A Report Card on Psychic Predictions for 2004

[Ian David]

Time is running out.

Over the next few days, Osama bin Laden will die of kidney disease. Saddam Hussein will be shot to death. Fidel Castro will die. A live dinosaur thousands of years old will be captured. The Hoover Dam will collapse. And Rosie O'Donnell will adopt Siamese twin girls.

That's what the world's best psychics predicted for 2004. And with the year drawing to a close, the news is going to have to get pretty intense over the next few days if those forecasts are going to come true, according to Gene Emery, a contributor to Skeptical Inquirer magazine, who has been tracking tabloid forecasts for 26 years.

Actually, the truly unusual predictions of major news events almost never come true, and this year has been no exception, said Emery, who has been using the predictions to search for a psychic -- any psychic -- who can really predict the future.

Not only did the psychic forecasts fail to foretell what would happen in 2004, the psychics continued their tradition of missing the major events that did make the headlines.

For example, this year they missed Janet Jackson's Superbowl breast flash (which caused one of the biggest stirs of 2004), the prison torture in Iraq (which most Americans found so surprising and profoundly disturbing) and the World Series win by the Boston Red Sox.

"But then, why should this year be any different?" said Emery. "Although the psychics were always predicting things for Princess Diana, they completely missed her death. The same was true for the Sept. 11 attacks. And the fact that the psychics, who claim to be able find everything from missing bodies to your missing car keys, have not helped us find Osama Bin Laden should tell you something."

"Given their track record, it's amazing that a psychic can tell you when the 10 O'Clock News is going to come on," he joked.

More:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/predictions-2004.html

Includes the failures of Terry and Linda Jamison, Anthony Carr, and Martha Henstridge.

Another year with a 0% score by the psychics.

Now, I saw THAT coming!

See also:
Psychics fail in 1994
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/1994.html

Psychics fail in 1995
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/1995.html

Psychics fail in 1996
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/1996.html

Psychics fail in 1997
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/1997.html

Psychics fail in 1998
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/1998.html

Psychics fail in 1999
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/1999.html

Psychics fail in 2000
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/2000.html

Psychics fail in 2001
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/2001.html

Psychics fail in 2002
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/2002.html

Psychics fail in 2003
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/2003.html

Psychics fail in 2004
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/predictions-2004.html

[SariesNightly]

1. I predict civil war 2005!

.. no sense letting the psychics have all the fun.

[koopie57]

2. I predict

world peace due to massive use of nuclear weapons. I also predict only cockroaches and this administration will be the only life to survive on this planet. They will then begin to eat one another.

[Ian David]

3. I predict

Osama Bin Laden will turn himself over to US Special Forces in Iraq.

Osama will be questioned by the FBI for an hour, sodomized, and placed in a holding cell overnight with James "Whitey" Bulger.

In the morning, the two of them will be turned loose and asked to try and keep out of sight.

[DS1]

4. A nuclear bomb will go off in 2005

In my pants.

[koopie57]

5. I would like to see that!