Civilized, intelligent creatures have existed on Earth for a lot longer than what is popularly considered under current timelines for the development of life on our planet.
Folks have anticipated that the end of the world will come within their lifetimes throughout all of history. People have always experienced their surroundings, referred to mystical texts, and read and interpreted prophecies to discover that nuclear war, pole-shift, alien invasion, or rapture was imminent – years or even days away, civilization was destined to collapse. Many would perish, but some – those prepared – would survive; bunkers with canned food, souls purified through prayer, and a superior morality would ensure the future of those special individuals, ones with enough foresight, insight, and spiritual guidance.
As is evidenced, however, the end of life as we know it hasn’t occurred, not any time within the last, 50, 000 years, give or take – so a lot of doom-sayers have been seriously incorrect in their interpretations.
Indeed, as young people alive today, we aren’t in very close connection with our heritage. It’s difficult to imagine what our grandparents’ lives were like, let alone two hundred or a thousand years before that. Recorded history is maintained by the victors and oppressors of the past, or at best, the wealthy minority. Those people thought and felt in ways fundamentally different from how we think and feel today, so it takes substantial creativity and conjective projection to even imagine!
So, I’m skeptical.
I’m skeptical of the WOTS theory, if only because I see how easy it is to envision the end-of-life-as-we-know-it, and to believe that we are the ones with enough foresight, insight, and spiritual guidance to predict and prepare for the inevitable. The capacity of human ego to inflate one’s self-worth boggles the mind.

We indeed live in troubled and trying times. Evidence abounds to support a WOTS scenario, but evidence abounds to support just about any imaginable theory, no matter how outlandish it may seem. At the same time, just about anything we can imagine to exist probably does exist, so it goes both ways.
I encourage each of us to consider alternative points of view very seriously. I know that there has been a lot of research done by the people who frequent this forum and by brilliant philosophers and magical scientists of all races and disciplines, and all of it is purely subjective – open to interpretation, regardless of corroboration. For example:
The 2012 end of the Mayan (actually Olmec, but we don’t even know where they got it…) calendar doesn’t actually predict the end of anything other than a cycle of time – no different than a year, decade, or century. The precise alignment of the Egyptian pyramids to reflect Orion’s belt in precisely the year ten thousand four hundred and fifty BC implies… damn, must be important. Stonehenge is a meticulously constructed monument that was likely very important to the people that lived in that part of the world way back in the blissful Unity Consciousness era of Earth’s history. But damn if that stuff makes any sense to humans alive today, at the turbulent end of this phase of Polarity Consciousness (if that particular model of consciousness development can hold any water). The ancient and highly refined spiritual science of Buddhism sees our reality of samsara to be never ending to those who don’t selflessly dedicate multiple lifetimes to the grueling task of spiritual development, and the other realms are accessible only through karmic action or the will of an enlightened being.

I call for each of us to consider alternative points of view very seriously. As well as constructing a spiritual philosophy, one must also deconstruct spiritual philosophy, and consider why it is s/he believes what s/he does. Only through this practice can you be sure you are developing your spirit and consciousness.

Believing you are Right is an extremely dangerous position to be in. One small assumption can block one’s pursuit of Truth.