Every day things seem to get worse: religious conflict, climate change, it all seems so apocalyptic. None of this is new however. We’ve been predicting the end of the world for thousands of years … Something about the drama of annihilation seems to grip us. Morgan Freeman, The Story of God s1e2: Apocalypse
Like many doomsday cults, the Essenes believed the end was imminent and took precautions to meet God at any moment. ibid.
The Christian idea of the Apocalypse took hold under the oppression of Rome. ibid.
The Book of Revelation: the most controversial book of the Bible. Within its pages a dire forecast of Apocalypse ... What’s the real secret of the Book of Revelation? Riddles of the Bible s2e1: The Apocalypse, National Geographic
Most scholars say Revelation is a product of its time. ibid.
The word rapture appears nowhere in the Bible. ibid.
The Rapture. Judgment Day. Armageddon. Ever since humans first tried to understand their own creation, they have been obsessed with their own demise. Strange Rituals: The Apocalypse s1e11
The Black Death wiped out 75 million people, reducing the world’s population by a third. ibid.
More people have perished from viruses than all wars and natural disasters combined. ibid.
Stacey: Oh my God! I mean realistically how long do your think you could stay don’t here?
Survivalist: I’ve never realistically looked at it. Stacey Dooley Investigates: Face to Face with Armageddon, BBC 2018
Should we all be making plans for the end of the world? ibid.
‘If it’s between us and our neighbours, I’ll have to.’ ibid. survivalist with guns
Hidden away in the middle of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains lives a family of preppers who for the past decade have isolated themselves from mainstream society. They believe it’s the only way to ensure their survival when disaster strikes. ibid.
Some say the curse of man is the knowledge of his own demise. From Dante’s Inferno to the Mayan 2012 myth. Every culture has tried to predict the way our world will end. But no apocalyptic tale is as studied and feared as the Seven Signs cited in the Book of Revelation. Written 60 years after the Crucifixion, scholars have worked for millennia to decode these symbolic verses. Seven New Signs of the Apolcaypse, History 2019
Every age has its own apocalypse fantasy. Matthew Collings, Hello Culture: Nihilism, Channel 4 2001
World-shattering asteroids on a collision course with our planet. Colossal super-volcanoes that will destroy our atmosphere. And inter-stellar black holes capable of literally swallowing the Earth. The UnXplained with William Shatner s3e4: The Apocalypse, History 2022
There are at this very moment between 12 and 20 active super-volcanoes scattered across the Earth. ibid.
The subject that I’m investigating is human pre-history. Ancient Apocalypse s1e1: Once There Was a Flood, Graham Hancock reporting, Netflix 2022
My suspicion is humans are a species with amnesia. We have forgotten something incredibly important in our own past. And I think that that incredibly important forgotten thing is a lost, advanced civilisation of the Ice Age. ibid.
I’ve spent decades searching for proof of this lost civilisation at site around the globe. ibid.
An advanced human civilisation much older than our own, lost to history … New discoveries keep on pushing that horizon back. One such discovery has been made here in Indonesia. On the most populated island, Java, about four hours south of Jakarta, near the village of Karyamukti. ibid.
What if an advanced civilisation flourished here in Indonesia during the Ice Age? ibid.
Because Gunung Padang is like no place on Earth … You see these blocks scattered across the mountain. Oddly hexagonal stone slabs strewn about everywhere. Thousands of them. It’s quite a spectacle. ibid.
These rocks have been cut, repurposed as building materials and placed by human hands. ibid.
Traces of structures show up all over the hill … on carefully laid out terraces. ibid.
‘This site consists of two cultural layers.’ ibid. archaeologist
The entire hill is ringed by retaining walls of columnar basalt. ibid.
At least three large rectangular chambers. One around 10 metres down, perhaps an entrance hall of some kind … A third chamber between 20 and 30 metres deep. ibid.
Core drilling: Those sections had been laid out 11,500 years ago. ibid.
Around 100 feet or so he [Dr Hillman] hit the earliest layer of construction … as far back as 24,000 years ago. ibid.
What happened was a literal great flood. ibid.
One of the most mysterious and revealing mythologies in prehistory comes down to us through the ancient cultures of Mexico. Ancient Apocalypse s1e2: Survivor in a Time of Chaos
A land of fertile valleys and simmering volcanoes. This is the Puebla region, east of Mexico City. ibid.
This hill isn’t the natural feature it’s often mistaken for. It’s the most massive monument ever built anywhere in the world … This is the Great Pyramid of Cholula … [and] rose to at least 213 feet, 65 metres … 400 x 400 metres at its base. ibid.
They were stunned at what they discovered inside … 8 kilometres of tunnels … The Pyramid of Cholula is simply the latest in a whole series of more ancient pyramids hidden beneath. ibid.
You start off with a place that for one reason or another is regarded as sacred. ibid.
According to myth, the Great Pyramid of Cholula was built by a race of giants. ibid.
Malta: It’s called Ggantija. And it certainly is a giant of a megalithic structure. For decades, it was thought to be the oldest freestanding monumental structure on Earth. Ancient Apocalypse s1e3: Sirius Rising
The construction of these walls required the lifting of hundreds of massive megaliths. Some weighing up to fifty tons. And what we see today is only roughly half of the temple’s original height. ibid.
Two connected temples with over-shaped chambers, their walls were painted red. And a series of altars where charred remains of animal bones were found, suggesting ritual sacrifices or feasting. ibid.
Ggantija isn’t Malta’s only megalithic temple. ibid.
How much more of Malta’s prehistory lies hidden beneath the waves? ibid.
The Bahamas. These are the Bimini Islands. Just under 60 miles off the coast of Miami, Bimini is separated from the mainland of America by a deepwater channel known as the Straits of Florida. Ancient Apocalypse s1e4: Ghosts of a Drowned World
A massive structure of carefully laid giant stones with every appearance of being a megalithic roadway or paved terrace. ibid.
In their excitement they announced to the world they had found the road to Atlantis itself. ibid.
The slabs are remarkably straight-edged and parallel. ibid.
This part of the Bahamas has been underwater for thousands of years. ibid.
To the ancients, stargazing would have been the greatest show on Earth. The most entertaining way to pass their long dark nights. Ancient Apocalypse s1e5: Legacy of the Sages
Ancient pyramids and temples all around the world connect sky and ground with precise alignments of the Sun, Moon and stars. ibid.
Gobekli Tepe: It shouldn’t exist. Archaeologists accept that it dates back to around 11,600 years ago, making this the oldest acknowledged monument structure on Earth. It’s a highly sophisticated, highly advanced megalithic site. ibid.
It’s older even than the invention of the wheel. ibid.
What is this place? … How ambitious and imposing it must have been in its prime. ibid.
Megaliths weighing up to ten tons … How these massive blocks were lifted and set in place nobody knows. ibid.
Symbols of animals are to be found everywhere at Gobekli Tepe. ibid.
How did a community of Stone Age hunter-gatherers succeed so brilliantly at building with megaliths at their very first attempt? ibid.