15 Famous Psychics In History That Predicted Historical Events

Are psychic predictions real? Can psychics predict the future? Despite skepticism and naysaying, many famous psychics in history have been credited with shocking predictions, though many of those claims are disputed. Here are 15 people whose predictions have been linked to real events:

15. Sylvia Browne

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On The Montel Williams Show, Sylvia Browne made a prediction regarding the 2008 presidential race. She stated that although Hillary Clinton would first appear to be the obvious frontrunner, she believed Barack Obama would emerge victorious.

Obama got enough delegates by June 2008 to capture the Democratic candidacy. While the two were still competing for it, CNN repeated Browne’s comment in May. You can see her forecast prior to the nomination being finalized in the video.

14. Kelle Sutliff

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In 2015, Kelle Sutliff predicted the outcome of the next US presidential race: Donald Trump would be elected. At that point, he was still in the running for the Republican nomination.

Her forecast was published in Andover Patch on December 31, 2015, nearly a year before voters cast their ballots. Trump secured the presidency in November 2016.

Sutliff correctly foresaw the winner, although her prediction that he would pick a running mate from among the Republican presidential candidates proved wrong. The man he chose, Mike Pence, was serving as governor of Indiana.

13. William T. Stead

Journalist and spiritualist William T. Stead envisioned an Atlantic steamer drowning following a collision in 1886. There weren’t enough lifeboats in his story to accommodate everyone on board. Stead warned at the end of the article that if liners sailed short of boats, such a catastrophe may actually occur.

Stead was on board the Titanic when it hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. As he had warned previously, there were not enough lifeboat spaces on board for everyone.

12. Kathleen Middleton

Months before Robert F. Kennedy was shot, Kathleen Middleton set down a warning concerning him.

In March 1968, the London-based music and dance instructor got in touch with The Premonitions Bureau, a venture that gathered and dated accounts of events yet to come. She informed its founder, the psychiatrist John Barker, that in her mind the word assassination was linked to Kennedy.

On June 4 she phoned the bureau once more. A few hours afterward, Kennedy was shot following a campaign event in Los Angeles. He passed away the next day.

Records of Middleton’s warnings, logged before the shooting, were retained by the bureau. Before the Hither Green rail disaster of 1967, she and one other contributor had likewise voiced fears of a train crash.

11. Michel Hayek

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At the end of 2004, Lebanese psychic Michel Hayek made his predictions for 2005 on television. He listed journalist Gebran Tueni as one of the individuals he anticipated being attacked, according to a subsequent news article. On December 12, 2005, a vehicle bomb in Beirut killed Tueni.

A major event in central Beirut, when former prime minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a bombing in February, was also forewarned of by Hayek. Hariri was not identified or given a date in that more general threat.

10. Alan Hencher

Telephone operator Alan Hencher warned Britain’s Premonitions Bureau. He and Kathleen Middleton, another contributor mentioned on our list, foresaw a rail catastrophe on a route going into London in late 1967. 49 people were killed when a passenger train headed for Charing Cross derailed close to Hither Green on November 5.

Before the catastrophe, the bureau documented their warnings, providing a verifiable trail for the account.

9. John Monti

Early in March 1981, John Monti said on a radio program in New Hampshire that President Ronald Reagan would be shot in Washington before the end of the month and survive. He stated that the president’s left side would sustain the wound.

On March 30, just after delivering a speech, Reagan was shot outside a hotel in Washington and survived. Later on, the radio presenter verified that Monti had made a prediction weeks prior.

8. Cheiro

William John Warner, an Irish palmist known as Cheiro, became well-known for his ability to read the palms of well-known clients. Mark Twain was one of them.

Twain recounted being promised he would suddenly become wealthy in 1903 in a letter that was later included in Albert Bigelow Paine’s book. He linked the prediction to a publishing deal he secured in October that guaranteed him $25,000 annually for five years. Twain took the contest seriously since he was deeply in debt. His written account gives you something firmer to examine than a story told only by the person selling services.

You can also trace their meeting through a letter Twain wrote in 1894, in which he discussed Cheiro’s reading of his character and his business prospects.

