Death is like taxes. We hate it. Also, sorry for the reminder, but it’s coming for us all—every living, breathing human on this planet and most other plants and animals. We don’t like to think about the end and keep it in our distant minds, but every so often, we read something about the ultimate end. The last hoorah for our beloved planet Earth. A comet heading coming to crash us to bits, a nuclear fallout that could force us underground for centuries, or a zombie outbreak that will turn us all into mindless biters.

Some people are ready for the end; we call them doomsday preppers. So when the poop hits the fan, they will be the ones we all run to. But the preppers aren’t all isolated, socially awkward people. Some just have the resources to plan that far ahead.

Here are ten insane billionaire doomsday bunkers that we won’t be invited to.

Related: Top 10 Disturbingly Practical Nuclear Weapons

10 The Oppidum

Surrounded by high fortress-like walls and hidden among the lush forests, this 323,000-square-foot (30,000-square-meter) property is where you will be as safe as you could ever be. Deep in the mountains of the rural Czech Republic lies the incredible estate known as The Oppidum.

Complete with an underground garden with simulated light, a spa, a swimming pool, a cinema, a library, and other leisurely activities, you are sure to have a blast. The living space encompasses a whopping 77,500 square feet (7,200 square meters). Operated by a subterranean control center, the only entrance into the compound is an underground tunnel locked in by a blast door that can be sealed in a matter of minutes. If you want to attempt a break-in, keep in mind they have 24-hour military-style security with big weapons.

Although space in the Oppidum is quite limited, the company also offers state-of-the-art bunkers and structures delivered straight to your door, even if only to keep your nosey neighbors out of your business.^[1]

9 Trident Lakes

If you are hoping to work in a round of golf while the rest of the world goes to hell in a handbasket, then Trident Lakes, your one-stop sports and survivalist center, is your answer.

This resort-style private property developed in Ector, Texas, a short hour’s drive from Dallas, is set to be the prime location for those keen to survive an impending apocalypse without having to worry about losing their handicap. The resort features a hotel, golf course, polo fields, and around 600 slots for condominium-type housing, each with a view of the water.

It doesn’t skimp on the usual requirements, such as underground bunkers, armed security personnel, and a secure wall to keep the unwanted folk out. Also, should you feel the world needs your DNA, there is a DNA vault so that you can safeguard literally everything, down to the very essence of your existence.^[2]

8 Europa One

If you are a billionaire reading this, and you are thinking perhaps Europa One is an option for you, know that, like the rest of us, you are not welcome. You see, Europa One is by invite only, and the invites have gone out already.

Touted as the largest and safest underground survival bunker in the world, Europa One is also considered one of the most opulent. Built in an old Cold War bunker built by the Soviets in Rothenstein, Germany, the shelter is said to be able to withstand nuclear blasts, biological and chemical agents, earthquakes, and even planes falling from the sky.

Individual chambers were up for purchase at a measly $5 million. Once all the units were completed, each owner was able to fit their personal space to the specs they desired.^[3]

7 The Survival Condo

In the middle of Kansas, surrounded by lush green lawns, you might stumble upon a state-of-the-art security bunker, or you might mistake it for a rolling hill with security that would rival the Pentagon.

This unassuming bunker is built in the shell of an old Atlas Missile Silo, which was originally constructed in the 1960s. Able to withstand the launch of a nuclear missile, these silos were built to house the U.S. nuclear arsenal behind 8-ton (7.25-metric-ton) steel doors.

At the top of the bunker, you will find the communal spaces, pet park, arcade, pool, and climbing wall. Next lies the mechanical level, medical and security level, and hydroponics levels, followed by the residential living quarters. At the bottom are a cinema and a bar for the escapists among the residents.^[4]

6 The Underground House

If your vibe is plastic trees, faux rocks, and murals of wild animals and landscapes painted on walls… but underground, then the Underground House is right up your alley.

Built during the original panic, the Cold War, this 15,000-square-foot (1,394-square-meter) home located in Las Vegas, Nevada, comes with adjustable lighting to match the ruined outside world, twinkling stars in the ceiling, a dancefloor (because it’s Vegas, and people even dance alone in their homes), two hot tubs, a sauna, a bar, and even a barbecue. Clearly built by a person who was happy to party the final years of their life away.

