Original subtitles

For thousands of years, mankind has been speculating about the end of the world.

No matter the source, whether it's ancient religious texts or modern

theory, there's one thing the experts all agree on.

It's not just a possibility.

It's a fact.

The end is coming.

As early as 2800 BC, the Assyrian people began predicting doomsday.

The Vikings called it Ragnarok, and in the Bible's book of Revelation, it's

Armageddon. But even if you strip away the fire and brimstone, there's still no

escape.

Observers and experimenters from Sir Isaac Newton to Stephen Hawking have

that life as we know it is doomed.

But when will it happen? How will it happen? And is there anything we can do

delay the inevitable?

Tonight, we search for answers in two ancient once thriving civilizations that

mysteriously vanished.

And for the first time ever, we reveal the final doomsday prophecy of the

famed Nostradamus.

which may tell us the exact month and year that we could face the end of the

world.

The search begins now.

When asked about the end of the world, Albert Einstein famously said, wait and

see. He didn't know how, but he knew it was bound to happen.

Since then, scientists have predicted that everything from artificial

intelligence to nuclear war would be our undoing.

Hollywood has dreamed up viruses, unstoppable alien invasions, and dozens

versions of the zombie apocalypse.

But if you're looking for a doomsday prophecy, that may actually come true.

There is one man who literally wrote the book on the subject.

Michel de Nostredame, also known as Nostradamus.

In 1555, the French astrologer published a collection of 942 four -line poems,

simply named The Prophecies.

It's been in circulation ever since, becoming the second best -selling book

all time after the Bible.

So why did his writings become so famous?

Because many believe they have the power to predict the future, and even the end

of the world.

Despite his long association with Doomsday, Nostradamus' poems actually

mention of the world coming to an end.

He wrote about it only once, in a secret prophecy that was meant for an audience

of one, his favorite son, Caesar.

In this little -known letter, Nostradamus doesn't write in verse, but

uses plain language as any father would.

to warn his son of what he thought would be the end of the world.

He called it the universal conflagration.

And it's clear from his words that he was truly afraid.

Nostradamus write, You must see now, my son, that I find by my calculation that

the sword of death is approaching us.

He describes a multi -stage catastrophe of epic proportion, including economic

upheaval and a broken treaty that leads to a massive battle between forces he

mysteriously names the East and the West.

Nostradamus closes with precisely how he thought the world would end.

It will come in the shape of pestilence, war more horrible than has been known

in three lifetimes.

and famine.

The prophecy doesn't specify when this might happen.

But perhaps there is a way to better understand his warning.

Because believe it or not, for some societies, the end of the world has

before.

Over 4 ,000 miles southeast of Hawaii,

and a five -hour flight from Santiago, Chile, lies a remote paradise called

Nui, commonly referred to as Easter Island.

But despite its idyllic climate and isolation, Rapa Nui was the site of one

history's most mysterious Armageddons.

Astroarchaeologist Edmundo Edwards has been living and working on Easter Island

for over 50 years.

and is still trying to piece together what happened one thousand years ago.

When you come here and you see all these incredible monuments and you see all

these villages around the island, you would imagine that they lived an idyllic

life. But as we start to uncover the past, we learn that it was not that way.

Their civilization began with a stunning feat of navigation, a mission with just

50 people on two outrigger canoes set out from the Gambier Islands 1 ,600

away, landing on Easter Island around 1 ,000 AD.

The Polynesians found themselves in a private, lush utopia.

In addition to ample sources of food, Easter Island had plenty of fresh water

from a massive crater lake.

The island's millions of large palm trees could provide materials for houses

fishing boats.

Once they arrived to this beautiful place, this fantastic beach, they

settle here. And this is where everything started.

This is the first place to be settled, and from here they spread to the whole

island.

By the time two generations had passed, the Easter Islanders were thriving, and

they had grown to a population of 10 ,000 strong.

They were so advanced that they accomplished one of history's most

feats of construction.

