History Main / SignsOfTheEndTimes

'''NoRealLifeExamples, please.''' As far as we at TVTropes are aware, the world has not ended nor is a true Biblical Apocalypse or Ragnarok around the corner.

*** In Stuttgard, all the clocks chime 15. Simultaneously.

* ''{{Millennium}}'' eventually shifted from a straight-up "serial killer" series to the idea that the general rise in the tide of human cruelty was tied into the upcoming apocalypse, sharing equal time between investigation of hideous murders and investigation of strange phenomena.

** They also had an episode with ''literal'' signs of the end times, revolving around a Russian who sabotaged Chernobyl (sometimes translated as "Wormwood", the name of a poison star in the Book of Revelation) and who might just be the anti-Christ. [[DidNotDoTheResearch Even though the anti-Christ isn't in the Book of Revelation]]. The episode instead conflates the anti-Christ with the Beast, including him surviving a fatal head wound and his helicopter having the serial number 666. Curiously, for a show about the coming end of days, he never reappeared.

* A classic example is WilliamButlerYeats' ''TheSecondComing'', a poem that predicts the birth of the AntiChrist.

* ''TheCore'' had:

*** In Patagonia, a library is discovered. [[JorgeLuisBorges The books it contains are unknown, unreadable]].

* ''DoomPatrol'':

* This was a ''very'' popular trope in early VertigoComics. In ''TheSandman'', Doctor Destiny's hold over Dream's gem leads to a wave of cruelty, hallucinations, and general nightmares sweeping over the global consciousness as the fate of the Dreaming lies in the balance.

* ''{{Ghostbusters}}'' does this twice:

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'''s "Apocalypse Nowish" does this-there are birds crashing into buildings, snakes coming out of plumbing, rats everywhere, and eventually, all the locations of the phone calls they get about these things, when laid out on a map, make an ancient symbol of destruction, with Connor's birthplace-slash-the place where the Beast rises smack in the middle.

* ''VampireBloodlines'' runneth over with all kinds of approaching apocalypse signs. [[spoiler:Turns out, most of them are fake or just misinterpreted, even though the Gehenna really is approaching fast.]]

Not to be confused with SignOfTheApocalypse, a stock phrase used for humor.

* This was a ''very'' popular trope in early VertigoComics. In ''TheSandman'', Doctor Destiny's hold over Dream's gem leads to a wave of cruelty, hallucinations, and general nightmares sweeping over the global consciousness as the fate of the Dreaming lies in the balance.

* CSLewis' ''TheLastBattle'' where all the signs of Revelation begin to happen, albeit in Narnia.

* In the first season finale of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Mrs. Calender knows the Hellmouth is about to open based on locally occurring portents; a family's swimming pool begins to boil (with them in it), a cat gives birth to a litter of snakes and a baby is born with his eyes facing inward.
* ''{{Millennium}}'' eventually shifted from a straight-up "serial killer" series to the idea that the general rise in the tide of human cruelty was tied into the upcoming apocalypse, sharing equal time between investigation of hideous murders and investigation of strange phenomena.

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* In the novel ''Literature/TheYiddishPolicemensUnion'' by MichaelChabon, reports of talking chickens are mentioned as a sign of the end times, or at least of the coming of Messiah.

Supertrope to TheStarsAreGoingOut. Subtrope to PortentOfDoom. May overlap with BadMoonRising.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'''s "Apocalypse Nowish" does this-there are birds crashing into buildings, snakes coming out of plumbing, rats everywhere, and eventually, all the phone calls they get about these things make an ancient symbol of destruction.

* ''MaxPayne'' touches upon this trope in reference to a book he finds in Lupino's nightclub, Ragna Rock.

Compare JustBeforeTheEnd. See also ApocalypseHow, TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

Not to be confused with SignOfTheApocalypse, a stock phrase used for humor.

How do we know that the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt is approaching? By the warning signs that precede it, of course. Whether TheStarsAreGoingOut or a beast with seven heads rises out of the ocean, everyone knows that something bad is about to happen. It's a sign of the end.

Supertrope to TheStarsAreGoingOut. May overlap with BadMoonRising.

