‘Nostradamus of the Balkans’ Baba Vanga’s 2021 Predictions: Cancer Cures, Dragons and More – Newsweek

The blind mystic Baba Vanga has been credited by some with predicting the rise of ISIS, Brexit and even the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. If the long-deceased Vanga is to be believed, then 2021 could see more worrying prophecies come to fruitionalthough her supposed clairvoyant powers may have also seen signs of hope.

One of the more interesting aspects about the phenomenon of Baba Vanga, who has been called the "Nostradamus of the Balkans," is that she gained much of her reputation after she died in 1996 at the age of 85.

Born Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova in 1911, she was blind since childhood and spent most of her life in the Bulgarian Kozhuh mountains. While she was alive, there were people who believed she had powers of clairvoyance, and they would seek her out to contact dead relatives. However, Baba Vanga became known internationally four years after her death, when the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk sank in 2000. (She had reportedly predicted in 1980 that Kursk would be flooded, but at the time, it was believed that she spoke of the Russian city Kursk.)

As for 2021, the U.K.'s Metro writes that Baba Vanga is said to have predicted that the world will suffer from "a lot of cataclysms and great disasters" during the year, while three "giants" unite, and a "strong dragon" seizes humanity. Some speculate the "dragon" to be China, and that this prediction means the nation's global power will continue to strengthen.

On a positive note, Vanga was also said to have predicted that a cure for cancer would be found in 2021. She allegedly said: "The day will come when cancer will get tied with iron chains."

Many people remain skeptical about what are said to be Baba Vanga predictions, as there is no real evidence that any of these prophecies are real, despite claims that Baba Vanga's predictions have been 85 percent accurate. The U.K.'s Daily Express recently pointed to an investigation that found many of the supposed clairvoyant's so-called prophecies were actually created by Russian social media trolls.

What makes tracking the veracity of what Vanga may or may not have said difficult is the fact that she was reportedly illiterate or semi-literate, and did not write anything down herself, unlike, say Nostradamus, who left behind the 1555 book Les Propheties. Thus, Baba Vanga's words were documented secondhand.

Her believers, of which there are many, claim that her predictions run until the year 5079, when she supposedly said the world will come to an end. More immediate prophecies being attributed to the mystic for 2021, though, are that President Donald Trump will suffer deafness and mortal illness, Russian President Vladimir Putin will survive an assassination attempt and that Europe may face a chemical attack from Muslim extremists.

Those predictions for Trump and Putin are similar to supposed Baba Vanga claims made about their fates in 2020, but some argue that Trump contracting COVID-19 makes Vanga at least partially accurate.

The fortune-teller's alleged prophecy that Europe would "cease to exist by 2016" has been interpreted as Britain voting to leave the EU in that year's referendum in what's commonly known as "Brexit." Baba Vanga is said to have foreseen the result of this 2016 decision as Europe becoming "empty spaces and wasteland, nearly devoid of any form of life," which even the most ardent anti-Brexit activists would have a hard time arguing to be the case.

Another one of her most famous predictions was when she supposedly foretold the 9/11 attacks by saying "two steel birds" would strike "American brethren." She reportedly said: "Horror, horror! The American brethren will fall after being attacked by the steel birds. The wolves will be howling in a bush, and innocent blood will be gushing." The "steel birds" could be interpreted as the hijacked passenger jets that struck the World Trade Center buildings, while "bush" could have been a reference to the then-president and "innocent blood" could be the resulting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In 1979, Vanga reportedly told writer Valentin Sidorov that Russia would become "lord of the world" thanks in part to "Vladimir's glory, glory of Russia." Believers say the Vladimir in question is Putin.

Another possible successful prediction is said to be the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which wreaked havoc on Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and other countries, killing more than 230,000. It's claimed that Vanga once said: "A huge wave will cover a big coast covered with people and towns, and everything will disappear beneath the water. Everything will melt, just like ice."

Other reported predictions have been somewhat hit-or-miss. There was one about China emerging as the next great superpower in 2018, and a new form of energy emerging on Venus. While China's status has continued to grow since Baba Vanga's death, 2018 didn't seem like a particularly important year of growth. Plus, as far as we know here on Earth, there was nothing of consequence happening on Venus that year.

Meanwhile, there have been supposed predictions that have been outright incorrect. A popular claim attributed to Vanga was that Barack Obama would be the last American president, which obviously wasn't the case when Trump took office. Some other false predictions, taken from the 2006 book Vanga. A Look at Russia by Lyubov Orlova, include a third World War that was supposed to have started in 2010 with nuclear weapons, and then end in 2014. The resulting radioactive fallout would mean no animals or vegetation would exist in the Northern Hemisphere, and Muslims would then start a chemical war on the surviving Europeans. Before World War III's supposed 2014 end date, many people would be ill from ulcers, skin cancer and other diseases due to chemical warfare. Baba Vanga was also said to predict that a giant meteorite would hit Russia in either 2019 or 2020.

Whether her alleged predictions for 2021 will come trueor even close to trueremains to be seen, but there's still time for some of her more far-off prophecies. Other events she is said to have foreseen are an end to world hunger by 2028, Mars being colonized and the colonies there acquiring nuclear weapons by 2256, and Earth becoming uninhabitable by the year 2341.

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'Nostradamus of the Balkans' Baba Vanga's 2021 Predictions: Cancer Cures, Dragons and More - Newsweek