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'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' - The Sign of the Four
At the beginning of this year, the media began reporting on the phenomenon of mass animal deaths that were occuring almost simultaneously all over the world. Frightening to read, the articles and photos strongly resembled the tension building scenes from a typical Hollywood apocalyptic blockbuster - the scenes that occur right before the destruction of the planet unfolds on an epic scale.
In countries all around the world hundreds to thousands of dead birds fell out of their skies, for no obvious reason. Reports poured in daily of thousands to millions of dead fish washing up onto beaches in both hemispheres. And there was more to come - mysterious livestock deaths would occur in the hundreds and whales dead from starvation would wash ashore in waters far from their natural habitat. During the most bountiful season, inexplicably starving animals would attack humans as food and sharks would attack swimmers in unprecedented numbers. This was bad. Really bad. And we weren't sitting in a comfortable cinema chair with popcorn in one hand and a Coke in the other, this was happening for real.
Everyone was becoming unnerved, strange things were happening all over the world, things we weren't used to hearing about. What made matters worse was knowing scientists didn't have any clear answers as to why so many creatures were dying or behaving as they were.
When the devastating M9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan's north east coast on March 11, the threat of a real global disaster felt imminent. Without answers to help us, man did what he has always done throughout history when something he doesn't understand threatens him, he finds a way to explain it, to make sense of it. Over the next six months there were many theories, some more elegantly presented than others. 2012 and the Mayan Calendar. HAARP. The NWO. Project Bluebeam. The End Times. Global Warming. Nibiru/Planet X. Comet Elenin. Alien Agendas.
But despite this parade of horribles, many were perversely excited about it. Google searches about what was unfolding on Earth turned up thousands of comments and videos revealing many who were bizarrely looking forward to the planet's demise, all jockeying to be the first one to have their theories proven right. A few exhibited actual disappointment when Elenin failed to bring the apocalyptic end to Earth they had confidently predicted. However, instead of considering they might have jumped to conclusions, Eleninists formulated elaborate ad-hoc hypotheses explaining why their predictions did not manifest. Without a parsimonious explanation for the events we experienced this past year, it is understandable some would rather persist in believing in a false theory than accept the possibility of moving into the future completely blind.
For those who had been making it their life's work to build bunkers and stockpile every imaginable form of survival kit to ride out whatever is going to happen, whenever it happens, these events must have felt like real validation. And even though the rapture did not occur as planned, Christians still felt the need to quote Bible verses admonishing others to pray for forgiveness. According to them, these events proved we were in the end times and the Lord would be coming back any day now to punish the wicked. When put together, the over-arching global pattern of thousands trying to make square pegs fit into round holes in order to keep their paradigms intact must have been a very interesting development for anthropologists to observe.