They built over 900 massive Moai statues, made to commemorate their

transporting them to hundreds of altars across the island.

These statues can weigh over 160 tons and stand as high as 50 feet.

Archaeologists are still unsure how the islanders were able to craft these

gigantic masterpieces, let alone move them upwards of 10 miles over rugged

terrain.

Here we are in the quarries of Rano Raraku.

This is the place where they carved most of the statues of the island, where the

carvers used to live, and where people would come and commission statues.

Chiefs from all around the island hired the stone carvers of Rano Raraku.

Thousands of artisans worked here, sculpting larger and larger moai as

society continued to thrive.

Two hundred more years passed.

And the Rapa Nui civilization boomed to a population of 26 ,000.

Their isolation ensured complete safety from outside forces.

But despite their large numbers and seclusion, Easter Island society was

to completely collapse.

So we have all these forests, we have all the development.

All these people working, all these chiefs building altars all around the

island, and suddenly everything just stops.

The reasons why it stops, we don't know exactly.

It is a mystery.

But something occurred here on the island that made everybody stop.

If we can find clues to uncover why the civilization ended here on Easter

Island,

It could bring us one step closer to understanding how our own world might

day meet its end.

These statues were abandoned.

The quarries were abandoned. In some cases, they had a fast, huge statue that

was practically finished.

That must have been years and years of work.

Why did this happen?

It happened because their world began crumbling around them.

starting with their precious water supply.

Without

fresh

water, the island's plants began to wither.

Through deforestation and drought, the palm trees that once numbered in the

millions went completely extinct.

To avoid starvation, the people began eating Polynesian rats.

Eventually, even that food source ran out.

Just as Nostradamus had supposedly predicted, the clock was ticking on the

Easter Island civilizations.

But things would soon get a whole lot worse.

Facing the end of their world, the Rapa Nui were about to do...

the unthinkable.

The end of the world has been contemplated and feared by mankind since

beginning.

Famed astrologer Nostradamus predicts it will come in the form of famine,

drought, pestilence, and a great war between the East and West.

But could it really happen to us?

Well, for the secluded paradise of Easter Island, it already has.

After 500 years of development, the island's 26 ,000 residents had managed

carve over 900 massive Moai statues.

But then, around the year 1500, the islanders began to run out of water and

food.

They tried to sustain themselves on a diet of Polynesian rats.

And when those ran out, they turned to an even more unthinkable diet.

I excavated one of the altars here in 1960, and there was a

skeleton inside, but it had its head, its arms, its legs were missing.

I mean, there was a cannibal beast that was there. You could see it.

The islanders eventually resorted to setting up human meat markets, where

were divided up for consumption.

Here we have the petroglyph. On the petroglyph, you have all these little

That supposedly was a tally of the people that were killed and brought

And then the warriors would collect in the afternoon and take home and cook

and eat.

There are hundreds of dots in this petroglyph, maybe even thousands, each

representing a horrifying act of cannibalism.

And if starvation wasn't enough, something even worse happened.

On this secluded island, which had been completely safe from outside attackers,

a brutal war broke out.

The tribes from the east side of Rapa Nui, went to war with the West over the

limited resources still available on the island.

When Europeans arrived in the 1700s, the island was deforested and less than 2

,000 people remained.

A once successful civilization had been completely snuffed out.

The story of the Rapa Nui has clear parallels to the predictions of

He wrote to his son of forces from the east bringing war, famine, drought,

disease, and pestilence.

All of these same factors contributed to the end of the Rapa Nui civilization.

Could Nostradamus actually have foretold their fate?

According to his believers, it wouldn't be the first time.

For instance, in one poem he writes, The blood of the just will be lacking in

London, burnt up in the fire of 66.

Incredibly, the great fire of London took place in 1666, just as predicted.

Another poem says, A man named de Gaulle is a three -time leader.

