MNN - Mother Nature Network

It’s been a good while since the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Brooklyn-headquartered Christian Restorationist denomination best known for eschewing holidays, rejecting blood transfusions and prolific doorbell-ringing activities, have unleashed an official Armageddon prediction. For a while there, particularly before the turn of the 20th century, forecasting the Second Coming of Christ was the Watchtower Society’s real bread and butter (the legal and administrative arm of Jehovah’s Witnesses seems more preoccupied with real estate transactions these days).

 

Since its formation in the 1870s by minister and self-proclaimed “God’s mouthpiece” Charles Taze Russell, the Watchtower Society has fingered — and then revised — several specific Second Coming-centric predictions: 1878 (revised to 1881), 1914, 1918 and 1925. The most recent failed prediction came in 1975, a year, yet again, believed to be the beginning of Christ’s millennial reign. Starting in the late '60s and leading up to 1975, the church was mobilized by the “apparent” Armageddon (later cautiously downgraded to a mere “possibility”). Proselytizing activities increased, membership grew and many Witnesses went into full-on end days prep mode by selling property, cashing in insurance policies, etc. When 1975 came and went without incident, church leaders entered a serious period of denial, blame and regret (guess that’s what happens when you prophesize the end of the world and it doesn’t happen), initially claiming that the creation dates of Adam and Eve had been miscalculated resulting in prophetic error. Whoops.

 

Televangelist, businessman and bigot extraordinaire Pat Robertson has a knack for raising ire with implications that the Sept. 11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina and several natural disasters were, in fact, the wrath of God brought on by abortion policy and homosexuals. And what do you know? The 82-year-old “700 Club” host is also skilled at making failed predictions on a regular basis, doomsday scenarios included.

 

The Heaven’s Gate doomsday scenario resulted in a full-on media frenzy not just because of its UFO-centric outlandishness, but because of its tragic outcome: the largest mass suicide to occur within the United States. (The loss of life during 1978’s Jonestown massacre was much greater. However, that mass suicide was carried out largely by Americans living in Guyana). Led by Marshall Applewhite — in addition to being a controlling cult leader, the former singer, repressed homosexual and “Star Trek” enthusiast also fancied himself the reincarnation of Jesus Christ — the Heaven’s Gate cult was firm in the belief that the destruction (or “recycling”) of Earth was imminent and that the only way to evacuate was to hitch a ride on an alien spacecraft trailing the comet Hale-Bopp. Applewhite believed that Bonnie Nettles, the cult’s co-leader who had died from liver cancer 12 years prior, was aboard the alien spacecraft in question. And as the story goes, the only way to board the spacecraft and escape the destruction of Earth to reach a “level of existence above human” was via suicide.

 

On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 38 Heaven’s Gate members and 65-year-old Applewhite were found in a rented mansion in a chichi San Diego suburb. It’s believed that the suicides took place over a three-day span and were carried out through the ingestion of poison and/or asphyxiation. The deceased, all covered under alien abduction insurance purchased the previous year, were dressed identically in black shirts, sweatpants and, most infamously, Nike Decades sneakers (the “Swoosh” was thought to resemble a comet). Each member carried $5.75 in their pockets and sported the same shortly cropped hairstyle. And in a sad and strange twist, among the dead was the brother of Nichelle Nichols, an actress famous for her groundbreaking role on “Star Trek.”

 

Although not a prediction made in modern times, a compilation of doomsday prophesies that didn’t pan out just wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of famed 16th century seer/author/gout sufferer Michel de Nostradame. Perhaps the most famed of Nostradamus’ many disaster-centric predictions is this tidbit, Century 10, Quatrain 72, taken from his “Prophesies” (keep in mind that the original translation from French has been altered numerous times over the years, so who knows what he actually means):

 

 

Alrighty then. If we remember correctly, nothing particularly terrifying descended from the skies in July 1999. However, there was another world-altering event that went down that month: Victoria “Posh Spice” Adams married David Beckham.

 

For most folks, it’s a touch difficult to recall the ample amount of cataclysmic scenarios forecasted by a motley crew of religious leaders, psychics and esoteric cults — Edgar Cayce, Sun Myung Moon, Ed Dobson and noted Teletubby hater Jerry Falwell, just to name a few — for Jan. 1, 2000, or the year 2000 in general. After all, you were probably too busy bugging out over a software bug known as the Y2K bug. It was widely believed that the Y2K problem, a massive glitch resulting from computers incorrectly shifting from 1999 to 2000, could potentially usher in the end of modern civilization when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve. In anticipation of any sort of issues, governments across the globe launched exhaustive — and expensive — initiatives to correct the problem. Awareness campaigns geared to stamp out widespread panic were also launched although many folks had already begun preparations for a tech meltdown- cum-apocalypse. Needless to say, a fair amount of people spent Dec. 31,1999, huddled in their basements with crank radios and an endless supply of granola bars instead of out on the streets guzzling celebratory champagne.

 

In the end, some minor data-related problems did occur across the globe on Jan. 1, but the chaos-in-the-streets manmade doomsday scenario obviously didn’t play out. Ready for a trip down a paranoia-tinged memory lane? Please, take a gander at this 5-part infomercial from 1999 dubbed “How To Prepare Your Family for Y2K.”