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33 Predictions That Were Either Eerily Accurate or Spectacularly Wrong

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33 Predictions That Were Either Eerily Accurate or Spectacularly Wrong

May 27, 2024

After rounding up these very public predictions, we got inspired by their audacity, and thought we’d try our hand at a bold prediction of our own. Here it goes: The Toronto Maple Leafs will win the 2037 Stanley Cup!

Man, that was exhilarating. Right or wrong, we wonder if these past predictors felt that same rush.

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33

IN THEIR PILOT EPISODE, THE LONE GUNMENTHWARTED A PLOT TO HIJACK A PLANE AND CRASH IT INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER. (Cue X-Files theme music.) It aired in March, 2001. CRACKED.COM https://youtu.be/9rsMG2hHsLo — Source

32

ALBERT BROOKS PREDICTED REALITY me TV IN 1979. FILMING THANKSGIVING His mockumentary film Real Life featured an obnoxious, intrusive camera crew trailing a family and deliberately stirring up conflict. It was meant as a sendup of a PBS documentary series, but with the twist that most of the drama was generated artificially by the producer. CRACKED.COM http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/real-life-1979 — Source

31

Predictions

WARREN ZEVON PREDICTED HIS OWN DEATH. His song The Factory ends with these lines: Kickin' asbestos in the factory Punchin' out Chryslers in the factory Breathin' that plastic in the factory. Zevon died from advanced malignant mesothelioma, which is usually caused by inhalation of asbestos. That wouldn't be so odd if Zevon wrote that song from his personal experience, but he didn't. Не never worked in any such risky environment himself and had no reason to believe he was at risk of mesothelioma. CRACKED.COM www.nytimes.com/2003/01/26/magazine/warren-zevon-s-last-waltz.htm/?pagewanted=all&src=pm — Source

30

NICKI MINAJ PREDICTED HER COUSIN'S DEATH, WITH A SONG. Why'd you have to leave in July? On a peaceful and serene summer night... Why the doctors could not stop the bleeding... Now you see you not bullet proof... I could've told you about my intuition ... Why'd you have to go so soon? -We Miss You A year after Nicki wrote this, her cousin Nicholas Telemaque was gunned down in July and left to bleed to death. CRACKED.COM http://www.nydailynews. com/news/crime/nicholas-telemaque- 27-shot-death-brooklyn-street-leaving-nightclub-article-1.155416 — Source

29

IN CHINATOWN ONE CHARACTER'S ALLEGED SISTER IS ACTUALLY HER MOTHER. JACK NICHOLSON'S REAL-LIFE ALLEGED SISTER TURNED OUT TO BE HIS MOTHER. TIME magazine researched his family and discovered the couple he'd considered his parents were actually his grandparents. Nicholson joining a film with this plot was a complete coincidence -he'd had no idea of the truth. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

In 1932's Evening News LATE KEEP SPECIAL ITIONS Brave New World, - - SALE - - - Meet Louise, the world's Aldous Huxley first test-tube arrival described in-vitro fertilization. SUPERBABE BRAVE NEW WORLD Wide-eyed Louise Brown pictured in hospital IN hours after the ... born, Today abo's doing - well for Page Three In 1978, the world greeted Louise Brown, who was the first ALDOUS HUXLEY test-tube baby. CRACKED COM — Source

27

H.G. WELLS FIRST WROTE ABOUT THE ATOM BOMB IN A 1914 NOVEL CALLED THE WORLD SET FREE. IT WOULD BE DECADES BEFORE SCIENTISTS MADE THE BOMB REAL. wells didn't even know the bomb was possible. Не just knew a little bit about radioactive decay, and thought if we ever split an atom, it would probably make a really big boom. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

A FOOTBALL POSTER IN POLTERGEIST SAYS 1988 SUPER BOWL XXII. 1988 XXII WHICH IS WEIRD, BECAUSE THE FILM WAS RELEASED IN 1982. In 1988, on the day of super Bowl XXII, Poltergeist actress Heather O'Rourke happened to be living in san Diego, the city where the game was taking place. she suddenly became violently ill and died the following afternoon. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

CRACKED con 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Apple iPad (2010) — Source

24

Trains

55 50 5 TRAINS 1850 8 SIERRA RAILROAD CRACKED CON Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia. -Irish professor Dionysius Lardner. We do have high-speed trains now, as well as even faster transport methods. — Source

23

55 MOVING 50 5 HOUSES JULY 1971 CRACKED.COM The house of the future would have no roots Gone would be water pipes, drains, power lines; the autonomous home could therefore move, or be moved, to anywhere on earth. -Arthur C. Clarke. Не wasn't predicting RVs, which already existed. — Source

22

50 THE BEATLES 5 FEBRUARY 1962 CRACKED.COM We don't like the sound. Guitar groups are on their way out. -Dick Rowe, head of artists and repertoire at Decca Records. The Beatles then went on to some success, as did rock music in general. — Source

