Harold Camping — 21 May 2011 Rapture prediction

That the Rapture would occur on 21 May 2011 and be followed by the destruction of the world on 21 October 2011.

The evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping used Family Radio and a large billboard campaign to predict a 21 May 2011 Rapture. The day passed without event; a rescheduled October 2011 date also passed. Camping later apologized for date-setting.

Harold Camping (Family Radio) — individual.

Family Radio's US network, billboards in dozens of cities, and RV caravans of volunteers carried the date into mainstream press coverage by CNN, the BBC, and Reuters in the weeks before 21 May 2011.

WHY IT RESONATEDCamping's radio network broadcast the date across the US in multiple languages, backed by billboards, RV caravans, and reported multi-million-dollar advertising spend.

21 May passed without event. Camping first said the date was a 'spiritual' judgement and rescheduled the physical end for 21 October 2011; that date also passed. In March 2012 Family Radio published a statement acknowledging that specifying a date had been sinful and that they would stop.

The prediction relied on private numerological chains from the Genesis flood chronology, and Camping had already publicly failed a 1994 prediction using the same method.

• 2011 end times prediction — Camping's dates and later retraction (overview, with sourced citations)Reference work
• Reuters — Believers left disappointed after RaptureIndependent reporting

• Tuesday, October 22, 1844·Religious Interpretation
  The Great Disappointment — Millerite prediction of 1844
• Friday, December 21, 2012·Mostly a Meme
  'Mayan' 2012 prophecy — end of the b'ak'tun
• Wednesday, March 26, 1997·Unconfirmed Claim
  Heaven's Gate — Hale–Bopp 'departure' of 1997

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