How to fact-check an end-of-the-world claim
Find the original source, then find the institution that would know first. If a claim about an asteroid, an earthquake, a solar storm, or a nuclear event is real, an agency whose job it is to say so has already said so — in plain language, on its own website, without a countdown timer.
Why this keeps coming up
CONTEXTPanic claims spread faster than corrections because they are shorter. A post takes four seconds to read; the agency page that debunks it takes four minutes to find. This is an attempt to shorten the second number.
Step one: find the original
Most alarming posts are a screenshot of a screenshot. Follow it back until you reach something with an author and a date. If you can't get there, that is already your answer — you are looking at a rumor with good production values.
Watch for the two most common failure modes: a real event with the date removed, and a real quotation with the qualifying clause removed. Both are technically true and completely misleading.
Step two: ask who would know first
Every category of catastrophe has an organisation that monitors it professionally and publishes what it finds. Going to that source directly is faster than arguing about the post.
- Asteroids and near-Earth objects — NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) and the Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
- Earthquakes — the U.S. Geological Survey, or your national equivalent.
- Severe weather — the National Weather Service, or your national meteorological agency.
- Space weather and solar storms — NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.
- Nuclear and broad existential risk framing — the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Step three: check the vocabulary
Technical terms get promoted to scary ones in transit. 'Potentially hazardous asteroid' is a filing category based on an object's size and how close its orbit comes to Earth's — it is not a statement that anything is going to hit us. 'Close approach' is an astronomical distance that would still be an extremely long drive. A 'watch' is not a 'warning'.
If a post's alarm depends entirely on one term, look up the definition on the agency's own glossary. That single step resolves a surprising share of them.
Step four: decide what kind of thing it is
It helps to name the category before arguing about the content. A verified event, an unconfirmed claim, a religious interpretation, a meme, and general dread all deserve different reactions — and only one of them deserves you cancelling your evening.
That's the same set of labels we stamp on every signal in the archive, for exactly this reason.
Sources
PRIMARY WHERE POSSIBLE- NASA — Center for Near Earth Object StudiesGOVERNMENT AGENCY
- NASA — Planetary Defense Coordination OfficeGOVERNMENT AGENCY
- U.S. Geological Survey — Earthquake Hazards ProgramGOVERNMENT AGENCY
- NOAA — Space Weather Prediction CenterGOVERNMENT AGENCY
- Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsSCIENTIFIC BODY
Links go to the originating institution. If one has moved or a fact here has aged badly, tell the station and it gets corrected at this same address.
Related files
INTERNALFILED BY THE STATION WSH-01 EDITORIAL DESK · Friday, July 31, 2026 · REVIEWED 2026-07-31