October 15: Elizabeth Clare Prophet

Three years ago today, Elizabeth Clare Prophet died in Bozeman, Montana at age 70. Founder of the Church Universal and Triumphant in 1975 - which eventually boasted as many as 50,000 adherents - Prophet used Theosophical and spiritualist ideas to blend Christianity with Buddhism and Hinduism.

Claiming that a nuclear armageddon would occur in 1989, a couple thousand of Prophet's followers took to fallout shelters they had stocked with food and weapons at the edge of Yellowstone Park. A tense situation with area residents and the Federal government eventually subsided as no nuclear war appeared to be forthcoming, and disappointed believers started returning home.

Before succumbing to Alzheimer's disease in the late 90s, Prophet had claimed she had been Nefertiti, Marie Antoinette, Saint Theresa of Avila, and (the fictional) Queen Guinevere of Camelot in her previous lives. Along with other date-setting apocalypticists, Prophet was awarded a posthumous Ig Nobel Prize in 2011 for her predictions.