Camping says 3rd prediction will be the charm

OAKLAND, Calif. — Harold Camping's first words to his followers in the wake of the May 21 Rapture that didn't happen were about himself.

"Of course, this last weekend was a very interesting weekend," Camping said in a radio address, before taking questions from a roomful of reporters. Camping conceded that the "dire predictions" he'd made, drawing attention from media and churchgoers across the world, did not come to pass, and as a result, the weekend "was a very difficult time for me."

Feeling intense pressure as the phone rang over and over and strangers knocked at his door, Camping said he took his wife to a motel, where they watched TV and prayed. And in the morning, he was deeply confused but came to a realization.

The doomsday campaign is over, he said. There will be no more TV and radio ads, no fliers being handed out. The billboards predicting the end of the world would happen May 21 are coming down, and they won't be replaced.

After all, Camping said: The world already knows when the Rapture is coming, and it's not May 21, as he adamantly insisted for months that it would be — it's on Oct. 21.

Camping had said that the Rapture would begin on May 21, and despite no physical indications that it did, he's arguing he was right. It was just his understanding of what that would look like that was wrong, he said.

God, as Camping described it, began judging earthly churches on the same May date in 1988, going so far as to enlist Satan to rule over them — so anyone thinking they'd been saved in a church after that was out of luck. That ended, Camping said, on the September date in 1994 he'd predicted at the time would be the Rapture.

As for this past Saturday, regarded as Camping's second swing-and-a-miss in many circles both religious and secular, that was, well, more of a spiritual Rapture than a physical one, placing humanity under God's judgment, again.

The physical one, he said — the cracking of the earth in violent quakes and the burning death of millions — is still on the way, five months from now. A small quake did strike Contra Costa County at 7:04 p.m. on May 21, 64 minutes after Camping predicted the end of the world would commence with a series of earthquakes starting in New Zealand and making their way to the San Francisco Bay Area. The temblor was nowhere near the continent-cracking disaster Camping foretold, although the quake could be felt 13 miles away in Oakland, the site of Family Radio's headquarters.

Despite acknowledging that he's misunderstood the importance of each date before, Camping said he's completely sure this time, without a doubt.