Trying to Rapture My Head Around This

According to Harold Camping, who somewhat prematurely predicted that the Biblical "Rapture" would take place back in May, today is the day of reckoning. When the mass ascensions that were presumed to accompany said "Rapture" failed to materialize, Mr. Camping slightly amended his predictions to say that May 21, 2011 was the day of spiritual judgment and the physical manifestation would come today, ushering in the end of the physical world (and possibly the whole universe). Putting aside what appears to be a further lack of mass vanishings by the "saved", and giving Camping's theory the benefit of the doubt that today was meant to be not the end of the Earth and universe but merely the start of a period of great tribulation for the unsaved, it begs a key question. How will any of us be able to tell the difference between the new wave of trials and the way things have been going so far in the 21st Century?