Is a killer “chaos cloud” heading towards the Earth, spelling our ultimate doom?
Uh, duh. No.
A lot of people are emailing me about it though. Yahoo News, those goofballs, reproduced an article in (wait for it…) the Weekly World News, claiming that this criminal cosmic killer chaos cloud would annihilate us in 2014.
I didn’t write up a detailed debunking of this, since it’s from the Weekly World News. I mean, really! But I did write a brief Bad Astronomy article about it, and it’s up on my news section of the main site. Read all about it there.
Sheesh. Killer clouds. What’s next? Astrology? No, wait. That’s always in real newspapers. My work will never ever end.
September 19th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
Best. Picture. Ever.
September 19th, 2005 at 10:49 pm
For a closeup and description of this image (without my crappy Photoshopping), go to the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today discussion forum.
September 20th, 2005 at 4:41 am
Snopes has had to post about this ‘killer cloud’ as well. The writers at WWN must be celebrating having yet another of their made-up articles hit the mainstream press.
September 20th, 2005 at 6:20 am
You know, I’d ask if anyone truly believes this crap, but I remember Nancy….. So, so sad…..
September 20th, 2005 at 6:40 am
“Sheesh. Killer clouds. What’s next? Astrology? No, wait. That’s always in real newspapers. My work will never ever end.”
***
Look on the bright side:
You have ample job security.
September 20th, 2005 at 6:59 am
haha, hilarious indeed. I enjoyed your writeup aswell.
Especially the googling of the doctors name, & the obvious mistake of:
‘And another thing: the article says Chandra detected the cloud, but in reality Chandra would be rather blind to the type of radiation emitted as electrons and positrons collide. They emit gamma rays, the kind of energy seen by satellites like INTEGRAL. Chandra detects X-rays, which are lower energy, and are not produced by the collision of electrons and positrons.’
Another useless news article dealt with.
September 20th, 2005 at 7:32 am
My favorite WWN story was the one about the time-traveling stock trader who was under investigation for insider trading…
September 20th, 2005 at 7:39 am
This isn’t the first time the Weekly World News has caused a stir.
In 1994, it reported that several U.S. senators were in fact extraterrestrials. Many of those senators later “admitted” to being from another planet.
September 20th, 2005 at 8:40 am
There was an awesome video game with a killer chaos cloud. But dont worry, the main character stops it. And I can only assume reallity will follow the course of the video game, so I am not worried.
September 20th, 2005 at 9:29 am
…This sounds like a bad scifi movie plot. Seriously.
September 20th, 2005 at 10:27 am
What???
But can you not all see the face in the cloud???
It’s either Jesus or Bob Marley.
September 20th, 2005 at 11:36 am
Heh, pseudoscience has *one* good purpose, I think — it’s a decent inspiration for making settings in fantasy-based RPGs. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Square-Enix is going to catch onto this chaos cloud story and make it the villain (or the villain’s tool, like the Meteor in FF7) in Final Fantasy 13 a couple years from now. Just watch!
Now, throw me one of those Mega-Elixirs — I need a quick tonic to cure this stubbed, pustulous, broken toenail in a matter of seconds. lol
September 20th, 2005 at 11:47 am
“But can you not all see the face in the cloud???
It’s either Jesus or Bob Marley.”
No, it’s obviously a duck. There’s no question, the ducks are here to take over the world. I have special psychic powers to see it. They disguise themselves as little birds so no one can tell, but I can! It’s too late! Hahahahahahaha!!!!!
September 20th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
Can’t you all see what it is??? It is the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!! HE IS HERE … bow in his presence
WE’RE NOT WORTHY
WE’RE NOT WORTHY
WE’RE NOT WORTHY…..
September 20th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
I have my doubts that anyone is taking this seriously.
September 20th, 2005 at 4:28 pm
The Flying Spaghetti Monster refrence tip ya off?
September 20th, 2005 at 6:44 pm
“No, it’s obviously a duck. There’s no question, the ducks are here to take over the world.”
AFLAC!!!!
September 20th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
It would have been alliterively better written as the “Kriminal Kosmic Killer Kaos Kloud.” *Then* I would take it seriously.
And I still think the visitation in your shower curtain looks more like Colonel Sanders than Lenin, but that is just my preference for fried chicken over borscht I think.
