Meade received extensive media attention following his predictions that Nibiru would destroy Earth on September 23, 2017. He first predicted Nibiru would hit the Earth in October 2017, an
Orange County, California television station accidentally displayed his prediction in an emergency alert, and broadcasting officials stated that the false alert was caused by a glitch from a test by the
Emergency Alert System. On September 21, he claimed in a
Glenn Beck interview to have seen Nibiru from his house and that other people would see the sign as well.
October 2017 predictions As September 23 passed, Meade again revised the apocalypse to October, making new predictions for that month, such as Nibiru eclipsing the sun on October 5 and that several people would
levitate into the sky (including then-current U.S. President
Donald Trump and Vice President
Mike Pence) followed by a nuclear attack by
North Korea,
China, and
Russia on the United States. He also predicted that the 7-year
Great Tribulation would start on October 15 and stated "[t]hat's when the action starts", but the month passed, and his predictions were wrong. His October 2017 predictions were described in his book
Will Planet X Signal the Rapture? Predictions for 2018 In an interview with
YouTube pastor Paul Begley, Meade made several predictions for 2018, such as North Korea becoming a world-class superpower in March 2018 and predicting that Nibiru would destroy the Earth in spring. In an article published by
International Business Times on February 15, 2018, Meade announced that the apocalypse would begin in March 2018, but no date was given. He stated that several events in 2018, such as the
January 2018 super blue blood moon eclipse, the
2018 Winter Olympics, and
Israel's 70-year celebration of independence, were signs of the apocalypse. He called several officials in the United Nations "crazy people" after voting against the United States' decision to
recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and his prediction came just 42 days before the blood moon eclipse. He referred to his prediction as "end of days convergence" and that the "disappearance of the Church will occur". On April 19, 2018, he stated that reports saying that he predicted the world would be destroyed on 23 April were "fake news", but that the rapture—but not the end of the world—would take place on an unspecified date between May and December 2018. He stated that the rapture would bring in seven years of "tribulation", followed by 1,000 years of "peace and prosperity", before the world is destroyed. April 23, 2018 passed without incident and Meade's prediction of a rapture taking place has been labeled by some as one of the latest "kooky" doomsday calls.
Other predictions Meade made similar predictions in 2015 in his book
Rapture 2015 and Planet X and in his 2013 book
Comet Ison and the Return of Jesus, in which he stated that
Comet Ison is the biblical star
Wormwood and that it ties to Nibiru. In September 2017, he also made predictions that North Korea would launch a nuclear attack against
Yellowstone Caldera from a used Russian submarine parked off the
coast of California, and that the attack would trigger a
supervolcano eruption. He believed that there would be flooding similar to the
Genesis flood narrative and that only believers would survive. He also believed that Russia would be able to wipe the United States out in less than 30 minutes if a war broke out
between the two countries. == Reactions ==