* TheCore had:

* In PiersAnthony's ''Being A Green Mother'', plague, earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions are all the result of singing the Llano of Chaos, which ends all living things within weeks of it being sung. Although one could argue that these are less ''signs'' of the end and more the ''cause.''
* In the novel ''The Yiddish Policemen's Union'' by Michael Chabon, reports of talking chickens are mentioned as a sign of the end times, or at least of the coming of Messiah.
* ''GoodOmens'' has a lot of these, as it's a book about the lead up to the End of Days.
* In the "present" (23rd century) of ''Pastwatch: the Redemption of Christopher Columbus'', the world has already gone through an apocalypse that has reduced the population to 700,000,000 people and necessitated great efforts to replenish the earth to what it formerly was. An example of this is what spurs those on the Columbus Project to make the decision to change the past and obliterate their entire post-Columbus history and those who existed in it in favor of repairing the past and creating [[spoiler:what turns out to be]] a better future. It turns out that despite their optimism and everything they've done, there are more people than the planet can support, North America is in the midst of a famine, crop production is going down, and no matter what is done, everything's going to go to shit, another Ice Age will come, and humanity will be plunged into the Stone Ages.
* C.S. Lewis' ''TheLastBattle'' where all the signs of Revelation begin to happen, albeit in Narnia.
* A classic example is Yeats' ''The Second Coming'', a poem that predicts the birth of the AntiChrist.

* ''{{Angel}}'''s "Apocalypse Nowish" does this-there are birds crashing into buildings, snakes coming out of plumbing, rats everywhere, and eventually, all the phone calls they get about these things make an ancient symbol of destruction.
* In the first season finale of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Mrs. Calender knows the Hellmouth is about to open based on locally occurring portents; a family's swimming pool begins to boil (with them in it), a cat gives birth to a litter of snakes and a baby is born with his eyes facing inward.

'''NoRealLifeExamples, please.''' As far as we at TVTropes are aware, the world has not ended nor has ever been in imminent danger of ending. Or at least [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov not since 1983]].

'''NoRealLifeExamples, please.''' As far as we at TVTropes are aware, the world has not ended nor has ever been in imminent danger of ending. Or at least for another 5 billion years (which is when the Sun will run out of fuel and die).

'''NoRealLifeExamples, please.''' As far as we at TVTropes are aware, the world has not ended nor has ever been in imminent danger of ending.

* A classic example is Yeats' ''The Second Coming'' a poem that predicts the birth of the AntiChrist.

* ''ArciaChronicles'' and ''Reflections of Eterna'' by the same author have a lot of these but they are mostly ignored by NormalPeople.

* C.S. Lewis' ''[[ChroniclesOfNarnia The Last Battle]]''' where all the signs of Revelation begin to happen, albeit in Narnia.

* {{Angel}} 'Apocalypse Nowish' does this-there are birds crashing into buildings, snakes coming out of plumbing, rats everywhere, and eventually, all the phone calls they get about these things make an ancient symbol of destruction.

-->Winston Zeddmore: Do you remember something in the Bible about the last days, when the dead would rise from the grave?
-->Ray Stantz: I remember Revelations 7:12. "And I looked as he opened the 6th seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake. And the sun became as black as sack cloth, and the moon became as blood."
-->Winston Zeddmore: And the seas boiled and the skies fell.
-->Ray Stantz: Judgment Day.
-->Winston Zeddmore: Judgment Day.
-->Ray Stantz: Every religion has its myth about the end of the world.
-->Winston Zeddmore: Myth? Ray, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason we've been so busy lately is 'cause the dead ''have'' been rising from the grave?

-->Peter Venkman: Or you could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
-->Mayor: What do you mean, biblical?
-->Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament biblical, Mr. Mayor. Real wrath-of-God-type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
-->Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes! Volcanoes!
-->Winston Zeddmore: The dead rising from the grave!
-->Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

-->Winston Zeddmore: Myth? Ray, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason we've been so busy lately is 'cause the dead HAVE been rising from the grave?

NoRealLifeExamples, please. As far as we at TVTropes are aware, the world has not ended nor has ever been in imminent danger of ending.