With the new year still fresh, it's time to turn to that which everyone wants to know --- the future.And we don't know of a better prognosticator than the Babe Ruth of psychics, Canadian Nikki Pezaro, Psychic to the Stars.
Babe Ruth is known for holding the record for home runs in single season, but how many people know he also had the record for strikeouts. We do, and that's why we don't focus on what Nikki got wrong, but what she got right.
Nikki's claim to fame is that she forecast the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She is one of three or four people in the English speaking world whose predictions were documented.She did it on the Toronto radio station The Edge months before Sept. 11.
Like you, Sharon Dunn of the National Post had her doubts.
So she decided "that perhaps this is one prediction I should check out for myself, and I make a call to Jeff Domet, who worked at the station at the time and who is now the producer of The Humble & Fred Show on Mojo Radio, where Nikki is a regular guest. Domet remembers the prediction well.
"It was in April of 2001," he recalls. "Nikki said that there would be a terror attack on New York City, and that a plane would hit the World Trade Center." When I ask Domet if he believes in this kind of thing, he replies, "I don't necessarily believe, but, you have to admit, it is kind of eerie." (September 27, 2002)
Here in Winnipeg we weren't aware of her predictions for 2001. We only picked up on Nikki two years later. Here's a couple of predictions from her list for that year:
PSYCHIC PREDICTIONS FOR 2003
11. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER RUNNING FOR POLITICS
38. SEIGFREID AND ROY HAVE TO BE CAREFUL OF A CRAZED TIGER
Rebecca Caldwell, writing in the Globe and Mail on Jan. 4, 2003, thought she would have some chuckles at Nikki's predictions.
"This year, her predictions (posted on http://www.canadianparents.com) include a number of terrorist attacks around the world, a devastating earthquake in California and Muhammad Ali receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. (My favourite, however, is her warning,"Siegfreid and Roy have to be careful of a crazed tiger." She does not warn us about a crazed Siegfreid and Roy.)"
Ten months after her story ran, Arnold was governor of California and Roy was fighting for his life after being mauled by one of his tigers. The Black Rod began to pay attention.
We kept tabs on Nikki's predictions for 2005 (posted online in December, 2004). Here are some of her hits with the corresponding news or blog stories that support them:
41. Assassination attempt on President Bush
His name is Vladimir Arutyunyan; he was captured by Georgian police after a shootout in which he killed a policeman and was himself wounded.
On May 10, when President Bush was giving a speech in Tbilisi, he threw a hand grenade at the stage. It landed within 25 yards or so, but failed to go off. After Arutyunyan was arrested, police found more hand grenades and unspecified chemicals in his apartment.
What I find rather weird about this is the almost total lack of coverage of his assassination attempt and subsequent capture in the American press from a Google Search http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Arutyunyan&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&start=0, the Washington Times is the only American newspaper that has even noted Arutyunyan's arrest.
How is it possible that American journalists have so little interest in an attempt to assassinate our President?(Powerlineblog.com July 30, 2005)
35. A Hurricane in Sept 2005 will veer north causing havoc around a Canadian and American city.
Close enough. We rank it a hit.
The computer models are very tightly clustered and have been so for almost a day. The data used to initialize the models is excellent, since all available hurricane hunter aircraft have been in the air continuously making measurements for several days. Katrina has already made her turn northward, which makes the task of landfall prediction for the models much easier.
The offical NHC forecast of a landfall in SE Louisiana, on the western edge of New Orleans, is thus a high-confidence forecast. The spread in the landfall location is just 90 miles, meaning the eye of Katrina is very likely to hit somewhere between New Orleans and a point just east of the Mississippi-Louisiana border. 8/28/2005 www.weatherunderground.com
43. A suicide bombing in North American
An Oklahoma University student who killed himself by detonating a bomb strapped to his body outside a packed stadium over the weekend was a "suicide bomber" in possession of "Islamic jihad" materials, according to a news report.
