Horror Report

Tag: apophis

  • We keep talking about the mighty God of Chaos of 2029

    We keep talking about the mighty God of Chaos of 2029

    The asteroid..
    Not just any asteroid… but 99942 Apophis. A roughly 1,100-foot space rock that, at one point, was considered one of the most dangerous known objects ever tracked. Back when it was first discovered in 2004, it carried an initial 2.7% chance of impacting Earth in 2029.


    That number got everyone’s attention then and it is regaining its print now as we head closer to 2029.


    Since ’04, the threat level has dropped to essentially zero. Scientists—real scientists, not the ones chasing views on TikTok—are in full agreement. NASA and every major space agency tracking it say the same thing: it’s going to pass by Earth harmlessly. Close… but harmless.


    We’re talking about a flyby of roughly 20,000 miles above Earth’s surface. That might sound like a lot, but in space terms, that’s extremely close. About 12 times closer than the Moon. For an object this size, it’s one of the closest approaches ever recorded.
    And that’s where things get interesting.


    Because despite all the data, all the tracking, and all the reassurance… you already know what’s coming next. Rumors. Speculation. Conspiracies. For the next several years, leading up to April 2029, people are going to talk.


    They’re going to say it could get caught in Earth’s orbit.
    They’re going to say it leaves… and then comes back.
    They’re going to say it is going to hit, and “they” just aren’t telling us.
    The usual playbook.
    And look… let’s be honest for a second, it really is a giant asteroid.
    So if something like Apophis did hit Earth, it would be catastrophic and life-altering. The kind of event that reshapes planetary history. So yeah… when people hear “20,000 miles away,” it doesn’t exactly feel comforting. It feels like standing on train tracks while something massive flies by just close enough to shake the ground.


    But here’s the reality: everything we know right now says it’s not hitting.
    Not in 2029. Not later. The math checks out. The orbit is understood.


    Still…
    Can we just take a second to acknowledge one very strange detail?
    April 13th, 2029.
    A Friday.
    Friday the 13th… in April.


    You couldn’t script that better for a horror story if you tried.
    And for some of us, there’s another layer to all of this. This site has been around long enough—and some of us have been paying attention long enough—to remember when this asteroid was first discovered. More than 20 years ago, it was the story. The one that made you pause.


    And now here we are, finally approaching that date.
    In the grand scheme of space, it’s nothing.


    But here on Earth… it feels like something.
    So let’s hope the vast majority of scientists are right. That the risk truly is zero. That this becomes nothing more than a historic flyby and a strange little footnote in time.


    And that we all wake up on Saturday, April 14th, 2029 to a beautiful sunny day post-Apophis..

  • The God of Chaos in 2068

    The God of Chaos in 2068

    This website has been around in some form or another since the year 2000.. I can recall covering horror news of the early 21st century during the wild west days of the internet. Back then, anything was possible. And fun! There was no social media to come and ruin a good time. Instead websites offered mysteries, oddities, awful designs, and personal touches from the owners who created them.

    We devolve sometimes here into needless nostalgia. Perhaps today was one of those days.. But it happens during long cold walks in lonely parks with trees adorned with papers reminding people to wear masks.

    Today, our main headline on the front page of the Horror Report was about the asteroid Apophis.. And how it could strike the planet earth in 2068.

    Quite the scary concept.. Why not drop it in a year like 2020 when all things scary seem to reign supreme, right?

    Stories like this appearing in Bloomberg News, an article stating that the biggest effect of the COVID-19 pandemic will be social unrest and societal upheaval. We are seeing it in European countries where governments have decided to phase in to lockdown part 2, while in the United States governors are treading waters carefully due to pandemic malaise.. President-Elect Joe Biden may face a weighty choice as the death tolls mounts by the time he is sworn into office. If Donald Trump ever leaves.. 🙂

    So just picture the rebellion that would occur if we found out the world was potentially going to meet a costly fate in 2068. A doomsday date to remember.

    2068 SEEMS far away, right?

    So did 2020 back in the year 2000 when I first FTP’ed up the Horror Report onto the World Wide Web.

    Presumably if Apophis does hit, and I live to a ripe old age of 88, I will see calamity befall our home planet. My son would have a better shot at seeing at when he is 57 that year..

    It’s funny to consider.. I did some research tonight because I knew that I spread content many years ago about Apophis when it was first discovered. I hit the jackpot on the Wayback machine from the year 2005.

    The Horror Report reported this on on February 15, 2005: A giant asteroid the size of three football pitches will make the closest flyby of Earth in recorded history for an object of its size, scientists said yesterday.

    Of course the same day we said,

    “There’s a concrete dildo floating around out there somewhere: Ouch: Vandals attack nude statue and chisel off penis…“

    That same year, Apophis had yet to get its cool name. It was just called 2004 MN4 when Space.com reported that the flyback of the massive asteroid would be visible to the naked eye across the planet:

    Space.com pointed out that the asteroid will be 22,600 miles from Earth’s center when it flies by on April 13, 2029.

    Oh.. that is a Friday by the way, so appropriate.

    The 2036 flyby was also feared by many.. Early reports indicated that this would be the date of the collision with the planet. In 2013 those reported were discounted.

    WHEW, space journals wrote then..

    But now new information about this rock is becoming known, and with it the renewed sense of potential danger.

    While the asteroid strike is still only a possibility, with Earth Sky reporting a great article about how Apohpis is accelerating.

    Although the probability of an impact from asteroid Apophis for 2029 and 2036 has been ruled out, the new findings suggest that there might be a very small chance of impact in April 2068. Previous calculations made in 2016 had all but ruled out the probability of an impact on 2068. The chance of an impact was seen in 2016 as vanishingly small, at just 1 in 150,000 odds of impact, or a 99.99933% chance the asteroid would miss the Earth. The new findings might slightly change these numbers again, as new calculations are made using both the recent data and new observations that will be made very soon.

    So rest easy tonight. This is not the night of the mighty Apophis — we have more Earthly things to worry about with a virus raging and political distractions causing immense and true division.

    But be warned.. a giant killer stalks. It may pass by through our friendly skies safely in 2068 and all of these predictions will be naught.

    Or we will look back at 2020 and relish in the thought of just how great it was after all.