Did Nostradamus Really Predict the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks?
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| September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers in New York City. CREDIT: Public domain image |
It’s a story that began nearly a decade ago, circulated widely for months, and is still believed by many around the world: That the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centers had been foretold by the famous sixteenth-century French writer Nostradamus. He wrote in ambiguous, nearly inscrutable sets of phrases called quatrains that believers claim predicted everything from the American Civil War to Hitler to John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Those who believe in prophecy sift through reams of Nostradamus’s vague writings trying to breathe new meaning into stale words. Here are a few of the Nostradamus prophecies that seemed to be eerily prophetic:
“Two steel birds will fall from the sky on the Metropolis / The sky will burn at forty-five degrees latitude / Fire approaches the great new city / Immediately a huge, scattered flame leaps up / Within months, rivers will flow with blood / The undead will roam the earth for little time.”
It’s easy to fit these words to the actual events of 9/11, and much was made of the second line, as New York City (the “Metropolis”), lies at about 40 degrees north latitude. To someone reading Nostradamus for the first time, one could be convinced that he might have predicted the tragedy.
If you’re familiar with the writings of Nostradamus, though, this particular prediction does not ring true: This writing is actually a hybrid of real Nostradamus verse and fiction, and whoever rewrote it was spectacularly sloppy. Not only is it not written in quatrain form (Nostradamus’ typical writing style), but the phrase “two steel birds” is a obvious give away, as steel wasn’t invented until 1854, nearly 200 years after Nostradamus died.
Another suspect quatrain that surfaced after 9/11 reads: “In the city of God there will be a great thunder? / Two brothers torn apart by Chaos while the fortress endures? / The great leader will succumb / The third big war will begin when the big city is burning?- Nostradamus 1654.”
Given the fact that Nostradmaus died in 1566, 88 years before the quatrain was supposedly written, it seems a remarkable piece indeed. This was actually published on a Canadian website as part of an essay on how easily an important-sounding prophecy can be created using vague imagery. What began as an essentially skeptical piece explaining how prophecy can fool people eventually circulated as the real thing.
to read more, go to: http://www.livescience.com/16001-nostradamus-predict-9-11-world-trade-center.html