Here's Your Handy Guide to the Looniest Eclipse Doomsday Theories on the Internet

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This is one of those great cultural moments that remind me I truly am a product of a simpler time. A pre-internet, pre-social media, analog age in which an event like a solar eclipse was a mere celestial occurrence. A small, close, dark object passing across a large, distant, brilliant object and casting a shadow. An interesting phenomenon. One that would spark interest in science. Appreciation for the miracle that is our cosmos. And inspire the kind of mawkish, dramatic, over-sung music videos with doves flying in slow motion down hallways that made the '80s worth living:

But that was then. This is now. When even a relatively common (in the grand scheme of history) event is almost guaranteed to cause much of the human race to go nuts. Or to be more accurate, to go online to remind us just how bananaland they already are. People can have all the information ever compiled by mankind available on a rectangle in their pocket. But we're no smarter than the ones who were using stone knives and bearskins, telling tales around the campfire of the time the Moon Wolf swallowed the Sun Goddess, angering the great Earth Mother and causing the crops to fail. 

And it's not like fate hasn't handed the crackpots butt tons of material to work with lately. The Eclipse Pregame Show has been a checklist of doomsday scenarios to tie into this thing. A horrifying bridge collapse. Royals getting cancer. A freakishly rare earthquake in the northeast. A major blizzard in April. Madam Web. As the Joker put it, "Madness, as you know, is a lot like gravity. All it takes is a little push." And since more people than any of us would care to admit were already dangling over the edge, a little thing the moon's shadow crossing the US for a few minutes was more than enough to send them flying.

So let's have at them. The most bonkers End of Days theories being bandied about these past few weeks. In no particular order:

Cicadas.

Let's go right to the Old Testament stuff. April 2024 isn't just giving us an eclipse. We're also about to receive delivery of not one but two major swarms of locusts. Seven different species in all:

Jonah.

You don't have to be a Bible scholar to be familiar with the story of Jonah. It helps if you've seen Master & Commander when the young officer on the ship is considered bad luck, i.e. "a Jonah" because bad things happen whenever he's on watch. And while the doctor thinks it's all superstitious sailor rubbish, Captain Aubrey is a lifelong man of the sea who doesn't dismiss it so easily. "Not everything is in your books, Stephen," he says. 

Well the larger story is that God tasked Jonah with going to the city of Ninevah and telling the people there they have lost their way and need to straighten up and fly right. Jonah, who doesn't know a soul there and would be a total stranger in town hates the idea, and thinks he'll be straight up murdered if he complies. So instead he jumps aboard a ship, where he eventually tells his fellow crew members what he'd done. Thinking it's bad luck (thus "Jonah") to have a guy who disobeyed the Almighty on board, they toss him overboard, where he proceeds to get swallowed up by a huge fish - what modern people commonly refer to as a whale -  and dragged down into the depths. Or as Jordan Peterson puts it, hell. For three days, before he's learned his lesson and proceeds to redeem himself.

So how does factor into the eclipse? First, there's the Jonah Factor:

Then there's the Ninevah Factor:

All of which are supposedly in the path of the "X" created by the 2024 eclipse and the 2017 eclipse:

And the sun on this one is supposed to be coming out of the constellation Cetus. Which may or may not be where Ceti Alpha VI where Captain Kirk marooned Khan is located, but is very much supposed to be a giant sea creature:

Shutterstock Images.

And just for good measure, there are supposed to be seven Salems in the direct path of the shadow as well. "Salem" being a shortened version of Jerusalem:

CERN.

Now this thoughtful, rational, emotionally stable gentleman spends a good 8 minutes or so of this video describing the geometry of the moon's orbit and its gravitational effect on Earth's tectonic plates before he gets to the topic at hand. Which is "Ley Lines" of energy that connect various historic sites across the globe. And how one of those sites is the CERN Hadron Particle Collider, which is located where the ancient Temple of Apollo was. Which, he shouts at us while gesturing awkwardly, the Bible describes as The Seat of Satan:

And it just so happens that the scientists at CERN have chosen this eclipse to fire up the collider and start smashing themselves some atoms. What does that have to do with the moon casting a shadow across a continent an ocean away from where they are? Beats me. But to this extremely loud talking, poorly groomed man, it's timed to open up a portal and summon angels down from heaven. And NASA

Giants. You Heard Right. Freakin' Giants.

Do you remember how just after New Years, there was a huge police presence outside a mall in Miami? Where seemingly every Miami PD cruiser arrived at the scene, lights flashing, and it was reported they were there to shut down a disturbance among a bunch of unruly youths? Well there were corners of the internet that were not buying what the authorities were saying. The claim was the cops were there to stop attacks from the "Nephilim," who are 8- to 10-foot giants. Grey alien-like figures who hide in plain sight among us. Or something. 

Well some of those same people are claiming those same pesky giants are taking center stage today as well. It seems that where the paths of the 2017 eclipse and the 2024 cross, the "X" marks the spot of the town of Makanda, Illinois. Which just so happens to be situated next to … a state park with the word "Giant" right there in the name:

Now you might think that's a nothingburger. You may cite a million examples of places, businesses, sports teams and movies who've been sharing the proper noun "Giant" since long before this shadow crossed that shadow from seven years ago. But conspiracy TikTok isn't buying that this just a meaningless detail:

This is, in fact, a government psyop to distract us from the fact that they're planning a raid into the state park to take out all the giants who dwell there. How do we know, aside from the name being right there in the name of the place? Well because apparently in South Africa, Makanda translates to "Little People." Which in this case, refers to us. And the park is part of the Siawani National Forest, which is known as a big hot spot for Bigfoot sightings. But most sus of all, as far back as February, weather reports were predicting heavy cloud cover during the eclipse. Here's TikTok (of course) to explain:

So there you have it. Or part of it, anyway. This isn't going to just be the moon blocking our sun for 4 1/2 minutes like a guy standing up in front of you at a movie. This is Armageddon. The End Times. With plagues of bugs. Tie ins to the Old Testament. Ancient cities. Whales. Earthquakes. Crazy European physicists opening up worm holes to other dimensions. Black ops government agents controlling the weather so they can hunt some Goliaths. Basically so much more than just a shadow moving across North America for a few minutes. 

Personally, as much as I like a good conspiracy theory, these are not that. The Savior I follow distinctly pointed out we're not going to know the day or the hour of His coming. There's nothing in the Bible about Him calling His shot. After the earthquakes, before the locusts, through the Ninevahs, around the Salems, from the whale constellation, over the giants, nothing but net. 

But still, nice try by the internet. Maybe when this is all over and none of the stuff they predicted happens, we'll get mea culpas from all of them admitting they wrong. But if you've been paying attention all this time, you realize that's not how this works. No one's taking an L on this; they'll just move onto the next natural phenomenon and predict that's the end of the world too. And I guess eventually they'll get one right. And if by some chance they do happen to nail this particular doomsday prediction? Hey, we had a good run. It's been nice knowing you.