History Main / SignsOfTheEndTimes

* Creator/AlanMoore uses similar nightmare scenes during the "Love and Death" arc in ''ComicBook/SwampThing''. Anton Arcane's unholy resurrection leads to a "shockwave of nightmare", affecting people and animals around the area and spreading:

** In [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} Arkham Aslyum]], Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man, starts screaming maniacally, and the Joker has [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness stopped smiling]]...

* One Creator/DCComics story sees reality itself beginning to unwind. One of the signs of this is that ComicBook/{{Batman}} can no longer solve any of the Riddler's puzzles, proving that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
* Last but definitely not least, [[RedSkyTakeWarning the sky turning red]] heralded a [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Crisis]] that could mean the end of all reality.

* ''Franchise/TheFlash:'' In the last issue before ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'', an alternate reality version of Barry Allen tells Barry that sudden, inexplicable deaths are a signifier of a TimeCrash. He's wrong on the cause of the one they're tussling over, though. That's just Reverse-Flash murdering people ForScience.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'': In "The Castle at the Crossroads", the multi-colored sky that appears over the entire Smurf Forest (caused by Castle Captor's appearance) is thought to be a sign of the end of the world by Tapper, a Christian Smurf who is looking forward for the Lord's coming.
* ''Fanfic/PurpleDays'': The [[CometOfDoom Red Comet]] serves as this, as it transmits a signal that awakens the Others and the White Walkers, beginning the end of the world. [[TheMagicComesBack The return of magic]] is a mere ''side effect'' of its passing. In the final loop, characters who spend more time with King Joffrey, like his Silver Knights, become capable of sensing what he calls 'the Song of Existence', a sort of metaphysical manifestation of the will of the living world battling against the opposing, dark force he calls 'the Silence', represented by the Red Comet.

'''Peter Venkman:''' Human sacrifice, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking dogs and cats living together]], mass hysteria!

* ''Film/TheCore'' had:
** People with pacemakers all dying due to localised electromagnetic pulses.
** Birds mass suiciding because their directional sense was off, causing them to fly top speed into buildings.
** The ozone layer developing holes that let through unfiltered sunlight hot enough to melt the Golden Gate Bridge.

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

* In ''Series/{{Carnivale}}'', Brother Justin says that the depression and all the traits of the CrapsackWorld in which the show takes place are surely signs of the apocalypse. He isn't wrong, but what he isn't aware of at that point is that ''he's'' the one who's bringing it.

* ''Series/Charmed2018''
** When the weakest of men reaches ill gotten glory.
** The Movements great sages fall.
** With the blossoming of death, comes the awakening of the source of all evil and than we fall.

* Other religious examples such as ''ComicBook/ChickTracts'', or the late ''Plain Truth'' [[note]] formerly available in print only but now pretty much an Internet concern circulated by the Worldwide Church of God and its splinter groups[[/note]].

[[folder:Myth, Legend, and Oral Tradition]]
* In Finnish folk tale ''Velisurmaaja'' (Brother-killer) the fratricidal protagonist declared he will go far away. When asked by his mother or sister when he will return, he replies (according to the version recorded in ''Kanteletar''): "when the crow turns white, when the goose turns black, when a stone rolls on water, when a feather sinks to the bottom, when sun shines in midnight, when the moon burns hot, when stars dance in the sky". Many versions include assorted Christian elements like the Last Judgement, raining fire, blaring horns of heaven, and the return of Christ.

* The fairy-tale of Chicken Little, who when a leaf dropped on his head in autumn took it as the sky falling down and was convinced the world was ending.
* Increasingly unhinged right-wing fundamentalist preacher John Hagee makes a big thing about "[[http://www.fourbloodmoons.co.uk/ The Four Blood Moons]]", arguing that the Bible foretells a time when four eclipses of the moon will happen in quick sucession, heralding the commencement of the End Times, unless [[OnlyInAmerica the world]] renounces its evil ways and turns from liberalism, socialism, feminism, unjust criticism of God's holy state of Israel, and other manifestations of godlessness, and returns to the ordained path of the LORD, as defined by people like John Hagee. Apparently the Bible was written four thousand years ago to predict what is happening right now. [[note]] The Reverend Hagee has not read his own Bible - see Mark 8:12 as quoted below...[[/note]]

[[folder:Religion]]
* In Islam, Signs of the End are categorized into Major and Minor: minor signs are quite vague and subject to interpretation regarding what they refer to. However, major signs, like the emergence of the Antichrist (in Arabic "Dajjal") are unambiguous. There are many minor signs but only ten major ones.
* Christianity:
** The [[Literature/TheBible biblical]] ''Literature/BookOfRevelation'' is crammed with them from start to finish, including plagues, world wars, stars falling to earth, the NumberOfTheBeast, DemonLordsAndArchdevils showing up... it would be easier to list the signs that ''don't'' appear. Unsurprisingly, this is one of the original TropeMakers if not the UrExample.
** The early 2015 craze among some Christian denominations concerning the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Moon_Prophecy Four Blood Moons]]", a sequence of lunar eclipses coinciding with major Jewish religious festivals, leading excitable people to conclude God is about to initiate the Last Days.
** Despite the occasional Christian groups claiming to know when the world will end, most Christians consider trying to predict the end times to be an exercise in futility, due to Jesus Himself being on record as "sighing deeply" and saying, "Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it." (Mark 8:12) In another verse, He explicitly states that the coming of The End will be a major surprise for everyone, that "concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. (Matthew 24:36)" In other words, ''even Jesus Himself'' doesn't know when the world is going to end.
%%** The joke religion the Church of the [=SubGenius=] has a pamphlet with the masthead "The end of the world is coming... and it's hilarious!"%%Not the trope.
* Hinduism has the Kali Yuga, the end of each 64,000 year cycle of the world, where the world has degenerated so much that it has no option other than to collapse into destruction so that it can then be reborn after a period of dormanc. One school of thought within the Hindu faith is that we are currently in the last days of the planet, as can be seen by growing instability both in the planet itself and in the human societies that live in it; pessimists have said the Kali Yuga will arrive as early as 2025.
[[/folder]]

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' has the ringing of a mysterious clock in the last Christian church. During the unification of Terra, the man who would later become the GodEmperor of Man set out to purge anything that would challenge his vision of a secularist science-based mankind. Among those things is the last Christian church, maintained by a single elderly preacher. The Emperor, under a disguise, attempts to peacefully convert the priest. After getting utterly defeated in the ensuing philosophical debate, the Emperor storms off and orders the church to be burned down. The clock begins chiming, as it is prophesied to do when the end of man begins.

