Story Archive

The End of the World, Part 1,216

David Meade, who predicted the end of the world would occur on Sept. 23, 2017, when a giant, never-before-seen planet would (Meade said) crash into Earth (This is True, last week), is still in the news. David Meade says he’s getting vile messages, including death threats, by phone, email, and social media. Except he’s not the doomsayer: it’s another guy named David Meade. This one happens to be from Ireland and is a performance mind-reader, not a pseudo-religious whackjob (who has reset the “beginning” of the end of the world to Oct. 15, 2017). “No matter what I said in response, people didn’t believe me that it wasn’t me,” Meade the mentalist says. Why respond at all? “I have a large international business. I really worry that the online digital footprint of this is indelible. I worry that in seven or nine years, this is going to keep coming up.” (RC/Washington Post) ...How you know he’s not the whackjob David Meade: he believes that seven to nine years from now, we’ll still be here.