Leland Jensen
[1] Jensen was originally a member of the mainstream Baháʼí Faith until he was excommunicated in 1960 for supporting Mason Remey's attempt at schism.
[2] He later left Remey's group due to infighting and began teaching that he would re-establish the Baháʼí Faith after a nuclear holocaust, which he predicted would occur in 1980.
[2][3] Jensen and his followers gained national media attention for their commitment to his prophecy of nuclear annihilation on 29 April 1980.
In 1953 Shoghi Effendi launched the Ten Year Crusade, which aimed at bringing the message of Baháʼu'lláh to the entire world.
[2] In 1969 he was convicted of performing "a lewd and lascivious act" for sexually molesting a 15-year-old female patient,[2][11] and served four years of a twenty-year sentence in the Montana State Prison.
[2] By 1979, his apocalyptic prophecy was receiving national press coverage and he had attracted followers in Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas.
[2] Between 1979 and 1995 Jensen, and his companion Neal Chase, made twenty specific predictions centering nuclear attacks, worldwide catastrophes, and some smaller scale disasters.
Over the following years Jensen used several types of explanations, as noted by researcher Robert Balch,[17] Jensen's followers had made substantial commitments to the prophecy, building shelters, writing letters to government agencies and newspapers, and distributed thousands of leaflets urging fellow Missoulians to build fall-out shelters.
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.
[17] With Jensen's approval, in the early 1990s his protege 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.
[29] In 2001, Neal Chase claimed to have been secretly adopted by Pepe and that he was the Guardian and rightful heir to the council's funds and property.
[29] Chase filed a motion to dismiss on July 15, 2003, arguing that a judicial resolution would require a court to interpret religious doctrine.
[29] The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Montana in 2004, and a decision came February 15, 2005: "This dispute revolves around two basic issues: the composition of the Board, and the powers of the presidency in relation to the church property...
If these two issues can be resolved on purely secular grounds, then the District Court can apply corporate, property, and tort law in deciding the merits of the Board's conversion and other claims against Chase.
