Apocalypse Now

[Dave Monroe]

And speaking of Nostril Dumbass, as one friend refers
to him, from another friend ...


Claim: A 1654 Nostradamus prediction said World War
III would begin with the fall of 'two brothers,' a
reference to the destroyed World Trade Center towers. 

Status: False.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001] 

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

[...]

Nostradamus did not write the quatrain now being
attributed to him. (One wonders how a guy who died in
1566 could have written an item identified as being
penned in 1654 anyway.) It originated with a student
at Brock University in Canada in the 1990s, appearing
on a 
web page essay on Nostradamus ... 

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/info/analysis.htm

That particular quatrain was offered by the page's
author, Neil Marshall, as a fabricated example to
illustrate how easily an important-sounding prophecy
can be crafted through the use of abstract imagery. He
pointed out how the terms he used were so deliberately
vague they could be interpreted to fit any number of
cataclysmic events. 

It appears someone mistook Marshall's illustrative
example for an actual Nostradamus prophecy and, not
content to let well enough alone, added "The third big
war will begin when the big city is burning." A
fabrication was thus further fabricated. 

But that wasn't the end of it. More fakery was piled
on in later versions that now included all of the text
quoted in the Example section above but now concluded
with: 

On the 11th day of the 9 month, 
two metal birds will crash into two tall statues in
the new city,
and the world will end soon after. 

Similarly, another enhanced version incorporates the
"Example" text quoted above into a more detailed
prophecy: 

And Nostradamus predicted this (who knows how long
ago): 

In the year of the new century and nine months,
>From the sky will come a great King of Terror.
The sky will burn at forty-five degrees.
Fire approaches the great new city

In the city of york there will be a great collapse,
2 twin brothers torn apart by chaos
while the fortress falls; the great leader will
succumb;
third big war will begin when the big city is burning 

This "prophecy" is bogus. The second quatrain is
entirely made-up, and the first quatrain is composed
of lines taken from two completely different
prophecies of Nostradamus' linked together for effect
(Lines referencing "Normans" and "Mongols" which have
no plausible application to current events have been
excised by whoever concatenated these two pieces.) The
first two lines are from a verse which describes
events that would supposedly have taken place in July
of 1999 (not September of 2001) and has long since
been associated with a wide variety of occurrences --
both real and fictional. (An excellent dissertation on
his "prediction" can be found here ...

http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa070599.htm
The second two lines of the first quatrain are taken
from what is often cited as a Nostradamus writing
identified as Century 6, Quatrain 97 ...

[...]

An approximate English translation would be: 

Five and forty steps the sky will burn 
Fire approaching the large new city 
Instantly a great thin flame will leap 
When someone will want to test the Normans. 

Even if this is a real prophecy of Nostradamus', it
simply provides more evidence of how much shoehorning
has to be performed to get one of these vague
"predictions" to fit modern occurrences. It cites no
date whatsoever. The line about a sky that "will burn
at five and forty steps" (or "degrees") is interpreted
to refer to New York City, the forty-five degrees
being the Big Apple's latitude -- never mind that New
York City is actually below the 41° latitude mark, and
that
several major North American cities (e.g., Boston,
Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis, Toronto, Montreal)
are much closer to 45° latitude than Gotham....
 
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/predict.htm


Okay, gotta get back to work on Chs. 2 & 3, but, hey,
feel free keep on about Ch. 1 for at least a few days,
ev'rybody ...


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