Asteroids and Aliens: TikTok ‘time traveler’ predicts world’s end this week

For those itching for some “real” alien news among all the non-little-green-men headlines during the past couple of months, this one’s for you.

Not only is one federal government higher-up saying motherships with the capability of launching tiny drones could already be lurking in our solar system — citing the discovery by a Hawaiʻi telescope of the first interstellar object ever identified — but a cooky TikTok sensation who claims to be a time traveler is predicting the Earth will be destroyed by hostile aliens this week.

“!ATTENTION! I am a time traveler from 2671,” says a user who goes by the name Eno Alaric in a post on the popular social media platform: “8,000 people will soon be chosen to be the saviors of humanity.”

The self-proclaimed time traveler, who has nearly 360,000 followers and 1.6 million likes, says we have about a day now, as the evil visitors from outer space are expected Thursday, March 23.

“The world you call home, Earth, is in the brink of destruction due to a hostile alien species,” Alaric (@radianttimetraveler) says. “Another alien, known as ‘The Champion,’ will take some people to another habitable planet.”

“The Champion” apparently will choose “the best people” on the planet to keep the human species alive.

The 22-second video post, accompanied by foreboding music, creepy noises and images of cosmic calamities, has been played about 2 million times and has more than 5,000 comments.

Those commenting weren’t quite convinced — to say the least.

“Please let me know the lottery combinations ASAP time traveler,” one commenter said.

Another claiming to be “The Champion” said he was choosing sports stars LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Tom Brady, Mike Tyson and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to save humanity. (At least one person with Hawaiʻi ties got the nod. Johnson spent part of his childhood in Honolulu.) One commenter asked what movie the post was for and others questioned his “time traveler” status.

“2 days away, hopefully I won’t be disappointed like every other ‘prediction,'” said a commenter, adding a smiley face emoji. Another used four crying laughing emojis with the words: “of course yes lol.” One commenter was even disappointed they wouldn’t be able to enjoy their new iPhone because of the impending doom while another was excited the date of destruction was on their birthday.

Even an employee at the Hele gas station at the corner of Kaʻūmana Drive and ‘Āinakō Avenue in Hilo put in their 2 cents Tuesday after learning about the crazy story, joking that at least there was time to wrap up a few things before the end.

It’s not the first time Alaric has boasted bonkers predictions and other fantastic fables. The TikTok user also claims the “multiverse” is real, that portals to the past have and will open again, and even that humans will soon be able to stop aging.

Yeah, said one commenter about Alaric’s doomsday drop, there’s usually somebody every year who claims to be a time traveler, “but when it does not come true, they disappear.” Another added: “None of his predictions has ever come true.”

But hey, who knows?

“An artificial interstellar object could potentially be a parent craft that releases many small probes during its close passage to Earth, an operational construct not too dissimilar from NASA missions,” writes Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, and co-author, Abraham Loeb, chairman of Harvard’s astronomy department, in a recently released draft research report.

Astronomers with the University of Hawaiʻi’s Institute for Astronomy in October 2017 made a stunning and strange discovery. Using the Pan-STARRS1 telescope atop Haleakalā on Maui, they observed the first interstellar object seen passing through the solar system. The oblong object, officially named ‘Oumuamua, the Hawaiian word for “scout,” is an elongated metallic or rocky object that measures about 1,300 feet long and is unlike anything found in Earth’s neck of the universe’s woods.

The unusual near earth object also “was pushed away from the sun without showing a cometary tail of gas and dust, raising the possibility that it was thin and artificial in origin,” the draft report said. ‘Oumuamua was moving at a speed and in an orbit that led some scientists to suggest it originated outside the solar system and that other forces besides the gravitational pull of the sun could be moving it.

Kirkpatrick and Loeb used the strange visitor as an example of a potential parent craft — or mothership, if you will — with probe capabilities. They added that with the proper design, the tiny probes, which they dubbed “dandelion seeds,” could reach Earth or other planets in the solar system as their mothership passes nearby, just like ‘Oumuamua did.

They likely would be controlled by artificial intelligence, however, and wouldn’t be carrying any “biological entities,” the report said, “because these would not survive the long journey through interstellar space and its harsh conditions, including bombardment by energetic cosmic rays, X-rays and gamma rays.” Technology using artificial intelligence can be shielded to withstand such hazards and even repair itself or reproduce given the right circumstances.

“With machine learning capabilities, they can adapt to new circumstances and pursue the goals of their senders without any need for external guidance,” the draft report said.

Of course, despite recent reports and images of unidentified objects motivating his work, Loeb reminded extraterrestrial enthusiasts and UFO hunters that it’s all just a theory and not to forget about physics: “I want my instruments to tell me what is really happening,” Loeb told NBC News.

So there you have it.

Aliens could be coming to take a select group of people, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, to another planet before Earth is destroyed this week. And, their probes that picked out the other 7,999 to be saved might have already been dropped off by a “mothership” with a Hawaiian name.

But I guess I’m not holding my breath.

“Asteroids and Aliens” is an occasional column written by Big Island Now news reporter Nathan Christophel and features cosmic chronicles and extraterrestrial events from reports around the internet. If you have a space story that would fit, email Christophel at nathan@bigislandnow.com.