This property, which has garnered fame from the likes of Imagine Dragons and Juno Calypso and even featured in a Netflix special, can be yours for a measly $18 million if you act quickly.^[5]

5 Shrublands Road

Located in the idyllic little town of Mistley, Essex, in the UK, Shrublands Road used to be a Cold War nuclear bunker intended to be used as a bomb-proof communications hub should an attack level the sleepy town.

The 10,000-square-foot (929-square-meter) property was built with steel reinforcements ensuring the survival of those inside but has recently undergone a total revamp. The bunker was first used as a museum but was later transformed into three luxury apartments and sold off to the interested public.

The bunkers were expected to reach a very reasonable £1.4million for the poor man’s billionaire, but you would still have to fend for yourself as there are none of the amenities you would expect from a world-class bunker, like a climbing wall and a golf course. However, they have been remodeled into three homes (2 3-bedroom units and 1 4-bedroom unit, with modern kitchen and Italian-marble bathrooms. The units are accessed by a common atrium.^[6]

4 The Safe House

This industrial-style cube, built in Warsaw, Poland, won’t withstand a bomb blast or a nuclear fallout, but it will keep bodies, living or dead, from entering your living room. Labeled by the chief architect Robert Konieczny as the world’s first zombie-proof home, this concrete box stands out as a durable, affordable, green option for the undead that are causing you sleepless nights.

The house features sliding exterior walls, aluminum roll gates, and a drawbridge that leads to the roof terrace above the pool that can retract. Everything, from the walls to the windows, bridge, and fence, can be controlled electronically. It would be a wonderful addition if you also fit it with solar panels.^[7]

3 Dogen City

Still in its concept phase, Dogen City—driven by the firm N-Ark—was born out of a combination of the biblical Noah’s Ark with a sprinkle of billionaire buying power and just a touch of ideological engineering.

Touted to house up to 40,000 people, this construction will basically act as a floating, self-sufficient oasis, safe from the threat of rising sea levels from global warming or zombies that can’t swim. Residents would be able to enjoy jogs along the 2.4-mile outer ring and receive medical care from the underwater medical facility, all the while enjoying the sun and the sea.

N-Ark’s mission is to have Dogen City up and running before 2030, which should give them enough time before the polar caps melt.^[8]

2 Space

The space race is heating up. New players like SpaceX and Blue Origin have entered the fray and are competing for who owns the skies. The billionaires are hedging their survival bets, and it looks even more unattainable than before.

What if Earth is destroyed? That’s alright. Musk has a plan to colonize Mars, and Bezos is hoping to normalize space travel for those with the deepest pockets. In theory, it’s the perfect option. In space, there is no risk of nuclear fallout, no chance of a zombie apocalypse, and not even a hint that North Korea might follow.

Although Elon has been generous in his estimates (giving us normals a chance of joining the ship) and estimating the price of a ticket to Mars at between $100,000 and $500,000, the current rate is somewhat more out of our league at millions or even billions of dollars.^[9]

1 The Aristocrat

If you don’t have access to billions of dollars, there is good news. A company called Rising S Bunkers fashions a whole range of bunkers that can be built and delivered to your location of choice, priced anywhere from $49,000 for a simple survival bunker to almost $ 10 million (installation and delivery not included). This is their flagship Bomb Shelter Complex, known as the Aristocrat.

The Aristocrat features enough beds for 50 people, air filtration systems, workshops, freezers, a gym, saunas, pools, and a bowling alley. There is also a gun range and a motor cave exit so that you can come and go like Batman.

Seeing that this option is suitable for a small community or a very large family, perhaps you can get a few people to chip in and split the cost.^[10]

Global or nuclear war. A stray meteor on a collision course with Earth. Famine. Pestilence. A shift of the Earth on its axis. A long-term global power outage. Extreme weather. Massive floods. Human error. Any number of catastrophic events could bring Doomsday upon us. We’re ready, though, or as ready as we can be, at least where food supplies are concerned. Culture, beneficial bacteria, and cookies should survive, too.

We have built vast storage vaults in the arctic and elsewhere, and scientists hope to build yet another one, underground, on the moon. Whatever befalls us on Doomsday, survivors will have food to eat, cultural artifacts to treasure, sweet treats to enjoy, and maybe even pets to pamper.

10 Highly Guarded Vaults

10 Svalbard Global Seed Vault

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), administered by Norway, is located on icy islands, known as Svalbard, or the “cold coast.” As might be expected, this region of the world is sparsely populated. Polar bears outnumber people. The residents of Longyearbyen, the closest settlement, number just over two thousand. In this “twilight zone . . . the sun never rises, and the moon never sets.”

