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If Godzilla attacked, could we survive? We asked the experts
If Godzilla attacked, could we survive? We asked the experts
published
27 February 2026
Let's say Godzilla exists and walks among us like in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Could humans actually stop him, or even survive? We spoke to the experts to find out.
[Godzilla shown in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters]
- (Image credit: Apple)
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Apple TV's "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" continues the earth-shattering story introduced in the MonsterVerse movies. Season 2 dives deeper into the clandestine history of the mysterious Monarch organisation and its connection to the Titans – especially the giant radioactive one with the million-dollar smile known as Godzilla.
As demonstrated on the show and the movies, when Godzilla strikes, the world feels the rumble, with poor San Francisco finding out the hard way in his 2014 outing. It's a destructive event that rivals an alien invasion or an asteroid strike. So, to celebrate the arrival of "Monarch" season 2, we spoke to some of the world's leading scientists and experts to ask the question: If Godzilla attacked, could we survive? And could we co-exist?
A big problem
[Godzilla shown in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters]
(Image credit: Apple)
"Godzilla's presence would definitely be a biome-destroying event," monster scholar and "Monstrum" host Dr. Emily Zarka tells Space.com about what would happen if the Titan stepped through the rift and stomped into our world. "Due to the size of Godzilla and the other kaiju, there would be physical effects. I think that it would completely change life as we know it."
Dr Hans-Dieter Sues, senior research geologist and curator of vertebrate palaeontology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution, believes that Godzilla's existence would have a major effect on the environment. "If Godzilla existed, its biggest impact would be the tremendous damage caused by its occasional excursions on land," Sues says.
"If that happened frequently, vegetation would favor plant species such as ferns that could quickly repopulate affected regions. Although Godzilla has huge teeth and claws, its standard version subsists only on radiation. However, some versions have it consume large quantities of marine animals while it spends time in the sea. That could lead to a local or regional collapse of ocean food chains."
Today's shipping forecast: Godzilla
[Godzilla shown in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters]
(Image credit: Apple)
For Dr. Deby Cassill, associate professor of the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of South Florida, Godzilla's presence could also affect maritime travel – but not as drastically as one might imagine. "Maritime disruptions would be real but localized," Cassill says.
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"Whales already reshape shipping routes. We reroute vessels around their aggregations, spawning grounds, and seismic zones. Assuming Godzilla has radioactive elements, we could trace that – not quite with the same radar that we use now, but it's a traceable source of energy. If he were in a deep environment, we wouldn't need to, because our ships don't have that deep a draft. It wouldn't really be a question of collisions, unless he were in the shallower areas."
Cassill adds that there's already a plethora of previously undiscovered biological creatures, such as the 500-year-old Greenland shark, living in the deepest and darkest parts of the ocean. Resultantly, it would be entirely possible for Godzilla to also be down there and not bug anybody.
[Godzilla shown in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters]
(Image credit: Apple)
The experts agree that, unless provoked, most of the damage that Godzilla would cause would be incidental. This wouldn't come from a place of hostility, but due to his clumsiness and trailing tail. Even so, Sues believes there's only one solution when the Titan arrives on land. "The only effective response would be rapidly moving away from the direction in which Godzilla is traveling and hoping that it does not change course," Sues says. "Stay away from Japan, especially the Tokyo region!"
No one disagrees here. Spotting Godzilla calls for rapid knees-to-the-chest movements, not casual strolls. "If hypothetically there was some kind of early alert system, then obviously heeding those warnings would definitely be effective," Zarka says. "But I would say, yeah, run as fast as you can in a perpendicular direction. It's usually the best effort that works for a zombie apocalypse, and it works in any kind of panic situation."
Yet, this terror might not last as long as the first act of James Cameron's "Avatar" movies. "If he's run by radioactive furnaces, a creature that large can't move that fast for a long time," Cassill says. "As we know from Chernobyl, if the radioactive part of a nuclear power plant doesn't cool down and have some way of dissipating heat, it erupts, which is hugely dangerous." Given how much time he spends in the ocean, it stands to reason that this is how Godzilla cools down, and he'd likely require regular dips to keep his temperature down.
A living nuclear weapon
[Godzilla shown in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters]
(Image credit: Apple)
This weakness provides an opportunity for humans to escape from the danger zone and figure out their next move. "Godzilla isn't going to go on an hour-long rampage because it might just explode," Zarka says. "Also, considering the size of Godzilla and the other kaiju, a lot of them are inspired in part by dinosaurs and real predatory creatures. From what I understand as a non-palaeontologist, for dinosaurs of this size, their sheer volume and mass would make being fast, and for a sustainable period of time, unlikely. Dormancy would definitely be something that would be required, and we see this in the MonsterVerse, as Godzilla and the other kaiju take little catnaps."
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