False Predictions since the first Century

14: "I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following:"

15: "Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter."

16: "I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face."

17: "I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time." 14
The year in which this event occurred is not recorded. However, one commentator suggested 1832 or earlier. 16 Smith is later recorded as having said:
"I prophesy in the name of the Lord God, and let it be written--the Son of Man will not come in the clouds of heaven till I am eighty-five years old." 17
Smith would have reached the age of 85 during 1890. Unfortunately, by that year, Smith had been dead for almost a half century, having been assassinated by a mob.

1843-MAR-21: William Miller, founder of the Millerite movement, predicted that Jesus would come on this date. A very large number of Christians accepted his prophecy.
1844-OCT-22: When Jesus did not return, Miller predicted this new date. In an event which is now called "The Great Disappointment," many Christians sold their property and possessions, quit their jobs and prepared themselves for the second coming. Nothing happened; the day came and went without incident.
1850: Ellen White, founder of the Seven Day Adventists movement, made many predictions of the timing of the end of the world. All failed. On 1850-JUN-27 she prophesied that only a few months remained before the end. She wrote: "My accompanying angel said, 'Time is almost finished. Get ready, get ready, get ready.' ...now time is almost finished...and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months." 10
1856 or later: At Ellen White's last prediction, she said that she was shown in a vision the fate of believers who attended the 1856 SDA conference. She wrote "I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel: 'Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus." 11 That is, some of the attendees would die of normal diseases; some would die from plagues at the last days, others would still be alive when Jesus came. "By the early 1900s all those who attended the conference had passed away, leaving the Church with the dilemma of trying to figure out how to explain away such a prominent prophetic failure." 12
1881: Mother Shipton, (1488 - 1561), a 16th century mystic predicted the end of the world: "...The world to an end shall come; in eighteen hundred and eighty-one."
1891 or before: On 1835-FEB-14, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church, attended a meeting of church leaders. He said that the meeting had been called because God had commanded it. He announced that Jesus would return within 56 years -- i.e. before 1891-FEB-15. (History of the Church 2:182)
1914 was one of the more important estimates of the start of the war of Armageddon by the Jehovah's Witnesses (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society). They based their prophecy of 1914 from prophecy in the book of Daniel, Chapter 4. The writings referred to "seven times". The WTS interpreted each "time" as equal to 360 days, giving a total of 2520 days. This was further interpreted as representing 2520 years, measured from the starting date of 607 BCE. This gave 1914 as the target date. When 1914 passed, they changed their prediction; 1914 became the year that Jesus invisibly began his rule.
1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994, etc. were other dates that the Watchtower Society(WTS) or its members predicted. Since late in the 19th century, they had taught that the "battle of the Great Day of God Almighty" (Armageddon) would happen in 1914 CE. It didn't. The next major estimate was 1925. Watchtower magazine predicted: "The year 1925 is a date definitely and clearly marked in the Scriptures, even more clearly than that of 1914; but it would be presumptuous on the part of any faithful follower of the Lord to assume just what the Lord is going to do during that year." 6 The Watchtower Society selected 1975 as its next main prediction. This was based on the estimate "according to reliable Bible chronology Adam was created in the year 4026 BCE, likely in the autumn of the year, at the end of the sixth day of creation." 8  They believed that the year 1975 a promising date for the end of the world, as it was the 6,000th anniversary of Adam's creation. Exactly 1,000 years was to pass for each day of the creation week. This prophecy also failed. The current estimate is that the end of the world as we know it will happen precisely 6000 years after the creation of Eve. 9 There is no way of knowing when this happened.
1919: Meteorologist Albert Porta predicted that the conjunction of 6 planets would generate a magnetic current that would cause the sun to explode and engulf the earth on DEC-17.