September 20th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
It IS a cool-looking cloud, though. Without the face.
All must bow down to the ultimate Pastafarian, the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
September 20th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
lol lol wat a joke!!!!
September 21st, 2005 at 9:48 pm
can someone call and confirm?
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
617.496.7998
September 21st, 2005 at 9:55 pm
Snap! Im 1 day and a min off from Sriram’s post…
ps: that contact name and number is real.
I dont have the balls to call and confirm….because I dont want Big brother wondering what I am up to.
We’re all going to die sooner or later, atleast this time we’re all go out with a big bang.
September 21st, 2005 at 10:10 pm
I know Megan, and I also know better than to call her on this. Why bother? I already showed this is a load of garbage.
Then again, I might call her anyway and show her my webpage, so that she knows there’s a place she can point people who call her.
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:52 am
Actually, when I first read that article I got the impression that the scientist had been reading too much Stephen King and not enough Sephen Hawking.
You know, “The Langoliers”where the plane goes through some type of time warp and they end up in a place where the entire world is getting devoured…
September 22nd, 2005 at 1:35 pm
i know some end of the world sugested dateas
2015
2012
2006
2004
2000
add them all together
then divide by 5….
the avrege is……..
the world will end in year 2007.4
September 23rd, 2005 at 6:02 am
I’m going to start wrapping my house in aluminum foil, so the particles will bounce off. Just before it hits, I’ll douse the place in bleach so the acid will be neutralized. If anyone wants to come over for the party, let me know….
September 23rd, 2005 at 9:51 am
When I first heard about the chaos cloud I thought someone was just making it up, but know that read this article I belive that there could be something out there.
September 23rd, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Okay look it’s impossible. Not for it to happen, because they describe it as a moving black hole almost, but for us to predict it.
The only way we know things are comming at us is we see it. And since sight is light bouncing off objects at different frequencies to give us sight and color, sight happens at the speed of light. But it takes light a LOOOOONG time to travel that far. When you look up to the sky at night, every star you see could be burned out, but we wouldnt know because the light traveling to us is 20 million years old.
So if this thing is moving close to the speed of light, hours after we saw it it’d smack us down. Even if it was moving at half the speed of light we wouldnt be able to see it for a nother 4 or 5 years. It’s garbage.
It’s a really cool thought though, Galaxy sized Grim Reaper ^__^
September 24th, 2005 at 1:37 am
To SHinagami:
Pure nonse, where did you get the 20 million from? the stars are a distances from 4 light years to billions of light year.
but then again the Flying Spaghetti Monster defies all natural laws.
September 24th, 2005 at 8:37 am
haha amusing
September 24th, 2005 at 11:49 am
i really think this cloud is fake, a lot of sad people have been coming up with comets (which turn out to not exist) and now a cloud….OH MY GTOD a killer cloud, what’s next, killer underwear?
September 24th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Fun article, great graphic! We’ve actually been discussing this ‘chaos-acid cloud’ too over here
http://www.belowtopsecret.com/thread171297/pg1
Seems to have created quite the stir, not unlike the infamous “Aussie Bloke” hoax!
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread55811/pg1
Maybe him and John Titor can jump in his chevy and fight the chaos cloud!
September 28th, 2005 at 10:39 am
Killer cloud?
Bad sci-fi plot?
Can you say “V-Ger?”
Somebody at WWN must have been watching ST:TMP the night before they wrote their story.
September 30th, 2005 at 11:36 am
It would seem that somone over at Weekly World News has recently read the Jack McDevitt future-history novels “The Engines of God” and “Omega.”
In those fine books the protagonists are forced to deal with huge (more than planet-sized) “clouds” which envelope planets and cause mayhem and destruction where-ever they go.
Sound familiar?
‘Truth’ is always stranger than fiction particularly when it is plagiarized from fiction and doesn’t contain a shred of proof.
October 2nd, 2005 at 1:58 pm
lol i know where this came from check out this webpage and you will see that the guy was on coke reading this book and thought it was real, took two minutes to look up a telescope then said OMG OMG tell the pappers it’s a frikken cloud coming at us. plus the dang thing is under the movies”: entertainment and gossip section of yahoo for god sakes!
http://www.bflord.com/cloud.html
that stupid artical is a blatent ripoff of someones idea fro a friken book.
can i say frikken here?
