CHICAGO (CNN) (1/25/2018) - A panel of scientists and scholars said Thursday they believe the world is as close as it has ever been to a so-called doomsday scenario.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which has been tracking the threat posed by nuclear weapons and other technologies since the 1940s, moved the second hand forward on their Doomsday Clock forward closer to its symbolic apocalyptic midnight.
"It is with considerable concern that we set the time of the 2018 doomsday clock and offer a plea to rewind the doomsday clock," said Bulletin of Atomic Scientists President and CEO Rachel Bronson. "As of today, it is two minutes to midnight."
The last time the clock was so close to midnight was in 1953, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were engaged in a nuclear arms race. Both countries had just developed and tested thermonuclear hydrogen bombs.
In 2017, the board moved the clock from three minutes to midnight, to two and a half minutes to midnight. The furthest the clock has been from midnight is 17 minutes in 1991.
The Bulletin was started in 1945 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, to end World War II. They were concerned about the consequences of their work.