Get your stash of bottled water: According to the followers of radio preacher Harold Camping, Judgment Day is coming tomorrow. Camping et al. believe that 200 million people will be “raptured” on May 21, whereas the rest of humankind—and the world—will be destroyed. While Camping has his partisans, there’s no reason to put all of our eggs in one apocalyptic basket. As part of Josh Levin’s 2009 “End of America” series, Slatereaders picked from 144 possible scenarios—loose nukes, alien species, a new ice age, and many, many more—in the “Choose Your Own Apocalypse” game.
To make your apocalypse picks, click the launch module above. You’ll be able to scroll through a list of theories, then select up to five that you find most persuasive. (If you’d prefer, you can also read all 144 scenarios on a single page.) As you’re making your picks, you’ll get real-time updates on the apocalypse you’ve chosen—our Apocalypse Matrix reveals if your end times will be bloodless or violent, and whether you blame man or nature. You can also compare your choices with those of the average Slate reader. And once you’re done, you can check out the most-popular scenarios from 2009.
