Brad Meltzer's Decoded (2010) s01e07 Episode Script
2012
What if I told you that I knew when the world would end? Yeah, I'd think I was crazy, too, but I have a source.
Throughout time, man has sought answers to his future, and it turns out that one of the best prognosticators happens to be, of all people, the hopi Indians.
These great native-American prophets literally emerged from the grand canyon hundreds of years ago.
The Spanish discovered them in 1540, but they're thought to have called Arizona home for 700 years.
They have nine sacred prophecies, which foretell many of the advances of modern man Including the arrival of the railroad, cars, and even the Internet Hundreds of years before anyone had heard of these things.
The hopis also have an end-of-days prophecy that seems like it's starting to happen.
The frightening thing is the prediction is almost identical to the apocalyptic predictions of the Mayans.
It is the one thing almost every religion agrees on -- that the world will end.
So when one group with such a good track record says they know how the end times come I want to know what they're predicting.
I'm Brad Meltzer.
I've spent my life collecting stories.
The best include signs, symbols, and codes, secret meanings that are hidden in plain sight.
Some have become the basis for my novels, but I've only scratched the surface of what's out there.
And now history has given me the resources to investigate the rest.
This is "decoded.
" Buddy, Mac, and Scott are on mules now, and they're headed to the hopi reservation in Arizona.
And you know what a mule is? It is a cross between a horse and a donkey.
You see what I just did there? I decoded that for you.
The decoders are saddled up and ready to decode.
I wouldn't want this to be my main method of transportation, though.
But these are strong animals.
I wouldn't mind it.
Let's go.
Yes.
Here she comes.
Come on, don't let them kick our ass.
Come on.
Good girl.
Easy.
So, this is where the hopi live.
They're kind of the experts on the end of the world.
They seem to have such accurate information.
They make a prediction, it turns out to be correct.
There are numerous religions who have all prophesied cataclysmic events at a certain point.
I mean, their prophecies are so similar that it's kind of hard to ignore.
This author, Gary David, has been studying hopi culture and prophecies for a long time.
And we have a chance to talk to him about what they believe and about what's gonna happen.
The name "hopi" literally translated means "peaceful people.
" And since the very beginning of hopi civilization, certain tribal elders who were considered to be in the know -- they'd share their prophecies, their visions of the future, and what awaited them and the rest of the tribe members.
These hopi prophecies have been handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years, always through word of mouth.
And the most chilling of these prophecies -- it deals with the end of the world as we know it.
The hopi believe that this world is going to kind of grind to an end, and we're seeing that all the time.
The floods, famines, things we are seeing today, the hopi have predicted.
The mid-20th century is when they started to come to light.
The world started to learn about the hopi prophecies.
The hopi have had prophecies for thousands of years depicting the end of the fourth world.
The hopi believe that they have been destroyed three times before.
The first time was through fire.
Could be an asteroid strike or it could be some kind of volcanism.
The second world was destroyed by ice.
It was some sort of ice age, okay? And the third world was destroyed by a great flood.
Now, many cultures, of course, have flood myths.
Yeah.
And these prophecies are old.
They're thousands of years old.
And they've been passed down through the oral tradition.
Exactly.
Do we know that they were recorded ever previously and this isn't all apocryphal in some way? The hopi did not have a writing system, so it was passed down word of mouth, generation to generation.
The hopi believe we're about to go through what we call a great purification, and their prophecies tell of nine signs.
Many of those signs when translated, they seem to have already come to pass.
And included among them are the coming of the white-skinned man who will take the land for their own.
They absolutely got that right.
They also predicted the land would be crossed by snakes of iron, which is strikingly similar to the railroad tracks that connected America in the 1800s.
Their best one, though, was when the elders also predicted the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices, which can either be covered wagons or, of course, cars.
The hopis then foretold the land would be crossed by a giant spider's web -- kind of sounds like the worldwide web.
These guys are good, right? So when you look at that track record, it makes you pay a bit more attention to what they're saying about the end of days.
The seventh sign is very important.
They said that the sea will turn black, and all the living creatures in the sea will die.
Oh, wow.
And we're heading that way with all of the oil spills, aren't we? Well, it happened in the summer of 2010 -- the Gulf oil spill.
But the hopi believe that at the very end, a dwelling place in the heavens will crash to earth And a blue star will appear to signal that the purification has begun.
Is that, like, an asteroid or a space station? It could be a comet going by or an asteroid strike.
Gary, do the hopi tell us when exactly this is gonna happen or do we -- I've heard it said that the hopi are masters of space and the Maya are masters of time.
The Maya have a specific date, December 21, 2012.
I've read that the Maya and the hopi may have in fact communicated and traded.
There was a lot of trade going on between the Maya territory down in mesoamerica and the hopi up here in Arizona.
And this is 1,300 miles away that these people are traveling on foot.
Right.
There was an exchange of ideas, and I think the ideas about prophecy were exchanged between the Maya and the hopi.
Wow.
The hopis do have a sacred place where their prophecies are recorded.
Thousands of years ago, hopi elders carved their predictions in picture form into the face of this enormous rock.
It's called prophecy rock.
The place is so sacred that outsiders are not even allowed to travel to it.
But the hopis are willing to share the wisdom that the rock holds, though only if they themselves tell the story.
Right now, bertram tsavadawa is filling in buddy, Mac, and Scott and showing them actual pictures of the rock.
When people have made reference to this particular imagery as prophecy rock, in our hopi culture, we don't have any specific word in our language that pertains to prophecy.
It would pertain to understanding or traditional knowledge.
So, the square or rectangle represents of that emergence place, sipapu, within the floor of the grand canyon or may make reference to as that the ancestors were to disperse in the four directions to touch the four corners of the land.
The interpretation of prophecy rock has been debated, but everyone seems to agree on a few things.
The large human figure on the left is their God, or great spirit.
The four stick figures on top represent the three worlds that have come and gone and the fourth world, which we're now in.
The stick figure on the bottom represents the fallen hopi people who have strayed from the correct path and, like the white man, embrace the material world.
The two circles on the left represent the two, what they call, great earth shakings that have passed.
And some think these are the two world wars, but others think they're cataclysmic earthquakes.
The circle on the right is supposed to be the great earth shaking yet to come, and some believe that third earth shaking could be a mega 10.
0 earthquake, the likes of which the world has never seen.
And so, with that, the circle here would be representation of, you know, that balance or cycle of life to death, the weather patterns for the four seasons, the rotation of the earth, as well.
Maybe in some point in time, there was a shift in the axis, so there is certain natural catastrophes that are showing up, pertaining to volcanic eruptions, the liquid fire that the ancestors mention, the tsunamis, and all the earthquakes and tremors.
There was another foretelling of a sign mentioning that water would either rise or fill up the land area.
They mention that one day, we will wake up and we'll see water as a sign from mother nature, you know, that there's something out of balance.
The idea that massive earthquakes and devastating floods will destroy the world is common in many cultures and religions.
It's mentioned in the ancient prophecies of the Mayans, and even the Bible predicts the coming of these apocalyptic events.
Buddy, Mac, and Scott are now headed to Los Angeles to find out more about what a 10.
0 megaquake would be like.
Wow.
God, look at that view.
The amazing thing to me is that this is all gonna be gone if all this stuff we heard about ends up happening and coming true.
You can really see it, too, with the mountains over here and us on a high side over here.
Look at where the water is, the ocean.
You can see why this is the Tsunami-evacuation area.
One giant drainage area, really.
It is, it is.
Bertram's talking about three shakings of the earth.
That could be world wars.
It also could be earthquakes.
And what more prominent place than l.
A.
To come look at earthquakes? I mean, this is just the tip of it.
If what bertram was talking about comes true, I mean, this is gonna all be under water right up to Arizona.
Yeah, he said that we will wake up and see water.
Wow.
God.
The hopis foretell a great rising tide of mother nature seeking revenge on those who have attacked her.
The hopi people have long predicted the end of days.
Passing them down from generation to generation, these prophecies have foretold a series of signs, including tornados, tsunamis, and, more than anything else, earthquakes that will mark the coming apocalypse.
The hopis aren't alone in their beliefs about mankind's future.
The Mayans and many other cultures also have dire predictions about the end of days.
So, buddy, Mac, and Scott are right now in Los Angeles, looking into the similarities between these various prophecies.
Okay, so, we have ancient earthquake prophecies here.
As bertram said, the hopi prophecies mention earthquakes, and some interpretations of the Mayan calendar predict massive earthquakes will annihilate humanity, as well.
Oh, my.
"Christianity echoes a similar sentiment.