Italy and the waters of Venice will tremble. He will be renowned above all

monarchs. Somehow, despite hundreds of years between them, Nostradamus

the success of French Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle, a three -time leader

fought against Italy during World War II.

And perhaps most eerily, this poem.

From the depths of the west of Europe, a young child will be born of poor

people. He who by his tongue will seduce a great troop.

When the child of Germany observes nothing, the greater part of the

will be against Hister.

Nostradamus was slightly wrong on the name, but the Hister of this poem

perfectly matches the story of Adolf Hitler.

Is it possible that Nostradamus had the psychic ability to see the future?

Actually, he took a much more scientific approach.

Nostradamus combined three methods to make his predictions.

He studied ancient religious prophecies, historic events, and the movements of

the stars and planets.

In other words, he looked to the past to see the future.

And it worked, because history is known to repeat itself.

Does that mean the end of our world will come in a similar way?

Are we doomed to the same fate as the Rapa Nui?

According to Nostradamus, history proves that we are.

Because the same prophecies that destroyed the Rapa Nui also marked the

one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known.

When contemplating the end of the world,

Religion and science both agree on one thing.

It's inevitable.

Soon, we'll explore the final doomsday prophecy of the famed Nostradamus, which

could reveal precisely when our world might end.

But if you still don't believe in the end of the world, you should know it's

happened at least twice before to other civilizations.

once to the private utopia of Easter Island, and once to a much more

sizable population.

These are images of the Mayan Empire, one of the most advanced civilizations

Earth, which spanned over 125 ,000 square miles across Central

America.

They had expert knowledge of mathematics, engineering, and astronomy.

They constructed a complex network of large cities, each with populations of

to 100 ,000 people.

In many ways, their development was just as impressive as ancient Greece or the

Roman Empire.

And then suddenly, around 900 AD, their world ended.

the Maya abandoned their great cities and the empire collapsed.

To this day, no one knows exactly why it happened.

Anthropologist Fito Alvarado from the National Autonomous University of

is convinced that the answers to the Mayan Armageddon lie in the ancient city

Copan. Until the 5th century AD, Copan used to be a farming village.

very modest and simple lifestyle.

And it's upon the arrival of the individual called K 'inich Yash Kukmo

Copan starts to transform into a massive kingdom.

King Yash Kukmo arrived in Copan in 426 A .D.

Thanks to his military, political, and agricultural skills, Copan's population

exploded.

And as Copan flourished, So did the rest of the Maya civilization.

The Maya were the most advanced people in the pre -Hispanic Americas.

They grasped the mathematical concept of zero, which experts consider to be the

first step toward advanced calculations.

With those abilities, they created the most accurate calendar that existed at

the time, more accurate than anywhere else on Earth.

Once they could predict the seasons, the Maya were able to develop an incredibly

productive agriculture capable of sustaining several million inhabitants.

The city of Copan enjoyed 12 generations of prosperity.

The question is, how could such a robust civilization so quickly and

mysteriously come to an end?

It all started with the arrival of Copan's 13th king, Ubac Will.

also known as 18 Rapid.

And as we're about to see, his kingdom's downfall not only echoes Nostradamus'

prediction, but it might also have serious implications for what could one

happen to us.

One of the world's leading experts on Copan downfall is Dr. Jorge Ramos.

He has been leading the excavations here for over 10 years.

We're walking through the last major monument commissioned by 18 Rabbit, the

third ruler of Copan.

In the year 737, 18 Rabbit commissioned a massive ball court to be built in the

center of Copan, the second largest in the empire, tantamount to the Roman

Colosseum.

But just 113 days after the ball court was completed, a devastating tragedy

struck Copan, an account of which can be found nearby, hiding in plain sight.

This may look like just a staircase, but in fact it's much more.

But most important thing here is that the text is not much for the people,

for the God.

Since Mayan written texts, books, and scrolls have all been destroyed over

the 2 ,000 glyphs on this staircase form one of the most complete histories of

the empire that still exists today.

Hidden within these stone carvings is a crucial clue to the Mayan downfall.

