public static Date parseISO8601(String date) { try { DateTime dateTime = formatter.parseDateTime(date); return dateTime.toDate(); } catch (Exception e) { //fall through and try and parse other ISO standard formats } try { return new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss ZZZZZ").parse(date); } catch (ParseException e) { //fall through and try and parse other ISO standard formats } try { return dateFormatFor("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss").parse(date); } catch (ParseException e) { throw bomb(e); } }