A huge, wedge-shaped entrance leads into the side of a mountain and into the Doomsday vault, which is built to last 10,000 years. The vault is so cold that it will remain frozen for a quarter of a century, even if power to the refrigeration that maintains temperatures below those of the permafrost that covers the vault should fail. The treasure the vault holds is too precious to risk: seeds, collected from all over the world, over a period of seventy years—1.5 billion of them, enough to reseed agriculture, should a Doomsday event occur.

The SGSV is also a hedge against extinction, which isn’t something that may happen in the future, but is happening now. Scientist Cary Fowler offers an example: of the 7,100 varieties of apples that existed in the 19th century, only 300 remain; “the extinction rate for apple varieties in the United States is about 86 percent.” There’s a reason that “extinction exists in all crops. . . . Seeds used to be passed down through families. But today, farmers are planting mass-produced industrial seeds. The upside is more food. The downside is the family variety goes extinct.”

Any number of catastrophes, natural, technological, or otherwise, including “equipment failure or mismanagement,” can destroy a crop, Fowler says, and “once that crop is lost,” it is gone forever, and, with it, its resistance to disease or pests would disappear forever as well. That’s why the SGSV is needed and why Norway paid the $9 million in construction costs, Bill Gates paid the costs of shipping the 1.5 billion seeds, and almost every nation has contributed seeds. “These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we cannot imagine,” Fowler declares.

9 Chang La Vault

Chang La is remote. Three hours from the nearest town, Leh, Chang La is difficult to reach. It is situated atop a frozen mountain in the Himalayas, on a treacherous road that traverses elevations as high as 5,360 meters (17,688 feet). Temperatures are below zero, and humidity is almost non-existent. Neither earthquakes nor floods are threats. Despite its distant and inhospitable location, the high desert site is perfect for its mission, the storage of 10,000 seeds and 200 plant species, “preserved in permafrost at -18 degrees Centigrade,” which, in the event of a Doomsday catastrophe, would be used to replenish crops.

The seeds stored in the Chang La Vault (CLV) are genetically modified to ensure “that grains and vegetables can reproduce at high altitudes, in salty water, less water, and high temperatures.” The vault’s seeds are resistant “to temperature, pests, and humidity” and will allow generations to come to enjoy a variety of produce, including “apricots, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, radishes, tomatoes, barley, rice and wheat,” since such seeds have extremely long lifetimes—413 years for onion seeds, 1,100 years for rice seeds, 1,600 years for wheat seeds, 2,000 years for barley seeds, and an astonishing 9,000 years for pea seeds.

India has great plans for the future of the CLV, which is intended “to rival [the] Svalbard Seed Vault in Norway, as well as Fort Collins, Colorado’s National Center for Genetic Resources,” the latter of which holds “600,000 seed packets.” However, India must first equip the vault with a cooling system for use during the weeks that temperatures warm to -4 degrees. The CLV is intended as a “backup” for Norway’s SGSV, which flooded after uncharacteristically high temperatures melted the island’s ice. Climate change, it is feared, could result in additional, similar problems for the Norwegian seed repository.

8 Underground Lunar Vault

The CLV might not be the only backup plan needed to ensure the survival of agriculture in the event of a Doomsday situation, and scientists have come up with an out-of-this-world idea for an additional backup facility, a plan C, as it were. They propose to build an underground vault on the moon as a sort of “global insurance policy.”

Before such an “ark” could be constructed, though, there has to be progress in cryo-robotics technology. To be preserved, the lunar vault’s seeds would have to be frozen at a temperature of -292 degrees Fahrenheit, and the stem cells would have to be kept at -320 degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures which could adversely affect the underground facility’s metal parts. There are other potential problems, too, that might have to be overcome regarding the effect of gravity on the seeds’ preservation and communication between the Earth and the underground lunar vault.

Scientists have a location for the solar-powered site in mind: a “network” of 200 subterranean lava tubes that would protect the frozen seeds from “solar radiation, surface temperature changes and micrometeorites.” Elevator shafts would connect the surface of the moon, equipped with a photovoltaic system, a Ka-Band antenna for communications, and an air-locked entrance, with the underground lava tubes, inside which preservation modules and a preservation analysis laboratory would operate. All scientists need to make their dream come true, besides technological advancements in cryo-robotics technology, are “250 rocket launches . . . to transport about 50 [seed] samples from each of the 6.7 million species to the moon.”

