Prediction: President Obama will pull the nuclear trigger!

Oh, for heaven's sake. (That's not directed at anyone here, but at the inanity of Hemsworth's blog entry.)

Unless Hemsworth can show the actual document/sound bite/diary entry/whatever from the 1940's (funny how he doesn't cite a specific year-you'd think he'd know that) where Duncan made this prediction, it's just a tabloid postdiction, and should be dismissed as such.

For the people who would believe it...jeez, doesn't anyone know how to think anymore?
 
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JohnG said:
Everyone knows it's not a trigger at all, more of a giant red plunger.
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Well, that's kind of archaic. I was hoping it was a Microsoft computer program with exploding mushroom cloud wallpaper. :p
 
Elizabeth I said:
NO! Now I am disappointed. I thought it was one of those big contact switches like in the Frankenstein movies.
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No, that's in Russia, as revealed in the historical text Philbert Desanex' 100,000th Dream
 
I spoke some years ago to a niece of Helen Duncan, and have read extensively about her life, and curiously have never once never come across this prophecy before! :)

cj x
 
I posted that link just FYI.
I've read quite a lot about Duncan, and there's no doubt that she was a fraud. Ghosthunter Harry Price took lots of photos of her with "ectoplasm" that is clearly cheesecloth draped around her (and if a ghosthunter says you're a fraud, then you're in trouble).
cj.23, you're quite right - she never made any kind of predictions, just did the normal medium/clairvoyant I'm-getting-a-Fred-or-maybe-a-Frederick stuff.
The seance that she was arrested for took place in Portsmouth (a big Navy town) and she claimed to have materialised a sailor from HMS Barham, a warship that had been sunk nine months previously, Her supporters have always said that this proved that she was a genuine medium, as the news of the sinking hadn't been released publicly. But in a Navy town it would have been difficult for quite a lot of people not to know something about it. Also, reports of the seance vary - witnesses seemed unable to agree on exactly what was said, or seen.
There is little doubt that Duncan was arrested because she was seen as a security risk - if she knew about the sinking of the Barham, somebody had to have been feeding her quite confidential information - who knew what else she could have blabbed about in the next seance?
For the last couple of years, there has been a sustained campaign by her family and supporters to have her pardoned; lots of rubbish has been circulated about her "amazing" powers as a result (she was supposed to have held private seances for Churchill and the Royals, for instance). I'm assuming that this "prediction" is yet another spurious claim, in the hope of getting more publicity for The Cause.
If you want to find out more, there's an excellent sceptical biography by Malcolm Gaskill, called Hellish Nell. (Don't mistake it for another Duncan biography of the same name, written by one of her granddaughters, and which is largely fable.)
 
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This is a fraud. It reminds me of the Internet scam that Nostradamus predicted the WTC attack when in reality someone made up the Quatrain after 9/11.

If this were really something predicted 68 years ago, we would have been as familiar with this prediction as we are with Edgar Cayce's and other supposed psychics who have written similar tripe.
 
The only curiosity here is how far this fake story will spread. Honestly, you'd think someone might have noticed that the story posted on the blog cites a radio show web page of a program the blog author appears to broadcast as the source of the story. :rolleyes:


Can we say, "cheap advertising gimmick", children? ...(Not you guys, mind you, but the people who would fall for such garbage.)


Edited to add, I see the radio guy got the story from a tabloid.
 
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dbalsdon said:
Funny. He won't have access to the 'trigger' until 2009. Great prediction.
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I would love independant verification that she said exactly what was in the quote. Because, if she did, she gets the points regardless of what else happens since "nuclear missile" and "nuclear trigger" were not in use for some time (years) after 1940.
 
Further to the original post - looking at Mr Churchill's history of WW2, nowhere is Ms Duncan mentioned. The Right Honourable Sir Andrew Duncan, yes lots, since he was involved with the Ministry of Supply. "Psychics", "Seers" and "Clairvoyants" - nowhere in the index.

HMS Barham blew up in November 1941. One-third of her crew survived (amounting to over three hundred people) which is quite enough explatation as to why Ms Duncan was aware of the battleships demise three years later.
 
Comsat Angel said:
Further to the original post - looking at Mr Churchill's history of WW2, nowhere is Ms Duncan mentioned.
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I did find this reference to Churchill on the Helen Duncan official site.

http://www.helenduncan.org.uk/articles/winstoncomments.html

I can even accept that the letter is probably genuine - and an extremely annoyed under Secretary penned it for Churchill's signature because the trial was a complete waste of valuable resources in Wartime London.

But nowhere in the letter is Mrs Duncan's name actually mentioned - just that it was a stupid waste of time and money. There is a further section on the same site (sans references} that Churchill visited Duncan in prison several times, and apologised to her. However I take this as the stuff I use to make my roses grow.

Norm
 
fromdownunder said:
I can even accept that the letter is probably genuine - and an extremely annoyed under Secretary penned it for Churchill's signature because the trial was a complete waste of valuable resources in Wartime London.
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The trial would only be considered a complete waste of resource if one were ignorant of the nature and purpose of the witchcraft act, as Churchill seemed to be.
 
Pfft, trust her to steal the limelight. I distinctly remember telling her that prediction - of mine - in a past life. She always was a wannabe.



ETA:
"UPDATE: Staff of the official Helen Duncan website say this is a hoax news story perpetrated by a sensationalist tabloid. According to the website staff, Duncan, who died in 1956, never made predictions."

More here.

Sorry Helen, I thought you'd spilled the beans. I imagine the MiB will be onto this one.
 
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Comsat Angel said:
Further to the original post - looking at Mr Churchill's history of WW2, nowhere is Ms Duncan mentioned. The Right Honourable Sir Andrew Duncan, yes lots, since he was involved with the Ministry of Supply. "Psychics", "Seers" and "Clairvoyants" - nowhere in the index.
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And neither does she appear in the memoirs of his personal bodyguard, who went with him everywhere.
HMS Barham blew up in November 1941. One-third of her crew survived (amounting to over three hundred people) which is quite enough explatation as to why Ms Duncan was aware of the battleships demise three years later.
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Thanks for that correction. Yes, plenty of time for the news to spread via unofficial channels.
 
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