In the Bible's book of revelation 8:5, 'then the angel filled the incense burner with fire from the altar and threw it down upon the earth, and thunder crashed, lightning flashed, and there was a terrible earthquake.
'" God, I hope the 8:5 revelation isn't the size on the Richter scale of the thing.
We're in trouble if that's the case.
And, according to the islamic koran, "there are various signs indicating the end of times or day of resurrection.
The earth will experience such a big earthquake that it will cause mountains to crash down, the earth's inner body will break out, and the earth will be stretched.
Crops, animals, and water will be annihilated.
" You see the similarities here? Two things scare me more than anything else in the world, and that's earthquakes and lightning.
I've been in many lightning storms, but the earthquake was one of the scariest things I've ever been in, and we were 100 miles from the epicenter.
Well, according to revelations, you get both.
You get both earthquakes and lightning.
So you don't have to choose.
That's the good news.
I guess mine was of the shaking variety, and the sound was just [Sputtering.]
And then there were -- the plates and the glasses were falling off the shelves and cracking.
And, you know, I was just terrified -- just terrified.
Scientists have recently confirmed a notable increase in seismic activity all over the world.
And this is scary because one of the hopi's signs of the coming apocalypse is a major earthquake unlike any seen in human history.
This does not sound good, especially if you live on a fault line in California.
And guess what -- the gold rush state isn't alone.
Take a look at this.
It's a map of the United States.
The colored areas are spots where earthquakes are possible, according to the U.
S.
geological survey.
That's the majority of the country.
It looks like an earthquake can happen almost anywhere at any time.
And buddy, Mac, and Scott are about to find out just how powerful a megaquake would be.
This is what we call the big shaker.
It's the world's biggest mobile earthquake simulator.
And we're gonna put you in there so that you guys can experience for yourselves what it might be like if that happens.
So, how big an earthquake will we experience in there? We'll give you a 7.
8 today because that's what the scientists and the experts say that we can expect on the San Andreas fault.
The strongest earthquake ever measured in modern history struck Chile on may 22, 1960.
Its magnitude was a record-breaking 9.
5.
It created Tsunami waves 82 feet high, which battered the Chilean coast, and 6,000 people were killed.
So, think what that would feel like.
To give you an example, in Haiti, in January 2010, that was a 7.
0.
We're gonna do bigger than this.
Oh, wow.
And I was in a 6.
9 in Idaho.
Luckily, there was nobody living out there, but I'm a little concerned about a 7.
8.
Can we give it a try? We can.
Come on in.
You guys ready? I'll wait out here for you.
Any last-minute advice? Recommend you brace yourselves while you're there.
I notice that Brian's not coming in here with us.
Yeah, I did notice that.
I did, actually.
Crank it up, Brian.
All right, Tom, hit it.
[ Indistinct shouting .]
Get down! Hold on! [ Laughs .]
This isn't funny! This is did you see that?! Wait a second.
Why am I grabbing her? I don't know! Seriously! [ Laughs .]
Hold on right there! This is -- what the oh, my God! So not cool! Oh, my God! I need to get out of here.
Okay, first of all, there's absolutely no reason to put them in that earthquake machine, right? Okay, yeah, it makes them feel like what an earthquake's really like, but the truth is, it's just good television.
And second, that was hysterical.
Did you see what buddy grabbed onto for support? He grabbed onto McKinley.
There's nothing like a 200-pound man clutching a 100-pound woman for safety.
Good stuff -- hope you're proud, buddy.
But I will say, it's also a little scary.
Remember, that wasn't as strong as a megaquake would be.
Think about it -- that was a 7.
8 quake, but a 10.
0 quake would be over 100 times more powerful.
That would mean that buddy, Mac, and Scott would've been airborne in seconds.
Imagine what something that powerful could do to our infrastructure, to our buildings.
It would make the San Francisco earthquake look like when they're shaking the camera in shatner's "star trek.
" Imagine glass shattering all around you in addition to that.
You got through it.
What did you think? I feel like the earth -- like I got to hold on to something.
There's simulation, and then there's that, okay? I guess that's a simulation, but it felt real.
When they say earthquakes are violent, that is literally what it felt like.
Somebody was doing something violent to me.
It was, like, personal.
I'm amazed at the speed with which it comes on and the terror that you're overtaken by the minute it's shaking.
Well, you were kind of expecting it, so you had kind of a notion that it was coming.
But, normally speaking, you don't have a clue.
You get that initial jolt, and then you get the side-to-side swaying action.
There's nothing you can do except take cover.
Well, that's the thing.
I mean, if you know it's gonna happen and it's that scary, imagine just being in your room and all of a sudden, bam.
What's coming across my mind is what would be going on in L.
A.
Right now if that had just happened citywide.
Well, lots of bad things.
And, of course, the other thing we haven't talked about is you get fires afterwards 'cause if gas lines break, like I mentioned earlier, bam.
Aftershocks.
You get aftershocks, and that can go on for weeks.
The hopis have predicted massive earth shakings, and I hope they're wrong.
And even with building codes, you guys, we are not ready for that, and I can tell you, there's old buildings that they try and get ready, and there's no way.
After the Haitian earthquake in January of 2010, there was heaps of Internet chatter about how nostradamus had predicted this.
Predicted the earthquake in Haiti? Predicted major, major earthquakes.
It's worth looking into nostradamus.
And here we go.
Anytime you talk about prophecy, predictions, destruction, somebody's always bringing up nostradamus.
But stay with me here.
When you start combining nostradamus, the hopis, and the Mayans, you start to see that despite being from all different parts of the world, these guys had some amazingly similar ideas about the end of days.
Hey, I'm a scientist.
I'm very logical.
I'm an engineer.
I don't get into the nostradamus stuff and book of revelations, but after that, after experiencing that and thinking about what could happen, I'll look at anything that gives me any clue about what's coming.
What we're decoding is the ability to foretell the future.
So, as we know, the best-known predictor of future events was probably nostradamus.
The famed seer made more than 1,000 predictions, half of which have already come true.
I really want buddy, Mac, and Scott to see what he predicted that came to pass and how it relates to the other end-of-days prophecies.
Nostradamus has a good track record of past prophecies becoming reality and being fulfilled.
Based on his previous predictions, we see that there is a great case that his future predictions will be accurate.
So, just so I can examine his track record, what has he predicted that has come true? He's predicted a lot of things that have come true like the French revolution, the rise of three antichrists -- Napoleon, Hitler, and a third one who hadn't arrived yet.
He predicted the great fire in London.
He went into great detail about events of World War II.
He even predicted the holocaust.
Let me ask you -- are these predictions written verbatim, or are these interpretive leaps we're making? His quatrains, what he calls his predictions, are four-line stanzas.
And within those four lines, he very cleverly states his predictions in a symbolic manner.
What kinds of things did nostradamus predict regarding the end of the world? Well, one of the things that nostradamus wrote about was, at the 48th degree of latitude, which is kind of the bread-basket region of the world, all the way around the world, he says that fish in the sea, rivers, and lakes will become boiled.
Now, that means that the earth is gonna heat up.
If global warming is real, something like that's going to occur.
So there's gonna be bad news in the future.
And he might not mean literally boiled, but he might mean that it's too hot for them to exist.
Well, it might mean literally boil.
It might be a figurative expression or maybe nuclear war or something like that might play into it.
It would take a few more degrees before we're poaching salmon in the ocean, you know? Well, we'd be gone by then.
What about the disasters, though, that he's been talking about? Do they seem to be more -- are we having more earthquakes? In 2004, in Indonesia, there was a Tsunami wave 100 feet high, resulting from the huge earthquake that was predicted in quatrain number 3/3.
And it killed 150,000 people.
You know what the most accurate prediction of all time is? It's in "rocky III" when they ask his prediction for the fight, and Mr.
t says, "pain.
" He's number one.
Nostradamus is number two.
But with some spin, it does seem that nostradamus predicted some of the events that came to pass.
But what I really want to know is, what are the similarities to the hopi end-of-days predictions? A lot of people have speculated that nostradamus thinks the world's gonna end in 2012 and that he wrote that in his predictions, but the fact is he actually did not say the world's gonna end in 2012.
Excellent news.
Very good news.
So, how long do we have? I'm planning my party now.
Okay, he said the world's gonna end in 3797 due to burning stones from the heavens bombarding the earth.
So, burning stones from the atmosphere could include an asteroid or a comet.
Oh, yeah, asteroids and comets, for sure.
Now you see what I mean? Doesn't nostradamus' prediction of flaming balls of fire sound similar to the hopi's blue-star prophecy? Remember, this is an ancient pueblo prediction coinciding with a frenchman from renaissance Europe.