21

50 DEMOCRACY 5 1936 CRACKED.COM Democracy will be dead by 1950. -John Langdon-Davies, British journalist. Yeah, it got hairy there for a bit, but they haven't quite managed to get rid of democracy so far. — Source

20

50 THE INTERNET 5 DECEMBER 1995 CompuServe Internet Services The - - Insurance - University - i - - - - - a / = воные iw M CRACKED.COM I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse. -Robert Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet. Не said he'd eat his words if he were wrong. And so he did, sticking a magazine page in a blender then eating the goop with a spoon. — Source

19

TV won't last 6 months. 20TH CENTURY FOX CRACKED.COM Studio exec Darryl Zanuck predicted that people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night. Staring at that box is the only thing that gets us through the day! — Source

18

And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. -Fahrenheit 451 Well, rt seems that Ray Bradbury knew something that we didn't CRACKED.COM — Source

17

CRACKED COM When the Treaty of Versailles was signed, officially ending the First World War in 1919, French Marshal Ferdinand Foch responded... THIS IS NOT PEACE. IT IS AN ARMISTICE FOR TWENTY YEARS. The Second World War started in 1939. — Source

16

CRACKED COM THE VIDEOGAME TOM CLANCY'S GHOST RECON UNCANNILY PREDICTED THE RUSSIA - GEORGIA WAR. RELEASED IN 2001, THE GAME WAS SET IN APRIL 2008 - JUST A FEW MONTHS BEFORE THE REAL WAR. — Source

15

A 1995 student PSA featuring 5th graders from Helena, MT not only correctly proclaimed By the time we're in college, the Internet will be our telephone, television, shopping center, and workplace. KIA The Greatest Thing in Ln ADA Photo It also hinted at the Internet's future infatuation with felines. I even found a recipe for cat food cupcakes! CRACKED.COM — Source

14

GRACKED.COM two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars...- Jonathan Swift, describing the Red Planet's moons in his 1726 novel Gulliver'siTravels. Phobos and Deimos, discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall — Source

13

IN 1987, APPLE RELEASED A PROMO VIDEO IMAGINING FUTURE TECHNOLOGY. CHOE (Player IT SHOWED A TABLET COMPUTER WITH VIDEO CHAT AND VOICE-BASED SEARCH. The scene was supposed to take place on september 16, 2011. The iPad ended up coming out in 2010. The first Apple tablet with a voice- based assistant (siri) came out september 2011, within two weeks of the date the video predicted. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

ROBERT HEINLEIN'S 1961 NOVEL STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND PREDICTED 3-D COMPUTERS IN EVERY HOME. IT ALSO CAME UP WITH A MUCH MORE SPECIFIC PREDICTION: SCREENSAVERS. A stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on, guppies and tetras gave way to the face of the well-known winchell. Fish in an aquarium would become one of the most popular screensavers out there. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan won't carry this franchise. CHICAGO BULLS GM LLS CRACKED.COM General Manager Rod Thorn was almost apologetic that there was no one taller he could have drafted: What can you do? Jordan isn't going to turn this franchise around. — Source

10

Smoking's probably fine. NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE CRACKED.COM W.C. Heuper, director of the institute's Environmental Cancer Section, was pretty darn sure that, if smoking played a part in lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one. — Source

9

Silent Movies

Audiences don't want to hear actors. A WARNER BRO. CRACKED.COM H.M. Warner thought silent movies were the height of cinema: Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? — Source

8

The telephone has no legs. WESTERN UNION CRACKED COM In an internal memo, employees were told that the telephone shouldn't be seriously considered as a means of communication. — Source

7

Brick-and-mortar stores have nothing to worry about. TIME MAGAZINE CRACKED.COM Their 1966 prediction that remote shopping will flop was based on the observation that women like to get out of the house. — Source

6

Nothing bad will happen to the stock market. IRVING FISHER CRACKED.COM 3 days before the stock market crash, an American economist declared that stocks had reached a permanently high plateau. — Source

5

Tired: gold. Wired: steel. THOMAS EDISON HADRINITE GRACKED.COM Edison was convinced we were on the verge of dispensing precious metals like a Taco Bell soda fountain. And what would we do with the power of alchemy? Devalue gold and turn all our furniture into cold, hard steel. — Source

4

There's simply no demand for YouTube. YOUTUBE COFOUNDER CRACKED.COM Cofounder and СТО Steve Chen once said there's just not that many videos I want to watch. Strange that a man with zero foresight could accidentally invent a perpetual motion propaganda machine! — Source

3

Popular Mechanics

Where a calculator like ENIAC today is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1.5 tons. I Popular Mechanics, 1949 CRACKED.COM — Source

2

NY и as 500 The coming of the wireless era will make war impossible, because it will make war ridiculous. -Guglielmo Marconi CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Nice optimism, but no, and not even close

By the mid 1980's, automated autos, noiseless pneumatic sub- ways and luxury-liner hovercraft will have radically restructured our surface mobility David Rorvik in the October 1970 issue of CRACKED.COM Playboy magazine — Source

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