Foretelling the Future


林廷祐

    Prophets are well-known for their ability of foretelling the future.  A prophet may or may not predict the future so precisely, but when he does, he will surely give you gooseflesh.  It』s undeniable that the event of September 11, 2001, has shocked the whole world---four commercial passenger jets crashed and three of them into significant landmarks--- the World Trade Center and the twin tower. What is more shocking is that a prophecy in the 16th century may have become reality in the 21th   century.

   Michel de Nostradame, more commonly known as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer and also a seer.  He published his barely scrutable collection of prophecies, the Centuries, in 1555.  He was often referred as the prophet of doom because of the visions he had that involved death and war.  His followers say he predicted the French Revolution, the birth and rise to power of Hitler, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  He predicted some of history's most monumental events from the Great Fire of London (1666) to the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger. 

In the wake of the tragedy of 911, the following prophecy was zipping across the Internet:

"In the year of the new century and nine months,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror
The sky will burn at forty-five degrees.
Fire approaches the great new city."

"In the city of york there will be a great collapse,
2 twin brothers torn apart by chaos
While the fortress falls the great leader will succumb
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning."
- NOSTRADAMUS 1654

People say that 」a great King of Terror from the skymeans the attack of terrorists, in the form of three airliners used as lethal missiles, while「 2 twin brothersmeans the twin tower.  And 「the third big waris said to be the military actions taken by the U.S. after 911.  Compare the above paragraph with what happened in 911, we could see how amazing their similarities were.  It seemed that Nostradamus had witnessed all the events, and in the lines we read, we could see a hidden design of fate.

  Some people say it』s just another urban legend, only operating on the Internet. Some also say one can make any kind of after-the-fact prediction by putting two separate prophecies together.  However, so far no one can give any clear and definite evidence to prove that this prophecy is merely a hoax.  As a result, this mystery goes on….

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