* ''Webcomic/TheSwordInterval'': The presence of monsters on Earth means the end is nigh, as foretold by the Hierophant. And it gradually gets worse until the civilization finally succumbs to the ever-growing hordes, or [[spoiler:[[ApocalypseMaiden the Harbinger]] calls down the apocalypse prematurely.]]
** [[spoiler:And it is revealed that previous incarnations of the world underwent the same.]]

* ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seventh_Sign The Seventh Sign]]''. A man is breaking the seven seals of the Apocalypse, causing the warning signs of the Apocalypse to occur.

* ''Film/JurassicWorldDominion''. As Franklin Webb tracks the plague of super locusts devouring crops across the globe, his co-worker in the CIA offhandedly points out how they're threatening life on a biblical scale by disrupting the food chain. He points out it's only a matter of time before the "other plagues" follow suit, "darkness, rain of fire" the works. Towards the climax, both "plagues" come to pass with a BigBlackout followed by the super locusts (which the BigBad [[FireyCoverup tries to burn]] only for them to escape) falling from the sky in a rain of fire.

* In the first season finale of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Miss 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.

* Series/Charmed2018

* ''VideoGame/TotalWarAttila'' has a mechanic to warn the players of the incoming apocalypse that will befell on the game. Starting with the birth and rise of Attila himself and going with the many climate catastrophies that happened at the time, until it finishes [[spoiler: with the sack and fall of Rome itself]].
* ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' runneth over with all kinds of approaching apocalypse signs. [[spoiler:Turns out, most of them are fake or just misinterpreted. A few of them are real and Gehena really is about to begin within a week, but it has nothing to do with ''this'' story.]]
* ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' touches upon this trope in reference to a book he finds in Lupino's nightclub, Ragna Rock.
-->''I was surprised to find that somebody had been passing time reading. The paperback was entitled "The Age of Murder and Storm." The blurb on the back mentioned Norse mythos and Ragnarok, the end of the Viking world with a terrible winter that covered the earth in ice, when vile crimes were rampant and all humanity lost. I could see how somebody impressionable might get it into their head that we were at the end of time. I was also beginning to see what the nightclub and its owner were all about.''

* In the ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' games, the rise of the undead curse and the coming of hollows is invariably a sign that the First Flame is weakening and the Age of Fire is close to ending, meaning that if someone isn't stuffed into it soon, Bad Stuff will happen. ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' goes even further: if the Flame is on the edge of death, past Lords of Cinder will be revived, and the Unkindled will rise from their graves.
-->''The Fire fades, and the Lords go without thrones...''

* ''VideoGame/GodOfWar2018'': [[spoiler: The death of Baldur marks the beginning of Fimbulwinter, the three-year winter preceding Ragnarok. However, [[SpannerInTheWorks due to Kratos and Atreus' presence]], Baldur's death ends up happening one hundred years earlier than prophesied, potentially derailing the whole of Ragnarok. TheStinger shows Atreus having a dream that at the end of Fimbulwinter, him and Kratos will be confronted by [[TheDreaded Thor]].]]
* Notably averted in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRebirth'': As Red XIII points out to Aerith, the ''lack'' of any end times signs makes most people assume the planet is fine, when it's actually barely hanging on.

** Zargon's return is marked by corrupt weather that leaves the land covered in foul brown slime, which eventually forms itself into humanoid creatures under Zargon's control.
** The is also a selection of signs for game masters who want to create their own Evils, including generic variants of the signs associated with the canon ones, [[AlienSky the night sky turning alien and strange]], disastrous [[TheGreatFlood flooding]] or droughts, and terrible plagues.

* In ''Fanfic/PurpleDays'', the [[CometOfDoom Red Comet]] serves as this, as it transmits a signal that awakens the Others and the White Walkers, beginning the end of the world. [[TheMagicComesBack The return of magic]] is a mere ''side effect'' of its passing.
** In the final loop, characters who spend more time with King Joffrey, like his Silver Knights, become capable of sensing what he calls 'the Song of Existence', a sort of metaphysical manifestation of the will of the living world battling against the opposing, dark force he calls 'the Silence', represented by the Red Comet.
* In the ''Fanfic/EmpathTheLuckiestSmurf'' story "The Castle At The Crossroads", the multi-colored sky that appears over the entire Smurf Forest (caused by Castle Captor's appearance) is thought to be a sign of the end of the world by Tapper, a Christian Smurf who is looking forward for the Lord's coming.

** As Sertrous returns to life, the earth vomits forth torrents of snakes. This begins with of normal snakes, but as the sign grows they're joined by serpentine monsters such as hydras and nagas. As his resurrection becomes imminent, the serpents grow more and more deformed -- some have multiple heads, others are inside out, and others still are simply masses of coils with no ending or beginning.**

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': The Burning of the Wanderer's Library is generally considered the worst that can happen. Whether it actually is literally leading to the end of the world or is more just a shit hit the fan indicator varies.