Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/05/23/rapture_postponed/

Rapture postponed as world inexplicably fails to end

Judgment Day prophet 'somewhat bewildered'

By Lester Haines

Posted in Bootnotes, 23rd May 2011 10:00 GMT

Judgment Day prophet Harold Camping has some serious explaining to do after his prediction that the world would end on Saturday proved less than accurate.

The 89-year-old founder of Family Radio nailed 6pm EST as the moment at which millions of true believers would be raptured heavenwards, while cataclysmic earthquakes rocked the planet.

New Yorker Robert Fitzpatrick's faith in Camping saw him standing in Times Square at the appointed hour, but he was rewarded for investing his life savings of $140k in a poster campaign proclaiming the apocalypse with nothing more than drizzle and jeering tourists.

He said: "I can't tell you what I feel right now. Obviously, I haven't understood it correctly because we're still here."

Camping, meanwhile, has gone to ground in his California home and has "no intention to speak or issue any statement", according to Family Radio board member Tom Evans.

Evans said Camping's wife described the unraptured preacher as "somewhat bewildered" and "mystified" at the world's abject failure to fall apart.

This is Camping's second shot at pinpointing the Apocalypse. His first effort named 6 September 1994 as the big day, but when nothing happened he blamed a "mathematical error".

When the preacher does resurface, he really should apologise to poor old Fitzpatrick, as well as those who invested hard cash in post-Rapture pet care schemes.

ABC News has more on the deferred end of the world here. ®