Joel Henry Hinrichs III, 21, an engineering major at the school blew himself up outside OU's football stadium during Saturday night's game against Kansas State. Doug Hagmann, a seasoned investigator, told WND he was informed by multiple reliable law-enforcement sources familiar with the investigation into the incident that authorities recovered a "significant amount" of "jihad" materials, as well as Hinrichs' computer. (WorldNetDaily.com Oct. 4, 2005)
How about some "star" predictions:
51. Christian Bale will become a big star
"Batman Begins", starring Christian Bale in the title role, sold an estimated $46.9 million worth of tickets in its first weekend, reigniting a lucrative superhero franchise that burned out eight years ago. (Reuters, June 19, 2005)
72. George Clooney will buy a casino.
George Clooney, Rande Gerber and Preeminent Real Estate Developers to Transform Las Vegas Skyline With Las RamblasMonday August 29, 10:15 am ET (Entertainment Magazine)
96. Brad Pitt will become a father
Associated Press Dec. 02, 2005
LOS ANGELES - Brad Pitt is seeking to become the adoptive father of Angelina Jolie's children, the actor's publicist announced Friday.A legal petition seeking to change the names of the children to Zahara Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt was filed Friday in Los Angeles, publicist Cindy Guagenti said in a written statement to The Associated Press
And our personal favorite:
40. Live dinosaur found.
You scoff. But here's the news story (emphasis ours).
Dinosaur's soft tissue recovered (evolution)
The Seattle Times ^ 3/25/2005 Randolph E. Schmid For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex. If scientists can isolate proteins from the material, they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, said lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University.
And this folo:
Bringing to mind the fictional world of the book and film Jurassic Park, in which scientists use recovered genetic material to clone living examples of the ancient beasts, researchers are now trying to isolate proteins from the material."We're doing a lot of stuff in the lab right now that looks promising," lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University told reporters. (CTV.ca March, 26, 2005)
Live cells from a dinosaur count as a live dinosaur in the Psychics Book of Hits.
Which brings us to 2006. What's Nikki see? Here's a sampling of the straight, the stars and the downright wacky:
- President Bush will survive an assassintion attempt
- The Queen will take a fall and break several bones
- The yucca plant will be instrumental in finding an athritis cure.
- An assassination in Rome
- A heatwave will blanket most of North America in the summer
- Sean Penn and Richard Gere will run for political office
- I also see a pregnancy for Charlize Theron
- You can expect wedding bells for Bruce Willis and George Clooney
- Cars running on wine
- Sharks in the Great Lakes
We don't know about you, but we're staying out of the lakes until further notice.
Babe Ruth is known for holding the record for home runs in single season, but how many people know he also had the record for strikeouts. We do, and that's why we don't focus on what Nikki got wrong, but what she got right.
Nikki's claim to fame is that she forecast the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She is one of three or four people in the English speaking world whose predictions were documented.She did it on the Toronto radio station The Edge months before Sept. 11.
Like you, Sharon Dunn of the National Post had her doubts.
So she decided "that perhaps this is one prediction I should check out for myself, and I make a call to Jeff Domet, who worked at the station at the time and who is now the producer of The Humble & Fred Show on Mojo Radio, where Nikki is a regular guest. Domet remembers the prediction well.
"It was in April of 2001," he recalls. "Nikki said that there would be a terror attack on New York City, and that a plane would hit the World Trade Center." When I ask Domet if he believes in this kind of thing, he replies, "I don't necessarily believe, but, you have to admit, it is kind of eerie." (September 27, 2002)
Here in Winnipeg we weren't aware of her predictions for 2001. We only picked up on Nikki two years later. Here's a couple of predictions from her list for that year:
PSYCHIC PREDICTIONS FOR 2003
11. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER RUNNING FOR POLITICS
38. SEIGFREID AND ROY HAVE TO BE CAREFUL OF A CRAZED TIGER
Rebecca Caldwell, writing in the Globe and Mail on Jan. 4, 2003, thought she would have some chuckles at Nikki's predictions.
"This year, her predictions (posted on http://www.canadianparents.com) include a number of terrorist attacks around the world, a devastating earthquake in California and Muhammad Ali receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. (My favourite, however, is her warning,"Siegfreid and Roy have to be careful of a crazed tiger." She does not warn us about a crazed Siegfreid and Roy.)"
Ten months after her story ran, Arnold was governor of California and Roy was fighting for his life after being mauled by one of his tigers. The Black Rod began to pay attention.
