Is the world really about to come to an end? No, probably not

The world is about to end, according to news websites. But it's almost certainly not.

Multiple news reports are claiming that the end of the world might be about to arrive. "End Of The World ‘Weeks Away’ After Biblical Plagues Start On Earth", one reads, while another claims that "End of World ‘IN WEEKS’ as signs '10 Bible plagues to destroy Earth have started’".

One of them begins "THE end of the world is coming in weeks and the first of the Biblical 10 plagues have already been seen, according to extraordinary claims". But those extraordinary claims should come with extraordinary evidence – and while there are some strange things going on, the apocalypse simply isn't about to arrive.

All of those reports are a little confused, not saying exactly how or why the world is about to end. But they mostly point to a claim made by David Meade, who wrote a book called 'Planet X – The 2017 Arrival', and says that the end of the world is coming in October.

Mr Meade has reportedly suggested that Planet X or Nibiru – a huge planet that apparently inhabits our solar system – will come smashing into the Earth soon, and destroy everything here. The trouble is that there's no such thing as the rogue planet Nibiru, and it's certainly not arriving to wipe us out any time soon.

Nasa was forced to deny that Nibiru was coming all the way back in 2012, writing on its website that: "If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist."

The planet never arrived then, or any of the other times it has been predicted. But people keep writing about its arrival.

Now the Daily Star suggests people think this time is different because the supposed impending arrival of Nibiru has been presaged by some of the ten Biblical plagues that will accompany it. (It's not clear why a rogue planet would be controlled by God, or how a distant rock would be able to provoke such specific events on Earth.)

One of those plagues is supposed to be the swarm of locusts that has arrived in southern Russia, and has been depicted in horrifying videos. But that happens annually – and the world hasn't ended anytime lately, as far as we can tell.

(Those swarms of locusts are becoming more common and prevalent because of climate change. Some might argue that's a more important way that the world could potentially come to an end.)

The other is the upcoming solar eclipse, which really will arrive on 21 August and sweep across the whole of the US. Eclipses have long been feared in some culture as negative signs – but there appears to be little basis for that worry, and as far as we know the world has never ended because of one.

Of course, the world might be about to come to an end – it's simply impossible to know with absolute certainty. But the advantage of choosing to be doubtful is that nobody will be around to say you were wrong.

Update: This article was posted recently, but Mr Meade is once again claiming that the world is going to end – and his claims are being reported as fact by news sites. He was wrong before and will be wrong this time around, and we have re-published this article to say so.