The scary part is, NASA just discovered a very similar blue star.
So buddy, Mac, and Scott are headed to meet with an astronomer to find out exactly where the star is headed.
I think you're referring to he04-37.
It's an amazing object -- maybe one in a million, maybe one in a billion.
Why is it blue? Is it 'cause of the speed? It's blue not because of the speed but just because it's a relatively young massive star, so it burns hot.
Hot objects look bluish, so that's not so unusual.
What's unusual is that it should've died by now.
It was thrown out of the milky way 100 million years ago, and those stars don't live that long.
So how is it now, 60,000 light-years out of the milky way, still alive? This is an anomaly that you guys are scratching your heads over.
The best hypothesis that's consistent with the data is that a pair of stars had a close encounter with a giant black hole in the center of our milky way, which resulted in them being thrown out at a very high velocity.
And it's been traveling out from the milky way for 100 million years, and in this process, it looks like the two stars merged into one star.
So it's living longer than it would normally.
So, maybe these blue stars do exist.
What makes me uncomfortable is when the science starts agreeing with these hopi prophecies.
But guess what? It's not a matter of if something like this hits the earth, it's a matter of when.
Remember Mr.
t's prediction in "rocky III" pain.
Man has always searched for answers to the biggest questions in life -- why are we here, what's our purpose, and how will it all end? The hopi people of Arizona are no exception.
They've long predicted the end of days.
A part of this prediction is the existence of a blue star, which will crash into the earth with cataclysmic results.
The scary part is, NASA just discovered a very similar star.
A pair of stars had a close encounter with a giant black hole in the center of our milky way, which resulted in them being thrown out at a very high velocity.
And it's been traveling out from the milky way for 100 million years, and in this process, it looks like the two stars merged into one star.
So it's living longer than it would normally, but that does not mean that it poses any threat to earth.
The main reason is that it's so far away, and it's also moving further away at a very high speed.
It's probably got escape velocity and is not gonna come back to our galaxy.
But it is possible that it could come back? If it ever were to come back, it would take hundreds of millions of years.
So, blue stars aren't what we need to worry about.
What do we need to worry about? The thing that really worries me the most is a lot closer to home.
We're in a very messy solar system, and the outer halo has billions or trillions of comets.
We are not that far from the asteroid belt, and there are millions of asteroids, some of which cross the earth's orbit.
That's a here-and-now threat.
So, how big a comet should we worry about or asteroid should we worry about -- size of a buick, size of a house? The asteroids that are a buick size most likely gonna be destroyed passing through the earth's atmosphere.
What most people don't realize is that a microscopic speck of dust going at 10 or 20 miles a second has an enormous amount of energy.
It can make a flash that you can see for miles.
Sure.
Something that's a pebble will make a fireball at that speed.
And then something that is 100 meters across can take out a whole state.
What would happen if one of these asteroids hit the ocean? That's actually worse than hitting the land, and it's more probable.
There's so much ocean.
The problem with that is, as soon as the energy is deposited, in a second, you vaporize cubic miles of ocean.
Next thing that happens a second later is, all of the other ocean pours into that huge hole and starts sloshing back and forth on a scale of an entire ocean.
And what happens to the people at the coast? They see a wall of water thousands of feet high coming at them and then rolling back and coming at them again.
Thousands of feet? Yes, thousands of feet high, and that's because of the large hole that was produced by the initial impact.
It's a Tsunami to dwarf any kind of Tsunami that has ever been seen in human history.
For example, if it happened in the Atlantic, all of Florida would be underwater.
So, remember, the hopis didn't just predict that a star from the heavens would crash to the earth, they also predicted massive floods.
Once again, science and the hopi prophecies lining up closely.
There's a hopi prophecy -- the hopi people in Arizona -- that say they're gonna wake up and see water.
Like, they'll have beachfront property.
And they're way up there, high elevation.
I actually got chills about that when you just said that because I was thinking of what bertram told us.
They know something we don't? I guess that they have an appreciation that things are a little more dangerous and transitory here than we take it for granted.
The hopi prophecy also describes a blue star.
Do comets ever look like blue stars? Yeah, they do.
Really? A comet, when it gets close to the sun, it's an icy rock.
It's the first time, probably, that it's seen any heat or any sunlight in millions of years.
And it's fairly fragile when it's exposed to all of that radiation, and so it starts evaporating.
And then it's got this large million-mile cloud of gas, and then it glows in the sunlight, it might look blue.
So, when somebody tells us that the world may end because it got hit by a blue star, there is some scientific evidence that that is possible? Yes.
If you mean by "a star" a light in the sky, yeah, I would think a comet would qualify.
What are the odds of a comet or an asteroid hitting us? It's just a question of when Oh.
Because -- wait, did you say I'm sorry.
"It's just a question of when"? They are continually changing their orbits a little bit, and, as I said, some of the asteroids we know are crossing earth's orbit right now.
So it's just a question of the next time that it happens to be crossing when the earth happens to be there -- bang, we get hit.
Fortunately, that's fairly rare, but it's happened over and over again in history.
You can see the evidence.
There's hundreds of meteor impact craters which were formed in this way.
And then, of course, the older ones that were formed, we only have indirect evidence.
Maybe there was a mass extinction, for example, of the dinosaurs.
So, if a blue star or a comet hits us, what can we expect? Will it be the end of the world? Depends on the size.
The one that took out the dinosaurs and thousands of other species must've seemed just about the end of the world.
It would Be the end of humanity.
The hopis predicted it, and now a scientist is saying not only is it possible but it's inevitable that a huge asteroid will hit the earth.
Still, that might not be for thousands or even millions of years in the future.
But some say it might be sooner, and there are others who believe that the true apocalypse might come from our own doing.
There are many predictions of how the world will end.
The Mayans had what they called a long-count calendar, which simply ends on December 21, 2012.
The hopi people of Arizona prophecy is a little bit different.
They see nine signs that will befall mankind which will signal the arrival of the end of days.
Some of these signs may have already appeared, including both world wars and even the invention of the Internet.
There are many who believe the recent series of oil spills are another of the nine signs.
So buddy, Mac, and Scott are headed to meet with journalist maryann Tobin, who is one of those who believes this oil-spill prophecy.
Well, there are always gonna be people who believe that it's a coincidence.
But these oil spills were written about very vividly 2,000 years ago.
In the book of revelation, it says there was a giant mountain-like fire that fell into the sea, and 1/3 of the ships were destroyed, and 1/3 of the living creatures in the sea died, and the sea became like blood.
Anyone who flew over the Gulf of Mexico during the height of the crisis could indeed say that 1/3 of the waters looked like blood.
It describes an oil spill as if someone 2,000 years ago had seen a picture of what the Gulf of Mexico looked like when the deepwater horizon started pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Rivers of blood.
1/3 of the ships being destroyed.
The Louisiana fishing fleet was crippled by the deepwater horizon spill.
They haven't recovered economically at all.
Any one of these oil spills could become a monumental catastrophe that would change the world overnight.
How? Good example is the b.
P.
Well.
That well was under so much pressure, it was almost mathematically impossible to stop it.
That's why they had to put cap after cap, and then they had problems, threats of another blow-out with the relief well.
Had the relief well failed, the macondo well could have literally caved in on the seafloor, causing a Tsunami that would've wiped out Texas, florid, Louisiana, Alabama.
Is that true? Absolutely.
A Tsunami of oil? I have some pictures up here of oil spills that have occurred in the last 30 years.
Deepwater horizon, which is the most recent, Gulf of Mexico, April 20, 2010 -- 180 million gallons of oil were spilled.
Yeah, this is how you kill fish, all right.
The bellver oil spill in south Africa, August 1983 -- 79 million gallons of oil spilled.
If we're talking about a cumulative effect, this is scary.
The Arabian Gulf oil spill in Kuwait, January 1991 -- 520 million gallons of oil spilled.
Wow.
We've heard that the hopi are predicting black waters.
Nostradamus has predicted fish coming in large waves and forming strange, oily, horrible waters.
We are playing with nature in ways that humans are not really supposed to play with nature.
The idea that oil spills are a sign the oceans are boiling over -- honestly, I think it's a stretch, but I'll play along.
The Gulf oil spill was awful.
It was devastating.
It was in my home state.
And, according to maryann, it could have been a lot worse.
The poisoning of the oceans is certainly part of the hopi prophecy, but I know some people have a hard time taking this on faith.
Guys, it's time to call Brad, let him know what we found.
Hey, Brad.
How goes the end of the world? Well, the end of the world is coming, I mean, according to the hopis, the Christian Bible, the koran, and nostradamus.
And what's a little disturbing is they're saying things that sound similar.
