Harold Camping | Doomsday predictor, 92

Harold Camping, 92, the California preacher who used his evangelical radio ministry and thousands of billboards to broadcast the end of the world and then gave up public prophecy when his date-specific doomsdays did not come to pass, died at his Oakland-area home Sunday. He he had been hospitalized after falling.

His most widely spread prediction was that the Rapture would happen May 21, 2011. His independent Christian media empire spent millions of dollars - some of it from donations made by followers who quit their jobs and sold all their possessions- to spread the word on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the Judgment Day message.

When the Judgment Day he foresaw did not materialize, the preacher revised his prophecy, saying he had been off by five months. The preacher, who suffered a stroke three weeks after the May prediction failed, said the light dawned on him that instead of the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the heavens, the date had instead been a "spiritual" Judgment Day, which placed the entire world under Christ's judgment.

But after the cataclysmic event did not occur in October either, Camping acknowledged his apocalyptic prophecy had been wrong and posted a letter on his ministry's site telling his followers he had no evidence the world would end anytime soon and wasn't interested in considering future dates.

"We realize that many people are hoping they will know the date of Christ's return," Camping wrote in March 2012. "We humbly acknowledge we were wrong about the timing."

He is survived by his wife of 71 years. - AP