Have any “psychics” claimed to have predicted yesterday’s events? If so, do they have any proof that they really did so? If so, was the prediction specific or just a vague “I see a serious terrorist attack on the USA”? If no “psychics” made even a vague prediction (let alone a specific one), why would anyone ever listen to a single “psychic” ever again?
I’ll bet at least one psychic is going to try to pull off something like The Sinking of the Titan, and publish a prediction of the terrorist attacks with last week’s date stamped on it.
I haven’t heard any claims of that stuff…yet. Although, um, I was asleep at the time of the attack (was sick and sleeping late) and had a dream before wakin’ up at 11 in the morning New York Time, that I was in the region of the Potomac and there was fire and explosions and the sky was black with smoke, and the feeling of lots of death. 
I woke up and told my dream to my mother (no radio, no television was around), and then she told me that it was moderately true, and here’s proof I really am a psychic, blah de blah. Creepy. Yet I don’t believe in psychic-stuff, so feh.
I give the psychic folk another day or two to make up their stories and pass 'em around. I wonder what Weekly World News and other little tabloids’ll have on the matter…
Jab, why would anyone trust a psychic in the first place?
If I could ocntact the spirit world, I would ask the spirits for only nine bits of information: the first three official finishers in each of next year’s Triple Crown races.
Ed Dames, who is into remote viewing, claims that in a recent remote viewing session, he has managed to “see” the the base of operations that the terrorists were operating out of and has drawn a sketch of it.
It’s on Art Bell’s website, at http://www.artbell.com/letters21.html.
Have at!
Well, no “psychic” foresaw the Kennedy Assasination, the King Assasination, the Lockerbie Bombing, the TWA crash, the OKC bombing, the start of the Gulf War, the Soltys killings, the Colombine shootings, or, for that matter the outcome of the Presidential Election (even though they’d have had a 50% chance of sucess.)
Even the mighty Nostradomus didn’t forsee it- the prediction currently being circulated says right on it that it was written in 1654, which is odd since Nosty kicked the bucket in 1566.
Strange that good old reliable Sylvia Browne didn’t have a thing to say about it, just last week… The “spirits” were apparently more preoccupied with bilirubin levels and Randi’s “left ventricle.” 
Really? What’s the actual prediction? (I heard something about towers and metal birds?)
I’m curious because on Tuesday a friend of mine at work (bookstore) said when something like this happens we’re going to get everyone coming in looking for Nostradomus. I did’t think anything else about it but today I go in and we’ve already sold out of anything we had on hand. And we got requests all day.
From an emotional standpoint, I sympathise with people trying to grasp at something they think will help them make sense of a total horror. From a Fighting Ignorance standpoint I think- how pathetic.
I was at Sylvia Browne’s Web site yesterday. She’s got a pop-up that proclaims that she didn’t predict the 9/11 events because “she’s not omniscient.”
Understatement of the century.
Here you will find information about the Nostradamus email. I think it’s sad that people would perpetuate this kind of crap, no need to spread further misinformation.
As for remote viewing, didn’t the goverment run a remote viewing operation from the mid 70’s to the mid 90’s with an unusually high success rate. I believe it was called Operation Stargate, but couldn’t find much information on it (saw it on a Discovery Channel Show).
But knowing the base location sure didn’t help much, did it?
Mayor Quimby wrote:
Ah, good old Discovery Channel. I remember a time when they, and their cohort The Learning Channel, showed programs besides pseudoscientific crackpot shows and The Justice Files.
Here’s what a 5-year-old article in The Skeptical Inquirer had to say about Stargate:
http://www.csicop.org/si/9603/claims.html
And here’s what The Skeptic’s Dictionary says about it:
http://www.skepdic.com/remotevw.html
Nope. Especially since Ed Dames didn’t do his “remote viewing” of the base until after the attack.
Ed Dames’s picture kinda looks like one of the towers of the Taj Mahal, which would be a rather extravagant place for terrorists to hide their base of operations. I’ll bet that when their real base is found, Ed Dames will defend his drawing by saying, “But their base was in the same country as the Taj Mahal, wasn’t it?”
http://www.artbell.com/letters21.html. Someone named Matt Masi, who apparently has the same affliction as Seethruart, claims to see the Devil in the smoke coming from the second collision.
The devil carries a sickle-thingy instead of a pitchfork now?
I’m sorry you misunderstand, she IS claiming she predicted it, but got the details wrong cause she’s not omniscient.
From Sylvia’s pop-up:
Note she doesn’t say that the prediction is wrong, just the timing. She also doesn’t point out that the terrorist activity was supposed to take place in London and Florida, based on her prediction listed at #15 here:
http://www.sylvia.org/home/1999pred.cfm
but hey, what’s a few details when you are psychic. I’m not in the pit so i won’t call names. Darn.
But I LIKE those pseudoscientific crackpot shows! ::sigh::
Even if a pyschic did claim to make the prediction, saying that New York will be hit by terrorists isn’t a very impressive prediction. Personally, I’m suprised it hasn’t happened sooner.
jab1 wrote:
I see a kitty cat!
(And BTW, it seems that the above link is updated quite frequently; by tomorrow, both the devil-in-the-smoke-cloud and the remote-viewing-of-the-terrorist’s-hideout pictures may be gone!)
rushtopher: Feel free to call Sylvia Browne names here – for trying to use this tragedy to promote herself, she deserves every one of them.
I’ve used the info you provided here in a post at SkepticNews. Thanks.
[Edited by David B on 09-13-2001 at 07:59 PM]
Great, thank you for another skeptic link.
And if you want name-calling for her:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=86623
properly placed in the pit. I had another thread about her somewhere, but her appearance a few weeks ago on Larry King with James Randi seems less important now.
hint: Look for the word whore.
You’re right, rushtopher - I misremembered the details of her pop-up. It won’t matter though to her victims (AKA “believers”) that she got the details and the timing wrong - she’ll somehow turn it around to “prove” her miraculous powers.
Here’s my prediction: the FBI will find, within the last quarter of 2001, at least 10 people involved with the attacks. At least a couple of them will be named Mohammed or Muhammed, or will have a name that ends in the Z or “een” sounds - Habiz, Moabin, something like that - or will have the word “Al” (i.e., Mohammed Al-Shabiz [N.B. that’s a totally made up and I’m not even sure truly Arabic name]). How’s that for a “psychic” prediction?
Oooh, that was really tough to come up with simply through common sense. Sadly, I’m sure that Ms. Fraud-Browne will come up with similar “predictions” and the gullible masses will take that as further proof of her powers. I hate that slimy bitch.
Incredible. I was just thinking today that I needed to start a thread on this, and you’ve already beat me to it, jab1!
The media is having difficulty finding words to express the magnitude of the tragedy, calling it the “worst act of terrorism on American soil.” I submit to you that the destruction of the World Trade Center is by far the most horrific act of terrorism in the history of the human race, irresepctive of nations, religions, or ethnicity. In fact, I’d go so far to say that the only event or series of events that exceeds the depravity of this attack was the mass genocide carried out by the Nazis during the second World War.
I don’t think any psychic anywhere could have the gall to claim prescience after this. Surely, if they really could forsee the future, they would have tried to alert someone somewhere to the events that were preparing to unfold.
I don’t believe that any kind of psychic divination is “real.” Anyone who claims otherwise to me after this tragedy is going to get a well-deserved earfull.
psiekier wrote:
jab1 must have read your mind! This obviously proves that he’s a closet psychic himself. He should put up a webpage and charge people’s Visa* cards to do “readings” about them.
[sub]*) But he won’t take American Express.[/sub]