Yeah, this is one of those moments where you don't want everyone agreeing.
What I think we should do, though, you know, you spent a lot of time looking at what people have said in the past.
I want to look at what they're saying now.
And I've uncovered what they're calling a current nostradamus, who's living and working right here in the United States.
He's actually been hired by the CIA to predict the outcome of major global events.
And, according to them, he's got a 90% accuracy rating.
I want to meet this guy.
I don't blame you.
I will tell you this.
He will not talk to us.
He's a recluse genius.
But there's a reporter who's written articles about him, and she can walk you through all the details.
That would be great, definitely.
And, Brad, I've also been doing some independent research on these things called web bots, which, apparently, are computer programs that can predict the future with some accuracy.
I love the web bot.
In fact, I actually know a guy who works with the web bot inventor.
So, buddy, if you want, let me put you in touch with this guy.
His name is Mel fabregas.
Thanks, Brad.
Okay, speak to you soon.
We've heard about a modern-day nostradamus who uses math and science to make predictions that are so accurate that the CIA uses him.
Who is this guy? Well, his name is Bruce bueno de mesquita.
He is a professor of political science at New York university.
He uses a branch of math called game theory.
The idea is that people are actually pretty predictable, that they do what they want and they try to get what they want.
So, how does he actually do this? How do you use math and science to predict human behavior? What he does is that he identifies all the players.
And he figures out how much influence they have, how much they care, and what they want, and how stubborn they are.
How stubborn they are? How stubborn they are.
I love it.
And you can assign a number to how stubborn someone is? He assigns a number.
So, it's like a scale from zero to 100.
So, what mesquita has done is he's built this model that will predict the outcome of, really, any kind of negotiation.
With a computer, he can keep track of all of the players and look at the way everybody's influencing everybody else.
What are some of the predictions that he's made that have actually come true? He predicted that andropov would succeed brezhnev when andropov was on nobody's radar screen.
He predicted two years ahead of time that Daniel Ortega and the sandinistas would be voted out of office.
Now I can see why the CIA is using him because who's gonna rule a country is extremely important to us.
He predicted that the Chinese government would crack down four months before tiananmen square.
In addition, 12 years before China reclaimed Hong Kong, he predicted not just that it would happen but the exact manner that it would happen.
And he does this strictly through math? That's right -- strictly through math.
We're hearing about this thing called a web bot, and, apparently, it can actually predict the future.
I wondered what you could tell me about this thing.
It's an Internet prophetic computer program.
And it's the brainchild of cliff high.
In 1997, what he wanted to do was to predict stock trends.
There were a lot of computer programs that would do just that, but he didn't want to measure the movements.
He wanted to predict the movements.
The web bot creators cliff high and George ure are very secretive about how web bot actually works, but we do know that it's based on a series of complex computer algorithms and Internet-based programs that monitor the web's news articles, blogs, and other forms of Internet chatter.
Each word is assigned a numeric value that corresponds to certain qualifiers like time, impact, immediacy, intensity.
They use a technique that's called asymmetric language trend analysis that generates a list of predictions.
This list is then analyzed for patterns.
It's kind of like tapping into the hive mind, the collective consciousness of everyone who uses the Internet.
How does it do it? The web bots are spiders, wanderers, or agents.
It goes out there around the world in multiple languages, and it looks for conversations that people are having worldwide.
So, after it does that 100 to 200 million times, it brings words back.
And it's reduced to the essence, almost like the least common denominator in fractions.
So, the web bot operator cliff high has to sit down and look at those words, and then it gives a meaning.
That's how you define the meaning of the words.
What kinds of things can the web bot predict or has it predicted? Well, September 11, 2001, was a prediction that came up in June of 2001.
And all of a sudden, the web bot took on a life of its own, and it started spitting words like "buildings, planes, catastrophe of global proportions.
" And then less than a few weeks later, we can refer to September the 11th as a prediction that the web bot had made.
In 2004, the words that came up from the web bot were "rising waters, Pacific, earthquake, 300,000 people dead.
" And then the sumatran Tsunami killed 273,000 people, plus thousands of others who were unaccounted for.
I don't know.
And that's the thing about prophets and prophecies -- no one really knows.
But what I do want to know is this -- what does this digital prophet have to say about the end of days, and does it match up with the hopis and the Mayans? Ancient hopi prophecies tell of nine signs of the coming apocalypse That will arrive to foretell the end of days.
These signs are remarkably similar to predictions made by the Mayans and nostradamus.
And now buddy is talking with Mel fabregas, an expert on the web bot, a computer program that some say predicted the 9/11 disaster and the 2004 Tsunami in the south Pacific.
What I want to know is what the web bot has to say About the end of days.
A lot of groups are talking about 2012 -- the hopi prophecies.
The Mayans say that -- their calendar ends on December 21, 2012.
Remote viewers cannot see beyond that point.
The web bot has a data gap December 21st through may 2013.
It's a graph that goes up and then goes down almost as a precipice, and we can't see what's happening during that time.
What do you mean by data gap? Well, the web bot cannot find any information out there.
It's almost as if it's blank, and it cannot find anything between those dates.
Whether it could be a polar shift, it could be a solar flare that could take us back pre-electronic times, we don't know.
When we think about these prophecies and how they might connect to the end of the world, do you think it might mean just a change in the way the world is now? Well, the prophecies mainly say that it's gonna be the beginning of a new age.
Some people talk about catastrophe.
The web bot specifically say that it's gonna be a catastrophe.
It's gonna be a cataclysm.
Nostradamus talks about the end of the world not happening until 3797, which I'm pulling for.
If we survive 2012, are we in the clear? Well, according to the web bot, life as we know it won't be the same.
Maybe this is the result of a comet or asteroid hitting the earth or a massive earthquake or Tsunami, or maybe it's something else altogether -- something that not even the hopi prophecies could foretell.
Maybe the future will prove that the hopis had it right or maybe it was the Mayans or the book of revelations.
But for our sake, let's hope they all have it wrong.
Oh, man.
So, you guys think the world's gonna end? Eventually, yeah.
Even as a skeptic, I look and I think, you know, "how could nostradamus have known any of this? How could the hopis have known?" We don't know what the nature of prescience is.
We don't know how people know the future, but maybe they do.
Maybe there's something.
We used to think that we got sick because we'd angered the gods or there was a storm because, you know, a certain God was mad at us.
Maybe there is a way that people can tell the future.
I just don't know the mechanics of it yet.
Obviously, we can't avoid certain things.
We can't avoid volcanic eruptions.
We can't avoid meteor showers or comets coming in.
But we can avoid what the native Americans have long said we shouldn't do, which is foul our own nest.
Yeah.
But are you both scared, though? I mean, it looks like something's gonna happen at some point, and it might up being a blue star or a comet or an asteroid.
As the astronomer told us, it's gonna happen.
It's not if, it's when.
But I'm not any more scared of it than I am scared of my own death.
We're all going to die, and you can't linger on it.
Like, if you lay in bed and you contemplate your own death, you can do it for about 30 seconds, I found, before you wonder what's for dinner the next day.
You just have to get back to the mundane.
You can't live there forever.
I think as pessimistic as we might have been at the beginning of this journey and almost depressed in hearing all of this gloom-and-doom stuff, I think all three of us came away with almost a better attitude than we went in with.
Well, it does feel like, you know, someone just told you you have a terminal disease because we do.
As human beings, we have a terminal disease.
You're right.
We will be extinguished.
The problem is, I'm never going to look at a meteor shower the same way now.
I mean, it's full hard hats and, you know, protective goggles.
It's not romantic.
You're heading to the bomb shelter, buddy.
It's bottled-water time.
Exactly.
I refuse to look at it as an end of the world.
You don't think we drop off a cliff? No, I think it's a story that's gonna continue on, and there's gonna be a kind of renewal.
I think someday, probably not in our lifetime, one of these comets or asteroids is gonna actually end up hitting the earth, and that's what's gonna be the end of mankind.
I'm not sure there's anything we're ultimately gonna be able to do about it.
I'm with you.
I believe that we have a certain momentum in our society that we need certain things to survive, and if they get knocked out -- you know, power grid, water supply -- we're toast.
So, we can agree that I'll be the optimist of the group.
Yeah, you are the optimist of the group.
As we've seen, a lot of these ancient hopi prophecies are coming true.
But some of them are kind of open to interpretation.
It's hard, right, thinking about the actual end of the world.
For me, the closest I ever felt to the end of the world was when my mom died.
But as anyone who's lost someone close to them knows, the pain does recede, and hope does return.
Even at our lowest moments, we can always find that hope.
And in the end, it's not our technology that's gonna save us.