October 3rd, 2005 at 7:18 pm
Can I get a job over at WWN? If all you have to do is make up shiznit like this, count me in!
Killer Clouds…somewhere in the great beyond, Ed Wood is going “Why didn’t I think of that?”
October 4th, 2005 at 12:32 am
That’s the most meanacing cloud ever.
October 5th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
he he he you jokers
October 7th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
That’s right. Laugh. They laughed at Noah, after all. They laughed at.. umm.. somebody else and HE was right, too!
Now, where did I put my chaos raincoat and brolly?
October 11th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
Actually, if you think about it, there is something to worry about here. If you were a superintelligent and malevolent alien civilization, and you wanted to wipe out life on Earth with a killer cloud, wouldn’t you first circulate a “false” story that such a cloud was coming? Then when the actual cloud appears, everyone would say, “oh not that silly cloud thing again, didn’t you hear that was just a hoax?” Food for thought…
October 14th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
The likelihood of it being a real black hole is unlikely. The world has being going on for eons and will likely continue to do so. It is more likely to be something wrong with their understanding, or their observations.
October 20th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
call me one of those gullibe ignoramouses we’ve all met one time or another in our life. not to throw us spirituality seekers into the fire to burn, i’ve picked up this book called ‘david wilcox’ reincarnation of edgar cayce. if you’re not familiar with edgar cayce he was known during the earlier part of the 20th century as being a seer/diagnoser of sorts who was able to acquire knowledge through a self-induced trance that his 9th grade education had never made known to him. he died a few decades back and supposedly has reincarnated as this fellow, wilcox. in this book wilcox expands on varioius subjects that he himself was not aware of until he accessed an insane amount of knowledge through trance as well. in his book he speaks of an event that will happen around 2014/2015 where the solar system will be moving into the path of a dust cloud which will increase the density in which our solar system inhabits. its funny how this gentle way of forewarning us of this impending apocalypse is supposed to aid (through fear) his reaping of followers. i find amusing the great lengths at which people will go for them to get others to see things the way they see it. but why i bring this up is because unless you see those who seek enlightnment as loonies chasing yet another illusioned paradise, this man has some credibility. if this doesn’t get you thinkin, not just about the ridiculousness of a cloud that will obliterate earth, but more towards the idea that anything is possible and that life is short, then perhaps you’ll wake up a bit and stray from these cyclical lifestyles we leave. all i can say is laugh then…just leave a little hole in our heads so that we can air them out when they get too big.
October 25th, 2005 at 6:08 pm
Gee. then the bunnies will come from the cloud and freak boy will trance them into submisson, yeah life is short, and some things are impossible, and gee did you ever stop to think for one minute, that that might be where they got the idea for the article, but i mean come-on if the appoclyps is coming, then we would start to see the signs that god promissed us. wait we did see one didn’t we, the unification of money…. the Ereuo hmm…. now i am still waiting for that time when we will get our indestructible, incorputable spiritual bodies, then the 1000 years of peace, then life will be gone. so unless all of a sudden we became invinsible, and war finnally ended, and somehow the next 11 years were turned to into 1000 years i think we are ok. maybe
October 27th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
There is one thing about this “demistifacation” that seems to me to be misenterpreted… The author kkeps on talking about the Gamma radiation. There NOTHING in the original article that mentions ANY Gamma rays, it even in some ways proves what the author of the disproving article wrote: “Orginaly, Hawkings Radiantion is harmless”. And it specifically says that the “Chaos Cloud” is composed out of particles NOT light. Now, I am not supporting this ‘Planet Dissolving Cloud’ article, but this author, in my opinion does not provide sufficent explanation or arguments to completely disprove it. I would go as far as saying that the orginal article was more “convinsing” even though it does seem like a bunch of bull crap.
