WMG / Life After People

Life After People takes place in the same universe as Firefly.

We all just left, explaining the lack of carnage.

• Also this theory can also be used/shared for the Animal Planet series The Future is Wild in where Humanity leaves the earth after a 2nd Ice Age.
• If we all just left, we left in a hurry, leaving everything running. Kind of like the whole planet sharing the fate of the Mary Celeste...
• If this was the case, one would imagine we'd at least take or free our pets and shut down nuclear reactors and other potential man-made disasters.

Aliens did it.

The reason there are no humans left on Earth is that aliens abducted them all. Excuse Plot solved.

• Alien Space Bats used Mass Teleportation to send the humans to some other time or place. Or maybe, to several different times and places…

Life After People was filmed by time travelers.

It was listed as a documentary. But it is documenting events that have not happened yet. QED.

• Cue obligatory Time Lord reference.
  • The History Channel is run by Time Lords? That's...quite convenient actually.

Life After People was filmed by aliens

At times there are small camera effects that appear that someone (or something) is filming the show as if it were an actual live taping. And since the series at nauseum constantly insists that no humans survived the only logical conclusion is the entire show is filmed and produced by aliens who arrived shortly after The End perhaps to originally make a standard documentary about Humans. However after reaching the planet they discovered Humanity died out years ago from unknown causes and just decided to film the remains.

A couple of months later they give the footage to Network execs who give it the greenlight and it becomes one of the most successful series on "their" version of the History Channel.

The people of Earth are gone because of the diabolical plans of Stanley from A Troll in Central Park.

He wanted to see a world that was 'absolutely green'. What we see at the end of his movie is the beginning of a Life After People.

• ........oh god.

Humanity disappears in the year 2012

The Mayans were half right. The world survives, but humanity does not.

• Alternately, because the 2012 Mayan prophecy is actually supposed to be a prophecy of 'new beginnings' rather than the end of the world, it's actually a new beginning for the rest of the planet, not for humans. Kind of implies that Humans Are Bastards though.
  • So very Jossed.
  • Well, it didn’t happen in our universe, but it could have happened in another one…

Humanity has been abducted by the Reapers

In an alternate history of the Mass Effect universe, the Reapers invade the galaxy before humanity discovers the Mass Relays. Humanity is destroyed alongside other sapient races, while the rest of planet Earth remains untouched.

• Then shouldn't the world be wartorn?

The machines have risen!

A sentient artificial intelligence (or group of AI's) has wiped out humanity, and is recording the decay of the civilization humanity left behind. Unfortunately the AI does not have sufficient capacity to spare every computer on the planet (or it deems non-AI machines as 'inferior' and not worthy of salvation).

The Irkens had something to do with it

Doesn't seem a bit dark and suspicious?

The population of Earth was exterminated by Daleks.

• Unlikely. Daleks wouldn't have wanted to leave anything else on Earth alive either.

The Wraith finally found the Earth.

And what a culling! This explains why people are just gone. The Wraith we burping and farting all the way back to Pegasus Galaxy.

Life After People is a prequel to The Future is Wild

A world without humans,focusing on the changes of the environment and the animals on the future.Sounds familiar?

After humans go extinct, Earth becomes a World of Funny Animals.

This theory is just like Zootopia. Since humans never existed in that movie, the animals evolve enough to use human technology in the aftermath.

• See also Peace on Earth for the direct explanation of how animals took over once humans wiped themselves out due to war, possibly evolving over time into the civilization of Zootopia.

Human disappearance was caused by Thanos' Badass Fingersnap

That would very likely happen if he decided to purge the entire population rather than 50% of it.

Humanity failed to stop COVID-19.

• Disease possibly could have been the cause of humanity’s disappearance, but for some of the History Marches On elements shown in the series to be true as of the time of the disappearance (the Taipei 101 being the tallest building on Earth, the Cassini probe still orbiting Saturn), the plague had to have happened several years before 2019. And, like any other theory, unless the disease caused Spontaneous Combustion, it doesn’t explain why we see no bodies.

---