Starlifter
Serious Thumper
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The human side of the Rapture hoax.
Source: New York Daily News
The sky turned dark Saturday afternoon, but it wasn't a sign of the world's impending doom - just passing rain.
Welcome to the No-pacalypse - a disappointing finish to what doomsday believer Robert Fitzpatrick thought would be the End of Days.
"I don't understand why nothing has happened," a deflated Fitzpatrick said in Times Square just after 6 p.m. "I did what I had to do. I did what the Bible said."
"I obviously haven't understood it properly, because we're still here," added Fitzpatrick, 60, surrounded by a phalanx of reporters and skeptical onlookers.
The retired MTA worker from Staten Island bought $140,000 worth of advertising, proclaiming that the end was near. He and followers of California televangelist Harold Camping thought a global earthquake would strike the East Coast just before 6 p.m.
After the clock ticked past 6 p.m. and nothing happened, Fitzpatrick appeared to shrink amid the jeering crowd.
"How can you still stand there? How can you still do that?" Raeed Clark, 26, told Fitzpatrick, calling his ploy "the biggest scam in history."
Fitzpatrick, for his part, spent the day as if it were his last.
For breakfast, he had coffee, toast and Ezekiel 4:9 brand Golden Flax cereal.
"The spiritual significance of these grains, I am not sure," said Fitzpatrick.
He felt no need to do the dishes, but did take a moment to feed peanuts to two squirrels that hang out at his back door.
"Only people can be saved - there will be no animals in heaven," he said.
Asked how he would feel if the world didn't end, a confident Fitzpatrick said: "I wouldn't consider it because there's so much biblical evidence."
"It's locked in," he said. "Buildings will be collapsing; the graves of the unsaved dead will be ripped open. The dead will be all around."
Fitzpatrick spent several hours at home responding to emails and making calls. Then it was time for his final lunch of chicken tenders and spinach served with lemon. "I expect this to be my last meal," he said.
Next, Fitzpatrick drove to the nursing home that cares for his 94-year-old mother, who suffers from dementia. As parting gifts he brought grapes, a granola bar, juice, chocolates and a bottle of water.
"I read a passage - Luke 23," he said of his 30-minute visit. "It's an example of a thief on the cross and Jesus saving people up to the last minute."
Fitzpatrick planned to do the same. He kissed his mother goodbye and jumped on the 4:30 p.m. ferry to Manhattan, where he warned people of the Rapture until the bitter end.
Few were surprised when the end didn't come.
"A real religion should try to help people, not scare them," said Michael Rodriguez, 24, a Bronx student.
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