7 U. S. National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation

At Colorado State University, the United States National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) preserves 600,000 “seed packets.” The seeds are kept at a temperature approximating that of “a home freezer,” to prevent them from degrading so they remain “viable longer.” The Center’s research leader, Dave Dierig, explains, “They’re all bar-coded,” and, to identify what kind of seeds any of the packets contains, a “secure database” must be accessed. Closed-circuit television cameras record every move everyone in the facility makes. Both other seed vaults and private companies, such as Dupont and Monsanto, store their seeds among those of the NCGRP.

Lisa Hill, who works in the Center’s Biophysics Lab, provides insight into some of the daily activities in which the facility’s scientists are involved. One moment, she may be “peering into a compound microscope. As she focuses on the delicate task of extracting an acorn’s embryo,” she continues to investigate “the secrets of how [plant groups] survive in storage and how” they can be revived and grown after they are removed from storage. Her work also involves her in research concerning species “longevity, best storage practices, and . . . seed development.” If Doomsday happens, the Center wants to be ready.

6 Millennium Seed Bank Partnership

The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP) seeks to preserve the seeds of plants threatened with extinction and of plants most likely to be used in the future. Forty percent of the world’s plants currently face extinction. The MSPB, in cooperation with 100 countries and overseas territories “has . . . banked approximately 15.6% of the planet’s wild plant species.” These plants are endangered by “land use and climate change.” Some of the MSBP’s projects include conserving trees and wild plants and cultivating crops that can better withstand the effects of climate change. These projects are active globally as well as in Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Australia, the Caucasus, Europe, and the British Virgin Islands.

Thanks to global, regional, and local support, the MSBP, which started in 2000, now safeguards 2.4 billion seeds gathered from around the world. Many of the seeds grow only in small areas and are endangered: “Yadkin River goldenrod (Solidago plumosa) grows only along a 2.5-mile stretch of the Yadkin River in North Carolina. Peters Mountain mallow (Iliamna corei) grows only on a single mountain on the VA-WV border. Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is . . . endemic to the Carolinas (99% occurring in North Carolina).”

5 SVF Foundation

Not only plants, but animals, too, are being preserved through the freezing of their “seed,” or sperm, and their embryos. The SVF Foundation’s cryopreservation program contains “45,000 semen and embryo samples from 20 breeds of rare cattle, sheep and goats.” The samples are stored at -312 degrees in liquid nitrogen. The non-profit Foundation was founded by the late Dorrance (“Dodo”) Hill Hamilton, who was a major shareholder in the Campbell Soup Company.

The organization’s mascot, Chip, a Tennessee fainting goat, is himself a specimen of the animals that have been bred from the frozen samples. The New York Times describes the process that produced Chip: “In early 2004, as a six-day-old embryo, he was flushed from his mother’s womb and spent the next several months frozen. Thawed and transplanted into a surrogate Nubian doe, a common breed, he was born on May 7, 2004, a perfectly normal fainting goat.” The same process is used to preserve new specimens: “Each time the foundation freezes a batch of embryos from a new breed, it thaws a few and transplants them into surrogate animals, repeating the test that Chip once passed.”

Although Chip will live out his life at the Foundation’s Newport, Rhode Island, facility, not all of the animals that could be born of the transplantation process might be as fortunate. The frozen semen and embryos are kept on hand in case of a catastrophe. Should a disaster occur, the Foundation’s chief scientific advisor, Dr. George Saperstein, says, “these frozen embryos would be made available, and in one generation we would be back in business.”

4 Frozen Zoo

The San Diego Zoo is also doing its part to preserve animals. In 1972, it began its collection of rare animal hides. Now, advances in stem cell technology may allow the zoo to fulfil its mission to save animals facing extinction. According to its label, a test tube removed from a container inside liquid nitrogen that is -173 degrees Centigrade (-280 degrees Fahrenheit) contains a northern white rhino.

Actually, it contains a sample of the rhinoceros’s skin, which, with current technology, can be transformed into induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells, stem cells generated directly from a somatic cell (in this case, the rhino’s skin cells). In turn, the stem cells can produce sperm and egg cells, which, combined through in vitro fertilization, form an embryo. The production of an embryo allows scientists to recover “long-dead animals whose species are almost extinct.” Endangered species need not be endangered anymore. In fact, the technology, some believe, may even make Jurassic Park part fact, part fiction as scientists “reverse extinction.”

