Recently, a lot of strange advertisements, such as: "My soul, my life and my ghost for sale" have appeared on the Internet. Take for example a 24-years-old inhabitant of New Zealand, Walter Scott, who took out for an auction on a certain website, called TradeMe, his own… soul, with the intention of selling it to anyone, even to the devil in case it exists.

"I cannot see it, touch it or feel it", says Walter, "but I can certainly sell it and get a good sum of money for that." Scott is sure that the ware he is selling is in a very good condition, just a little bit worn off because of "6 years of alcohol usage." There were 32,000 volunteers willing to purchase Walter's "precious treasure".

The auction has started with the price of 456 dollars and the price had been doubling every hour. Still, a little time before the closing of the auction, the managers of TradeMe had suddenly stopped the sales. They explained it by the numerous grievances of the religious visitors of the website, who considered the selling of the soul a stupid and outrageous joke. And still, Walter's soul had found its master – it was the manager of "Hell Pizza" Rachel Ellison, who proposed 3800 dollars for it.

"His soul already belongs to Hell, that's why there isn't any place better for it than our pizzeria," she said. And this is far from being the only case of trying to sell one's soul over the Internet.

Last December, an American has tried to sell his soul at an auction to get money for Christmas. He declared that the one to buy it will get his "precious property" in a glass vessel with the respective contract. He explained this by the fact that he had no money for Christmas presents for his relatives and all that he had more valuable in the world was his soul.

In April 2006, the vendor of the "untouched material" has become a native of Shanghai. The auction had to take place on the biggest Chinese online auction Taobao. There were 58 requests. Back then there was a problem with Taobao's representatives: they said that selling such an "unusual ware" was out of the company's rules, thus its selling was prohibited. The main reason, though, was the lack of a guarantee for the delivery of the ware to its buyer. Besides, the management of Taobao has explained that they will allow the selling of the soul only with a written document of permission from… the "upper offices." Who that would be they did not say.

There have been made a lot of apocalyptic suppositions by now, such as: the disappearance of the planet and the destruction of our Universe, traveling by time machine, the so-called "black holes" swallowing people and so on. The top 10 of the best apocalyptic scenarios were recently published on infuture.ru.

Atomic bomb.

History says that before the first atomic bomb, used on 16^th of July 1945, there was a rumor spread among the physics of Manhattan, according to which the nuclear reaction could burn out the whole atmosphere.

The 2000th year computer mistake.

The night of 31^st of December 1999 was predicted to be a night when the whole humanity would be buried into a total chaos. It was expected that as soon as midnight comes, computers directing everything – beginning with banks and finishing with stations – would decide that instead of the year 2000 the year 1900 has come, thus burying the industrialized world into chaos.

Pandemic.

Another scenario – humanity dying of a certain virus, a scenario used as a rule in a lot of movies describing world catastrophes.

Collision with an asteroid.

Another popular scenario in the movie industry. Specialists all over the world are constantly making the lists of asteroids threatening Earth.

Nuclear destruction.

That is the direct destruction of humanity as a result of a military conflict.

Global warming.

Lately, scientists frighten people with global warming. According to this scenario, in a distant future people will lose all natural resources, there will be starvations, epidemics and endless wars for the few resources left.

Sun.

A scenario of apocalypse for a very distant future. In some billions of years our Sun will become a red colossus and Earth will be destroyed. Some scientists consider that there can exist endless numbers of rational civilizations in our Universe. It is also assumed they can visit Earth one day to conquer it or to make cruel experiments on its inhabitants.

Rising of the machines.

It is said that in the future robots will become smart enough to act by themselves – and that includes destroying the world and killing people.