It's the only time that they mention the death of the king.

You can see a figure lay down with the legs crossed.

That's the image of 18 Rabbit. And on the side, you have the captions where he

mentioned that he died.

And while kings may come and go, the brutal death of 18 Rabbit may have been

tipping point for an entire civilization to collapse.

Within months, the powerful Maya would be starving, suffering, and dying

by precisely the same methods Nostradamus predicted.

For their empire, the end of the world was coming faster than they ever could

have imagined.

The Ancient Mayan City's Date of Copan

was once the centerpiece of a massive and thriving civilization.

But following the reign of their king, known as 18 Rabbit, it all came crashing

down.

Only one inscription at Copan mentions the king's death, but it doesn't

how it happened or why.

Fortunately, a nearby site may have the answers.

For me, studying Copán, it was very revealing because he helped me to

the elements of the collapse of the Maya as a society.

And all of these clues are leading to Kiriguá.

Just across the border in present -day Guatemala lies the Mayan town of

a small settlement which had a population of only 2 ,000 people at its

Kirigoua was a tributary city of Copan.

In other words, all of its political decisions were governed by its much

neighbor to the southeast.

This is Kawakiskai, king of Kirigoua. He was enthroned by the Copan king, Aten

Rabbit, in the year 726 AD.

All of these monuments that we are seeing are basically bragging about this

great achievement in the life of the king.

And those monuments reveal the true tale of what happened to Copan's king, 18

Rabbit.

This is the clearest hieroglyphic inscription that refers to the death of

Rabbit.

This is chalk that literally means beheading.

kidnapped his former mentor, held him captive for three days,

and then had him brutally decapitated.

From here, readers of Nostradamus will hear a very familiar tale.

The murder of 18 Rabbit led to a large -scale war between the Eastern and

Western Maya kingdoms.

That war combined with a massive drought turned their once thriving agriculture

to ruins and just like what happened in easter island famine

pestilence and disease soon follow in copan we have

we have been able to recover a large sample of human remains in which

bioarcheologists can can trade signatures of disease, and of course you

signatures of malnutrition in the bones. So we can tell that these people were

lacking of food. They were lacking of not only proteins, but the main element

the diet that they used to have.

In the end, no corner of the empire was spared from the devastation.

This phenomenon was caused by overpopulation that brought different

the environment.

We were lacking of resources.

That brought disease and also wars between the Maya centers.

Within just two generations, the sprawling classic Maya civilization was

tell a brutal tale of an ancient Armageddon.

But could they also have something to say about our own time?

The Maya had the most accurate and advanced calendar.

They were capable to refer to events far back in the past, but also to make

predictions of the future.

One of the most famous future predictions of the Maya is hidden at the

this monument.

It could be easily missed by the untrained eye, but in fact, it sets up a

crucial theory about the end of the world.

This hieroglyphic inscription refers to the completion of a 400 -year cycle in

the Mayan calendar, the completion of the 13 Khatun.

Amongst thousands of Mayan texts that have been discovered, these five small

hieroglyphics are unique.

Nowhere else in the entire empire does this passage appear.

And yet, it could be the single most important message the Maya left in the

aftermath of their destruction.

We've now seen two thriving civilizations that collapsed in the same

Nostradamus predicted.

For both the Maya and the Rapa Nui, the end of the world came suddenly due to

war from the east, drought, famine, and disease.

At this point, the question may not be if this will happen again, but when.

The Mayan calendar at Curagua may provide some clues.

The Maya broke down their long -count calendar into five measurements of time.

They used dots to represent one and lines to represent five. A shell image

represents zero.

So according to the Maya, their society started at a date of 13 baktuns, zero

katoons, zero toons, zero weanels, and zero kins.

That date, at the exact completion of 13 baktuns, restarted their calendar and

began a new cycle.

The clock was now ticking on a new era, the era of humans on earth.

And at the end of 13 more Bhaktuns, the cycle will start again.