Researchers may not bring back dinosaurs, but the Zoo’s collection of epidermal cells contains frozen samples of 8,400 species, including “Gobi bears, endangered cattle breeds, . . mountain gorillas, pandas, a California grey whale and condors.”

3 Arctic World Archive

Neither the preservation of plants nor of animals is the concern of the Arctic World Archive (AWA), which seeks, instead, to preserve humanity’s cultural legacy in the event of a global catastrophe. Presently the AWA contains 21 terabytes of open source code representing the world’s most cherished works of art, literature, and religion. The AWA occupies a 300-meter-deep “decommissioned coal mine in the northernmost settlement of the world” and works with its partner, GitHub, a code-hosting platform and the biggest software repository on the planet.

The AWA was founded in 2017 by a Norwegian data-storage company, Piql, on the island of Spitsbergen. The organization’s neighbor is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is “just down the road.” The national archives of Mexico and Brazil were the first to provide deposits, but the AWA now preserves cultural contributions from seventeen nations. Included among its treasures are Vatican Library manuscripts, paintings by Rembrandt and Munch, music collections, “scientific breakthroughs, political histories,” and sports memorabilia.

The source code is preserved on 186 “high-resolution photosensitive” reels of Piql film that is “specially designed for longevity and high density digital writing,” a process that requires that the files be converted “into QR codes [prior to] writing them onto individual frames in a reel of film” and processing the frames “in a developer cartridge, before going through an intensive quality assurance check.” At the beginning of each reel of film, “instructions in five different languages [explain] how to convert the QR codes into usable files [using only] a computer, a camera, and a light source.” The film lasts 500 years, long enough, hopefully, for survivors to weather a Doomsday event and enjoy culture without starting over from scratch.

2 Global Microbiota Vault

Not all germs are bad, and we rely on good microbes to help us maintain our health, both as individuals and as a species: “Human microbiota, a community of trillions of microorganisms that include bacteria, fungi and viruses, perform critical health functions in the human body, from facilitating digestion to bolstering the immune system.” That’s why Rutgers University researchers recommend the construction of a “last-resort vault” to store and preserve beneficial microbes. Indeed, during the past five to seven decades, a significant decline in human microbiota has already occurred, and this decline represents “a threat to us right now,” Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, a professor in Rutgers’s Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, warns. “Asthma, celiac disease, allergies, Type 1 diabetes and autism are skyrocketing. And the loss of microbial diversity is likely an underlying factor,” she says, which prompts the question of whether microbes can be restored.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault and similar “bio-banks” suggested the Global Microbiota Vault (GMV). The GMV would be “located in a politically neutral country” to encourage “all countries . . . to contribute to the collection . . . to make it as diverse, and thus as comprehensive, as possible.” The GMV would cost millions of dollars to build, staff, and maintain, but the health of humanity, following a Doomsday scenario, would be well worth it, Rutgers University scientists believe.

1 Global Oreo Vault

Food, art, literature, religious teachings, and even beneficial microbes are all well and good, in their own ways, but what about dessert? Even after—especially after—a world-shaking cataclysm, people are going to want sweet treats to eat.

No need to worry: just in case an asteroid collides with the Earth, Oreo has our sugar rushes covered. The Global Oreo Vault’s entrance is designed to resemble that of the wedge-shaped access to the permafrost-covered Svalbard Global Seed Vault. To protect the packaged cookies even further, they are “wrapped in mylar [sic], which can withstand temperatures from -80 degrees to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and is impervious to chemical reactions, moisture and air,” an Oreo spokesperson assured the public.

The cookie company hired architect Markus Johansdotter to manage the project, instructing him that the cookie vault had to be built within 30 days and had to operate the same way the SGSV works. Johansdotter described his work as “important,” but implied that it was also a bit intimidating. Protecting and preserving Oreos, he explained, was “a big responsibility.”

On October 2020, Johansdotter received a telephone call announcing that the vault’s construction was complete; the project was a success. He celebrated with other team members, as they huddled together in front of the Oreo Vault, shivering inside thick coats and wearing hats or hoods, while holding a package of Oreos. They were all smiles, knowing that, because of their diligent, hard work, the cookies’ recipe and a stockpile of Oreos would be on hand after any apocalypse that might occur.

