Last Days: Hype or Hope? A documentary from Cloud Ten Pictures.

Blog intro by Andre van Heerden, Executive Producer/Director at Cloud Ten Pictures

The key to any good science fiction story is the suspension of disbelief. The more you can make your world or concept feel real, the more compelling the story and world.

Famous movie director M. Night Shyamalan is known for taking our seemingly normal world and twisting it ever so slightly. In THE SIXTH SENSE he dealt with ghosts. In UNBREAKABLE he dealt with superpowers. In both SIGNS and THE HAPPENING, our everyday world was put on its head – first by aliens and then by some unexplained natural defense mechanism found in mother nature.

The stories may have had some faults but the set-up of the initial world felt real because it portrayed our known surroundings just as we know them. Similarly in Roland Emmerich’s disaster pictures like THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and the recent 2012, our current and understood world is affected by forces bigger than ourselves. Interestingly, in those movies we can always pick out the signs that something is wrong – even when sometimes the movie’s characters may overlook it. We know something is coming so we’re looking for it. With the sudden string of big headline, natural disasters around the world (earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, China, volcano in Iceland, Cyclone in India) I’m wondering if we’re like the characters in those movies ‘missing the signs’ or if we’re paying attention because we’ve been told what’s coming?

In a documentary we produced a few years ago called LAST DAYS: HYPE OR HOPE? one of the things we covered were the increase in earthquakes (both severity and frequency) and dramatic weather occurrences. Even back then our research showed the undeniable evidence that like the Bible predicted, these events were increasing. Back then our findings raised eyebrows. Today I’d bet we’d get a different reaction.

Blog by Jack Kinsella of The Omega Letter

Special Report 2010 – Year of Living Dangerously

The incidences of “skyquakes” appear to be on the rise, with more than a dozen reported around the world in recent days. Skyquakes are unexplained loud ‘boom’ noises that periodically occur.

Some can be explained away as sonic booms from supersonic aircraft, others as thunder or some other naturally-occurring sounds, but some are totally inexplicable.

The US Geological Survey thinks they might be caused by earthquakes, but they don’t know for sure. They reported that there were accounts of “artillery-like” sounds just before and during the New Madrid earthquakes in 1811-1812.

Mystery booms coming from deep in the plate boundary were reported in Indonesia for many months before the December 2004 quake and tsunami that claimed more than a quarter-million lives.

Recent skyquakes have been recorded in areas as diverse Shreveport La, Kincardine, ON, Columbia Missouri, Bridington, UK and Rawalpindi Pakistan.

Last December, a series of skyquakes boomed across the San Diego sky. On April 4, the area was rocked by a 7.2 earthquake whose epicenter was in Baja. Are skyquakes and earthquakes related?

They think so, but nobody knows for sure.

In addition to skyquakes, there are literally tens of thousands of sightings of what are still unidentified flying objects. They have been seen over pretty much ever major city – including Jerusalem – and there are volumes of photographic evidence of something – lights, shapes and impossible feats of aeronautics.

At the turn of the 21st century, sunspot activity was so pronounced that it baffled astrophysicists. In 2006, the sun suddenly went quiet. Sunspot activity and solar flares have been practically non-existent since.

On Tuesday, the sun exploded back into life, blasting a huge coronal mass ejection into space. A solar wind gust hit Earth’s magnetic field on April 15th, sparking a G1-class geomagnetic storm.

Skies over Finland lit up with a beautiful mix of green and purple. The coronal mass ejection could strike a glancing blow at the earth sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Space scientists are now warning of the possibility of severe solar storms over the next couple of years and expected to peak sometime in 2012.

“150 years ago the effect of GeoMagnetic Currents was limited to causing chaos in the telegraph network, but a storm like this would today have a wider impact. The US National Academies estimate the cost of such a future severe geomagnetic storm scenario hitting the USA to be 1-2 trillion dollars in the first year. Depending on the damage, they believe that full recovery could then take 4-10 years.”

On Monday, a 7.1 earthquake rocked southern Qinghai, China, killing more than six hundred and injuring more than 10,000. Another 300 remain missing.

This is the 24th earthquake measuring at least 6.5 since January 1st. So far, earthquake activity in the first four months of this year have claimed as many as 300,000 people.

Over the same period last year, there were just twelve.

A cyclone packing winds of more than 100 mph lashed Bangladesh and India demolished tens of thousands of mud huts in northeastern India, killing at least 112 villagers. The storm came without warning.

And skywatchers in Wisconsin and northern Minnesota witnessed a brilliant green fireball streaking across the sky before exploding in midair, lighting up the night sky like it was daylight.

Another cyclone lashed Russia’s Sakhalin region, where they got the equivalent to 80% of a normal month’s rainfall in 24 hours.

Yesterday, airspace was closed over Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, the north of France including all Paris airports, and at airports in northern Germany and parts of Poland. Northern Czech airspace was also closed.

A cloud of volcanic ash from an eruption in Iceland was the reason for the air travel disruptions. According to officials, disruptions in air travel could last as long as six months.

Ice chunks the size of houses tumbled down from a volcano beneath Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull glacier as hot gases melted the ice. The ash cloud is drifting between 20,000 and 30,000 feet, where microscopic particles of the highly abrasive ash could cause aircraft engines to flame out mid-flight.

As the cloud moved east, flights were halted Friday at Frankfurt airport, Europe’s third-busiest terminal, and at 10 other German airports including Duesseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne. No flights were allowed at the Ramstein Air Base, a key U.S. military hub in southwestern Germany.

I was watching a news report when the news anchor suddenly ad-libbed; “the earth is angry.” The earth doesn’t have emotions – it’s a planet and it is made out of rock.

Rocks don’t get angry.

Still, the planet seems to be in a state of upheaval – literally, in Iceland’s case. Indeed, the whole solar system seems primed for something big.

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” (Luke 21:25-26)

Remember the demonic-looking ‘face’ created by the smoke and flames as the Twin Towers burned on September 11? Take a look at the satellite photo of Iceland from outer space.

It’s getting weird out there.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)