1936: Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, predicted that the Day of the Lord would happen sometime in 1936.
1948 – After Israel received statehood many started calculating new predictions. 
1953-AUG: David Davidson wrote a book titled "The Great Pyramid, Its Divine Message". In it, he predicted that the world would end.
1959: Florence Houteff's, who was the leader of the Branch Davidians faith group, prophesied that the 1260 days mentioned in Revelation 11:3 would end and the Kingdom of David would be established on April 22, 1959. Expecting to die, be resurrected, and transferred to Heaven, many followers sold their possessions and moved to Mt. Carmel in anticipation of the "end time". Of course, nothing happened, but later followers of the tiny group did experience a type of doomsday when many of its followers, including its leader, David Koresh, died in a self-started inferno at the church's main compound in Waco, Texas in April of 1993.
1967: When the city of Jerusalem was reclaimed by the Jews in 1967 during the 6 day war, prophecy watchers declared that the "Time of the Gentiles" had come to an end.
1970's: The late Moses David (formerly David Berg), founder of the Christian religious group, The Children of God, predicted that a comet would hit the earth, probably in the mid 1970's and destroy all life in the United States. 
1970
The True Light Church of Christ made its claim to fame by incorrectly forecasting the return of Jesus. A number of church members had quit their livelihoods ahead of the promised advent.
1972: Not learning from his 1936 prognosticating fiasco, The Church of God's founder Herbert W. Armstrong's empire suffered a serious blow when the end failed to begin in January of 1972, as Armstrong had predicted, bringing distress to many people who had given most of their assets to the church in the expectation of going to Petra, where such worldly possessions would be useless.
1973  A comet that turned out to be a visual disappointment nonetheless compelled one preacher to announce that it would be a sign of the Lord's return.
1975 The Jehovah's Witnesses were back at it in 1975. The failure of the forecast did not affect the growth of the movement. The Watchtower magazine, a major Witness periodical, has over 13 million subscribers.
1977  We all remember the killer bee scare of the late 1970's. One prophecy prognosticator linked the bees to Revelation 9:3-12. After 20 years of progression, the bees are still in Texas.
1978: Chuck Smith, Pastor of Calvary Chapel in Cost Mesa, CA, predicted the rapture in 1981.
1980: Leland Jensen, leader of a Baha'i Faith group, predicted that a nuclear disaster would happen in 1980. This would be followed by two decades of conflict, ending in the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth. Clear and straight forward; at least Leland wasn't vague.
1981  One author boldly declared that the rapture would occur before December 31, 1981, based on Christian prophecy, astronomy, and a dash of ecological fatalism. He pegged the date to Jesus' promised return to earth a generation after Israel's rebirth. He also made references to the "Jupiter Effect," a planetary alignment occurring every 179 years that supposedly could lead to earthquakes and nuclear plant meltdowns.
1982  A group called the Tara Centers placed full-page advertisements in many major newspapers for the weekend of April 24-25, 1982, announcing: "The Christ is Now Here!" They predicted that He was to make himself known "within the next two months." After the date passed, they said that the delay was only because the "consciousness of the human race was not quite right..." Boy, all these years and we're still not ready.1982: Pat Robertson predicted a few years in advance that the world would end in the fall of 1982. The failure of this prophecy did not seem to adversely affect his reputation or his ministry and he is still going strong today.
1982: Astronomers John Gribben & Stephen Plagemann predicted in their 1974 bestseller, the "Jupiter Effect", that when various planets were aligned on the same side of the sun, tidal forces would create solar flares, radio interruptions, rainfall and temperature disturbances and massive earthquakes. When the alignment occurred and nothing happened, they reputiated their whole premise, demonstrating that some people can learn from thier mistakes. They may, however, be the only people in history to have ever done so.


