There's a conspiracy theory that the world ended in 2012 and it makes sense
By Mark PygasUpdated
It's been a crazy few years for the world. If you told someone in 2012 that property mogul Donald Trump would soon be President of the United States of America and that the United Kingdom would seemingly shoot themselves in the foot over Brexit, they'd probably have a hard time believing it.
Fast forward seven years, and that's the world we find ourselves in. Unsurprisingly then, some Internet users have become convinced that we're in some sort of parallel universe. How would we find ourselves in this bizarre universe? Well, Twitter user Nick Hinton is convinced that the world ended in 2012, and his ideas seem to have found some backers.
Back in July, Hinton started a Twitter thread titled "a conspiracy thread: Did the World End in 2012?" It's since gone on to acquire thousands of replies and retweets from fellow social media users who seem to believe in his ideas.
The thread starts: "I’ve wanted to talk about this subject for a while now. The other day I had a random urge to look into it again and read some old stuff. You know, just for ‘fun’. Ever since then, I’ve noticed other people talking about it again."
I’ve wanted to talk about this subject for a while now. The other day I had a random urge to look into it again and read some old stuff. You know, just for ‘fun’. Ever since then, I’ve noticed other people talking about it again.
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
Hinton started by explaining that he's known of a few people who think similarly to him, but hasn't been able to find any mention of it online.
This has actually been really frustrating for me because I have nothing to refresh my memory while writing this. I’ve found a few things here and there that are helping me piece the puzzle together again, but I know there used to be so much more out there.
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
Hinton believes that the world ended in 2012, when scientists found the Higgs Boson.
So did the world actually end in 2012? Well, it was the year scientists at CERN finally found the Higgs Boson, you know, the particle Stephen Hawking predicted could destroy the universe, or in his own words, cause the universe to “undergo a catastrophic vacuum decay.” pic.twitter.com/YuBaNrdXyW
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
Why does he believe this? Because nothing has felt the same since.
There’s the old cliche argument that nothing has ‘felt right’ since 2012. I agree with this. Maybe it has something to do with ‘growing up’ and getting older, but ever since then it seems like the world descends more and more into chaos each day. Time even feels faster. pic.twitter.com/uyCJGI9k7q
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
Hinton believes that the Higgs Boson destroyed the universe and shifted our consciousness to another universe.
Like I’ve said before, I think we live in series of simulations. Perhaps the universe was destroyed by CERN and our collective consciousness was moved into a parallel universe next door. It would be *almost* identical. pic.twitter.com/njGc873y5P
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
His reasoning? Some people seem to remember things slightly differently from others.
Some people remember Febreeze rather than Febreze. Some people remember Sketchers instead of Skechers. Loony Toons instead of Loony Tunes, JCPenny instead of JCPenney. The list goes on. If these don’t look or feel right to you, you’re not alone. pic.twitter.com/HsaY95L94E
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
Some people remember the Statue of Liberty being on Ellis Islands, while it's actually on Liberty Island.
Mandela Effects get much creepier though. Some people remember the Statue of Liberty being in a totally different location, that location being Ellis Island. It’s actually on Liberty Island. pic.twitter.com/vkLNpDZGHb
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
Creepy.
Now if that’s not strange enough, if you go on Google Maps street view, there’s a few specific areas of Liberty Island where the Statue of Liberty is just... gone. Residue from the previous timeline? pic.twitter.com/1PEn2XD7fy
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
Some people also seem to remember climbing the torch of the Statue of Liberty, when it's actually been closed to the public since World War I.
Apparently, right before the United States’ entry into World War I, the Germans committed the first act of terrorism on US soil. It was considered one of the largest artificial non-nuclear explosions to have ever occurred. I’m wondering why I didn’t hear about this in school? pic.twitter.com/czJ2zDCzE1
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
There's even some photos believed to be taken from inside the torch.
Then there’s these pictures I found taken from the torch. But just look at the users’ profile pictures. Creepy. Were they time travelers? pic.twitter.com/CL6TivQCRv
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
It gets even weirder.
There’s also this weirdo twitter account, @StatueEllisFdn, which makes no mention of Liberty Island at all and sports a creepy banner photo of people walking up stairs that lead to nothing. pic.twitter.com/ShUfeaKiyR
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
There are even users who claim to be scientists from CERN who back up the theory.
Well anyways, a while back there was a viral thread on 4chan posted by someone who claimed to be one of the 23 scientists at CERN responsible for creating the Mandela effect. They claimed the planet was destroyed and we were placed in a simulated world. pic.twitter.com/tFFkLocbfb
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
These kind of theories have been around for a while.
The idea of ‘simulations’ within ‘simulations’ or a ‘multiverse’ is not something new. It has been a part of Eastern philosophy since the 3rd century. A quote by Alan Watts illustrates it perfectly. pic.twitter.com/A1N2b1CKuJ
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
We could also be on the back of a turtle?
“... That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image.”
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
This also reminds me of the ‘Turtles all the Way Down’ myth, the story that the world sits on the back of a turtle, who’s standing on a larger turtle, who’s standing on an even larger turtle... you get the idea. pic.twitter.com/8T2FNgOfEF
Science.
He made this prediction using his Timewave Zero formula, which supposedly mathematically ‘decodes’ the King Wen sequence of the I Ching into something that graphs the fractal patterns of history. pic.twitter.com/3UexwfX0wg
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
It gets better. The government can't time travel past 2012.
Is there another meaning to ‘the end of time’? Preston B. Nichols, a supposed whistleblower who wrote books detailing time travel experiments at the Montauk Air Force Base, claimed that they were never able to time travel past 2012 because they could find no future beyond it. pic.twitter.com/0KWKImBtH3
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
It's even made its way into pop culture.
Stranger Things and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are actually both loosely based on those supposed experiments. pic.twitter.com/95vNhOdR3w
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
"The ‘end of history’ is a philosophical idea that has been talked about by such notable figures as Hegel, Marx, and most recently Francis Fukuyama," Hinton writes.
At the ‘end of history’ events still happen, but humanity has reached the end of it’s sociocultural evolution. This theory has nothing to do with time travel or simulations, but rather, the stagnation of human progress. pic.twitter.com/XzQi74JL48
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
He concludes: "If you think fourth dimensionally, or beyond linear time, we could say that the universe has already ended. The moment it began, the end was set in stone."
If you think fourth dimensionally, or beyond linear time, we could say that the universe has already ended. The moment it began, the end was set in stone. pic.twitter.com/TqkRgZRldV
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
We're convinced.
Perhaps the universe is in a constant cycle of expanding and contracting, the Big Bang and Big Crunch happening over and over, and our souls are just taking a ride on the Cosmic Ferris Wheel. Thanks for reading. pic.twitter.com/CJM0iY9QeF
— Nick Hinton (@NickHintonn) July 25, 2019
The thread received plenty of replies, and some people seem convinced. "I don’t even know what i don’t know anymore," one user wrote.
Others are less easily convinced, with one user writing:
"I hope people don’t believe this lol time seems to move faster due to the advancement of technology. The amount of information that would take days or even weeks to reach the user back then is now available at our fingertips in seconds."
Another user joked: "Your FBI man just got fired for letting you post this."
