Harold Camping, prophet of May 21 doom, to speak May 23

The San Francisco Chronicle has tracked down the failed prophet of the Saturday doomsday prediction, Harold Camping, and found him subdued and somewhat "flabbergasted."

Ya think?

He answered his door in the early evening, hours after the world was supposed to face Judgment Day with Christian believers airlifted to Heaven. Alameda, Calif., may be heavenly but there's no pearly gate there.

It has been a really tough weekend," said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old fundamentalist radio preacher who convinced hundreds of his followers that the rapture would occur on Saturday at 6 p.m.

He told the paper he was engaged in prayer and consultations and expected to be back to his radio network office Monday to face the music -- and it's not harps. He told the Chronicle:

I'm looking for answers. But now I have nothing else to say. I'll be back to work Monday and will say more then."

Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research, tweeted some very specific expectations:

Harold Camping, pls update www.family.radio.com w/your repentance statement & instructions to your now-broke followers.

At National Public Radio, Barbara Bradley Hagerty called some Camping followers on the sobering morning after the non-apocalypse.

... most didn't answer the phone. Those who did wouldn't talk on the record. But one man, his voice quavering, said he was still holding out hope that they were one day off. Another believer asserted that their prayers worked: God delayed judgment so that more people could be saved, but the end is "imminent."

But Hagerty also learned from a board member of Camping's Family Radio that he hoped they would somehow return the funds donated by believers who wanted to get out the May 21st word. But he offered no guarantees, just a hope that God would be merciful.

God may be merciful but the public? Maybe not so much.

Would you believe anything Camping says now? Did you before?