1984   The Jehovah's Witnesses made sure, in 1984, that no one else would be able to top their record of most wrong doomsday predictions. The Witnesses' record currently holds at nine. The years are: 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, and 1984.
1986: Moses David of The Children of God faith group predicted that the Battle of Armageddon would take place in 1986, Russia would defeat Israel and the United States, and a worldwide Communist dictatorship would be established. Sounds like a busy year.
1987 to 2000: Lester Sumrall, in his 1987 book "I Predict 2000 AD" predicted that Jerusalem would be the richest city on Earth, that the Common Market would rule Europe, and that there would be a nuclear war involving Russia and perhaps the U.S. Also, he prophesized that the greatest Christian revival in the history of the church would happen: all during the last 13 years of the 20th century.
1987  The Harmonic Convergence was planned for August 16-17, 1987, and several New Age events were also to occur at that time. The second coming of the serpent god of peace and the Hopi dance awakening were two examples.
1988-OCT-11: NASA scientist Edgar Wisenant self published his book "88 Reasons why the Rapture will Occur in 1988," which sold millions of copies world-wide. If you can't believe a NASA scientist, who can you believe? What little time the book had, it used effectively. By the time the predicted dates, September 11-13, rolled around, whole churches were caught up in the excitement the book generated.   Finally, the days of destiny dawned and then set. No Jesus. 
1988: Hal Lindsey had predicted in his book "The Late, Great Planet Earth" that the Rapture was coming in 1988 - one generation or 40 years after the creation of the state of Israel. This failed prophecy did not appear to damage his reputation and he went on to write over a dozen more books, most of them on prophecy, that continue to enrich him to this day.
1989  After the passing of the deadline in 88 Reasons, the author, Edgar Whisenant, came out with a new book called 89 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1989. This book sold only a fraction of the number of copies his prior release had sold.
1990-APR-23: Elizabeth Clare Prophet, leader of the Church Universal and Triumphant, made a series of statements that many members believed indicated the start of nuclear war on this date. At least 2,000 followers—some of whom had quit jobs and run up large debts in anticipation of the apocalypse—traveled to Montana to take refuge in CUT's fallout shelters on the night of March 15 of that year, only to see nothing happening. Church officials later said that the event had been a drill.

1991: Mother Shipton, a 16th century mystic predicted the end of the world: "...The world to an end shall come; in nineteen hundred and ninety-one." Also predicted eighteen hundred and eighty one. 
1992-OCT-28: Lee Jang Rim, a Korean Christian pastor, taught that the Rapture would occur on this date, at 10:00 AM EST (wonder why he would use U.S. Eastern time and not Korean time?) When it didn't happen, many of his followers allegedly committed suicide.