We kept tabs on Nikki's predictions for 2005 (posted online in December, 2004). Here are some of her hits with the corresponding news or blog stories that support them:
41. Assassination attempt on President Bush
His name is Vladimir Arutyunyan; he was captured by Georgian police
On May 10, when President Bush was giving a speech in Tbilisi, he threw a hand grenade at the stage. It landed within 25 yards or so, but failed to go off. After Arutyunyan was arrested, police found more hand grenades and unspecified chemicals in his apartment.
What I find rather weird about this is the almost total lack of coverage of his assassination attempt and subsequent capture in the American press from a Google Search
How is it possible that American journalists have so little interest in an attempt to assassinate our President?(Powerlineblog.com July 30, 2005)
35. A Hurricane in Sept 2005 will veer north causing havoc around a Canadian and American city.
Close enough. We rank it a hit.
The computer models are very tightly clustered and have been so for almost a day. The data used to initialize the models is excellent, since all available hurricane hunter aircraft have been in the air continuously making measurements for several days. Katrina has already made her turn northward, which makes the task of landfall prediction for the models much easier.
The offical NHC forecast of a landfall in SE Louisiana, on the western edge of New Orleans, is thus a high-confidence forecast. The spread in the landfall location is just 90 miles, meaning the eye of Katrina is very likely to hit somewhere between New Orleans and a point just east of the Mississippi-Louisiana border. 8/28/2005 www.weatherunderground.com
43. A suicide bombing in North American
An Oklahoma University student who killed himself by detonating a bomb strapped to his body outside a packed stadium over the weekend was a "suicide bomber" in possession of "Islamic jihad" materials, according to a news report.
Joel Henry Hinrichs III, 21, an engineering major at the school blew himself up outside OU's football stadium during Saturday night's game against Kansas State. Doug Hagmann, a seasoned investigator, told WND he was informed by multiple reliable law-enforcement sources familiar with the investigation into the incident that authorities recovered a "significant amount" of "jihad" materials, as well as Hinrichs' computer. (WorldNetDaily.com Oct. 4, 2005)
How about some "star" predictions:
51. Christian Bale will become a big star
"Batman Begins", starring Christian Bale in the title role, sold an estimated $46.9 million worth of tickets in its first weekend, reigniting a lucrative superhero franchise that burned out eight years ago. (Reuters, June 19, 2005)
72. George Clooney will buy a casino.
George Clooney, Rande Gerber and Preeminent Real Estate Developers to Transform Las Vegas Skyline With Las RamblasMonday August 29, 10:15 am ET (Entertainment Magazine)
96. Brad Pitt will become a father
Associated Press Dec. 02, 2005
LOS ANGELES - Brad Pitt is seeking to become the adoptive father of Angelina Jolie's children, the actor's publicist announced Friday.A legal petition seeking to change the names of the children to Zahara Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt was filed Friday in Los Angeles, publicist Cindy Guagenti said in a written statement to The Associated Press
And our personal favorite:
40. Live dinosaur found.
You scoff. But here's the news story (emphasis ours).
Dinosaur's soft tissue recovered (evolution)
The Seattle Times ^ 3/25/2005 Randolph E. Schmid For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex. If scientists can isolate proteins from the material, they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, said lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University.
And this folo:
Bringing to mind the fictional world of the book and film Jurassic Park, in which scientists use recovered genetic material to clone living examples of the ancient beasts, researchers are now trying to isolate proteins from the material."We're doing a lot of stuff in the lab right now that looks promising," lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University told reporters. (CTV.ca March, 26, 2005)
Live cells from a dinosaur count as a live dinosaur in the Psychics Book of Hits.
Which brings us to 2006. What's Nikki see? Here's a sampling of the straight, the stars and the downright wacky:
- President Bush will survive an assassintion attempt
- The Queen will take a fall and break several bones
- The yucca plant will be instrumental in finding an athritis cure.
- An assassination in Rome
- A heatwave will blanket most of North America in the summer
- Sean Penn and Richard Gere will run for political office
- I also see a pregnancy for Charlize Theron
- You can expect wedding bells for Bruce Willis and George Clooney
- Cars running on wine
- Sharks in the Great Lakes
We don't know about you, but we're staying out of the lakes until further notice.