December 21, 2012 'Doomsday': Impending Apocalypse Similar to Harold Camping's May 21 "Rapture"; Likely Another Failed Prediction

News of the impending apocalypse on December 21, 2012 has captivated people around the world despite numerous attempts by different governments, religious officials and the scientific community to dismiss the idea. Of course this isn't the first time that the end-of-the-world as we know it has been predicted. Back in 2011, California preacher Harold Camping twice predicted that the "rapture" was upon us.

Camping, who led an independent ministry through his Family Radio International, first predicted that the apocalypse would begin on Earth on May 21, 2011. According to Camping, true believers would be raptured and those left behind would endure months of destruction before a fireball consumed the Earth, the HuffPost wrote.

After May 21 came and went with no sign of the apocalypse or the rapture, Camping declared that he had miscalculated the date predicted and revised his prophecy to October 21, 2011. Of course, October 2011 passed on like any other month, again failing to fulfill the 90-year-old's prediction.

The doomsday prophecies of 2011 were not the first predicted by Camping. According to the HuffPost, Camping also predicted that the apocalypse would arrive in 1994. After three failed doomsday predictions, Camping finally admitted in March 2012 that he has no evidence regarding the apocalypse and that he will cease to predict the end of the Earth.

So what does Camping's failed apocalyptic predictions have to do with the new Dec. 21 conspiracy? Well, both seem to be connected to ancient texts or beliefs that don't actually state when the apocalypse will occur. While Camping based his predictions on the Bible, new doomsday speculations are based on the Mayan calendar, which is set to end its thirteenth 349-year-long cycle on Dec. 21.

The predictions have also said that the Earth would (will) endure catastrophic natural phenomenon, including celestial occurrences, all of which have been denied by the scientific community.

Given recent assurances that the world will not end later this month, it is perhaps easy to say that future doomsday predictions will continue.