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Since the earliest days, humankind has pondered the end of the world. We’ve imagined messianic judgment days, cataclysmic comets, hyperspace bypasses, and Mega Maids. Here are a few apocalyptic scenarios from recent popular culture, how they might happen, and how likely they are to occur.

1. Subterranean Apocalypse

Some existential threats are waiting quietly beneath the surface of the planet, as we learned in Tremors, Gears of War, and the 2002 dragon apocalypse film, Reign of Fire. Is it possible that lurking horrors are underfoot, slumbering or tunneling, waiting for the right moment to strike?

Probably not. But there’s still a lot going on down there. For example, xenophyophores are extremophiles that live at the bottom of the ocean, to include the Mariana Trench, which is 6.6 miles below sea level. While it’s unlikely that these four-inch, single-celled organisms will rise up and enslave humanity, they do have a Wolverine-like resilience. The pressure in the Mariana Trench is eight tons per square inch.

The deepest land creature is 1.23 miles beneath the planet’s surface. Plutomurus ortobalaganensis was discovered eating decaying matter in the Krubera-Voronja cave in Abkhazia, according to Terrestrial Arthropod Reviews, which is an actual publication. But unlike its locust brethren in Gear of War, plutomurus ortobalaganensis is eyeless, giving humans an advantage in the inevitable conflict.

(Lest we become complacent, the Los Angeles Times reported on January 29, 1934, that Lizard People might once have lived in catacombs hundreds of feet beneath the city. It is unclear where they are today.)

2. Alien Apocalypse

If there’s one thing Independence Day taught us, it’s that Bill Pullman can give a pretty stirring speech. If there’s a second thing the movie taught us, it’s that when extraterrestrials come, they won’t be looking for Reese’s Pieces. In 1960, astrophysicist Frank Drake estimated the requirements for detecting alien civilizations in the Milky Way. The Drake Equation examines such things as the rate of star formation, the number of planetary systems with life-sustaining worlds, and the number of those worlds that eventually produce life. Although the number is conjecture at best, Drake estimated that there are between 1,000 and 100,000,000 extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy.

They can’t all be Vulcans out there. What would happen if aliens found Earth? According to Stephen Hawking, the best model we have for the discovery of Earth is what happened when Europeans discovered the New World. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”

Presently, the Voyager 1 space probe is approaching the heliopause, where solar winds give way to interstellar winds. It will be the first manmade object to leave the Solar System and enter interstellar space. (It’s traveled 11.1 billion miles so far; it moves at 38,000 miles per hour. Its battery will allow for data transmission back to Earth until around 2030, but inertia will keep it moving through space until the crack of doom.) The probe will be like a signal flare to the rest of the universe. And considering the mind-boggling technology required for galactic exploration, at best we’re insects to our alien overlords. (Hail Skroob.) At worst, we’re dinner.

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