| Al Seckel, "Tabloid Psychics Failed to Predict '87 Would Be a Bad Year for Them," Los Angeles Times "Skeptical Eye" column, January 11, 1988. | Robert Sheaffer, "1987 Psychic Predictions," BASIS (Bay Area Skeptics Information Sheet), February 1988. (Original WordStar file date December 15, 1987; issued originally as press release by Bay Area Skeptics.) |
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| U.S. planes did not attack Iran, killing the Ayatollah. Caroline Kennedy Schlosberg, Princess Diana, Princess Fergie, and Madonna did not have babies. There were no assassination attempts against the Pope, and against Mikhail Gorbachev. Ted Kennedy did not marry (or remarry), and Interstate 280 did not wash out in San Jose. These were just a few of the many things that had been predicted to occur during 1987 by famous psychics, but failed to happen. | |
| Every year about this time, the supermarket tabloids headline the "startling and true" predictions for the coming year by "psychics" such as Jeane Dixon, Shawn Robbins, Marie Graciette and others reputed to have the "gift of prophecy." | At the end of each year, many well-known psychics issue predictions for the coming year. Twelve months later, they issue another set of predictions, conveniently forgetting those made the year before, which are always nearly 100% wrong. |
| Every year some of the predictions are indeed startling, but how many of them turn out to be true? | |
| To find out, some colleagues in the Bay Area started collecting the predictions made each year by the tabloid "psychics." | Each year, however, the Bay Area Skeptics dig up the predictions made the year before, nearly always to the embarrassment of those who made them. |
| How did they fare last year? | |
| The most famous psychic probably is Jeane Dixon. She had approximately
100 predictions printed in the Star last year.
Supernatural Vision About one-third of her predictions couldn't really be classified as "psychic" predictions because they didn't call for any supernatural vision. For example, she predicted that "the IRS and the public will be confused by the new tax laws." |
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| The second third of her predictions were so vague that it is impossible to say if they came true or not. For example, her predictions that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev will "puzzle American policy-makers" and "this will be another difficult year for (rock singer) Boy George" are not clearly true or false. | Many of the psychic predictions made are so vague that it is impossible to say if they came true or not: for example, Jeane Dixon's prediction that Gorbachev "will puzzle American policy makers," or that "this will be another difficult year for Boy George," is not clearly true or false. |
| The last third of her predictions can be classified as both startling and specific. Hence, these are the most interesting ones to look at. | |
| On the love and marriage front, last year Dixon predicted--incorrectly--a second marriage for U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass); a baby for the senator's niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, and pregnancies for the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of York. | The famous Washington, D.C. psychic Jeane Dixon, who supposedly has a "gift of prophecy," predicted a baby for Caroline Kennedy Schlosberg, a second marriage for her uncle Ted Kennedy, and pregnancies for Lady Diana and for Fergie. |
| She also forecast that the 1987 art market would go bust, but in fact, record prices were set at art auctions. | The art market was supposed to go bust, but record prices were set in art auctions. |
| In addition, Dixon predicted many Americans would be kidnaped for ransom and a rescue mission would be attempted leading to the loss of life. She also prognosticated "another tragic airspace confrontation with the Soviet Union." | "Many Americans would be kidnaped for ransom," she said, "but a rescue mission would be attempted, leading to loss of life." There would be another "tragic" airspace confrontation with the Soviet Union, and a new super-fertilizer would produce fruits and vegetables "right out of Jack and the Beanstalk." |
| In the one-third of her predictions that most clearly call for "psychic" powers, the only correct one was that Elizabeth Taylor would not remarry again in 1987. | She DID correctly predict, however, that Liz Taylor would NOT get married this year, a prediction which was at least a LITTLE surprising. |
| National Enquirer psychic Robbins gave four specific and startling predictions last year. These were that Prince Charles would appear on TV to psychically bend spoons like Uri Geller, that Monaco's Prince Albert would renounce his throne, that singer Michael Jackson "will give up rock singing to begin a career as a fire-and-brimstone TV evangelist" and that a "Kentucky hillbilly would become an overnight billionaire" after discovering the world's biggest oil field in his backyard. None were correct. | New York psychic Shawn Robbins predicted that Prince Charles would appear on TV to bend spoons psychically, like Uri Geller; that Monaco's Prince Albert would renounce his throne, and that the world's biggest oil field would be discovered in Kentucky. |
| Los Angeles psychic Marie Graciette had several of her predictions published last year by the National Enquirer. Among them: Gorbachev would be wounded in an assassination attempt by a Soviet soldier during the May Day parade in Moscow. She also predicted that the mayor of a large American city would undergo a sex-change operation and win reelection as a woman. | Los Angeles psychic Marie Graciette predicted that Soviet party boss Mikhail Gorbachev would be wounded in an assassination attempt by one of his own soldiers during the May Day parade in Moscow. She also predicted that the mayor of a large American city would undergo a sex-change operation, then win re-election as a woman! [...] |
| It should be noted that not one of the tabloid psychics predicted any of the genuinely surprising news stories of 1987, including: the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 500 points in a single day, First Lady Nancy Reagan's surgery for breast cancer, the downing of a jetliner by a revengeful ex-employee believed to have shot the the flight crew, the Whittier earthquake or the unexpected withdrawal of Gary Hart from the presidential race over a sex scandal and his equally unexpected reentry into the race late into the year. | No psychic succeeded in predicting the GENUINELY surprising news stories of 1987: the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring to stratospheric heights, then falling more than 500 points in a single day; Nancy Reagan's surgery for breast cancer; the downing of a jetliner by a revengeful ex-employee who shot the flight crew; or the unexpected withdrawal of Gary Hart from the Presidential race over a sex scandal, and his equally unexpected re-entry into the race late in the year. These major news stories were so unanticipated that someone would have had to be psychic to have predicted them. Given the number of self-proclaimed psychics out there, one would expect that somebody would have -- unless, of course, all such claims of psychic powers are without foundation. |