© 3 NewsWarren Jeffs in his police mugshot.
Warren Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), issued his latest edict last week, saying the apocalypse would occur before the New Year.
CNN reports on December 31 authorities in Colorado City, where the church is based, were preparing for the worst.
"Jim Jones, Koresh, history has showed us that these things happen when religious zealots take charge of a group of people," said Sam Brower, a private investigator who has worked on cases for ex-FLDS members.
"The consensus seems to be that Warren is indicating that by the end of the year, the end of the world will be here."
The group owns Colorado City's only grocery store, which they had shut down in readiness for the end of the world, according to authorities.
Jeffs is currently behind bars in Texas, serving a life sentence for sexual assault on his child "brides", reports the Huffington Post.
It's Jeffs' second failed prophecy in as many months - in November he said the world was going to end on December 23, two days after the supposed Mayan prophecy, when the supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming would explode, reports CBS affiliate KUTV.
It didn't.
Hopefully the prophecy is a self-fulfilling one, and the end of HIS world will be nigh....