October 29th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
hm… yes, if you don’t stop to think about how impossible it is, you need light to see it, light bounces of paticles, if it was moving near the speed of light, then you would see it, and then be dissolved a few minutes later… Besides that how is going to get up to the speed of light? It needs a way to be propelled. Anyway, this auther seems to beleive what he is saying, But i mean so many self proclaimed prophets have preddicted the end of the world. The world was supposed to end in 1999 (nostradomis), and it was supposed to end in 2000 (Y2K) it was supposed to end sometime around the 1600 the earth is still here! Hasn’t been Exploded, nuclear winter hasn’t taken over, and the planet is not going to be dissolved. And i believe the event he is talking so incorectly about is how our Galaxy is moving into the path of another, and they will end up coliding some 400 billion years (or something to that effect) from now. the planet is also suposed to come into another horrible calamity some 20 billion years (this time is not exact it is an estimate based on what i can remember) from now when the sun turns into a super giant
November 9th, 2005 at 1:24 am
Geez, what a crock….
I knew this was crap when I first saw the article, simply because of this-if there really WAS some kind of cloud floating around in space, screwing up everything in its path, and it was due to hit Earth in nine years, we would have seen the effects of it by now. You know, stuff like comets that were scheduled to make a flyby not showing up on time, etc, etc, ad nauseam.
However, this article has some merit! I showed it to a guy I know, and when he promptly fell for it, I knew that I should never recommend him as a date for any of my friends.
I wonder about how willing people are these days to automatically believe such doom & gloom stories as this, though. Doesn’t it say something about society when there are so many people who are willing to accept any bad news they’re given? I’m off to go ponder this…maybe I’ll figure it out after the caffiene wears off…..
November 9th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Actually, the cloud detected by Chandra was detected by the occlusion of X-ray energy deflected, and not by direct observation. The only thing wrong with the data is the miscalculation of the date it will affect our solar system, which is actually a few years sooner than 2014.
The Mayan calendar predicts this event and does not provide for days beyond the threshold of the anomaly, (December 12, 2012) which will signify the arrival of the end of the 6th Baktun, the end of the Long Count Great Cycle, beyond which this time ceases and another begins.
The Maya referred to the fractal geometry of the cloud as the “Sacred Tree”, and likened the tendrils of the mass to a living, growing, consuming entity, which it could conceivably be, or not.
Most people will choose not to know what hit them, which is fine. It is cruel to taunt the uninitiated innocent mind with facts.
November 21st, 2005 at 10:16 am
You people are being taken for a ride by WWN—BOY!!! ARE you people being taken for a ride, while WWN laughs it’s b**** off all the way to the bank!! do you REALLY think that they personally believe ANY of the stuff that they publish?!!!!!! The amount of sponsors they’ve got because of this blog site will probably work out to millions of $’s in unearned (and undeserved) money!! So go ahead, bloggers, help out the needy!!!!!!!
December 30th, 2005 at 10:35 am
Wonder if we fed all this info, as well as Nostradamus, as well as the Book of Revelation, as well as the Mayan doomsday calender, as well as whatever scientific data we have into a super computer….if maybe we will come up with some…err….reasonable, rational, righteous and real answer…
Or if it will remain a matter of the human race believing what is comfortable only…..
See you when the “new” heaven and “new” earth is established…
Of course after the “heavens have rolled up like a book, the sun became like a hairy sack and the moon became like blood….
We are in exciting times…..
January 3rd, 2006 at 1:10 pm
haha!!! at 1st i got scared but this is really dumb if u think about!!! haha!! well i hope its not real!!! cuz i wont be awake at 9:15 when its supposed 2 happen!!
January 7th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
DONT WORRY MANKIND!!!! I AM HERE TO DEFEND YOU AGAINST THE CLOUD OF DOOM!
YES! ARMED WITH THE MASTER SWORD AND THE HOLY GRAIL I SHALL DEFLECT THIS ONCOMING CLOUD AWAY FROM OUR FERTILE EARTH!!!!
FEARNOT! YOUR CHAMPION HAS ARRIVED!!!
hahah
EVEN if this cloud does exist and does hit us…going at lightspeed and with the power to dissolve planets AND stars, we wont even feel it when it happens, it will be the most instant painless death you can imagine….or maybe we will write in pain and agony as it slowly eats away your flesh!!! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
WAIT!!
maybe the cloud is satan!!!!! OMFG CALL JESUS IN HERE!!!
lololol this is too funny….killer klouds from outer space
January 11th, 2006 at 9:26 am
NASA may have to collide an Asteroid With the Maya Comet in 2012
In 2012 the Maya predict that a killer planet sized Comet will
bring about the end of this world. The Earth may not have enough
Atomic bombs to deflect this Mayan planet killer, but there is a
possibility of pushing an asteroid into the comet and saving the Earth.