Although NASA had not considered the asteroid’s passage near the earth to be a threat, Oreo was taking no chances. The company is prepared, now, if, in the future, an even bigger asteroid—or some other disaster—takes place, knowing the cookie is tucked away safely at the hard-to-reach coordinates 78° 08’ 58.1” N, 16° 01’ 59.7” E.

Top 10 Conspiracy Theories About Disasters

About The Author: An English instructor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, Gary L. Pullman lives south of Area 51, which, according to his family and friends, explains “a lot.” His four-book series, An Adventure of the Old West, is available on Amazon.

Just below the surface of our polite society, it’s not really a surprise for many of us that there are doomsday cults. A 2020 study by BioMed Central Geriatrics found that roughly 1.25% of people had persistent death wishes, and that was among people who did not have underlying mental illnesses. Of even that group less than a quarter admitted being suicidal. That’s a lot of the general population that would respond well to a group that tells them that it will all be over soon without necessarily bringing the stigma of suicide into it. 

Some of these brought the eyes of the world upon them for sheer spectacle. Others had influence that spanned the globe and lasted for generations if not to this very day. Such is the bewildering, passively self-destructive spirit concealed in society.

10. Plymouth Brethren

One of the earliest known surviving doomsday cults is generally reported to have been founded in 1831 near Dublin, Ireland. It was founded by the clergyman John Darby and his non-clergy associates, such as the lawyer John Bellett and Anthony Groves, a dentist. This was not really an issue for the group since they claimed they all directly studied the bible and consequently didn’t need a clergy that was separate from the congregation. After reaching the United States in 1860, it expanded to roughly 50,000 members. Along the way, it picked up some bizarre beliefs, according to John Spinks, a member for 22 years. For example, members are not allowed to go to theaters or even watch television. A rule which emerged in 1964 said that all pets were to be put down as a distraction from God. Such is the commitment to the doctrine that members are to attend a service every day, except on Sunday. Sunday they’re supposed to attend five.   

The influence of the Plymouth Brethen’s doctrine is most felt today in the popularization of rapture media, the Left Behind franchise being the best known example. It helped its spread and longevity that John Darby avoided a mistake that many of the other doomsday cults listed here avoided. He didn’t specify a date or even a year, just that the rapture and tribulation would happen at the end of the “Church Age”, the last of seven ages that he described in dividing human history. 

9. Society of the Woman in the Wilderness

While the Plymouth Brethren brought doomsday beliefs to America relatively early, they were old hat compared to a collection of German immigrants led by Johannes Kelpius that arrived in Philadelphia in 1694. Their name was a reference to Revelation 12:6 where a woman flees into the wilderness and is nourished by God. As that implies, their goal was to set up a community of their own in the frontier wilderness and await the end of the World before the year was out. They were of numerical necessity a tight knit group, as they held that the number 40 had spiritual significance and thus they kept their ranks at forty people. They also settled on Wissahickon Creek because they determined it was at 40 degrees longitude and built a 40 foot tall tabernacle, particularly difficult to do with the tools available at the time and only wood for a construction material. From their numerically significant tabernacle they watched the skies for signs the end had arrived. 

It must be said that not everyone in a doomsday cult is exclusively a glum drone. By Colonial American standards, the cult was actually relatively enlightened. They built the first observatory in the American colonies and brought the first telescope. They wrote popular music that circulated for centuries. In the years after 1694, the forty of them peacefully joined the surrounding Lutheran societies. Shame more cults aren’t so amiable. 

8. Laodicean Remnant Adventist Church

In Brazil’s capital city Brasilia, one of the most common ways that the practice of enslaving people is kept alive is through religious indoctrination through fringe groups. For example in 2018 a series of police raids found that a church called Igreja Cristã Traduzindo o Verbo (roughly translating to “Church Translating the Word”) was subjecting 565 people to uncompensated labor. How do they do it?

Well in the case of the Laodicean Remnant Adventist Church, which was raided in March 2019, 79 people were put into forced labor by promising them that they would achieve salvation before the world ended through their work. They had to sleep in tents, use dangerous machinery while sleeping near containers of dangerous pesticides, and all while having to pay for their own food and other necessities. At the time of the raid, the slaves claimed that they didn’t want to be freed and hadn’t sought police intervention. As a result Brazil’s police were prevented by law from removing them from private property against their will. 