In other words, the Maya didn't just pinpoint the beginning of the world.

They may have provided the tools to calculate precisely when it will come to

end.

Tonight, armed with Nostradamus' final doomsday prophecy,

The search is on for the precise moment our world might come to an end.

Fortunately, a recently unearthed Mayan calendar may provide some additional

clues.

The calendar at Kirigoua reveals that the Maya believed time was cyclical and

that it would reset every 13 baktuns, a period that in our calendar is exactly 1

,872 ,000 days long.

When does that new era begin?

Well, actually, it already has.

On a date you may have heard of.

December 21st, 2012.

Doomsday predictors worldwide thought 2012 might have marked the end of days.

But the ancient Maya felt differently.

They didn't imagine the end of an era to mean Armageddon.

They thought there was an era before this cycle.

And there would be another afterward.

Maya always seen the completion of a time cycle with a very positive note.

it's the beginning of a new era, a new start.

And that would have been a big celebration.

And of course, the world didn't end in 2012.

But according to Nostradamus, the new era still might be significant.

We've seen Nostradamus' predictions of how the world will end in his secret

letter to his son.

But that letter also provides more crucial information, his roadmap of the

events leading up to doomsday.

He specifically states that a new era will begin just before the end of the

world.

Following this, he writes, there will have fallen from the sky a great

of fire and burning stones.

From this moment, before 177 years, three months and 11 days have passed.

By pestilence, long famine, and wars, the world will be so diminished.

Could the Mayan new era, so recently begun, have also started a ticking clock

towards Armageddon?

If so, we should look for Nostradamus' next sign.

burning stones falling from the sky.

This is the Chelyabinsk event, a meteor that violently exploded over Russia less

than two months after the Mayan cycle reset in December 2012.

The timing of this fiery meteor is uncanny.

And according to scientists at Pasadena, California's Planetary Society, another

much bigger threat could be on its way.

In 1980, Carl Sagan, Louis Friedman, and Bruce Murray founded the

Planetary Society to empower the public to advance space science and

exploration.

Their efforts continue today under the leadership of CEO Bill Nye.

One of the group's key initiatives Planetary Defense, led by Chief

Bruce Betts.

So asteroid defense, sometimes called planetary defense, is protecting the

from impact from asteroids or comets.

And if we don't do something, they will hit the Earth again, 100 % probability.

Anyone who's watched a meteor shower knows that many asteroids simply burn up

the atmosphere with no effect.

But they actually get close enough to cause damage with surprising frequency.

About once every five years, an asteroid with as much kinetic energy as an

atomic bomb reaches our planet.

It's a trend that shows no signs of stopping.

There are thought to be about a million near -Earth asteroids capable of causing

significant damage if they impacted the Earth.

And we've only found about 20 ,000 of them.

Any near -Earth object less than 100 meters long is incredibly difficult for

scientists to detect.

But even objects of that size can be devastating.

In 2013, there was an impact of a roughly 18 to 20 meter diameter asteroid

we did not see coming over Chelyabinsk, Russia.

The explosion from this relatively small meteor injured 1 ,500 people, and the

shock waves from the impact damaged 7 ,200 buildings in six cities.

Impacts like these suggest that our planetary defenses may need significant

improvement.

Here we've got the asteroid belt. This is all known asteroids, with yellow

the asteroid belt, not dangerous to Earth, and blue, dangerous to Earth.

So it's critical to find more of the asteroids that are potential threats to

Earth. We can't know if we're in danger if we haven't found them and figured out

what their orbits are.

The Planetary Society is working alongside NASA and several universities

increase our knowledge of dangerous asteroids and save the planet from

devastation.

One of their most promising projects is called OSIRIS -REx.

As part of this project, a probe has been landed on the near -Earth asteroid

Bennu.

The team hopes to learn more about Bennu's orbit and composition to better

determine how to intercept and destroy any asteroid that could become a threat.

