It's been a busy, busy season for Mother Earth, boys and girls! Hurricanes Irene and Floyd both made tours of all the favorite cruise stops, wreaking havoc and ruining summer vacations as they went. Plus, the last two and a half months have seen major earthquakes from Southern California to Cairo to Mexico City to Taiwan. And unfortunate residents of Turkey just keep on being reminded in the worst possible way that earthquake building codes should never be considered optional.

  Yet, despite the many opportunities prophecy prattlers have had to nail a shake, rattle and rollin' zone, not one of the above events was mystically predicted in advance. No doubt you're as shocked and surprised by that as I. To be fair, though, these were all localized disasters and as such, likely beneath the lofty visions of our doom-centered Delphic set. They had bigger apocalyptic fish to fry, after all.

  Like Philip Berg of the Kabbalah Learning Center. Erzatz rabbi to Hollywood's dazed and confused, Phil promised a killer comet cataclysm for September 11 as God's punishment for our collective lack of spiritual purity. It would seem that either Phil was wrong, or humanity wised up and switched from tap to bottled in the nick of time.

  Touted by many as a dry-run for Y2K, the much-dreaded 9-9-99 bug failed to take down so much as a pocket calculator.

  Think you got problems in your family? Little old Bonnie Gaunt was so excited about being Raptured on September 11, that she couldn't be arsed to worry over a thing...Including her belief that her own kids would be left behind to burn in the fiery pits of Hell. Something tells me that Mother's Day in the Gaunt household may be a bit tense this coming year.

  Nostradamus mulcher Stefan Paulus fell flat on his quatrain when neither a killer meteor nor even a feloniously assaultive dust speck managed to drop out of the sky through the whole of September.

  And even though fellow Nosey buff and UFOddball Toshio Hiji gave ol' Michael de another month to get his "prophecy" percolating, an October offing was just not to be, either.

  Oh, if only I had a dollar for all the times Edgar Cayce shifted the poles and ended the world, I'd be dictating this update to my private secretary at my palatial villa in the south of France, lounging languorously on my terrace overlooking the vineyard whilst my live-in masseur Antoine rubbed me down with aromatic oils and...uh, er,...sorry, what was the subject of this, again...?

  Once again, the Weekly World News was happy to provide the semi-literati with yet another frantic fruitroll-up blaring Biblical doom. This time it was a Dr. Frieda Rastelle mixing Business with Bible school and winding up with a failing grade in both before the end of the fall semester.

  Every time I think I'm starting to get a bit jaded when it comes to spiritual space cookies, I manage to trip over a new one who just elevates wild-eyed lunacy to a higher, still more oxygen-deprived level. Such is the case with Richard C. Hoagland, a professional delusional who clearly doesn't know the meaning of the word, "failure"...Though that hasn't stopped him from achieving it with amazing frequency.

  Raging Romanian Rapture rouser Dimitru Duduman discovered the joys of better living through chemistry when a 1996 hospital stay led to a "divine" vision of the terminal variety.

  Thought we'd seen the last of Taiwan import Hoh Ming Chen and his God's Salvation Church? Y'know, the ones who went all the way to Garland, TX in hopes of being Raptured up by UFOs after catching God's cable access TV show last July. Yeah, them! Anyways, Hoh & Co. are here to prove that old obsessions never die, they just change dates and plug away.

  Of course, the US hardly needs to ship nuts in from the Orient. We have plenty of our own home-grown variety. An absolute glut, in fact, just waiting to be doled out to the needy like old government surplus cheese. Without doubt, one of the very cheesiest is Gabriel Of Sedona and his message of a cheery Springtime nukes & ETs apocalypse.

  Hot on Gabe's heels is the Weekly World News (yes, again!) with still another entry in their endless list of End Times.

  A 'Net Kook inexplicably named BANDS rather greedily squatted over every date between now and January 20, 2001 for his tedious Parousial appointment.