1991  A group in Australia predicted Jesus would return through the Sydney Harbor at 9 a.m., March 31, 1991.
1991 Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan proclaimed the Gulf War would be "the War of Armageddon ... the final War."
1991  Menachem Schneerson, a Russian-born rabbi, called for the Messiah to come by September 9, 1991, the start of the Jewish New Year.
1992   A Korean group called Mission for the Coming Days had the Korea Church in an uproar in the fall of 1992. They foresaw October 28, 1992 as the date for the rapture. Numerology was the basis for the date. Several camera shots that left ghostly images on pictures were thought to be a supernatural confirmation of the date.
1993   If the year 2000 is the end of the 6,000-year cycle, then the rapture must take place in 1993, because you would need seven years of the tribulation. This was the thinking of a number of prophecy writers.
1993: Benny Hinn, an Assemblies of God pastor from Florida predicted that the rapture would come in 1993. He now predicts sometime after 2012 up to 20 years, after his ministry has ended.
1994   In the book, 1994: The Year of Destiny , F. M. Riley foretold of God's plan to rapture His people. The name of his ministry is “The Last Call,” and he operates out of Missouri.
1994   Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church in Los Angeles caused quite a stir when he announced he had received a vision from God that warned of apocalyptic event on June 9, 1994. Hinkle, quoting God, said, "On Thursday June the 9th, I will rip the evil out of this world." Some people tried to interpret Hinkle's unscriptural vision to mean that God would the rip evil out of our hearts when He raptured us.
1994   Harold Camping, in his book Are You Ready?, predicted the Lord would return in September 1994. The book was full of numerology that added up to 1994 as the date of Christ's return.
1994 After promising they would not make anymore end time predictions, the Jehovah's Witnesses proclaimed 1994 as the conclusion of an 80-year generation; the year 1914 was the starting point.
1996   This year had a special month, according to one author who foresaw September as the time for our Lord's return. The Church Age will last 2,000 years from the time of Christ's birth in 4 BC.
1996   California psychic Sheldon Nidle predicted the end would come with the convergence of 16 million space ships and a host of angels upon the earth on December 17, 1996. Nidle explained the passing of the date by claiming the angels placed us in a holographic projection to preserve us and give us a second chance.
1996-OCT-23: Since 1658, many Christians have accepted the calculations of James Ussher, an Irish archbishop, who estimated that the first day of creation occurred on 4004-OCT-23 BC. This would make the time interval between the creation of the world and a common estimate of the birth of Christ to be precisely 4000 years. He also estimated that, based on the concept of the "millennial week" (that each of the 6 days of creation mentioned in Genesis is linked to a 1000 year time span in the life of the earth) the end of the world would occur exactly 6000 years later, in the fall of 1996.
1997   Two of the more widely known time frames were Monte Judah's prediction that the tribulation would begin in February/March and another prediction based on numerology and the Psalms that targeted May 14 as the date of the rapture.
1997   When Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed their peace pact on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, some saw the events as the beginning of tribulation. With the signing of the peace agreement, Daniel's 1,260-day countdown was underway. By adding 1,260 days to September 1993, you arrive at February 24, 1997.
1997 Stan Johnson of the Prophecy Club saw a "90 percent" chance that the tribulation would start September 12, 1997. He based his conclusion on several end-time signs: that would be Jesus' 2,000th birthday and it would also be the Day of Atonement, although it wouldn’t be what is currently the Jewish Day of Atonement. Further supporting evidence came from Romanian pastor Dumitru Duduman. In several heavenly visions, Dumitru claimed to have seen the Book of Life. In one of his earlier visions, there were several pages yet to be completed. In his last vision, he noticed the Book of Life only had one page left. Doing some rough calculating, Johnson and friends figured the latest time frame for the completion of the book would have to be September 1997.
1998  Numerology: Because 666 times three equals 1998, some people point to this year as being prophetically significant. .
1998  A Taiwanese cult operating out of Garland, Texas predicted Christ would return on March 31 of 1998. The group's leader, Heng-ming Chen, announced God would return and then invite the cult members aboard a UFO.  The group abandoned their prediction when a precursor event failed to take place. The cult's leader had said that God would appear on every channel 18 of every TV in the world.
1998  On April 30, 1998, Israel was to turn 50 and many believed this birthday would mark the beginning of the tribulation. The reasoning behind this date has to do with God's age requirement for the priesthood, which is between 30-50.
1998   Marilyn Agee, in her book, The End of the Age, had her sights set on May 31, 1998. This date was to conclude the 6,000-year cycle from the time of Adam. Agee looked for the rapture to take place on Pentecost, which is also known as “the Feast of Weeks.” Another indicator of this date was the fact that the Holy Spirit did not descend upon the apostles until 50 days after Christ's resurrection. Israel was born in 1948; add the 50 days as years and you come up with after her May 31 rapture date failed, Agee, unable to face up to her error, continued her date setting by using various Scripture references to point to June 7, 14, 21 and about 10 other dates.
1998-FEB-26: Edgar Cayce predicted that the earth would have a new pole during the winter of 1997-1998. He also predicted "...massive earth changes—perhaps in conjunction with a pole shift—in the 1930s, 1960s, or 1990s."
1999-APR-3: Ed Dames, president of PsyTech predicted that solar flares would strike the earth during the Easter weekend of that year, and that only people living in caves (like Mr. Dames) or under the earth might survive—the rest clearly being doomed to annihilation. He also predicted that space aliens would arrive about 2012 to rescue the few survivors.
1999-JUL-7: Eileen Lakes predicted that the planets of the solar system would be arranged in a "Grand Cross" configuration on that date, which would cause the earth's poles to suddenly shift by exactly 90 degrees, causing "Large earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanic explosions, a downpour, and a large flood, to occur all over the world." This would result in Brazil, Liberia, Ghana, etc. being in the deep freeze and Antarctica becoming a balmy paradise once more, just as it was in the recent past. (She believes that this event happens regularly every 12,000 years.) 

