Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga has been called the Nostradamus of the Balkans, but there’s good reason to dismiss her.
She’s been called the Nostradamus from the Balkans and credited with everything from predicting 9/11 to the rise of ISIS, and now she has new predictions for 2018, as we reported recently. But there are plenty of reasons to think Baba Vanga, a Bulgarian woman who died at the age of 85 back in 1996, may actually be a total fraud despite the fact that many in conspiracy theory circles worship her.
Her believers say she’s predicted a whole range of things, including the Boxing Day tsunami and even that Barack Obama would be president. Other predictions her followers say are set to become true in 2018 are that China will become a world superpower and we will find a new energy source on the planet Venus.
But even though her accomplishments sound amazing, a closer look at her proclamations suggests she’s little more than a glorified fortune teller, couching many of her predictions with vague and poetic language that could be twisted and manipulated to just about every world event.
Take her supposed 2018 predictions, for example. China is already a world superpower, and you could argue was one back in the 1990s. And there are no plans to send any spacecraft to Venus in 2018, although one spacecraft to launch in July will use Venus as a gravitational launching pad to get closer to the sun.
But looking at her supposed successful predictions in the past suggest that her legend is not really earned. Although many of her predictions are vague, she does make specific predictions from time to time, and they turn out to be spectacularly wrong. For example, she predicted the 1994 FIFA World Cup Final would be played between two teams that start with a B. Brazil defeated Italy in that final. And once many of her other predictions are placed under a microscope, they have a hard time holding up to scrutiny.
Daniel J. Brown
Daniel J. Brown (Editor-in-Chief) is a recently retired data analyst who gets a kick out of reading and writing the news. He enjoys good music, great food, and sports, with a slant towards Southern college football, basketball and professional baseball.