Members started to dress only in white in the mid-1990s, in the belief that this would protect them from harmful "scalar electromagnetic waves", which they claimed were being used against them by communists to try to kill their leader.
They first attracted attention in March 2003, when they attempted (and failed) to capture Tama-chan, an Arctic seal which had become a national celebrity in Japan since showing up in Tama River in Tokyo the previous year.
Their vehicles were decorated with swirl patterns which they believed neutralised the invisible waves, and even the steering wheel was covered in white plaster.
In the lead-up to the supposed doomsday, some one hundred riot police and TV crew followed the highly photogenic convoy around rural Japan for several weeks to keep tabs on their activities.
On 14 May, the day before the predicted doomsday, police raided twelve locations associated with the group on the pretext of minor vehicle registration offences.