A combination shot of deviating an asteroid off of it’s orbit
and into the path of the Killer Mayan Comet. NASA should start
preparing asteroid comet collision senarios NOW.
HOWARD SCOTT PEARLMAN
January 10, 2006
howardpearlman2005@hotmail.com
January 11th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
This is incredible!!! the article is almost as good the one about how toilets being gateways to hell!!! or how Hillary having an affair with a space alien. I mean come on half of their sources aren’t even real! these tabloids have been sued over the decades!! anyway if it’s true then BATBOY will come to our rescue!!
January 12th, 2006 at 10:52 am
die
January 12th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Everyone dont fart until 2014!
Eat some eggs, cabbage and beans and DONT FART ANYMORE!
When the clound comes everyone FART togheter and the cloud is DEAD…
January 19th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Oh, who can help us now??? We have 2 mega-biggest threats hunting us!!! Don´t forget the Photon Belt… they are doing a “race”, huahuahaua
http://www.salemctr.com/photon.html
January 24th, 2006 at 5:42 am
The worst thing is to read a translated text in Portuguese of that rubbish in a true newspaper. The “smart” journalist who posted it should be fired. Oh, well, that’s the problem about putting journalists to right about science.
January 24th, 2006 at 5:47 am
I thing they have misread: Jimmi Hendrix has popularized the “Chaos Cloud”… it’s made of smoked weed!
January 27th, 2006 at 12:04 am
Hey smart asses. Have you ever done much research into the G-cloud aka the galactic cloud. No – it’s not headed toward us – we’re headed towards IT. Merely a matter of semantics.
January 30th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Man, do I feel stupid.
February 8th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
on the mention of Astrology…
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe a word of it, but-
I really don’t think you can deny that the force of gravity from celestial objects has some sort of effect on you, and everyone else…
I mean, the moon controls the tides. You think that doesn’t have an effect on you?
March 27th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
This is a way better explanation is this bogus newspaper crap than i’ve seen on other sites, good job.
April 22nd, 2006 at 9:06 am
Look, In 1994 we were supposed to be blown to smitherines but were we? Umm. NO and then in 2000 the world was supposed to end but did it?? NO!! TO be quite honest, if this ‘chaos cloud’ is supposed to come, lets live life day by day because you never know, you could be knocked over by a bus tomorrow!!
March 12th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
So mister F. Scott Keyboard Your trying to convince me the world will end because the mayian people didn’t feel like making a calender any longer than a certain date? What a bunch of crap. they died hundereds of yeards ago… should tell you soemthing about how smart they were. and tell me this, is there some warehouse where we have calenders already made up for the year 2873? I think not.
Lady Raka:
Wonder if we fed all this info, as well as Nostradamus, as well as the Book of Revelation, as well as the Mayan doomsday calender, as well as whatever scientific data we have into a super computer….if maybe we will come up with some…err….reasonable, rational, righteous and real answer…
the book of revelations states “And no one not even me (christ was speaking he wrote this book) shall know the day when the shall be wiped clean.
or something to that effect.
Simply put, poeple are stupid, and Emo’s wana have an excuse to whine so here we have a “G-cloud (idiot)” the we are heading towards and we’re all gunna die.
Explain this to me… how can a cloud of stay together in space without a unifying gravitational force? Last time i knew a cloud was made of small particles of whatever held together by gravity in space produced from some large space rock, or here on earth by atmospheric pressure.
So before you convince me there is some deadly cloud in space, tell me how it stays together.
March 12th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
sorry i had to put one more thing this G-cloud is not dangerous to anything but space crafts and only midly even then. Thats why i said (idiot) before here is an article read it, accept, learn something.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/dust_storm_030814.html
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
[...] I know, it’s all a big joke, and a lot of folks think that anyone who takes it seriously maybe deserves what they get. And I can’t really fault the Weekly World News if some bonehead at Yahoo News picks up one of their more ridiculous stories and posts it as straight news, thus starting a minor internet scare that the world is coming to an end. [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 7:19 pm
wow that is one long page so mabe shorten it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!