomsday: Natural Occurrences

These include:

* A sudden change in the physical constants governing the universe, such as that created by a vacuum metastability event.

* A close approach of a black hole to the solar system.

* A gamma ray burst or other devastating blast of cosmic radiation. One especially deadly hypothesized source is a hypernova, produced when a hypergiant star explodes and then collapses, sending vast amounts of radiation sweeping across possibly hundreds or even thousands of lightyears of space.

* A drastic and unusual decrease or increase in Sun's power output; a solar superstorm leading to partial/complete electrical/technological death of human civilization.

* Abrupt geomagnetic reversal and/or drastic decrease of magnetic field of the planet Earth. Consequences can be the same as in the cases of cosmic radiation or solar radiation blasts.

* A cosmic dust cloud passing through the solar system, leading to a severe global climate change.

* An abrupt change in the Earth's position, such as repositioning of Earth's poles or forces on the Earth affecting rotation. It could be caused by extremely powerful internal geological or/and external cosmic factors. If it happens abruptly (and not slowly within a very prolonged interval of time which will make the effects less severe) it will generate enormous multiple earthquakes, multiple volcano eruptions, a hypercane or multiple megacyclones, giant tidal waves and megatsunamis all around the globe.

* An impact event causing a collision (or extremely close passage) of a large meteorite, asteroid or comet. In the case of a close passage of an object (a large asteroid, comet or planet) with a significant gravitational impact on Earth, the consequences could be the same as in the case of an abrupt change in the Earth's position affecting rotation. And such a sudden rotation would not necessarily have to take place for the earth to see the same global effects.

* A geological event such as massive flood basalt, volcanism, or the eruption of a supervolcano leading to the so called nuclear winter. Massive volcano eruption(s) will produce extraordinary intake of volcanic dust, toxic and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with serious effects on global climate (towards extreme global cooling (nuclear winter when in short term and ice age when in long term) or global warming (if greenhouse gases prevail)).

* An exceptionally devastating hypercane probably combined with global dust storm, taking up to the atmosphere enormous quantities of dust.

* Severe climate change due to any or a combination of the above mentioned events. Also it could be caused even solely by drastic changes in ocean currents pattern. In general terms it will be towards extreme global cooling down (nuclear winter when in short term and ice age when in long term) or global warming up of the atmosphere and hydrosphere of the Earth, together with additional malignant effects on global and local precipitation and air circulation patterns. All these climate changes together will have devastating effects on human civilization.

* A global pandemic (assuming that the causing agent of the pandemic would have a natural origin) with very high or even 100% mortality rate.

* The Second Coming of Jesus Christ from Heaven to Earth as expected in Christian eschatology. The anticipated event is predicted in biblical Messianic prophecy. These prophecies include the general resurrection of the dead, the last judgment of the living and the dead, and the end of the world.

Doomsday: Human-Made Events

These include:

* Depletion of important natural resources, assuming that alternatives are not found.

* Gradual and relatively "slow" but drastic reduction of the world population through economic means such as mass unemployment, malnutrition and starvation, medical system failure and enormous increase of mortality due to lack of treatments for common lethal diseases.

* A global pandemic with very high or even 100% mortality rate caused by a human-made infectious agent, which could be released among population on purpose. The source could be an individual, a laboratory workers group, a terrorist group, governmental or international organization.

* A nuclear, chemical, or biological war. A "softer" and "stealthier" case of each of these 3 types of warfare could be nuclear, chemical, or biological terrorism. Again the source could be an individual, a laboratory workers group, a terrorist group, governmental or international organization.

Doomsday: Precautions

Some precautions that people are already taking for this event include:

* The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a vault buried 400 feet inside a mountain in the Arctic with over ten tons of seeds from all over the world. 100 million seeds from more than 100 countries were placed inside as a precaution to preserve all the world's crops. A prepared box of rice originating from 104 countries was the first to be deposited in the vault, where it will be kept at minus 18C (minus 0.4F). Thousands more plant species will be added as organizers attempt to get specimens of every agricultural plant in the world. Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust said that by preserving as many varieties as possible, the options open to farmers, scientists and governments were maximised. "The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world's crop diversity," he said. Even if the permafrost starts to melt, the seeds will be safe inside the vault for up to 200 years. Some of the seeds will even be viable for a millennium or more, including barley, which can last 2,000 years, wheat 1,700 years, and sorghum almost 20,000 years.