Friday, July 27th will bring a 103 minute long lunar eclipse, along with a blood moon – the full moon turning red as the earth blocks the light from the Sun.

Though it won’t be visible in North America, this will be the longest lunar eclipse of this century. It will also, by coincidence, be the closest Mars has passed to the Earth in 15 years, with the red planet popping ten times brighter than normal.

The confluence of an eclipse, a blood moon, and Mars passing close to Earth has brought the usual flood of prophecies, predictions, rumors of catastrophe, and “preachers” trying to cash in on blood moon hysteria with books and YouTube videos.

Naturally, self-appointed prophets and seers have declared that this isn’t just a cool cosmological coincidence – it’s the real, no-foolin’ beginning of the End Times. Just like all the other blood moons and eclipses.

Blood moon prophecy has been a cash cow for apocalyptic ministers since 2015, when a flood of books and DVDs proclaimed that September was the culmination of a “four blood moon cycle” that would combine with other religious and political events to herald the end of the world.

So buy those emergency food buckets, children!

September 2015 came and went with nary a rain of frogs or meteor strike to be found. So as per their mandate, the apocapreachers moved the goal posts, latching on to something they called the “Revelation 12 prophecy” that portended doom for the earth two years later.

Then January brought a “Super Blue Blood Moon,” along with the typical pronouncements of death from above. Well, in this case from below, as frequent End Times predictor Pastor Paul Begley declared that the blood moon would cause Vladimir Putin to launch a nuclear “doomsday torpedo” and trigger World War III.

Doom remained unachieved, so the goal posts got moved again, this time to April, when a Biblical numerologist declared that “Planet X” was going to hit the earth on the 23rd, so prepare accordingly.

And now we come to another blood moon, and like clockwork, Paul Begley is at it again, posting a series of rambling YouTube videos (one goes on for close to three hours and features Begley singing random bits of hymns) declaring that THIS TIME is the real apocalypse, unlike those other fake apocalypses

This time, he’s declaring that the blood moon and “three hours of unexplainable darkness” (a version of the “three hours of darkness” that supposedly occurred during the crucifixion of Christ) along with out of control wildfires, earthquakes, President Trump’s angry all caps tweet threatening Iran, and the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding all portend that the End Times are upon us. Or at least the start of the End Times.

As with previous fizzled apocalypses, the tabloid media got in on the act. UK rag The Express seems to run almost the exact same story every time one of these things happened, and this time it recycled blurbs about the failed September 23rd, 2017 and April 23rd, 2018 prophecies to proclaim “END OF THE WORLD fears as lunar eclipse LOOMS.”

It’s easy to see why dodgy preachers and news outlets run with these kinds of stories. They get easy clicks, and neither the people who make them nor those who consume them seem the least bit preoccupied with their accuracy.

Recent history is chock full of prophecies that have fizzled out, with the goal posts always being moved. We can see it in everything from the “Great Disappointment” of 1844 to modern prosperity scams like NESARA and QAnon, where an earth-shaking event is always just about to happen – and never actually happens.

When the July blood moon comes and goes with nothing other than some cool pictures, expect the hucksters to claim that they never said it meant the End Times were starting, only that the End Times would start AT SOME POINT, and that point could have been July. Hell, even other End Times sites think Begley’s predictions are nonsense.

In the end, it’s all garbage, and clutter for the internet to pick over for a day or two.

But, as always, if you really think that July 27th will be the end of the world, my PayPal is easy to find.