  The Book of Daniel gets a right-wing make-over courtesy of Charles R. Weagel, a bigot so boring he somehow manages to turn spittle-dripping intolerance into unrelieved tedium, page after eye-crossing page.

  Coming way, way, waaaayyy out of right field is Neo Nutsy Mike Keller whose April 14, 2002-pegged finalé actually seems to owe more to Leni Riefenstahl than the Book of Revelation.

  Not all millennial musing are of the doom and gloom stripe. The chirpy, New Age followers of Ananda have a much perkier view of cosmic upheaval and what groovy, enlightening stuff we can expect from the great Galactic Crossing in 2012.

  Some folks just insist on playing hard-to-get where specific dates are concerned, preferring to dangle their apocalyptic carrots from the ends of ever-elusive "soon" sticks. One of those types is Willaim D. Brehm, who seems to think that his lack of due dates separates him from the real Kooks. And no, the delusions don't stop there.

  Another bashful bunny in the due date dept. is Ciaran Ryan, who gets a special mention for coming up with a fun, new way to escape the final blow-out, whenever the heck it happens along.

  Oh, and a special note about Princess Di conspiracy theorist and long-time 'Net Kooks Korner fave Klaus Wagner; It seems the poor boy's gone missing, again. Repeat readers will know that he's done this before, disappearing for months on end, only to finally pop back up on a new web host as happily paranoid as ever. Hopefully, this is just a case of deja vu, and as soon as he's certain the satanic agents of the House of Windsor have lost his trail, he'll be web-accessible, once more. I'll keep y'all posted.

  As of September 8, 1999 - Well, looks like August came and went with nary a killer comet, a nuclear war or an invading Mongolian Monarch in sight. Not that the month was completely without incident, mind you. On August 20th, the Global Positioning Satellite system did its own little Y2Kopykat by resetting all its timers to zero. A heart-stopping event that resulted in...absolutely nothing...Well, okay, not absolutely nothing. I understand there were a few thousand drivers in Tokyo wandering around lost for a few days. But then, that's what you get for not putting up street signs like a person.

  The dreaded Hurricane Bret gave everyone in the Lone Star State a brief scare, as did Hurricane Dennis. Both turned out to be more show than go. New York City had some freak flooding and Salt Lake City had a rare tornado. The worst disaster of the month, though, was the earthquake in Turkey, which left an estimated 15,000 people dead and many thousands more homeless.

  And, oddly enough, not a single one of these events was prophesied by anybody. Neither the professional crackpots or the legions of 'Net Kooks, for all their apocalyptic rantings, managed to peg even one of the above-mentioned items. Funny how they just...slipped by like that...

  Ah, but if our Delphic wannabes let those prophetic opportunities slip past them, they certainly jumped all over others. Like the "SHY" folk from Vietnam, who came out of their shells just to let us know that the world would be ending in August. Perhaps now they're pining for an Indian Summer?

  As heartwarming as it would have been to have had an honorary Doomsday on the 18th, in memory of Charles "The Amazing" Criswell, the Final Bang was simply not to be. Ah, well. Just remember; we'll always have "Plan 9"...

  It appears that Aum Shinri Kyo leader Shoko Asahara's apocalypse is running a bit late. It was scheduled for the 2nd or 3rd of the month, but, well...You know how hard it can be to meet a deadline when you're trying to get a really virulent strain of killer microbes going.

  Happily, we've got some new kids on the dead-end block this month, too. And both of them come to us via that sterling journalistic edifice, The Weekly World News! First up, is a Dr. Frieda Rastelle, who promises a late October toppling of our civilization courtesy of a complete economic collapse...As foretold by the Dead Sea Scrolls. I'm really looking forward to the issue when she predicts the results of NFL draft by using the Rosetta Stone.

  Next, we have a whole passel of "top scientists" running about in circles with their lab coats flapping over "solar storms" that, in case you haven't been paying attention to where you are, spell certain doom for us puny Earthling types sometime in January.

