Domain (2001) novel

Steve Alten's 2001 novel Domain about the Mayan Long Count Calendar "prediction" that the world would end on December 21, 2012 was well ahead of the spate of novels that started appearing the closer we approached 2012. Domain intermixes so-called ancient mysteries that are essentially unconnected with the 2012 doomsday scenario. It would not be giving too much away to say that the aliens did it. The novel also contains maps and photographs along with lengthy quotations from a fictional archaeologist's journal whose son, deemed mentally ill, is the protagonist. Domain, which ends in 2013, is the first of a trilogy known as, likely for marketing purposes, the "Mayan Prophecy series". The second novel is Resurrection (2004) and the third is Phobos: Mayan Fear (2011).

The Mist (1980) novella

Stephen King's 1980 novella The Mist, originally published as a short story of the same title and later a 2007 movie, contains a far bleaker ending than what was depicted in the movie, though that too was pretty horrific. The movie pretty well follows the novella up until the point at which the group of characters including the "hero", David Drayton, leave the supermarket to try and escape. The impression you are left with in the novella is that The Mist has enveloped all of Massachusetts and possibly even more of the New England states so that the end of the world may very well be at hand. The Mist is in many ways a precursor to Stephen King's epic novel Under the Dome (2009), except in the latter there are no extra-dimensional monsters. Quoting Stephen King, the Wikipedia entry on Under the Dome notes that the novel "concerns itself with how people behave when they are cut off from the society they've always belonged to." This is exactly what happens in both the novella and movie versions of The Mist.

Skyline (2010) movie

The 2010 Hollywood movie Skyline, in which an alien invasion centers on Los Angeles, California, will bear comparison with the 2011 movie World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles.

World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles (2011) movie

To help us prepare for the end of the world in 2012, Hollywood will release yet another alien invasion film, this time centered on Los Angeles, California. The film is titled World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles. It focuses on a platoon of United States Marines who mount a defense.

The Sony Pictures Web site for World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles.

The film premieres in the United States on March 11, 2011.

The film is also partly based on an incident described by the title of Terrenz Sword's book The Battle of Los Angeles 1942: The Silent Invasion Begins (2003). One of the film trailers begins with purported news footage of this "battle".

Aftershock (1990)

What if the aliens arrived after the apocalypse? This is what transpires in the 1990 movie Aftershock. Only it's technically not an invasion, just a single alien with a helpful attitude.

Half-Life 2 computer game series

The Half-Life 2 computer game series is set on a future Earth that's been taken over by an alien group known as The Combine from another dimension, elsewhere in the universe or even another universe. This invasion occurred after a portal was opened into that dimension or other place during the action in an earlier game called Half-Life (1998). Half-Life 2 was released in 2004 and a subsequent trilogy of episodes started appearing in 2006 (Half-Life 2: Episode One) and 2007 (Half-Life 2: Episode Two). Half-Life 2: Episode Three has not been released as of August 2009.

2012: The War for Souls (2007) novel

Whitley Strieber's 2012: The War for Souls continues his 2006 novel The Grays. In 2012, he couples the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world with an alien invasion.

Independence Day (1996)

Roland Emmerich wrote and directed the alien invasion saga Independence Day tied to the U.S. Independence Day and that starred Will Smith. The Earth seems doomed by superior exterrestrial technology, but the American way of life must go on and so it does. Somehow the U.S. fighter jets all seem to work perfectly. Why is it, I wonder, that the aliens always pick on the USA.