By the end of the OSIRIS -REx main mission, it will make a major

both to asteroid science, to history of the solar system, and to asteroid

defense.

Currently, Bennu itself isn't a threat.

It has a very stable orbit revolving around the Sun every 1 .2 years.

But that stability may not last much longer.

Bennu will do a close flyby of Earth in 2135, and the Earth's gravity will

change the orbit of Bennu.

After this upcoming close encounter with the Earth, scientists can only guess

where the asteroid will head.

But if their projections are correct, we might end up directly in the line of

fire for a potentially world -ending event.

The famed Nostradamus predicts that the end of the world will commence with a

great rain of fiery rocks from the sky.

And as it turns out, scientists might agree.

The Planetary Society is currently tracking 20 ,000 dangerous asteroids

orbits could approach our planet.

One in particular, the 500 -meter -wide Bennu, may soon be on a collision course

with Earth.

Bennu is recognized as a potentially hazardous asteroid, a category of

that are a subset of the near -Earth asteroid population that are both big,

over 140 meters,

come particularly close to Earth in their orbit.

For the next 100 years or so, Bennu's orbit will remain stable.

But in the year 2135 it will pass quite close to Earth.

Our gravity will change its course, making its new path unpredictable and

potentially deadly.

Bennu has one of the highest probabilities of any asteroid that we

impact Earth. It's about 1 in 2 ,700 that it would impact sometime late in

22nd century.

In other words, once Bennu's course is altered, we'll be twice as likely to die

from the asteroid's impact than from a simple traffic accident.

If Bennu strikes, scientists have calculated that it could happen between

years 2175 and 2196.

This is a comparison of the 20 -meter Chelyabinsk impactor with the more than

500 -meter Bennu, which obviously would be enormously more destructive.

An asteroid of Bennu's size would release 80 ,000 times more energy than

Hiroshima atomic bomb left.

resulting in a major catastrophic event.

A 500 -meter asteroid like Bennu with an Earth impact would cause a level of

destruction that's really unprecedented in human history, creating a true global

disaster.

Before that happens, scientists are racing to develop methods to protect the

Earth from asteroid Bennu.

and others like it that are yet to be discovered.

If you have a lot of lead time, you may be able to use what they call the

kinetic impactor. This is basically you slam a spacecraft into the asteroid and

push it, change its orbit.

Another option is nuclear option, which obviously has some major political

issues about it, but you can use nuclear weapons to either deflect or disrupt.

But while ideas are taking shape, the technology isn't ready yet.

And with Bennu bearing down, we may have precious little time remaining.

The more I've learned about the issue, the more serious I realize it is.

It's got a 100 % probability of something really damaging hitting the

Sometimes it's hard to get people to take it seriously because it doesn't

every day. It doesn't even happen every year.

but it will happen.

If asteroid Bennu ends up on a crash course for our planet, the timing of it

a very surprising correlation with the predictions of both the Maya and

Nostradamus.

What if December 2012 marked the beginning of the new era as foretold by

Nostradamus?

His calculations place the end of the world 177 years, 3 months, and 11 days

afterward.

That would be April of the year 2190, directly within the 21 -year window that

asteroid Bennu could impact the Earth.

Is it possible that Nostradamus identified the exact timeline in which

will end?

We don't know if Bennu will collide with our planet.

We also don't know if the start of Nostradamus' new era coincides with the

new era in 2012.

What we do know is that Nostradamus used an intensive study of the past to

predict the future.

And time and time again, great civilizations were undone by the same

wrote about.

War, disease, pestilence, drought, and famine.

The Rapa Nui thought that they were safe in their isolation, happily crafting

their monuments, oblivious to the many factors that caused their demise until

was too late.

The Maya controlled a vast territory with technology so advanced that they

thought that they could see the future.

And yet, like so many before and since, their world still came to an end.

What does the future have in store for us?

Could 2190 be our last year on Earth?

As Albert Einstein said, all we can do is wait and see.

The search continues.

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0