It's our ability to persevere.
And that amazing perseverance, that faith, is why the human
Throughout time, man has sought answers to his future, and it turns out that one of the best prognosticators happens to be, of all people, the hopi Indians.
These great native-American prophets literally emerged from the grand canyon hundreds of years ago.
The Spanish discovered them in 1540, but they're thought to have called Arizona home for 700 years.
They have nine sacred prophecies, which foretell many of the advances of modern man Including the arrival of the railroad, cars, and even the Internet Hundreds of years before anyone had heard of these things.
The hopis also have an end-of-days prophecy that seems like it's starting to happen.
The frightening thing is the prediction is almost identical to the apocalyptic predictions of the Mayans.
It is the one thing almost every religion agrees on -- that the world will end.
So when one group with such a good track record says they know how the end times come I want to know what they're predicting.
I'm Brad Meltzer.
I've spent my life collecting stories.
The best include signs, symbols, and codes, secret meanings that are hidden in plain sight.
Some have become the basis for my novels, but I've only scratched the surface of what's out there.
And now history has given me the resources to investigate the rest.
This is "decoded.
" Buddy, Mac, and Scott are on mules now, and they're headed to the hopi reservation in Arizona.
And you know what a mule is? It is a cross between a horse and a donkey.
You see what I just did there? I decoded that for you.
The decoders are saddled up and ready to decode.
I wouldn't want this to be my main method of transportation, though.
But these are strong animals.
I wouldn't mind it.
Let's go.
Yes.
Here she comes.
Come on, don't let them kick our ass.
Come on.
Good girl.
Easy.
So, this is where the hopi live.
They're kind of the experts on the end of the world.
They seem to have such accurate information.
They make a prediction, it turns out to be correct.
There are numerous religions who have all prophesied cataclysmic events at a certain point.
I mean, their prophecies are so similar that it's kind of hard to ignore.
This author, Gary David, has been studying hopi culture and prophecies for a long time.
And we have a chance to talk to him about what they believe and about what's gonna happen.
The name "hopi" literally translated means "peaceful people.
" And since the very beginning of hopi civilization, certain tribal elders who were considered to be in the know -- they'd share their prophecies, their visions of the future, and what awaited them and the rest of the tribe members.
These hopi prophecies have been handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years, always through word of mouth.
And the most chilling of these prophecies -- it deals with the end of the world as we know it.
The hopi believe that this world is going to kind of grind to an end, and we're seeing that all the time.
The floods, famines, things we are seeing today, the hopi have predicted.
The mid-20th century is when they started to come to light.
The world started to learn about the hopi prophecies.
The hopi have had prophecies for thousands of years depicting the end of the fourth world.
The hopi believe that they have been destroyed three times before.
The first time was through fire.
Could be an asteroid strike or it could be some kind of volcanism.
The second world was destroyed by ice.
It was some sort of ice age, okay? And the third world was destroyed by a great flood.
Now, many cultures, of course, have flood myths.
Yeah.
And these prophecies are old.
They're thousands of years old.
And they've been passed down through the oral tradition.
Exactly.
Do we know that they were recorded ever previously and this isn't all apocryphal in some way? The hopi did not have a writing system, so it was passed down word of mouth, generation to generation.
The hopi believe we're about to go through what we call a great purification, and their prophecies tell of nine signs.
Many of those signs when translated, they seem to have already come to pass.
And included among them are the coming of the white-skinned man who will take the land for their own.
They absolutely got that right.
They also predicted the land would be crossed by snakes of iron, which is strikingly similar to the railroad tracks that connected America in the 1800s.
Their best one, though, was when the elders also predicted the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices, which can either be covered wagons or, of course, cars.
The hopis then foretold the land would be crossed by a giant spider's web -- kind of sounds like the worldwide web.
These guys are good, right? So when you look at that track record, it makes you pay a bit more attention to what they're saying about the end of days.
The seventh sign is very important.
They said that the sea will turn black, and all the living creatures in the sea will die.
Oh, wow.
And we're heading that way with all of the oil spills, aren't we? Well, it happened in the summer of 2010 -- the Gulf oil spill.
But the hopi believe that at the very end, a dwelling place in the heavens will crash to earth And a blue star will appear to signal that the purification has begun.
Is that, like, an asteroid or a space station? It could be a comet going by or an asteroid strike.
Gary, do the hopi tell us when exactly this is gonna happen or do we -- I've heard it said that the hopi are masters of space and the Maya are masters of time.
The Maya have a specific date, December 21, 2012.
I've read that the Maya and the hopi may have in fact communicated and traded.
There was a lot of trade going on between the Maya territory down in mesoamerica and the hopi up here in Arizona.
And this is 1,300 miles away that these people are traveling on foot.
Right.
There was an exchange of ideas, and I think the ideas about prophecy were exchanged between the Maya and the hopi.
Wow.
The hopis do have a sacred place where their prophecies are recorded.
Thousands of years ago, hopi elders carved their predictions in picture form into the face of this enormous rock.
It's called prophecy rock.
The place is so sacred that outsiders are not even allowed to travel to it.
But the hopis are willing to share the wisdom that the rock holds, though only if they themselves tell the story.
Right now, bertram tsavadawa is filling in buddy, Mac, and Scott and showing them actual pictures of the rock.
When people have made reference to this particular imagery as prophecy rock, in our hopi culture, we don't have any specific word in our language that pertains to prophecy.
It would pertain to understanding or traditional knowledge.
So, the square or rectangle represents of that emergence place, sipapu, within the floor of the grand canyon or may make reference to as that the ancestors were to disperse in the four directions to touch the four corners of the land.
The interpretation of prophecy rock has been debated, but everyone seems to agree on a few things.
The large human figure on the left is their God, or great spirit.
The four stick figures on top represent the three worlds that have come and gone and the fourth world, which we're now in.
The stick figure on the bottom represents the fallen hopi people who have strayed from the correct path and, like the white man, embrace the material world.
The two circles on the left represent the two, what they call, great earth shakings that have passed.
And some think these are the two world wars, but others think they're cataclysmic earthquakes.
The circle on the right is supposed to be the great earth shaking yet to come, and some believe that third earth shaking could be a mega 10.
0 earthquake, the likes of which the world has never seen.
And so, with that, the circle here would be representation of, you know, that balance or cycle of life to death, the weather patterns for the four seasons, the rotation of the earth, as well.
Maybe in some point in time, there was a shift in the axis, so there is certain natural catastrophes that are showing up, pertaining to volcanic eruptions, the liquid fire that the ancestors mention, the tsunamis, and all the earthquakes and tremors.
There was another foretelling of a sign mentioning that water would either rise or fill up the land area.
They mention that one day, we will wake up and we'll see water as a sign from mother nature, you know, that there's something out of balance.
The idea that massive earthquakes and devastating floods will destroy the world is common in many cultures and religions.
It's mentioned in the ancient prophecies of the Mayans, and even the Bible predicts the coming of these apocalyptic events.
Buddy, Mac, and Scott are now headed to Los Angeles to find out more about what a 10.
0 megaquake would be like.
Wow.
God, look at that view.
The amazing thing to me is that this is all gonna be gone if all this stuff we heard about ends up happening and coming true.
You can really see it, too, with the mountains over here and us on a high side over here.
Look at where the water is, the ocean.
You can see why this is the Tsunami-evacuation area.
One giant drainage area, really.
It is, it is.
Bertram's talking about three shakings of the earth.
That could be world wars.
It also could be earthquakes.
And what more prominent place than l.
A.
To come look at earthquakes? I mean, this is just the tip of it.
If what bertram was talking about comes true, I mean, this is gonna all be under water right up to Arizona.
Yeah, he said that we will wake up and see water.
Wow.
God.
The hopis foretell a great rising tide of mother nature seeking revenge on those who have attacked her.
The hopi people have long predicted the end of days.
Passing them down from generation to generation, these prophecies have foretold a series of signs, including tornados, tsunamis, and, more than anything else, earthquakes that will mark the coming apocalypse.
The hopis aren't alone in their beliefs about mankind's future.
The Mayans and many other cultures also have dire predictions about the end of days.
So, buddy, Mac, and Scott are right now in Los Angeles, looking into the similarities between these various prophecies.
Okay, so, we have ancient earthquake prophecies here.
As bertram said, the hopi prophecies mention earthquakes, and some interpretations of the Mayan calendar predict massive earthquakes will annihilate humanity, as well.
Oh, my.
"Christianity echoes a similar sentiment.
In the Bible's book of revelation 8:5, 'then the angel filled the incense burner with fire from the altar and threw it down upon the earth, and thunder crashed, lightning flashed, and there was a terrible earthquake.
