Mercury will make a rare move across the sun on Monday – an important celestial event for stargazers and a portent of doom for some religious conspiracists.
The smallest planet in the solar system will appear as a tiny black dot on the face of the sun during a passage that will last for about 7.5 hours.
The last time it happened was 2006 and it will happen again three years from now, but then not until 2032. According to Nasa, the event occurs only around 13 times a century.
But YouTube channel The Prophetico has seized upon the heavenly event to warn the natural phenomenon could well be linked to the Bible’s prophecy of destruction. Uh-oh!
A video and online document claim the event will be accompanied by a host of deeply significant astrological alignments, his interpretation of which could spell the end of days.
In particular, this doomsday prophet (going by the name Matthew), draws attention to the fact that 6 May marked the start of a new moon cycle and a supermoon.
That the new moon will be 3 and-a-half-days-old during the transit is highly prophetic, he claims, adding that as viewed from Jerusalem, the positioning of the crescent moon in alignment with the Orion star constellation will “turn Orion’s club into a mace.” Sounds nasty!
He explains: “The moon itself has been turned into a sickle, so literally turning Orion’s club into a mace as he strikes the lion’s whelp along the cheek during the transit.”
Speaking over a graphic showing the positions of the stars and planets at the time of the transit, he adds that Jupiter sits in the constellation Leo – the Lion of Judah in Biblical terms.
“When we take a look at this, take note that Orion is the sign of the smite per Micah chapter five.” [Micah asks God to take down the leaders who have “corrupted the people and lied to them".]
Matthew draws further links between the transit heralding the potential apocalypse using Biblical numerology, with the numbers 3 and 40 being of particular significance.
Writing online, he opines: “These conclusions force us to hypothesise about what this could mean to the observer. Will Mercury transit the sun in the wrong position?
“Will it’s parallax be off causing it to appear too large or too small?
“If not now could we witness a massive impact that knocks it out of orbit altogether?
“If not now will this happen whenever the ‘end times’ are upon us? These hypotheses surely demand further research and development.”
Happily the claims have been put to Asteroid Watch, which works with Nasa’s official efforts to detect, track and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could approach Earth.
And their response? The decidedly unruffled remark: “Sounds like another hoax.”
Stand down…