Wow... I bought a newspaper today. After looking at it, I realized it is a paper that was printed on August 22, 2017.....
AP News: In an emergency appearance today before the United Nations, a team of international scientists reported that the world has ended. The stunning announcement came during a special session of the UN Security Council, during which scientists from around the world expressed alarm over the incident.
According to a statement issued earlier today by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the world ended on Monday, Aug. 21 at approximately 3:00 p.m. EDT, at which time the Earth was rocked by a cataclysmic explosion during the eclipse. The explosion shattered the planet and sent billions of molten fragments flying into space.
News of the disaster sent shock-waves around the globe. In Washington, President Trump has declared a state of emergency, and is reported to be in close contact with those world leaders who weren't incinerated or catapulted into space.
Cities across the country are reeling from the effects of the disaster. One of the hardest hit towns was Ludberg, Vermont, where mayor Jim Fineman described the situation as "catastrophic."
"There's no gravity," said Fineman, "so we can't even flush the toilets. And garbage is floating out of peoples' trashcans and getting all over the place, which is a real problem, because under the terms of our contract with the Sanitation Workers' Union, all garbage must be contained in an approved receptacle or they won't pick it up. So basically, we're screwed."
Civil defense authorities nationwide have been on high alert, however they have had difficulty marshaling volunteers.
"We can't find anybody," exclaims Lisa Coombs, Director of Emergency Services in Moorpark, California. "The phones are out of order and everybody's just gone, along with their houses, and even the ground they once stood on. There's nothing left, just a lot of junk floating in space."
In London, several municipal workers were reported to be blue and not moving about, while a vacuum-driven waste disposal system at Pockleborough was said not to be working due to the lack of atmosphere, with refuse reportedly backing up into people's flats.
In Norway, Dr. Piers Larsson, Director of the Oslo Geophysical Institute, expressed dismay over the scope of the disaster. "I've never seen anything like this," he exclaimed, surveying the black void of space where his laboratory once stood.
Scientists are divided over the exact cause of the cataclysm. Some believe the Earth was struck by a previously undiscovered comet or asteroid. Some say it was a death ray hidden in the shadow of the eclipse. Others aren't so sure, however they concur on at least one point: an explosion powerful enough to destroy the Earth is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.
"This is the most spectacular celestial event since the Shoemaker-Levy comet impacted Jupiter," explains Dr. Naki Fujimori, an astrophysicist from the University of Tokyo. "Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing its exact magnitude because all of our instruments were destroyed, along with everything else on the planet."
