Some Weird Photos Near A Super Collider In Switzerland Are Causing Concern

When we think of the ways that the world might end, we’re all familiar with the common causes. You know, nuclear war, asteroids, etc. But there is one that people always miss, and it goes by the name of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland.

There, scientists are messing around with things on the bleeding edge of our understanding of the universe. When you do that, there’s always a chance you’ll get something wrong and trigger an apocalyptic event. In fact, if these recent photos of the sky near the collider mean anything, they might have already done something bad.

A series of photographs taken by hikers near the collider site show large, swirling clouds full of lightning in an otherwise clear sky.

Stranger still, the photos were taken on the first day of the conspiracy-esque “AWAKE” experiment at the collider.

AWAKE in this case is short for Advanced Wakefield Experiment. According to CERN (the international organization that operates and oversees the collider), AWAKE is “the world’s first proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment. Besides demonstrating how protons can be used to generate wakefields, AWAKE will also develop the necessary technologies for long-term, proton-driven plasma acceleration projects.”

So is it a coincidence that giant, ominous storm clouds made an appearence over the collider on the same day as a new experiment?

Probably, but it is pretty interesting to speculate.

Wikipedia

(via Mysterious Universe)

Just because the world is still here doesn’t mean that one day the researchers at the Large Hadron Collider won’t mess up and end it all. If that happens, at least we won’t be around long enough to get mad at them.