One of the most famous cases of apparent precognition involves the sinking of the ocean liner Titanic. In 1898 an author named Morgan Robertson wrote a novel about an ocean liner named Titan that, on its maiden voyage one April night, strikes an iceberg while steaming at twenty-five knots in the northern Atlantic Ocean, then sinks with three thousand passengers aboard—even though people had thought it was unsinkable. Fourteen years later, on April 14, 1912, the supposedly unsinkable ocean liner Titanic, on its maiden voyage, struck an iceberg while steaming at twentythree knots in the northern Atlantic Ocean, and on the morning of April 15 it sank, resulting in the deaths of over fifteen hundred people. Other parallels between the events depicted in the novel and the actual event exist. For example, Robertson described the Titan as being 800 feet (244m) in length, with a tonnage of 75,000, three propellers, and twenty-four lifeboats; the Titanic was 882.5 feet (269m) in length, with a tonnage of 66,000, three propellers, and twenty lifeboats. Both ships were said to be the largest and most luxurious of their kind. Skeptics say that such similarities were coincidental, but given their number and specificity, believers in extra sensory perception say that Robertson’s ideas for the novel had to have come from subconscious glimpses of the future.

SEE ALSO:

• precognition

SOURCE:

The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning