Predicting the end of the world is a tricky task. If you are right, you get no thanks because everyone is dead. And if you get it wrong, you are a laughing stock. Harold Camping knew more about this than most because the US preacher had a habit of announcing the end of the world.
A Los Angeles Times article noted that he had predicted the end of the world no fewer than 12 times, beginning in 1978. A fan of numerology, he came up with the dates based on what he believed were hidden clues in the Bible.
While some of his earlier doomsday predictions were ignored, the world really began to take notice when he published a book called 1994? which predicted that Judgment Day would come in that year. He conveniently included a question mark in the title just in case he was wrong. Spoiler alert – he was wrong. Putting it down to a mathematical error, he went back to the drawing board and plucked May 21st, 2011 from the ether, explaining that it was something to do with Noah and a 7,000-year clock.
When neither fire nor brimstone materialised, he expressed regret that the rapture had not happened as anticipated. After a little bit of soul-searching, he announced that the new date would be five months later.
“Apocalypse now set for October,” reported The Irish Times matter of factly, as though it was reporting the rescheduling of a hurling match. But when the world didn’t end again, he threw his hands in the air and said he had no new evidence to offer.
He wasn’t the only one forecasting the end of days. March 10th, 1982 was teeing up to be another normal Wednesday until word flew around our primary school that the world was definitely going to end that day. Some of my fellow fifth class pupils confidently asserted that it would happen at lunchtime.
The suggestion came from a book called The Jupiter Effect, by astrophysicist and science writer John Gribbin and astronomer Stephen Plagemann. They predicted that an unusual alignment of the sun, the planets and the moon would see the world being hit by a combination of catastrophic earthquakes, tidal waves and storms.
The March 10th edition of this newspaper was too busy reporting on the return of Charlie Haughey as taoiseach to concern itself with the end of the world, but had we had access to The New York Times in rural Sligo, we would have read that there was nothing to worry about. “The world will not end today, despite widespread rumours,” it reported confidently that morning.
According to the newspaper, much superstition was attached to the unusual alignment of the planets, but it reassured readers that astronomers expected nothing unusual to occur. Word had not reached Sligo however, and a manic giddiness flew around the school as we imagined being blown to smithereens while tucking into our banana sandwiches.
It was two weeks into Lent and my first thought was about the four bags of Emerald sweets in our kitchen press. They were being saved for Easter Sunday and now would never be eaten. Tragedy heaped upon tragedy.
But to our great surprise, the world continued to spin throughout lunchtime that day. We filed back to class, somewhat disappointed that the school had refused to explode into a ball of flames and yet slightly relieved that we had dodged certain death.
It wasn’t only preachers and astronomers who were taking a stab at predicting the end of days. Even poultry got in on the action. Allow me to introduce the Prophet Hen of Leeds. Back in 1806, it was reported that she was laying eggs with the message “Christ is coming.” The far-sighted hen was owned by Mary Bateman, a woman, who, if she lived in this State, would be described as someone who was known to gardaí. So it was not surprising that the fraudster and thief charged people a penny to see the bird.
Whipped into a frenzy at the thought of the world ending, the crowds flocked to view the miracle. And some of them shelled out more money for a charm that she claimed would help them get into heaven when Judgment Day arrived. Mary Bateman had amassed a tidy sum before an astute local caught her shoving a handwritten egg back up into her poor hen.
Things took a dark turn three years later when Judgment Day truly arrived for Mary Bateman. She was found guilty of murder and executed.
As for Harold Camping, he eventually got it right. The end of the world did come on December 15th, 2013. But only for him.