Radio Prophet Gone From Airwaves On New Judgment Day Eve

Days after the apocalypse he originally predicted for May 21 conspicuously failed to materialize, Harold Camping emerged from a brief seclusion to say he had merely miscalculated by five months, and he pronounced a new Judgment Day, October 21.

The following month, the now 90-year-old former civil engineer was said by his California-based Christian radio network to have suffered a stroke that left him hospitalized.

He has largely dropped out of sight since then, and his daily radio program, "Open Forum," broadcast on more than 60 U.S. stations, has been canceled.

Moreover, there is little evidence that swarms of believers who once fanned out in cities nationwide with placards advertising Camping's message -- some giving up life savings in anticipation of being swept into heaven -- were following a new doomsday countdown.

Gone, too, are the billboards posted around the country by Camping's Family Radio network declaring that Judgment Day was at hand.

Reached by telephone on Thursday, network spokesman Tom Evans declined to comment on Camping or his prophecies, except to say that he had "retired" as a radio host but remained chairman of the board of Family Stations Inc.

Camping himself had little else to say when he answered the door of his home in nearby Alameda, wearing a bathrobe and leaning on a walker.

"We're not having a conversation," he said, shaking his head with a chuckle. "There's nothing to report here."