1999-JUL: Nostradamus predicted that a great king of terror will come from the skies. This has been interpreted by some as referring to a nuclear missile strike: "The year 1999, seven months, from the sky will come a great King of Terror: To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols, Before and after Mars to reign.”
1999  Marilyn Agee after bombing out badly several time in 1998, Marilyn set a new date for the rapture: May 21 or 22 of that year.
1999  TV newscaster-turned-psychic Charles Criswell King had said in 1968 that the world as we know it would cease to exist on August 18, 1999.
1999   Philip Berg, a rabbi at the Kabbalah Learning Center in New York, proclaimed that the end might arrive on September 11, 1999, when "a ball of fire will descend . . . destroying almost all of mankind, all vegetation, all forms of life."
2000-JAN 1: Thomas Chase predicted that the Y2K bug would cause a worldwide electrical failure, trigger a world economic depression, and bring on the Antichrist.
2000  Numerology: If you divide 2,000 by 3, you will get 666.66666666666667.
2000  - The names of the people and organizations that called for the return of Christ at the turn of the century is too long to be listed.
2000  - On May 5, 2000, all of the planets were supposed to have been in alignment. This was said to cause the earth to suffer earthquakes, volcanic eruption, and various other nasty stuff. A similar alignment occurred in 1982 and nothing happened. People failed to realize that the other nine planets only exert a very tiny gravitational pull on the earth. If you were to add up the gravitational force from the rest of the planets, the total would only amount to a fraction of the tug the moon has on the earth.
2000 - According to Michael Rood, the end times have a prophetically complicated connection to Israel's spring barley harvest. The Day of the Lord began on May 5, 2000. Rood's fall feast calendar called for the Russian Gog-Magog invasion of Israel to take place at sundown on October 28, 2000.
2000-2001  - Dr. Dale SumburËru looked for March 22, 1997 to be "the date when all the dramatic events leading through the tribulation to the return of Christ should begin" The actual date of Christ's return could be somewhere between July 2000 and March 2001. Dr. SumburËru is more general about the timing of Christ's second coming than most writers. He states, "The day the Lord returns is currently unknown because He said [Jesus] these days are cut short and it is not yet clear by how much and in what manner they are cut short. If the above assumptions are not correct, my margin of error would be in weeks, or perhaps months."
Sometime in 2001: The Unarius Society apparently received interstellar thought messages from a Pleiadean starship informing them that they intended to land in the year 2001 on Atlantis, which will have risen from the depths of the earth in the Bermuda Triangle by then. After that, Earth was to join an allegiance of 33 planets to form the "Interplanetary Confederation for the Spiritual Renaissance of Humankind on Earth"—better known as the ICSRHE.

Also sometime in 2001: Jack Van Impe Ministries sponsored the largest Evangelical Christian program devoted to end-time prophecy. In his home page, he discussed his book "On the Edge of Eternity" in which he predicted that the year 2001 would "usher in international chaos such as we've never seen in our history." He predicted that in 2001 and the years following, the world would experience "drought, war, malaria, and hunger afflicting entire populations throughout the [African] continent...By the year 2001, there will be global chaos." He has since changed his predictions, delaying them by many years into the future, allowing his ministry to continue to prosper despite a string of failed prophecies.
2002  - Priests from Cuba's Afro-Caribbean Yoruba religion predicted a dramatic year of tragedy and crisis for the world in 2002, ranging from coups and war to disease and flooding.
2003-MAY-15: The Pana Wave Laboratory group in Japan believed that the world would be destroyed by a series of disasters on this date. A planet—which one they say not—will move close to the earth and will cause "cataclysmic" changes, most specifically a shift in the earth's magnetic pole which would cause tidal waves and earthquakes. In early May of that year they set up camp on a mountain road 170 miles west of Tokyo and naturally covered their vehicles with white cloths, which they believed would protect their leader from "harmful electromagnetic waves," which they think originate from communists.
2008-MAR-21: After a lengthy calculation based on the Bible a British group, The Lord's Witnesses, concluded that the start of Armageddon would happen on this day, with three quarters of the world's population being killed in the subsequent war.
2011-2018   For the past several decades, Jack Van Impe has hinted at nearly every year as being the time for the rapture. Normally, he has only gone out one or two years from the current calendar year. However, Jack's latest projection for the rapture goes out several years. His new math uses 51 years as the length of a generation. If you add 51 years to 1967, the year Israel recaptured Jerusalem, you get 2018. Once you subtract the seven-year tribulation period, you arrive at 20

2011 Harold Camping makes two more failed predictions about the return of Christ.

2012 December 21st at 11:11pm the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world?