American Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping is responsible for two major End of the World predictions, one of which cheated many of his followers out of their entire life savings. Camping was the president of Family Radio, a California based Christian broadcast. Family Radio was originally used for Christian gospel and ministry, but it was later utilized to convey and advertise Harold Camping’s many doomsday predictions. Camping used numerology, the practice of aligning a divine or special relationship between a number and some coinciding event, to interpret end of the world dates from Bible passages.

Harold Camping first predicted that the world would end some time in the middle of September 1994, a prophecy that was based on numbers and dates found in the Bible. In Camping’s book 1994?, he proclaimed that during that time period, Jesus Christ would return and the world would subsequently end. Obviously, the world did not come to an end in 1994.

Camping’s May 21, 2011 doomsday prediction was heavily publicized, as Harold Camping and the Family Radio team went on a media crusade to announce the end of the world. Camping’s followers heavily funded this campaign and were encouraged to drain their life savings to purchase billboards and RVs that advertised Camping’s message in order to warn the public about the world’s impending doom.

When May 21^st came and went without any sign of world-ending activity, Harold Camping changed the date of the proposed Rapture to October 21, 2011, citing that the date in May had served as a “spiritual” judgment day. Again Camping was wrong and after October 2011, he slowly drifted from the public eye refusing to make appearances. Harold Camping later said that people were right to criticize his end of the world prophecy as “of that day and hour knoweth no man” (Matthew 24:36).

Sources: Wikipedia, Huffington Post

Planetary alignment is defined as a time when a number of the planets in our solar system come together in a rough line, and occurs in some form roughly every 20 years. Every time this phenomenon occurs, end of the world rumors ensue, despite the fact that planetary alignment has happened many times throughout history. The main fear behind this lies within the notion that the gravitational pull of the planets aligning would cause giant earthquakes, destructive tidal waves, and volcanic eruptions.

When the planets aligned on March 10^, 1982, it was predicted that a number of catastrophes would take place wreaking havoc here on earth. According to this prediction, the city of Los Angeles was particularly in danger. It was foretold that a great earthquake on the San Andreas Fault would take out LA. This theory is called The Jupiter Effect and is articulated in the best-selling book with the same name written by John Gribbin, Ph.D. and Stephen Plagemann. Published in 1974, The Jupiter Effect claimed that when the planets aligned in 1982, it would have a direct effect on solar wind and therefore, influence weather patterns on Earth to extremes.

Of course, the planets aligned in 1982 (and once again in 2000) and nothing happened. Gribbin later admitted that he was embarrassed to have been a part of The Jupiter Effect at all.

Sources: ABC, Lucky Starz

Evidence was released in the 1980s that something had impacted Earth some 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs and reshaped life on Earth. Many believe that it was a comet that had caused such a significant loss of life on Earth, and therefore supposed a comet could strike Earth again causing a similarly devastating result. Two particular comets that have evoked doomsday hysteria in the past have been Halley’s Comet and Hale-Bopp.

Halley’s Comet, which comes into Earth’s view every 75 years or so, has certainly been involved in its share of doomsday panic. In 1910, it was predicted that Earth would pass through the 40 million km tail of Halley’s Comet. An announcement by French astronomer Camille Flammarion in the New York Times claimed that a gas in the comet’s tail could “possibly snuff out all life on the planet”. This ignited a high degree of end-of-the-world panic in the general public. However, Halley’s Comet passed by and, of course, nothing happened.

In 1997, comet Hale-Bopp was the source for a considerable amount of doomsday hysteria, most of all because it was one of the largest comets ever seen. Even though Hale-Bopp would be 120 million miles away from Earth at its closest point, the end-of-the-world rumors continued to circulate. Because of its sheer size, comet Hale-Bopp was predicted by doomsayers to bring the end of the world on April 1. In addition to the doomsday buzz surrounding Hale-Bopp, there were rumors that a UFO was following the comet. It was actually just a star, but sadly, the cult Heaven’s Gate committed a mass suicide (39 people) clinging to the belief that they would be able to teleport up to the UFO tailing behind Hale-Bopp. Just like Halley’s Comet, comet Hale-Bopp came and went without a commotion.

Sources: The Daily Galaxy, Wired, Wikipedia