'" God, I hope the 8:5 revelation isn't the size on the Richter scale of the thing.
We're in trouble if that's the case.
And, according to the islamic koran, "there are various signs indicating the end of times or day of resurrection.
The earth will experience such a big earthquake that it will cause mountains to crash down, the earth's inner body will break out, and the earth will be stretched.
Crops, animals, and water will be annihilated.
" You see the similarities here? Two things scare me more than anything else in the world, and that's earthquakes and lightning.
I've been in many lightning storms, but the earthquake was one of the scariest things I've ever been in, and we were 100 miles from the epicenter.
Well, according to revelations, you get both.
You get both earthquakes and lightning.
So you don't have to choose.
That's the good news.
I guess mine was of the shaking variety, and the sound was just [Sputtering.]
And then there were -- the plates and the glasses were falling off the shelves and cracking.
And, you know, I was just terrified -- just terrified.
Scientists have recently confirmed a notable increase in seismic activity all over the world.
And this is scary because one of the hopi's signs of the coming apocalypse is a major earthquake unlike any seen in human history.
This does not sound good, especially if you live on a fault line in California.
And guess what -- the gold rush state isn't alone.
Take a look at this.
It's a map of the United States.
The colored areas are spots where earthquakes are possible, according to the U.
S.
geological survey.
That's the majority of the country.
It looks like an earthquake can happen almost anywhere at any time.
And buddy, Mac, and Scott are about to find out just how powerful a megaquake would be.
This is what we call the big shaker.
It's the world's biggest mobile earthquake simulator.
And we're gonna put you in there so that you guys can experience for yourselves what it might be like if that happens.
So, how big an earthquake will we experience in there? We'll give you a 7.
8 today because that's what the scientists and the experts say that we can expect on the San Andreas fault.
The strongest earthquake ever measured in modern history struck Chile on may 22, 1960.
Its magnitude was a record-breaking 9.
5.
It created Tsunami waves 82 feet high, which battered the Chilean coast, and 6,000 people were killed.
So, think what that would feel like.
To give you an example, in Haiti, in January 2010, that was a 7.
0.
We're gonna do bigger than this.
Oh, wow.
And I was in a 6.
9 in Idaho.
Luckily, there was nobody living out there, but I'm a little concerned about a 7.
8.
Can we give it a try? We can.
Come on in.
You guys ready? I'll wait out here for you.
Any last-minute advice? Recommend you brace yourselves while you're there.
I notice that Brian's not coming in here with us.
Yeah, I did notice that.
I did, actually.
Crank it up, Brian.
All right, Tom, hit it.
[ Indistinct shouting .]
Get down! Hold on! [ Laughs .]
This isn't funny! This is did you see that?! Wait a second.
Why am I grabbing her? I don't know! Seriously! [ Laughs .]
Hold on right there! This is -- what the oh, my God! So not cool! Oh, my God! I need to get out of here.
Okay, first of all, there's absolutely no reason to put them in that earthquake machine, right? Okay, yeah, it makes them feel like what an earthquake's really like, but the truth is, it's just good television.
And second, that was hysterical.
Did you see what buddy grabbed onto for support? He grabbed onto McKinley.
There's nothing like a 200-pound man clutching a 100-pound woman for safety.
Good stuff -- hope you're proud, buddy.
But I will say, it's also a little scary.
Remember, that wasn't as strong as a megaquake would be.
Think about it -- that was a 7.
8 quake, but a 10.
0 quake would be over 100 times more powerful.
That would mean that buddy, Mac, and Scott would've been airborne in seconds.
Imagine what something that powerful could do to our infrastructure, to our buildings.
It would make the San Francisco earthquake look like when they're shaking the camera in shatner's "star trek.
" Imagine glass shattering all around you in addition to that.
You got through it.
What did you think? I feel like the earth -- like I got to hold on to something.
There's simulation, and then there's that, okay? I guess that's a simulation, but it felt real.
When they say earthquakes are violent, that is literally what it felt like.
Somebody was doing something violent to me.
It was, like, personal.
I'm amazed at the speed with which it comes on and the terror that you're overtaken by the minute it's shaking.
Well, you were kind of expecting it, so you had kind of a notion that it was coming.
But, normally speaking, you don't have a clue.
You get that initial jolt, and then you get the side-to-side swaying action.
There's nothing you can do except take cover.
Well, that's the thing.
I mean, if you know it's gonna happen and it's that scary, imagine just being in your room and all of a sudden, bam.
What's coming across my mind is what would be going on in L.
A.
Right now if that had just happened citywide.
Well, lots of bad things.
And, of course, the other thing we haven't talked about is you get fires afterwards 'cause if gas lines break, like I mentioned earlier, bam.
Aftershocks.
You get aftershocks, and that can go on for weeks.
The hopis have predicted massive earth shakings, and I hope they're wrong.
And even with building codes, you guys, we are not ready for that, and I can tell you, there's old buildings that they try and get ready, and there's no way.
After the Haitian earthquake in January of 2010, there was heaps of Internet chatter about how nostradamus had predicted this.
Predicted the earthquake in Haiti? Predicted major, major earthquakes.
It's worth looking into nostradamus.
And here we go.
Anytime you talk about prophecy, predictions, destruction, somebody's always bringing up nostradamus.
But stay with me here.
When you start combining nostradamus, the hopis, and the Mayans, you start to see that despite being from all different parts of the world, these guys had some amazingly similar ideas about the end of days.
Hey, I'm a scientist.
I'm very logical.
I'm an engineer.
I don't get into the nostradamus stuff and book of revelations, but after that, after experiencing that and thinking about what could happen, I'll look at anything that gives me any clue about what's coming.
What we're decoding is the ability to foretell the future.
So, as we know, the best-known predictor of future events was probably nostradamus.
The famed seer made more than 1,000 predictions, half of which have already come true.
I really want buddy, Mac, and Scott to see what he predicted that came to pass and how it relates to the other end-of-days prophecies.
Nostradamus has a good track record of past prophecies becoming reality and being fulfilled.
Based on his previous predictions, we see that there is a great case that his future predictions will be accurate.
So, just so I can examine his track record, what has he predicted that has come true? He's predicted a lot of things that have come true like the French revolution, the rise of three antichrists -- Napoleon, Hitler, and a third one who hadn't arrived yet.
He predicted the great fire in London.
He went into great detail about events of World War II.
He even predicted the holocaust.
Let me ask you -- are these predictions written verbatim, or are these interpretive leaps we're making? His quatrains, what he calls his predictions, are four-line stanzas.
And within those four lines, he very cleverly states his predictions in a symbolic manner.
What kinds of things did nostradamus predict regarding the end of the world? Well, one of the things that nostradamus wrote about was, at the 48th degree of latitude, which is kind of the bread-basket region of the world, all the way around the world, he says that fish in the sea, rivers, and lakes will become boiled.
Now, that means that the earth is gonna heat up.
If global warming is real, something like that's going to occur.
So there's gonna be bad news in the future.
And he might not mean literally boiled, but he might mean that it's too hot for them to exist.
Well, it might mean literally boil.
It might be a figurative expression or maybe nuclear war or something like that might play into it.
It would take a few more degrees before we're poaching salmon in the ocean, you know? Well, we'd be gone by then.
What about the disasters, though, that he's been talking about? Do they seem to be more -- are we having more earthquakes? In 2004, in Indonesia, there was a Tsunami wave 100 feet high, resulting from the huge earthquake that was predicted in quatrain number 3/3.
And it killed 150,000 people.
You know what the most accurate prediction of all time is? It's in "rocky III" when they ask his prediction for the fight, and Mr.
t says, "pain.
" He's number one.
Nostradamus is number two.
But with some spin, it does seem that nostradamus predicted some of the events that came to pass.
But what I really want to know is, what are the similarities to the hopi end-of-days predictions? A lot of people have speculated that nostradamus thinks the world's gonna end in 2012 and that he wrote that in his predictions, but the fact is he actually did not say the world's gonna end in 2012.
Excellent news.
Very good news.
So, how long do we have? I'm planning my party now.
Okay, he said the world's gonna end in 3797 due to burning stones from the heavens bombarding the earth.
So, burning stones from the atmosphere could include an asteroid or a comet.
Oh, yeah, asteroids and comets, for sure.
Now you see what I mean? Doesn't nostradamus' prediction of flaming balls of fire sound similar to the hopi's blue-star prophecy? Remember, this is an ancient pueblo prediction coinciding with a frenchman from renaissance Europe.
The scary part is, NASA just discovered a very similar blue star.
