Leland Jensen

When Shoghi Effendi died in 1957 there were no eligible appointees who met the required conditions for successorship, and he died without having appointed a successor. Mason Remey was among the nine Hands of the Cause elected as an interim authority until the election of the first Universal House of Justice in 1963.[8] However, in 1960 Remey declared himself to be the successor of Shoghi Effendi, and expected the allegiance of the world's Baháʼís. Subsequently, he and his followers were unanimously declared Covenant breakers by the Hands.[9] They reasoned that he lacked a formal appointment from Shoghi Effendi, and that the office was scripturally restricted to male descendants of Baháʼu'lláh. Almost the whole Baháʼí world rejected his claim,[10] but he gained the support of a small but widespread group of Baháʼís.[10] Jensen was among these first supporters of Remey. In 1964 he moved to Missoula, Montana with his wife where they opened a chiropractic clinic.[1]

In 1969 Jensen was convicted of "a lewd and lascivious act" for sexually molesting a 15-year-old female patient,[1][11] and served four years of a twenty-year sentence in the Montana State Prison. He claimed to be wrongly convicted, and later taught his followers that his prison stay was instrumental towards fulfilling prophecy.[5] It was in prison that Jensen claimed to have a revelation, and converted several dozen inmates to his idea of being the "Establisher" of the Baháʼí Faith,[1] stemming from his belief that the majority of Baháʼís had followed the wrong leadership and that he was chosen to re-establish a divinely sanctioned order.[12]

He recruited many followers in prison, and after his parole in 1973 he founded the BUPC. By 1979, his apocalyptic prophecy was receiving national press coverage and he had attracted followers in Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas.[1]

In 1979, approximately 6 years after being released from prison, Jensen began teaching his followers that on April 29, 1980 a nuclear holocaust would kill a third of the world's population, and that over the next twenty years, the planet would be ravaged until in the year 2000 "God's Kingdom" would be established and a thousand years of peace would follow.[3] On the fateful night, Jensen led a group of followers into fallout shelters in Missoula, Montana.[14]

The disconfirmed prophecy resulted in Jensen losing several contingents of adherents,[1] and his response was that he was right all along. Over the following years Jensen used several types of explanations, as noted by researcher Robert Balch,[15]

1. The prediction was fulfilled spiritually rather than physically.
2. The prophecy was fulfilled physically, but not in the manner expected.
3. The date was off because of a miscalculation.
4. The date was a prediction, not a prophecy.
5. The leaders had a moral responsibility to warn the public despite the date's uncertainty.
6. God had given the world a reprieve.
7. The prediction had been a test of members' faith.

Jensen's followers had made substantial commitments to the prediction, building shelters, writing letters to government agencies and newspapers, and distributed thousands of leaflets urging fellow Missoulians to build fall-out shelters. To them the disconfirmation was "painfully obvious",[4] and researchers used them as a case study in cognitive dissonance.

On the day after Jensen's failed prophecy, the local newspaper of Missoula, Montana, the Missoulian, published the following on April 30, 1980:

"Based on his interpretations of the Bible and on measurements of the Great Pyramid of Kuhfu in Giza, Egypt, Jensen said, 'either a provocative act that will escalate into World War III, or World War III itself,' was to occur at 5:55 p.m. MDT Tuesday [4/29/80]." (Missoulian, Vol. 107 No. 311 April 30, 1980)

When asked by a UPI reporter Jensen did not express concern that the prediction might not come true, remarking "There will be a nuclear holocaust some day."[16]

After the 1980 event, Jensen introduced the idea that the seven-year Tribulation had begun on the date of his prediction of a nuclear holocaust, and thus committed himself to another event happening on the same date in 1987.[4] In 1985 he made the prediction that Halley's Comet would enter Earth's orbit on April 29, 1986, and collide with the Earth exactly one year later. In the interim year, he taught that the comet would break apart, pelt the Earth with debris, and produce massive earthquakes.[4] The new prophecy rekindled his followers, who became excited with the new idea.

As opposed to the first prediction, this time his followers made very little commitments to the prophecy, and began making disclaimers even before the 1986 event. When the members gathered on the night before the comet was supposed to enter Earth's orbit, nobody mentioned the comet.[17] Jensen later said that the massive earthquakes were fulfilled by a "spiritual earthquake" when one of his important followers defected and left him.[15]

By the 1990s one of Jensen's students had become a protege and began making his own prophecies with Jensen's approval. Throughout the 1990s Neal Chase made a total of 18 predictions which pertained to small-scale disasters that he claimed would lead step-by-step towards apocalypse, as well as dates for a nuclear attack on New York City by middle Eastern terrorists.[18] He based these predictions on Biblical prophecies, evidence from Hopi prophecies, planetary conjunctions, dreams, numerological coincidences, Nostradamus, and psychics.[17] After each failed prediction, the BUPC adherents carried on as usual, giving disclaimers to future predictions, and focusing on Jensen's other teachings.

• "Millennial Fever" (July 17, 1997). Missoula Independent. Front page.
• "Local Baháʼí Leader dead at 81." August 8, 1996. Missoulian p. B2.
• "Ezekiel's Temple in Montana!" (Feb. 9, 1991). The Montana Standard. Front Page.
• "Baháʼí: Deer Lodge Sanctuary" (January 29, 1991). The Missoulian. Front page.