7. The Ant Hill Kids

As heartbreaking as the situation from the previous entry is, what we know is not nearly so harrowing as what Roch “Moses” Thériault inflicted on his followers. The excommunicated member of the Seventh Day Adventist church began assembling his couple dozen followers on the promise that the world would end in February 1979, and to that end they drifted from community to community until they settled in Burnt River, Ontario in 1977. There their main connection to the surrounding community was selling baked goods at the local general store. 

The passing of the date of doom did nothing to lessen Moses’s sway. He adopted a strange habit of performing all surgeries on his followers despite not having a medical background, including unanesthetized amputations, castrations, and appendectomies. Not only were the followers too afraid of him to leave until one Gabrielle Lavelle staggered away from the compound in 1989 while missing a recently amputated arm, but some were so under his sway that they would take punishments of hitting their own legs with sledgehammers. Thériault was ultimately arrested in 1989, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993, and met his personal doomsday at the hands of another inmate in 2011.   

6. Heaven’s Gate

One of the most tragic groups, this group treated as a laughingstock in the 90s began in 1975 under the influence of former music teacher Marshall Applewhite and his wife Bonnie Nettles as the Human Individual Metamorphosis after they read the Book of Revelation and saw a reference in Chapter 11 Verse 3 to two witnesses to the end times (“And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth”). that they believed would be them. That year they held gatherings in Oregon and California where they believed a UFO would transfer them to a higher state of being. When that didn’t happen, they moved to Texas for a couple decades of commune living. In the ’90s they got involved in early web development. 

As of 1994, Applewhite’s statements specified that he did not believe suicide would be necessary for ascension. Still the group had taken on such habits as cleansing themselves by only consuming tea, pepper, and maple syrup. There was also their belief in uniform action, hence one of their last public activities being going out to eat and all ordering the exact same meal. It was also why when they committed group suicide in three waves in 1997 because they believed their souls would be transferred to bodies in a spaceship following the Hale-Bopp Comet, they were all wearing matching black shirts and black shoes. 

Regarding the infamous fact that Applewhite and others were castrated, there are a few points we’d like to end on. First, only eight of the 18 male members had voluntarily undergone the operation. In the second place, a former member reported that even the members themselves were laughing and giddy about having the operation at the time. Perhaps there are some celibate (or not) individuals that can understand the sentiment. 

5. Children of God

While Applewhite put great value in sexual purity, David Berg emphasized essentially the opposite. Not that he began his commune in Huntington Beach, California in 1968 with that as the initial mission statement. For the first ten years, it was a self-isolating cult that claimed that by abandoning traditionalist values they were actually closer to the original spirit of Jesus Christ, who was sufficiently anti-establishment that the Pharisees convinced the Romans to execute him. But even the most radical interpretation of Christ’s teachings would have difficulty justifying the practice introduced in 1978 that the perpetually isolated Berg referred to as “flirty fishing.” 

Essentially a recruitment tool, it was free love to the point of prostitution. Berg rationalized it by citing the verse 1 Corinthians 6:20 that since our bodies belong to God, using them to spread the faith is still righteous. It was sufficiently successful that it swelled the ranks of the cult to 14,000 at the height, and an estimate was put forward that 223,000 services were performed through it. It also allegedly led to large amounts of child abuse. 

Prostitution for God basically ended by 1987 when the AIDS epidemic made it no longer viable. Berg set a hard deadline that the world would end in 1993. Instead he himself ended in 1994. With its central figure gone, the cult shriveled down into the much smaller Family International. 

4. Church of the Almighty God/Eastern Lightning

Ever since the religiously-motivated Taiping Rebellion of the 1850s and 60s cost roughly 20 million people their lives, Chinese authorities have had little tolerance for fringe religious movements, creating an entire anti-cult task force called the Beijing Counter-Cult Association. One of the cults that has drawn the most attention is known as both Church of Almighty God and Eastern Lightning. It is based around the belief that an obscure woman from the Henan Province in central China who was believed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. One of the few things consistently claimed about her was that she failed her government entrance exams, which coincidentally is a second aspect she shares with Hong Xiuquan, the self-proclaimed reincarnation of Jesus Christ who led the Taiping Rebellion. Her obscurity is intentional, as most members are not allowed to know her whereabouts or have contact with her.  

