September 24th, 2022 Doomsday Warning

About

The September 24th, 2022 Doomsday Warning is a doomsday hoax alleging that a catastrophic event, possibly a solar storm, will occur on September 24th, 2022 that will usher in the end of the world. The hoax stems from an August 2022 study by Ali Al-Rubaidi that claims a solar storm will strike earth on September 23rd based on a mixture of scientific evidence and the Quran. In September 2022, the hoax spread on TikTok along with a clip of the German leader of the Christian Democratic Union party where he misspeaks regarding the date of the 2022 Ukraine Invasion of Russia, saying "September 24th, 2022 will be a day to remember."

Origin

On February 28th, 2022, the cdutv YouTube^[1] channel posted a video of Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany's Christian Democractic Union party, speaking on the war between Russia and Ukraine. At the 00:30 second mark, he says what roughly translates to, "24th September 2022 will remain in our memories as a day we will all remember. We will say 'I know exactly where I was when I first heard the news of war in Ukraine." It is suspected that he misspoke and meant to say February 24th, 2022, the day that Russia invaded Ukraine.

In August 2022, Ali Al-Rubaidi published a study to ResearchGate^[2] titled, "On 23 September 2022, Solar Storm anticipate to strike the earth, based on Science and the Quran," hypothesizing that a solar storm will hit earth on September 23rd and cause a food shortage and damage to technological infrastructure. The abstract reads:

A recurrence of the Carrington solar storm event would have a significant effect not just on technological infrastructure. However, the complexity of the solar storm's repercussions on the food shortage crisis is critical since the world is now confronting food scarcity. Our anticipation of Solar storms is based on the crucial factors determining that extreme Solar storm occurrence. IMF-Bz, with its southerly orientation and negative polarity, is one of the defining variables for the event of intense Solar storms. The most important part of our approach to interpreting the Quran is establishing a tie between pertinent literature and the Quran. Thus, we follow Plato's instruction in the cave allegory; the Sun should enlighten us upon departing the cave. In verse (18:17) of the Cave chapter, the term [ṭalaʿat] that follows the word Sun signifies the Sun's position at the zenith (Al-Rubaidi 2022b). The second word [tazāwaru] designated the negative and southward direction of the IMF. Therefore, our anticipation that an intense CME would impact earth at the Sun at Zenith on 23 September 2022, about 5:07 UTC. In addition, hitting the earth's upper atmosphere is likely by a Solar flare that will coincide with the Sunset from the word [taqradum] that signified the Sun emission of the Kα Iron line within our approach. So, it is likely Solar flare coincides or precedes CME in striking the earth's upper atmosphere.

On September 8th, ElectroVerse^[3] posted an elaboration on the study where he looks into AL-Robaidi's research. He concludes that the solar storm is actually heading away from earth towards venus and that it will likely not hit earth's atmosphere, writing, "Earth is not affected by this storm, which is happening on the opposite side of the sun." He does not outright reject the prediction, however, writing, "Religious scriptures are powerful tools. They often contain warnings of past cyclical catastrophes that are doomed to repeat, from which heedance can be drawn."

On September 17th, TikToker^[4] @cwcline posted the translated clip of Merz, garnering around 15,000 views in four days. On the same day, he posted a video to TikTok^[5] where he shows the clip followed by an image of Ali Al-Rubaidi's paper (shown below). In the video, which gained over 1.2 million views in four days, he supports the possibility of a world ending event and shows purported evidence of what a solar storm could do to the world. He suggests a viral video of a tree steaming in China^[6] is evidence of this as solar storms can allegedly cause trees to catch on fire. He claims the video of the steaming tree is from California, but it appears to be from China and is likely caused by the ongoing heatwave.^[7]

Spread

Rumors about the world ending on September 24th, 2022 spread across TikTok and social media over the following days. Twitter^[8] user @solagimma posted a clip from season 24 episode 9 of The Simpsons, in which an apocalyptic event happens on earth (shown below). The season and episode number coincides with the date of the supposed doomsday event (24/9), seen as evidence of The Simpsons Predicting the Future. Another clip from the episode was shared on TikTok,^[14] garnering over 500,000 views in four days.

Simpsons predicts major blackout on September 24th! (Hence S24E09)#24settembre #september24 pic.twitter.com/9YCo2HkEBF

— Eli 🦅 🇮🇹 🇺🇸🇷🇺 (@solagimma) September 18, 2022

On September 20th, TikToker^[9] @therealfadoody posted a video sharing the hoax and suggesting it might happen, suspecting a "blackout" on that day, garnering over 1.2 million views in a day (shown below, left). On the same day, TikToker^[10] @dailyrundownwithchris posted a video explaining the hoax and doubting it will happen, garnering over 3 million views in a day (shown below, right). On the same day, the same TikToker^[11] posted a video attempting to debunk the hoax. HITC^[12] and Distractify^[13] reported on the hoax that day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References