- If the world's wealthiest and best-connected people knew a catastrophe was approaching, their private jets might reveal it before officials sounded the alarm.
That theory has inspired a programmer to build an online 'Apocalypse Warning System' that monitors more than 31,000 private and business aircraft for signs of an unusual exodus.
The website continuously counts how many of the jets are airborne and compares the figure with historical patterns, searching for a surge that could suggest powerful insiders are responding to a looming crisis.
On Monday, it was tracking 869 aircraft in the sky and estimated that they could carry nearly 11,000 people.
Los Angeles programmer Kyle McDonald created the system after questioning whether the movements of the rich and powerful could expose dangers that the wider public had not yet grasped.
His website assigns global private-jet activity an emergency level between one and five, with the highest level triggered when the number of aircraft in flight rises dramatically above normal.
Users can watch the level change in real time or register for text and email alerts warning them when activity suddenly spikes.
McDonald stressed that the system cannot predict an apocalypse, but believes it could offer another public clue that something unusual is unfolding behind the scenes.
'I created it after it became clear that insiders in the US government were making personal profits from information related to war plans,' he told the Daily Mail.
McDonald said the idea began forming around April 7, when he noticed a rise in private-aircraft activity as President Donald Trump issued an incendiary threat to wipe out a 'whole civilization,' according to SAN.
The apparent surge made him wonder whether the world's wealthiest and best-connected people were quietly preparing for a crisis before the wider public understood the danger.
His theory sharpened less than two weeks later when he read reports about approximately $1 billion in pre