  And just making it in under the wire to get listed before their upcoming failure dates, are two fine examples of 'Net Kookdom, the cryptically nicknamed "Hisday" and the mathematically muddled Jason Hommel. Both are keen on a Rosh Hashana Rapture-Off, though for slightly different reasons. For "His", it's kind of a fannish, puppy love thang for the addled prattlings of Bible Code thumping Bonnie Gaunt. For Jason, on the other hand, it's the result of an obsessive-compulsive fixation he has with assigning everything he sees a numeric value and then toting 'em all up in odd and arbitrary combinations until he gets the results he was looking for.

  Either way, both should be casting about wildly for brand new dates (to say nothing of lame excuses) by Monday, the 13th.

  Oh, and as a side note; Today marks the grand opening of The Geddon Museum. My little online collection of apocalyptic imagery through the ages. Fair warning, it's graphics-heavy. But, if you've got a decent browser and reasonably peppy connection, it's well worth the time to tour the galleries.

  As of August 12, 1999 - Lots of new stuff this time around, kiddies! The failures have been coming in so fast and furious that I had to add a whole new page to the 20th century section to make room for them all. To start with, Ed Dames and his remotely viewed Armageddon ended up having not the remotest chance of coming true.

  Oddly enough, the Taiwanese "God's Salvation Church" never did get to board any UFOs, escape any nuclear wars or combine any bi-coastal Christs, either.

  Of course, the Biggest-Flop-Of-The-Month Award goes to famed French faux forecaster Nostradamus, whose "King of Terror" quatrain enjoyed a whole 31 days of unmerited excitement before fizzling out like a damp sparkler.

  Nosey didn't go down alone, y'know. Hanging onto his flaming coat tails to the end were hundreds, maybe thousands of would-be quatrain interpreters, like Akio Cho, whose July 26 Doomsdate poofed without a trace.

  It's just more bad news for the surviving Branch Davidians. Still no sign of David Koresh rising from the dead, anywhere. Of course, I understand he always was a late sleeper...

  Likewise, Sun Magazine's Aug. 11 Antichrist just can't seem to be persuaded to get up and at 'em, either.

  And try though they might, even Nosey devotees' mad grab for the Julian calendar couldn't save the N-Man's "King Of Terror" prophecy from going down in a total absence of flames.

  Now, I wouldn't be doing my job if I just listed all the latest failures. So, you'll be glad to know that I've been busy scouring the TV news, newspapers, magazines and the web for the very latest loonies entering the apocalyptic pantheon. I've also been getting some quality tips from people in-the-know, like Chris Nelson, who alerted me to a new Vietnamese cult with Doomsday designs of their very own.

  Rant radio can be an endless source of flake-finding amusement. And such a democratic venue, too! As, since its advent, even otherwise unknown little bubble-bonnets like Bonnie Gaunt can use it to reach out of obscurity and nab their fifteen minutes of qualified fame.

  Moving on to Japan, we find Toshio Hiji keeping the Nostradamian fires burning in his own unique fashion.

  Then, there's Father Alexander McKenna holding private tête à têtes with the Virgin Mary re; the daily doom schedule.

  In case you thought Aum Shinri Kyo was the last word in dangerous End Times cults of the Far East, take a gander at their spiritual buddies, Sukyo Mahikari. You may end up thinking twice about hopping a subway train this coming New Year's.

  In the spirit of glasnost, the Russians have gotten into the Biblical Armageddon game with gusto. Their latest entry is untethered cosmonut Serghei Torpo and his Siberian suicide cult.

  There's really no nut like a home-grown nut and the End-Time Handmaidens prove the point by spreading their very own special, loony-hands-at-home hysteria at conventions across the USA.

  UFO cults are big south-of-the-border these days and in a turn of events that would give Agent Mulder a wriggly thrill, one of them, the Stella Maris Gnostic Church took their ET ogling just a wee tad too far.

