Apocalypse Now!... Maybe

Good news for Rapture lovers! The world is going to end after all – only it's going to take a little longer than predicted.

Harold Camping, architect of Saturday's dramatic events in which Judgment Day came and went without so much as an earthquake, has revealed what went wrong. He took to his show on his network Family Radio to reveal the simple truth: the Apocalypse was imminent, he'd just been out by five months. So now the world is going to end– really and truly this time – on 21 October.

Camping was disarmingly honest about the impact the world's inconvenient continuance was having on him, after he predicted 200 million Christians would rise to heaven by 6pm on Saturday followed by the destruction of the Earth in a massive fireball.

"I can tell you when 21 May came and went it was a very difficult time for me – a very difficult time. I was truly wondering what is going on. In my mind, I went back through all the promises God had made. What in the world was happening. I really was praying and praying: 'Lord, what happened?'"

Many of Camping's followers might be asking similar questions, particularly those who gave up their jobs or donated some of the $100m (£61m) believed to have been spent on billboards and RV trucks advertising the arrival of doomsday. But then, there's no consumer protection legislation when it comes to Armageddon.

Among the disappointed, though still living, Rapture groupies were Robert Fitzpatrick, who spent all his life savings of $140,000 spreading the word of the world's end, and Jeff Hopkins, who erected a doomsday sign on top of his car and has spent the past few months driving from Long Island to New York city to publicise it.

"I've been mocked and scoffed and cursed at and I've been through a lot with this lighted sign on top of my car," he told Associated Press. "I was doing what I've been instructed to do through the Bible, but now I've been stymied. It's like getting slapped in the face."

Camping, who predicted the Apocalypse would come in 1994, appears to be impervious to the kind of knocks that would floor a lesser man. He spent Saturday night cowering in a motel to avoid the media onslaught, but has recovered his composure soon enough.

Tune in to his radio show, Open Forum, on 22 October to find out whether he can bounce back yet again. Assuming, that is, the world hasn't ended by then.