# Heaven Stairway Incident Heaven Stairway Incident is a doomsday hoax born from a November 2020 Trollface 'Cover Yourself In Oil' comic by Twitter user @ebola_granola, whose fourth panel warned that humans would levitate skyward in May 2021 because skin is oily and oil floats in water[1]. After the ominous final slide got cropped and shared without the setup, confused posters on 4chan and Reddit read it as a real prophecy[2]. By December 2020, the term fueled an r/OutOfTheLoop thread hunting for an explanation of a disaster that never existed[6]. ## Origin On November 27th, 2020, Twitter user @ebola_granola posted a Cover Yourself In Oil comic whose fourth panel marked an event called 'The Heaven Stairway Incident,' set to take place in May 2021, in which humans supposedly rose into the sky because of the oil on their skin[1]. The tweet gained over 800 retweets and 3,800 likes, with the final slide showing a photoshopped New York skyline of people drifting upward[4]. - **Platform:** Twitter (origin) / Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** @ebola_granola - **Date:** 2020 ## Overview Taken from a four-panel Trollface explainer gag, Heaven Stairway Incident circulated mostly as a single doctored image of the New York City skyline with human figures drifting upward toward the clouds[1]. Readers who missed the comic's premise, that Trollface was telling people to cover themselves in oil so rain could lift them, encountered only the eerie final slide stamped with a May 2021 date[7]. That setup made the picture read like a leaked warning of an upcoming catastrophe instead of a shitpost. The hoax works because the cropped image carries no joke cues: no Trollface, no text about oil, just floating bodies and an unexplained ominous caption[4]. People unfamiliar with the Cover Yourself In Oil format filled in a creepypasta-style backstory, which is exactly what made the format catch on as a prank on gullible viewers[2]. ## How It Spread A day after @ebola_granola's tweet, a 4chan /x/ thread posted on November 28th, 2020 showed users puzzled about where the floating-people image came from[5]. On November 29th, Redditor 8174u2ychq87ruh17 posted the picture to r/CatastrophicFailure with a mock creepypasta backstory about an oil tanker disaster, picking up more than 450 points before moderators removed it[2]. One day later, YouTuber tangy uploaded a short video pairing the picture with eerie music, collecting over 12,000 views within three days[3]. As the image bounced around, 'May 2021 Heaven Stairway Incident' turned into a copypasta inside r/196, which prompted the r/OutOfTheLoop question asking what the phrase actually referred to[6]. The format also spawned the Trollface Incidents meme, where other panels and fake prophecies got slotted into similar fake-foreboding comics[4]. Urban Dictionary submissions from the same window described the event as a horrifying ascension in New York City where a Creator supposedly lifted people into the skies, playing the joke straight for anyone searching the term[7]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Heaven Stairway Incident? It is a doomsday hoax built from a Trollface 'Cover Yourself In Oil' comic whose cropped final panel claimed humans would float skyward in May 2021[1]. ### Where did Heaven Stairway Incident come from? Twitter user @ebola_granola posted the original comic on November 27th, 2020, where it gained 800+ retweets and 3,800+ likes[1]. ### What does Heaven Stairway Incident mean? Nothing real happened; the phrase was a joke prediction inside a Trollface gag, which outsiders mistook for a genuine prophecy after the final slide got shared alone[4]. ### How do you use Heaven Stairway Incident? People typically shared the cropped NYC skyline image or dropped the 'May 2021 Heaven Stairway Incident' line as a copypasta to confuse viewers, a convention that later fed the Trollface Incidents format[6]. ### Is Heaven Stairway Incident still popular? The specific hoax faded after the fake May 2021 date passed, but its template lives on through the Trollface Incidents format it inspired[4]. ## References 1. [https://twitter.com/ebola_granola/status/1332468486556114944]() 2. [https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/k3cl37/2021_heaven_stairway_incident_an_oil_tanker/]() 3. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDsAcqFMSFI]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/heaven-stairway-incident]() 5. [https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/26864246]() 6. [https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/k489s0/what_is_the_deal_with_the_may_2021_heaven/]() 7. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Heaven%20Stairway%20Incident]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/heaven-stairway-incident Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library