Good news! It doesn’t just feel like the world is ending.
That’s what one British man claims, pointing to Bible passages he says indicate that the Rapture is coming next week. David Meade — whom Fox News calls a “Christian numerologist” and the UK Express calls a “Christian conspiracy theorist” — says that on Monday, April 23, the sun, moon and Jupiter will be in Virgo, which mimics a Biblical description of the end of the world.
Revelation 12:1-2 describes the second coming of Christ and the destruction of the earth: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.” In the doomsayer’s interpretation, the woman is Virgo.
It is “a unique once-in-a-century sign exactly as depicted in the 12th chapter of Revelation,” Meade told the Express. “This is our time marker.”
Bye, world!
Not so fast, said astrologers, who noted that this planetary alignment has happened several times before. Meade argues this time is different: A mysterious celestial body called Planet X will appear, he says, causing tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Is Planet X real?
Planet X, or Nibiru, is a moderately popular conspiracy theory that’s been making the rounds for a few years. NASA has debunked it as a hoax several times.
Meade has done a thorough job of debunking his own predictions. They simply haven’t come true. Last year, he claimed the Rapture was due on Sept. 23, when an asteroid would hit the earth and Planet X would appear, killing one billion people. When Sept. 23 came and went, he changed the date to Oct. 15.
Spoiler alert: Here we are again. Meade’s predictions of last September’s apocalypse stirred up so much online chatter that NASA weighed in on the matter, posting this statement on its website: “Various people are ‘predicting’ that world will end Sept. 23 when another planet collides with Earth. The planet in question, Nibiru, doesn’t exist, so there will be no collision.”
