The deadline has passed, so we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief because it looks as though the world will not be coming to an end in the UK. Ever since dawn broke in the Pacific this morning, a select few have been counting down the hours to 6pm in their respective time zones. For this is when the world would end and believers in the 'Rapture' would finally be on their way to heaven.
But with night falling across the globe it looks like the doomsday message from Harold Camping, an 89-year-old retired civil engineer was, well, wrong. And for Twitter followers it was time to point this out and for sceptic revellers to chill the champagne for tonight's 'Rapture' parties celebrating that the world is still turning.
One of Camping's followers who must be just a tad disappointed is Michael Garcia. After spending months travelling the country to put up Judgment Day billboards and hand out Bible tracts, he planned to spend Friday evening with his family at home in Alameda, near the Christian media empire's Oakland headquarters.
'We know the end will begin in New Zealand and will follow the sun and roll on from there,' said Garcia, a 39-year-old father of six. 'That's why God raised up all the technology and the satellites so everyone can see it happen at the same time.'
Camping has built a multi-million-dollar non-profit ministry based on his apocalyptic prediction. They believe the end of the world today will likely start as it becomes 6pm in the world's various time zones. Unfortunately for Mr Garcia - but fortunately for New Zealanders - the world kept on turning. Shortly after 6pm online users were mocking the predictions.
'Harold Camping's 21st May Doomsday prediction fails; No earthquake in New Zealand," read one posting on Twitter. 'If this whole end-of-the-world thingy is still going on ... it's already past 6.00 in New Zealand and the world hasn't ended,' said another.
Camping's radio stations, TV channels, satellite broadcasts and website are controlled from a humble building on the road to the Oakland International Airport, sandwiched between an auto shop and a fortune teller. Family Radio International's message has been broadcast in 61 languages.
Camping, however, will be awaiting Jesus Christ's return for the second time. He said his earlier apocalyptic prediction in 1994 didn't come true because of a mathematical error.
'I'm not embarrassed about it. It was just the fact that it was premature,' he said last month. But this time, he said, 'there is...no possibility that it will not happen'.
Sceptics are planning Rapture-themed parties to celebrate what hosts expect will be the failure of the world to come to an end. Bars and restaurants from Melbourne, Australia to the Florida Keys advertised bashes. In Oakland, atheists planned a gathering at a local Masonic temple to include group discussions on 'The Great Success of Past Apocalypses,' followed by dinner and music.
Camping and his followers believe the beginning of the end will come on May 21, exactly 7,000 years since the flood in the biblical story of Noah's Ark. Some 200million people will be saved, Camping preaches, and those left behind will die in earthquakes, plagues, and other calamities until Earth is consumed by a fireball on October 21.
In the Philippines, a big billboard of Family Radio ministry in Manila warned of Judgment Day. Earlier this month, group members there distributed leaflets to motorists and carried placards warning of the end of the world.
Christian leaders from across the spectrum have widely dismissed the prophecy, but one local church is concerned that Camping's followers could slip into a deep depression come Sunday. Pastor Jacob Denys of Milpitas-based Calvary Bible Church plans to wait outside the non-profit's headquarters on Saturday afternoon, hoping to counsel believers who may be disillusioned if the Rapture does not occur.
'The cold, hard reality is going to hit them that they did this, and it was false and they basically emptied out everything to follow a false teacher,' he said. 'We're not all about doom and gloom. Our message is a message of salvation and of hope.'
On Friday afternoon, a small group of eccentrics, gawkers and media opportunists convened outside Family Radio's closed office building. A sign posted on the front door said 'SORRY WE MISSED YOU!'
As May 21 drew nearer, followers say donations grew, allowing Family Radio to spend millions of dollars on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the doomsday message. In 2009, the nonprofit reported in IRS filings that it received $18.3million in donations, and had assets of more than $104million, including $34million in stocks or other publicly traded securities.
Marie Exley, who helped put up apocalypse-themed billboards in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, said the money helped the non-profit save as many souls as possible. She said she and her husband, mother and brother planned to stay glued to the television Friday night in Bozeman, Montana for news of an earthquake in New Zealand.
Camping recommended this week that followers surround themselves by their loved ones and not meet publicly, Exley said.
'It's an emotional time and we're kind of nervous and scared about how things will pan out as to who will be here and who will go to heaven," she said. 'I'll probably be scared in the fog of it, and crying, because we don't know who is saved and who is not.'
Some people wanted to make sure their pets receive good treatment, no matter what happens. Sharon Moss, who founded fterTheRapturePetCare.com to provide post-apocalypse animal care, said a new wave of customers has paid $10 to sign up in the last few weeks.
'A lot of people have said you should be out there saving souls not saving pets but my heart says 'why can't you do both?"' said Moss, who identifies herself as Protestant.
Camping, a civil engineer who once ran his own construction business, plans to spend the day with his wife in Alameda, in northern California, and watch doomsday unfold on television.
'I'll probably try to be very near a TV or a radio or something,' he said.
'I'll be interested in what's happening on the other side of the world as this begins.'
His prediction has been dismissed as 'flat-out wrong' by one leading Christian author, who has accused Camping of abusing the current climate of fear rendered by natural disasters to make money.
'Nobody knows the exact day when these things are going to happen,' Steve Wohlberg, who has written more than two dozen books about the End of Days, told the New York Daily News.
'They're looking at all of these disasters and everything that's going on in the planet, and this is creating a climate of deep interest in Biblical prophecy.
'In my mind, Harold Camping has quite an account to render with God when judgment day comes.'
However, just in case the prediction is right, some Americans are making the most of their time left with 'Rapture Parties' across the country, some serious, some not.
In Fayetteville, North Carolina, the American Humanist Association is organizing a two-day anti-Rapture extravaganza. There will be a party on Saturday and a concert on Sunday - with the tongue in cheek proviso that Sunday's fun could be cancelled due to a natural catastrophe of some sort.
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