One of the group’s central tenets is said to be that they use violence as a recruitment tool. On December 14, 2012, the year the cult claimed that the World would end, an adherent took a knife to a school and stabbed 22 children. In October 2014, when a woman in a McDonald’s turned down an attempt at recruitment, five members of the cult beat her to death with chairs and a mop, then called her a demon while in custody. According to Pastor Dennis Balcombe, members have been told to kill their own children during the brainwashing process that usually lasts about six months. If those reports are accurate it’s hard not to side with the Chinese government against the cult. 

3. Shincheonji 

Founded in 1984 by Lee Man-hee, the Shincheonji Church of Jesus is devoted to the notion that only through Lee Man-hee is Jesus Christ reanimated and that only through him can followers escape damnation. As they’ve become one of the largest and most radical doomsday cults in South Korea, they’ve adopted such beliefs as the tenet that getting sick is a sin because it distracts a follower from being able to preach the word.

This cult briefly rose to world prominence in February 2020. Their extremely aggressive proselytizing and constant services in extremely crowded halls made them ideal superspreaders of the then newly emergent Covid-19 pandemic. One adherent known as Patient 31 was indicated to have personally spread roughly 75% of all cases in Deenghu, one of the first major cities hit in South Korea. Of all the doomsday cults in the world, so far they’ve come the closest to actually bringing it about. 

2. Supreme Truth

When Shoko Ashara began his group in Japan in the 1980s, he went a step beyond many of the cult leaders we’ve seen so far. He not only claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ, but also of Buddha, at least in terms of enlightenment. As excessively grandiose as that might sound, even before the group was given official recognition in 1989 his followers placed enough value in him that they paid for strands of his hair, his bathwater, and in at least one instance paid more than £6,000 for a drink of what was said to be his blood. 

For many people who were adults in the 90s, Supreme Truth is much more familiar as “Aum Shinrikyo.” Ashara’s assurances that humanity would end on its own from World War 3 became much less convincing for much of his following after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and after that the cult turned to violence. According to nonproliferation.org, Aum Shinrikyo launched seventeen terror attacks between 1990 and 1995, ten of which involved the use of poison gas. 19 of its own members were killed by other members for perceived disloyalty. Most famously the group attack the Tokyo Subway on March 20, 1995, killing 12 and injuring thousands more through gas exposure or trampling in the subsequent chaos.The inevitable crackdown led to the capture and execution of many of its most significant members and for the group to undergo such changes as changing its name to Aleph. However, there were reports ever since 1998 that the group might have not only recovered but resumed growth.  

1. The Family

Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s cult sounds like a Stepford Wives-esque satire of nuclear families. In the 1960s in Victoria, Australia she began forming a community that would ultimately include 28 adopted children, many illegally and being told she was their birth mother. The children were also dressed in the same traditional clothing along gender lines, had their hair styled roughly the same, and were put through rigorous domineering physical and emotional abuse. As Hamilton-Byrne had entered the yoga scene to cope with a traumatic loss of her first husband, she eventually also entered the psychedelics scene and became convinced she was Jesus Christ, that her family should also takes LSD while she gave sermons, and instruct her family that they would be the master race after the world ended. She was also able to recruit a number of wealthy women in unhappy marriages and LGBT members as well since they were marginalized in the society of the time,

Eventually the extremely unhealthy domestic situation compelled two children to escape in 1987, and their reports resulted in a police raid. The extremely wealthy Hamilton-Byrne evaded the law for two years, and when she was captured, she only was found guilty of one charge with minor fee before senility hit and she was deemed no longer fit to stand trial. She died in 2019, still using a doll as a substitute for her child victims. 

Speaking of doomsday, Dustin Koski and Jonathan Wojcik wrote Return of the Living, a novel about how ghosts get along years after doomsday has killed everyone.

Just below the surface of our polite society, it’s not really a surprise for many of us that there are doomsday cults. A 2020 study by BioMed Central Geriatrics found that roughly 1.25% of people had persistent death wishes, and that was among people who did not have underlying mental illnesses. Of even that group less than a quarter admitted being suicidal. That’s a lot of the general population that would respond well to a group that tells them that it will all be over soon without necessarily bringing the stigma of suicide into it.

Some of these brought the eyes of the world upon them for sheer spectacle. Others had influence that spanned the globe and lasted for generations if not to this very day. Such is the bewildering, passively self-destructive spirit concealed in society.

This is an encore of one of our previous lists, as presented by our YouTube host Simon Whistler. Read the full list!