  So what did 13th century monks do to while away their dreary days? Why, try to figure out when there'd be a merciful end to them, of course!

  Incredible as it seems, the 20th century doesn't hold exclusive rights to the phenomenon of wacky celebrities. Way back in the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton was doing his very best to reduce his rep to tabloid fodder when he got on his own eschatological date-pegger kick.

  A century later, minister Jonathan Edwards jumped into the apocalypse pond for a splashy-splashy, too.

  Worrying that Edgar Cayce might've run out of dooms to date? Isn't that like worrying that the world's run out of gulls to bull?

  Looking for a more "earthy" spiritual experience? Well, you won't find it via White Buffalo Calf Woman, a Lakota (or so she says) who's gone prodigal to spread her revelation of evil government Antichristers and Saviors from space.

  The Weekly World News delivers up the prophetic palaver of ol' Mother Seaton.

  If you'd been thinking that the Nation Of Islam had left their old racist apocalyptic futzing in the past, think again. Old favorites don't die that quickly.

  Psalm-sodden televangelist J.R. Church forges ahead with still more Rap-Trib-Boom scenarios for the coming millennium.

  Never one to be found lagging in the effort to spread wild-eyed hysteria far and wide, Pat Robertson is back waving yet another dippy Doomsdate in the air.

  Nostradamus gets a last gasp chance courtesy of a meteor-obsessed ultra-Kook dubbed, "smakyadown".

  It seems to me that anyone who goes about calling himself, "theprophet" is just plain begging to get a reality spanking. But, oddly enough, the fellow in question never asked me for advice on the topic.

  It just wouldn't be Doomsday without a conspiracy surrounding it. And hey, if one is good, a dozen or more must be even better! Or so seems to be the thinking of Shawn Astels and his virtual monument to religious paranoid dementia.

  And last, but certainly not least, we have Stewart C. Best. A paranoid headcase of such dizzying diversity that he even gives the Watcher Website folks a run for their manias.

  As of July 15, 1999 - First up, Eileen Lakes and her global baptismal font disaster have been dunked permanently into the failure pool. If she's come up with a replacement Doomsdate, yet, she's keeping it to herself.

  A new cult has jumped out of the theological underbrush. The House of Prayer looks to be yet, another bunch that'll be giving ulcers to the Israeli authorities come New Year's.

  Baha'i Meister Neal Chase has drifted back up from the mists of obscurity to regale us once again with a spiffy, new Armageddon deadline.

  Like an ever-mutating flu bug, Marilyn J. Agee just keeps changing her RNA (Retreaded New Armageddon) and coming back, again and again and again. Fortunately, only those few who haven't been vaccinated with even the mildest of strain of common sense need worry about the risk of exposure.

  Future spotlight sight on Roadside America, the Tama-Re compound in Eatonton, GA is home to the Egyptian/UFO crazed Nuwaubians. New to the chronology and well worth the mouse click to check them out.

  After an absence of nearly a year, why, who should pop out of the ether but, Roger K. Blake? And he's even got a shiny, new Trib target to share with us!

  Now that Kathleen and Thomas Stewart's Pentacostal Rapture has been relegated to history's compost heap, they've gone casting desperately about for more promising apocalypses.

  Let's give a big Doomsday welcome to Nostra-addled Internut Gerald Vano, who's just been added to the Kooks Korner. Way ta' go, Gerry!

  A correction has been made to the entry on "UFOs and The Bible Aliens: Angels or Demons?". It seems there really is more than one very crazy person behind these pages...there's a whole matched set of them! Check out the entire Watcher Ministries gang! Collect the whole bunch! Trade with your friends!

  After a brief escape into broken link land, paranoid Princess Di-obsessive Klaus Wagner has once again been tracked down to his latest web lair. Being a conspiracist, he should have known he could run, but he couldn't hide.