7. David Booth

David Booth dreamt of a passenger airliner crashing for a few nights in May 1979. He was so disturbed that he reported what he had witnessed to the Federal Aviation Administration. An FAA official later confirmed that he had spoken with him before the accident that followed.

On May 25, American Airlines Flight 191 crashed shortly after taking off from Chicago. Although Booth’s warning did not name the flight or provide a date, he had depicted a crash involving a passenger plane. His account is remembered because he reported the dream before the disaster.

6. The Psychic Twins

Terry and Linda Jamison are a pair of identical twin sisters who are psychics. During an interview on Art Bell’s show “Coast to Coast A.M.” in 1999, the sisters said George W. Bush would be the next president. Bush won the 2000 election.

In the same interview, they also mentioned an attack on the World Trade Center in 2002. The 9/11 attacks happened in 2001, so that forecast did not get the year right.

5. Edgar Cayce

Also known as the “sleeping prophet,” Edgar Cayce (born in 1877) gave thousands of trance readings on health and other subjects. His followers credit him with predicting the beginning of the two world wars and the Great Depression.

In a March 1929 reading, Cayce warned of a long market decline and possible financial turmoil. The Wall Street crash followed that October, though he didn’t name a date and gave a mixed answer about a bear market. He also predicted that “Poseidia” would rise from the sea; the Bimini Road found in 1968 is a natural formation rather than a confirmed ruin of Atlantis.

4. Mark Twain

While he didn’t make his living as a psychic, satirist Mark Twain later described a dream in which he saw his brother in a coffin. His brother died only weeks later in a boating accident, and Twain recalled seeing his brother’s corpse arranged just as it had been in his dream.

Ominously enough, Twain also predicted his death. Born in 1835, a year when Halley’s Comet could be seen in the night sky, Twain predicted he would die when the comet was once again visible. In 1910, Halley’s Comet returned – and Twain passed away.

3. Peter Hurkos

Born in 1911 in the Netherlands, Peter Hurkos became famous for claiming to have developed extra-sensory perception after a head injury and coma he suffered in 1941. Hurkos claimed:

“I see pictures in my mind like a television screen.”

After World War II, Hurkos became a media personality, performing psychic feats on live television and before live audiences. In July 1968, a trade magazine reported that he had predicted President Lyndon B. Johnson would not seek reelection, six months before Johnson announced it on March 31. The magazine published its account after the announcement. Hurkos died in 1988.

2. Jeane Dixon

Jeane Dixon is one of the most famous psychics in history and was born Lydia Pinckert in 1904. Dixon said that during her youth in California, she received a crystal ball from a gypsy who predicted she would become a famous psychic and “advise powerful people” throughout the world.

Dixon’s most famous prediction was later linked to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1956, she wrote that a Democrat would win the 1960 presidential election and be assassinated or die in office. She did not name Kennedy. Dixon went on to write several successful books and a regular newspaper column. The gypsy’s prediction also came true — Dixon met President Richard Nixon in 1971 and warned about possible terrorist attacks in America in 1972.

1. Nostradamus

Probably the most famous psychic in history, the French physician Nostradamus wrote hundreds of psychic predictions. One of his verses includes the following lines:

“Ghent and Brussels will march on Antwerp;
The Senate of London will put their king to death.”

In 1649, King Charles I was tried by a court established by the English Parliament and executed in London. Readers have linked the event to the verse, which was printed before his death. It does not name Charles or give a year.

Given his popularity, it’s common to come across certain predictions on social media that are wrongly attributed to Nostradamus.

Honorable Mention: Baba Vanga

Baba Vanga’s name frequently appears next to alleged prophecies regarding global events. The blind Bulgarian mystic was born in 1911 and gained notoriety for her personal advice to guests. She died in 1996.

She is credited by her worldwide supporters with predicting the 9/11 attacks, but the problem is the record: a lot of statements made in her name don’t have a reliable pre-event source. She did not leave a documented compilation of forecasts that can be verified today. If you’re reading a list of her forecasts, ask where the words first appeared before accepting them as hers. 

Did you like our list of the top famous psychics in history? Do you have any more names to add? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!