For 500,000 years we, homo sapiens, have been tirelessly working to create a hospitable
land for us to thrive on.
We’ve travelled the seas, invented languages, and have even ventured into the dark abyss
of space.
However, some things are beyond our control, and some things seek to destroy us.
So today on Top 5 Scary Videos we’re going to be counting down our list of the Top 5
Scary Ways The World Could End.
Before we begin, be sure to stick around until the end of the video where I’ll be responding
to some of your comments.
Lets jump in.
5 Rogue Black Hole Our galaxy is littered with black holes, a
terrifying thought that constantly keeps me up at night.
Black holes are collapsed stellar corpses that are a dozen miles wide, with a gravity
so strong that they swallow everything, even light.
There are estimated to be around 10 million black holes in the Milky Way -- however, they
orbit just like other stars, hopefully meaning that there isn’t one currently heading out
way.
But, never say never.
Quite honestly, the black hole wouldn’t need to be close to our planet in order to
bring about ruin.
Sorry to break it to you.
Just passing through the solar system would distort our planets’ orbit -- with the possibility
that earth could get drawn right into the elliptical path which result in extreme climate
swings, or perhaps even earth getting rejected from the solar system and go hurtling into
the frigid unknown of deep space.
Sleep well tonight folks.
4 Reversal of Earths Magnetic Field Here’s an interesting nugget of information
for you guys, every few hundred thousand years, Earth’s magnetic field is reduced to almost
nothing lasting for around a century, then, gradually, it reappears with the North and
South poles flipped.
The last time this happened was around 780,000 years ago, so we are very overdue another.
More terrifying still, our magnetic field has decreased by about 5 percent in the past
century alone.
Now, you may be wondering how, or if this affects us.
And it does, it does a lot.
The magnetic field deflects particle storms and cosmic rays from the sun, -- without this
protection, these particles would strike Earth;s atmosphere, ultimately eroding our ozone layer.
Worse still, many creatures navigate by magnetic reckoning, with Sten Odenwald of NASA stating,
“There are no identifiable fossil effects from previous flips.
This is most curious.”
However, it has been found that even the black plague, an epidemic that killed a quarter
of the world population would hardly register as a blip in fossil records.
Yep, so you can see why this reversal would have detrimental effects on our world.
3 Volcano Eruption Yellowstone’s supervolcano is essentially
a giant cauldron waiting to explode.
It is so vast that it can only truly be seen from low-earth orbit -- with a crater approximately
72 Kilometers wide, with its base containing tens of thousands of cubic kilometers of magmatic
material.
The last time this supervolcano erupted was 60,000 years ago, and 60,000 years ago before
that, meaning we are now past due another eruption.
Researches had previously stated that if Yellowstone did erupt then a volcanic winter would ensure,
with people living on a different continent not being spared, we would all feel the effects.
A vast column of ash and lava would shoot upward to heights of 16miles -- and would
sustain itself for days, pumping ash into jet streams that would ultimately transport
it around the stratosphere.
If you were to be hit by the mixtures of ash, lava blebs, and superheated gas you would
die within seconds, and those standing nearby would also be burned as the air would heat
up to around 300 celsius.
Yep, bad news bears.
2 Global Epidemic Because, of course -- all you need to do is
look back in history to such what kind of effect a global epidemic can have on our world.
For example, the Black Plague killed one out of four european’s in the 14th century;
influenza killed around 20 million people between 1918 and 1919; and quite honestly,
the AIDS epidemic is not far behind, and still going strong.
From 1980 to 1992, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the mortality
from infectious disease in the United States rose 58 percent.
58 PERCENT.
Corey Powell from Discover Magazine has previously stated, I quote, “The grimmest possibility
would be the emergence of a strain that spreads so fast we are caught off guard or that resists
all chemical means of control, perhaps as a result of our stirring of the ecological
pot”.
More terrifying still, old diseases such as Cholera and measles have developed new resistance
to antibiotics, which has brought about a brand new outbreak of them both on a global
scale.
Of course with the amount of travel we all embark on, disease spreads pretty damn rapidly
-- we’ve seen this go down in Hollywood, in films such as Contagion -- which presented
us with a disease that spread so fast, and so vastly it became essentially unstoppable
-- killing off thousands upon thousands of people before a cure was even in the works.
That isn’t completely fiction, this could one day be our reality.
People and germs have always coexisted, but occasionally the balance gets out of whack,
who's to say it won’t happen again.
1 Asteroid Impact We’re all familiar with asteroid’s,particularly
thanks to the cheesy Hollywood movies that have been dished out over the last few years
-- with the disaster scenario becoming increasingly hard to take seriously.
However, it’s serious, very serious, and could end all life as we know it.
In 1908, a 200 foot wide comet fragment smashed into our earth's atmosphere and exploded over
the Tunguska region in Siberia, Russia with close to 1,000 times the energy of the atomic
bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
Now, it is reported that similar events occur every one to three centuries, with some impacts
disrupting human civilizations.
Although some occur over the ocean, others have killed tens of thousands of people.
However, what we’re talking about here is comet fragments, not asteroids.
With asteroids it doesn’t matter where they land.
An object more than a half mile wide would result in firestorms, followed by global cooling
from the dust kicked up the impact.
Civilization would not survive -- but, humans might.
However, if a five mile wide asteroid hit, the entire world would be destroyed, and would
wipe out the entire planet in a similar vein to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Now, if this wasn’t scary enough, I’ve got far more terrifying information coming
your way.
Kuiper belt is a zone beyond Neptune that contains around 100,000 ice-balls more than
50 miles in diameter.
The zone sens a steady rain of small comets earthward and if one big one was to head right
for us, that would mean the end of all life as we know it -- even cockroaches, and those
suckers can survive anything.
Well, there we have it!
Do you guys agree with our list?
Were there any natural disasters that we missed?
Leave us all your thoughts and feelings in the comments down below and perhaps we can
do a part 2.
Before I go though I just want to respond to a few comments from one of our last videos,
Top 5 Strongest Lovecraftian Monsters.
Zulphur said, “Evil beings yes, but not half as cool and sublime as Lucy” -- You
got yourself a date.
James Sarno said “Lucy, we want more monsters!
Amazing stuff, keep up the good work and always stay dark.”
-- Your wish is my command!
Jank God said “They left out the scariest Lovecraftian monster of all, Lucy McPhee”
-- This will never get old.
And, on that note if you haven’t already be sure to give this video a big thumbs up,
subscribe, and turn on notifications so you never miss another scary vid.
And until next time, see ya later.