So buddy, Mac, and Scott are headed to meet with an astronomer to find out exactly where the star is headed.
I think you're referring to he04-37.
It's an amazing object -- maybe one in a million, maybe one in a billion.
Why is it blue? Is it 'cause of the speed? It's blue not because of the speed but just because it's a relatively young massive star, so it burns hot.
Hot objects look bluish, so that's not so unusual.
What's unusual is that it should've died by now.
It was thrown out of the milky way 100 million years ago, and those stars don't live that long.
So how is it now, 60,000 light-years out of the milky way, still alive? This is an anomaly that you guys are scratching your heads over.
The best hypothesis that's consistent with the data is that a pair of stars had a close encounter with a giant black hole in the center of our milky way, which resulted in them being thrown out at a very high velocity.
And it's been traveling out from the milky way for 100 million years, and in this process, it looks like the two stars merged into one star.
So it's living longer than it would normally.
So, maybe these blue stars do exist.
What makes me uncomfortable is when the science starts agreeing with these hopi prophecies.
But guess what? It's not a matter of if something like this hits the earth, it's a matter of when.
Remember Mr.
t's prediction in "rocky III" pain.
Man has always searched for answers to the biggest questions in life -- why are we here, what's our purpose, and how will it all end? The hopi people of Arizona are no exception.
They've long predicted the end of days.
A part of this prediction is the existence of a blue star, which will crash into the earth with cataclysmic results.
The scary part is, NASA just discovered a very similar star.
A pair of stars had a close encounter with a giant black hole in the center of our milky way, which resulted in them being thrown out at a very high velocity.
And it's been traveling out from the milky way for 100 million years, and in this process, it looks like the two stars merged into one star.
So it's living longer than it would normally, but that does not mean that it poses any threat to earth.
The main reason is that it's so far away, and it's also moving further away at a very high speed.
It's probably got escape velocity and is not gonna come back to our galaxy.
But it is possible that it could come back? If it ever were to come back, it would take hundreds of millions of years.
So, blue stars aren't what we need to worry about.
What do we need to worry about? The thing that really worries me the most is a lot closer to home.
We're in a very messy solar system, and the outer halo has billions or trillions of comets.
We are not that far from the asteroid belt, and there are millions of asteroids, some of which cross the earth's orbit.
That's a here-and-now threat.
So, how big a comet should we worry about or asteroid should we worry about -- size of a buick, size of a house? The asteroids that are a buick size most likely gonna be destroyed passing through the earth's atmosphere.
What most people don't realize is that a microscopic speck of dust going at 10 or 20 miles a second has an enormous amount of energy.
It can make a flash that you can see for miles.
Sure.
Something that's a pebble will make a fireball at that speed.
And then something that is 100 meters across can take out a whole state.
What would happen if one of these asteroids hit the ocean? That's actually worse than hitting the land, and it's more probable.
There's so much ocean.
The problem with that is, as soon as the energy is deposited, in a second, you vaporize cubic miles of ocean.
Next thing that happens a second later is, all of the other ocean pours into that huge hole and starts sloshing back and forth on a scale of an entire ocean.
And what happens to the people at the coast? They see a wall of water thousands of feet high coming at them and then rolling back and coming at them again.
Thousands of feet? Yes, thousands of feet high, and that's because of the large hole that was produced by the initial impact.
It's a Tsunami to dwarf any kind of Tsunami that has ever been seen in human history.
For example, if it happened in the Atlantic, all of Florida would be underwater.
So, remember, the hopis didn't just predict that a star from the heavens would crash to the earth, they also predicted massive floods.
Once again, science and the hopi prophecies lining up closely.
There's a hopi prophecy -- the hopi people in Arizona -- that say they're gonna wake up and see water.
Like, they'll have beachfront property.
And they're way up there, high elevation.
I actually got chills about that when you just said that because I was thinking of what bertram told us.
They know something we don't? I guess that they have an appreciation that things are a little more dangerous and transitory here than we take it for granted.
The hopi prophecy also describes a blue star.
Do comets ever look like blue stars? Yeah, they do.
Really? A comet, when it gets close to the sun, it's an icy rock.
It's the first time, probably, that it's seen any heat or any sunlight in millions of years.
And it's fairly fragile when it's exposed to all of that radiation, and so it starts evaporating.
And then it's got this large million-mile cloud of gas, and then it glows in the sunlight, it might look blue.
So, when somebody tells us that the world may end because it got hit by a blue star, there is some scientific evidence that that is possible? Yes.
If you mean by "a star" a light in the sky, yeah, I would think a comet would qualify.
What are the odds of a comet or an asteroid hitting us? It's just a question of when Oh.
Because -- wait, did you say I'm sorry.
"It's just a question of when"? They are continually changing their orbits a little bit, and, as I said, some of the asteroids we know are crossing earth's orbit right now.
So it's just a question of the next time that it happens to be crossing when the earth happens to be there -- bang, we get hit.
Fortunately, that's fairly rare, but it's happened over and over again in history.
You can see the evidence.
There's hundreds of meteor impact craters which were formed in this way.
And then, of course, the older ones that were formed, we only have indirect evidence.
Maybe there was a mass extinction, for example, of the dinosaurs.
So, if a blue star or a comet hits us, what can we expect? Will it be the end of the world? Depends on the size.
The one that took out the dinosaurs and thousands of other species must've seemed just about the end of the world.
It would Be the end of humanity.
The hopis predicted it, and now a scientist is saying not only is it possible but it's inevitable that a huge asteroid will hit the earth.
Still, that might not be for thousands or even millions of years in the future.
But some say it might be sooner, and there are others who believe that the true apocalypse might come from our own doing.
There are many predictions of how the world will end.
The Mayans had what they called a long-count calendar, which simply ends on December 21, 2012.
The hopi people of Arizona prophecy is a little bit different.
They see nine signs that will befall mankind which will signal the arrival of the end of days.
Some of these signs may have already appeared, including both world wars and even the invention of the Internet.
There are many who believe the recent series of oil spills are another of the nine signs.
So buddy, Mac, and Scott are headed to meet with journalist maryann Tobin, who is one of those who believes this oil-spill prophecy.
Well, there are always gonna be people who believe that it's a coincidence.
But these oil spills were written about very vividly 2,000 years ago.
In the book of revelation, it says there was a giant mountain-like fire that fell into the sea, and 1/3 of the ships were destroyed, and 1/3 of the living creatures in the sea died, and the sea became like blood.
Anyone who flew over the Gulf of Mexico during the height of the crisis could indeed say that 1/3 of the waters looked like blood.
It describes an oil spill as if someone 2,000 years ago had seen a picture of what the Gulf of Mexico looked like when the deepwater horizon started pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Rivers of blood.
1/3 of the ships being destroyed.
The Louisiana fishing fleet was crippled by the deepwater horizon spill.
They haven't recovered economically at all.
Any one of these oil spills could become a monumental catastrophe that would change the world overnight.
How? Good example is the b.
P.
Well.
That well was under so much pressure, it was almost mathematically impossible to stop it.
That's why they had to put cap after cap, and then they had problems, threats of another blow-out with the relief well.
Had the relief well failed, the macondo well could have literally caved in on the seafloor, causing a Tsunami that would've wiped out Texas, florid, Louisiana, Alabama.
Is that true? Absolutely.
A Tsunami of oil? I have some pictures up here of oil spills that have occurred in the last 30 years.
Deepwater horizon, which is the most recent, Gulf of Mexico, April 20, 2010 -- 180 million gallons of oil were spilled.
Yeah, this is how you kill fish, all right.
The bellver oil spill in south Africa, August 1983 -- 79 million gallons of oil spilled.
If we're talking about a cumulative effect, this is scary.
The Arabian Gulf oil spill in Kuwait, January 1991 -- 520 million gallons of oil spilled.
Wow.
We've heard that the hopi are predicting black waters.
Nostradamus has predicted fish coming in large waves and forming strange, oily, horrible waters.
We are playing with nature in ways that humans are not really supposed to play with nature.
The idea that oil spills are a sign the oceans are boiling over -- honestly, I think it's a stretch, but I'll play along.
The Gulf oil spill was awful.
It was devastating.
It was in my home state.
And, according to maryann, it could have been a lot worse.
The poisoning of the oceans is certainly part of the hopi prophecy, but I know some people have a hard time taking this on faith.
Guys, it's time to call Brad, let him know what we found.
Hey, Brad.
How goes the end of the world? Well, the end of the world is coming, I mean, according to the hopis, the Christian Bible, the koran, and nostradamus.
And what's a little disturbing is they're saying things that sound similar.
Yeah, this is one of those moments where you don't want everyone agreeing.
