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On the 21st of December 2012, Rio De Janiero's Christ The Redeemer will crumble, fiery red comets will fly towards John Cusack's car, roads will roll up into the air like unfurled rugs, the Vatican will fall over and a tidal wave will crush the White House.

According to director Roland Emmerich's new disaster film, 2012, anyway. Loosely (and we mean 'loosely') based on the Mayan prophesies where their 'long count calendar' predicts that the end of the world will be on December 21 or 23, 2012, the movie aims to make you wet your drawers, shake in your seat and awkwardly wrestle your innate fear of everything going kababoom.

But what other predictions are there in the works? Here's Asylum's collection of Apocalyptic guesswork, what-ifs and maybes after the jump.

The Nibiru collision

Originally pencilled in for 2003, but quickly revised to sometime around 2010, the Nibiru collision is the moment when the earth will be introduced to another planet by means of smashing into one another. Nancy Lieder (a woman who speaks to grey aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system) told us so on her website, ZetaTalk. We can discount this one as a loads of pseudoscientific waffle because, for one, thing, we'd see it coming. Which we don't. We've checked.


The second to last Pope

Back in the 12th century the Irish saint Malachy, the bishop of Armagh, made a series of predictions about future Popes, listing some names and stating which one would be the last. The current Pope, Benedict XVI, is the penultimate Pope on the list, and after he shuffles off this mortal coil, the next Pope will be the last and "the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End." Which is pretty emphatic, we think.


Nostradamus's predictions

Michel de Nostredame's 16th century blockbuster bestseller "The Prophecies" has, according to differing translations and interpretations, predicted: Great Fire of London, Adolf Hitler, September 11th and more – all noticed in hindsight, mind, but still, we probably couldn't do any better. In amongst his predictive quatrains are a few lines that hint at 3786 or 3797 being the year our collective number is up – and if you're still alive then to check, leave a comment in the box below. Ta.

Gamma rays

There's no way of predicting exactly when, but we are 'assured' that by 1000000 AD the universe as we know it will kersplode into minute smithereens when two nearby stars collapse, emitting a Gamma Ray that will burst with the power of over 10 billion of our suns. Needless to say, Mother Earth won't walk away unscathed from that one, with radiation levels going through the roof, the stratosphere and a little further besides.

The ever expanding sun

In a billion years time, the sun will have expanded so much that the water will boil off the oceans and the planet will look more like a torched scotch egg than the big blue ball it resembles now. And if that weren't enough, what remains of the earth will be engulfed by the ever-expanding sun in 7.6 billion years, which will officially spell the end of world as anyone has ever known it, ever. We're guessing we'll have been dead for a good while by that point, so it'll just be a big fireworks display for those guys over on planet Zeta.


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