Harold Camping
American Christian radio broadcaster, author and evangelist Harold Camping was the most prolific predictor of the end of the world, not just claiming once that he knew for sure when the end times were upon us, but an astonishing twelve times.
His many predictions would come via his interpretations of biblical numerology, the first being made in 1992, when he confidently predicted that the coming Judgment Day would occur on or about September 6, 1994 (clearly he loved being specific). He even went as far as to write a book proclaiming this impending rapture by giving it the ominous title of ’94?’.
This of course never happened, but that wasn’t going to stop him from revising his doomsday date. September 6th became September 29th and then October 2nd but ultimately 1994 was only a bad year for Camping and thankfully not the rest of us.
His most famous and widely publicized destruction of the Earth would come in 2005, when he predicted the Second Coming of Christ on May 21, 2011, it should be noted that it was largely publicized by his own talk radio channel, Family Radio, of which he had been president of since 1958.
He boldly stated “there would follow five months of fire, brimstone and plagues on Earth, with millions of people dying each day, culminating on October 21, 2011, with the final destruction of the world.” Somewhat suspiciously, Camping would ‘retire’ from his position at Family Radio only 5 days before his apparently prophetic day of reckoning would arrive.
After this date passed (yet again) with no fire, no brimstone and not even the hint of a plague, he was roundly mocked by the mainstream media who labeled him a false prophet. In March 2012, he would finally agree with that assessment, sort of, when he stated that his attempts to predict a date was “sinful”.