What I think we should do, though, you know, you spent a lot of time looking at what people have said in the past.
I want to look at what they're saying now.
And I've uncovered what they're calling a current nostradamus, who's living and working right here in the United States.
He's actually been hired by the CIA to predict the outcome of major global events.
And, according to them, he's got a 90% accuracy rating.
I want to meet this guy.
I don't blame you.
I will tell you this.
He will not talk to us.
He's a recluse genius.
But there's a reporter who's written articles about him, and she can walk you through all the details.
That would be great, definitely.
And, Brad, I've also been doing some independent research on these things called web bots, which, apparently, are computer programs that can predict the future with some accuracy.
I love the web bot.
In fact, I actually know a guy who works with the web bot inventor.
So, buddy, if you want, let me put you in touch with this guy.
His name is Mel fabregas.
Thanks, Brad.
Okay, speak to you soon.
We've heard about a modern-day nostradamus who uses math and science to make predictions that are so accurate that the CIA uses him.
Who is this guy? Well, his name is Bruce bueno de mesquita.
He is a professor of political science at New York university.
He uses a branch of math called game theory.
The idea is that people are actually pretty predictable, that they do what they want and they try to get what they want.
So, how does he actually do this? How do you use math and science to predict human behavior? What he does is that he identifies all the players.
And he figures out how much influence they have, how much they care, and what they want, and how stubborn they are.
How stubborn they are? How stubborn they are.
I love it.
And you can assign a number to how stubborn someone is? He assigns a number.
So, it's like a scale from zero to 100.
So, what mesquita has done is he's built this model that will predict the outcome of, really, any kind of negotiation.
With a computer, he can keep track of all of the players and look at the way everybody's influencing everybody else.
What are some of the predictions that he's made that have actually come true? He predicted that andropov would succeed brezhnev when andropov was on nobody's radar screen.
He predicted two years ahead of time that Daniel Ortega and the sandinistas would be voted out of office.
Now I can see why the CIA is using him because who's gonna rule a country is extremely important to us.
He predicted that the Chinese government would crack down four months before tiananmen square.
In addition, 12 years before China reclaimed Hong Kong, he predicted not just that it would happen but the exact manner that it would happen.
And he does this strictly through math? That's right -- strictly through math.
We're hearing about this thing called a web bot, and, apparently, it can actually predict the future.
I wondered what you could tell me about this thing.
It's an Internet prophetic computer program.
And it's the brainchild of cliff high.
In 1997, what he wanted to do was to predict stock trends.
There were a lot of computer programs that would do just that, but he didn't want to measure the movements.
He wanted to predict the movements.
The web bot creators cliff high and George ure are very secretive about how web bot actually works, but we do know that it's based on a series of complex computer algorithms and Internet-based programs that monitor the web's news articles, blogs, and other forms of Internet chatter.
Each word is assigned a numeric value that corresponds to certain qualifiers like time, impact, immediacy, intensity.
They use a technique that's called asymmetric language trend analysis that generates a list of predictions.
This list is then analyzed for patterns.
It's kind of like tapping into the hive mind, the collective consciousness of everyone who uses the Internet.
How does it do it? The web bots are spiders, wanderers, or agents.
It goes out there around the world in multiple languages, and it looks for conversations that people are having worldwide.
So, after it does that 100 to 200 million times, it brings words back.
And it's reduced to the essence, almost like the least common denominator in fractions.
So, the web bot operator cliff high has to sit down and look at those words, and then it gives a meaning.
That's how you define the meaning of the words.
What kinds of things can the web bot predict or has it predicted? Well, September 11, 2001, was a prediction that came up in June of 2001.
And all of a sudden, the web bot took on a life of its own, and it started spitting words like "buildings, planes, catastrophe of global proportions.
" And then less than a few weeks later, we can refer to September the 11th as a prediction that the web bot had made.
In 2004, the words that came up from the web bot were "rising waters, Pacific, earthquake, 300,000 people dead.
" And then the sumatran Tsunami killed 273,000 people, plus thousands of others who were unaccounted for.
I don't know.
And that's the thing about prophets and prophecies -- no one really knows.
But what I do want to know is this -- what does this digital prophet have to say about the end of days, and does it match up with the hopis and the Mayans? Ancient hopi prophecies tell of nine signs of the coming apocalypse That will arrive to foretell the end of days.
These signs are remarkably similar to predictions made by the Mayans and nostradamus.
And now buddy is talking with Mel fabregas, an expert on the web bot, a computer program that some say predicted the 9/11 disaster and the 2004 Tsunami in the south Pacific.
What I want to know is what the web bot has to say About the end of days.
A lot of groups are talking about 2012 -- the hopi prophecies.
The Mayans say that -- their calendar ends on December 21, 2012.
Remote viewers cannot see beyond that point.
The web bot has a data gap December 21st through may 2013.
It's a graph that goes up and then goes down almost as a precipice, and we can't see what's happening during that time.
What do you mean by data gap? Well, the web bot cannot find any information out there.
It's almost as if it's blank, and it cannot find anything between those dates.
Whether it could be a polar shift, it could be a solar flare that could take us back pre-electronic times, we don't know.
When we think about these prophecies and how they might connect to the end of the world, do you think it might mean just a change in the way the world is now? Well, the prophecies mainly say that it's gonna be the beginning of a new age.
Some people talk about catastrophe.
The web bot specifically say that it's gonna be a catastrophe.
It's gonna be a cataclysm.
Nostradamus talks about the end of the world not happening until 3797, which I'm pulling for.
If we survive 2012, are we in the clear? Well, according to the web bot, life as we know it won't be the same.
Maybe this is the result of a comet or asteroid hitting the earth or a massive earthquake or Tsunami, or maybe it's something else altogether -- something that not even the hopi prophecies could foretell.
Maybe the future will prove that the hopis had it right or maybe it was the Mayans or the book of revelations.
But for our sake, let's hope they all have it wrong.
Oh, man.
So, you guys think the world's gonna end? Eventually, yeah.
Even as a skeptic, I look and I think, you know, "how could nostradamus have known any of this? How could the hopis have known?" We don't know what the nature of prescience is.
We don't know how people know the future, but maybe they do.
Maybe there's something.
We used to think that we got sick because we'd angered the gods or there was a storm because, you know, a certain God was mad at us.
Maybe there is a way that people can tell the future.
I just don't know the mechanics of it yet.
Obviously, we can't avoid certain things.
We can't avoid volcanic eruptions.
We can't avoid meteor showers or comets coming in.
But we can avoid what the native Americans have long said we shouldn't do, which is foul our own nest.
Yeah.
But are you both scared, though? I mean, it looks like something's gonna happen at some point, and it might up being a blue star or a comet or an asteroid.
As the astronomer told us, it's gonna happen.
It's not if, it's when.
But I'm not any more scared of it than I am scared of my own death.
We're all going to die, and you can't linger on it.
Like, if you lay in bed and you contemplate your own death, you can do it for about 30 seconds, I found, before you wonder what's for dinner the next day.
You just have to get back to the mundane.
You can't live there forever.
I think as pessimistic as we might have been at the beginning of this journey and almost depressed in hearing all of this gloom-and-doom stuff, I think all three of us came away with almost a better attitude than we went in with.
Well, it does feel like, you know, someone just told you you have a terminal disease because we do.
As human beings, we have a terminal disease.
You're right.
We will be extinguished.
The problem is, I'm never going to look at a meteor shower the same way now.
I mean, it's full hard hats and, you know, protective goggles.
It's not romantic.
You're heading to the bomb shelter, buddy.
It's bottled-water time.
Exactly.
I refuse to look at it as an end of the world.
You don't think we drop off a cliff? No, I think it's a story that's gonna continue on, and there's gonna be a kind of renewal.
I think someday, probably not in our lifetime, one of these comets or asteroids is gonna actually end up hitting the earth, and that's what's gonna be the end of mankind.
I'm not sure there's anything we're ultimately gonna be able to do about it.
I'm with you.
I believe that we have a certain momentum in our society that we need certain things to survive, and if they get knocked out -- you know, power grid, water supply -- we're toast.
So, we can agree that I'll be the optimist of the group.
Yeah, you are the optimist of the group.
As we've seen, a lot of these ancient hopi prophecies are coming true.
But some of them are kind of open to interpretation.
It's hard, right, thinking about the actual end of the world.
For me, the closest I ever felt to the end of the world was when my mom died.
But as anyone who's lost someone close to them knows, the pain does recede, and hope does return.
Even at our lowest moments, we can always find that hope.
And in the end, it's not our technology that's gonna save us.
It's our ability to persevere.
And that amazing perseverance, that faith, is why the human