As the year 2000 approaches, the world is witnessing a disturbing resurgence of apocalyptic belief. Across the globe apparitions of the Virgin Mary prophesy the collapse of evil and the triumph of the Papacy, while in Latin America and the Far East a fundamentalist Protestantism is forecasting the Second Coming. In the Texas desert and the Tokyo subway, apocalyptic believers have already resorted to violence, raising the spectre of worldwide millenial panic as hundreds of cults await the end of time. Meanwhile, the secular world is increasingly fascinated by reports of UFOs, angelic visitors and the mysteries of a Mayan calendar - apparently unrelated occurrences which seem to point to the dawn of time.