Well, there has been a lot of crying wolf over the recent decades that hasn't helped. It has caused many to just dismiss any of this stuff out of hand without actually looking at it. Like the "88 Reasons Jesus has to return in 1988" nonsense.
But on this one, there have been several researchers that have come at it from different angles and converged on similar conclusions. Not quite in the same camp and the one "prophet" kind of thing that got a special message from God. Like Harold Camping.
Mark Biltz came at this from the angle of researching the blood moon tetrad that occurred in 2014 and 2015. Two years in a row with blood moons on the Passover and Feast of Tabernacles each year. That is a little beyond coincidence right there, but possible.
Then throw in the Bethlehem Star thing that occurred in 2015. When the wise men of the gospels came to Bethlehem, the claimed they had seen the star two years earlier. Well, it has been 2 years since the 2015 Bethlehem star convergence. I can't recall the individual who first determined that convergence of Jupiter and Venus which made it the brightest "star" in the sky with the naked eye.
Then you throw in Biltz's research on the generations thing that Yeshua said in Matthew 24:34 about how the generation that sees these thing come to pass will not pass away till they be fulfilled. There has always been some dispute as to how long a generation is. 50 years? 70 years? 100 years? Also, in Matthew 24:37, Yeshua said that as it was in the days of Noah, so would it be at the coming of the son of man. Well, in Genesis 6:3, God decreed that man would have 120 more years. The first Jewish Congress convened to work on establishing a homeland for the Jews was done in 1897.... 120 years ago. The Balfour declaration where Britain decreed the homeland in the former area of ancient Israel was made in 1917... 100 years ago. The UN officially established that a nation of Israel be established where it is now, in 1947... 70 years ago, with the official claiming of State of Israel the following year. Then Jerusalem was reclaimed by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War...... 50 years ago, which would make 2017 a Jubilee Year.
Then when you take the solar eclipse this year in the U.S. which occurred on August 21st, which is just before the 1st day of Elul on the Jewish Calendar, that is the official start of the 40 day season of Teshuvah, or time of turning back to God, before Yom Kippur / Day of Atonement. During this time, the people are to turn from their sin and back to God. The books are opened on Rosh Hashanah and judgment begins. The righteous are separated from the unrighteous, and the unrighteous have 7 days till Yom Kippur / Day of Atonement to still repent. At Yom Kippur, their fate is sealed.
This 40 day season of repentance, or Teshuvah, was what God gave Ninevah when Jonah warned them or God would destroy them, as one of several examples. And guess what..... there was a full solar eclipse on that year that covered the area of Ninevah. That was worked out using the same computer program for this coming convergence. And it happened just before the 1st of Elul on the Jewish calendar, the start of the season of Teshuvah, or repentence, like the one that just went thru the U.S.
The Revelation 12 sign occurs at the end of Rosh Hashanah, or feast of trumpets, which is September 21st & 22nd. There are 7 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Scottie Clarke is credited as the chief researcher to find this convergence. He put out his initial findings about 6 years ago. It has had 6 years of being put to the test of peer review, and has not been debunked except by some who don't take all the conditions of the event into account. This has been worked thru by several competent people and found that this convergence that matches Revelation 12 precisely, does not occur for 6000 years previous or 1000 years future. Only on September 23rd does this detailed convergence happen. It was posted that Answers in Genesis debunked it, but they failed on several levels to take all the details into account. The primary one... that Jupiter does a retrograde operation and stays inside the womb area of the constellation Virgo for 9 months, just like a human gestation period, and then Jupiter passes between the legs of Virgo on September 23rd, being born.
When these various details get put together, then things get really eye opening. It starts getting into a complex game of mathematical probabilities that borders on the impossible. What one chooses to do with that is up to them. But keep in mind, Yeshua held that generation of His first coming accountable for knowing that time of His coming. And God always gives ample signs and warnings before bringing doom on anyone so that no one will be legitimately able to say they were not warned.
Does it mean a rapture? I'll leave that to each person to decide for themselves.