Fascinating Mysteries: Three Stories From Fiction Novels That Came True
Where does the inspiration come from? This is a question worth thinking about when we see that scenes from fiction books can turn later on into reality.
1. Edgar Allan Poe Seems To Have Predicted The Death Of Richard Parker Eaten By Cannibals
In the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe wrote the novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket", about a boy named Richard Parker who was traveling on a ship. The ship was destroyed by the storm and after the shipwreck he was killed and eaten by his three comrades.
In 1884, almost 50 years after the book, the yacht Mignonette set sail from Southampton, England, to Sydney, Australia. A boy named Richard Parker embarked on this journey with three other comrades, as in Poe's story.
Mignonette sank and poor Parker suffered the same fate as his fictional counterpart.
The Mignonette crew survived eating turtle meat, the same as Poe's characters did. But at one point he ran out of turtle meat, and as Parker felt weak after drinking seawater, his colleagues killed him and ate him.
2. Morgan Robertson Seems To Have Predicted The Sinking Of The Titanic
Morgan Robertson wrote in 1898 about the sinking of a fictional ship called the "Titan", which is remarkably similar to the "Titanic". The Titanic sank under almost the same conditions as described 14 years ago in the book "Futility."
Buffalo News summarized the similarities in a 1998 article on the University of Buffalo website:
- The Titan in Robertson's story was 800 meters long, the Titanic was 882.5.
- Both ships were built entirely of steel with three propellers and two masts.
- Each was built to carry about 3,000 people.
- The gross tonnage of the Titan was 46,328 and that of the Titanic was 45,000.
- Titan had 40,000 horsepower, Titanic had 46,000.
- Each has been described as the largest passenger ship ever built.
- Both were considered unsinkable until they traveled to the North Atlantic.
- There were far too few lifeboats on each of the two ships.
- Titan was traveling with 24 knots, Titanic with 22.5.
- Both sank in April.
- They both hit an iceberg at almost midnight.
3. Writer Philip K. Dick Meets His Character In Real Life
In 1970, popular science fiction author Philip K. Dick wrote a fiction novel entitled "Flow my Tears, the policeman said". He wrote it very quickly, under the impetus of a strong inspiration.
Dick later met a woman with the same name as one of his female characters. She was the same age and her boyfriend had the same name as the character's boyfriend. Moreover, she was involved in a criminal organization just like the character in the novel and later confessed to him that she had an affair with a police officer, just like Dick's character.
The mystery does not end there, writes Dick in his 1978 essay entitled "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later".
"Of course, these are strange coincidences. Maybe I have the ability to predict. But the mystery becomes even more amazing, the next stage completely confuses me ..."
"One afternoon I was talking to my priest - I am an Episcopalian — and I happened to mention to him an important scene near the end of the novel in which the character Felix Buckman meets a black stranger at an all-night gas station, and they begin to talk. As I described the scene in more and more detail, my priest became progressively more agitated.
At last, he said, 'That is a scene from the Book of Acts, from the Bible! In Acts, the person who meets the black man on the road is named Philip - your name'.
Father Rasch was so upset by the resemblance that he could not even locate the scene in his Bible.
'Read Acts. And you’ll agree. It’s the same down to specific details,' he instructed me."
Dick checked and found that the events matched in detail, and the names in his story were the same as those in the Bible.
1. Edgar Allan Poe Seems To Have Predicted The Death Of Richard Parker Eaten By Cannibals
In the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe wrote the novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket", about a boy named Richard Parker who was traveling on a ship. The ship was destroyed by the storm and after the shipwreck he was killed and eaten by his three comrades.
In 1884, almost 50 years after the book, the yacht Mignonette set sail from Southampton, England, to Sydney, Australia. A boy named Richard Parker embarked on this journey with three other comrades, as in Poe's story.
Mignonette sank and poor Parker suffered the same fate as his fictional counterpart.
The Mignonette crew survived eating turtle meat, the same as Poe's characters did. But at one point he ran out of turtle meat, and as Parker felt weak after drinking seawater, his colleagues killed him and ate him.
2. Morgan Robertson Seems To Have Predicted The Sinking Of The Titanic
Morgan Robertson wrote in 1898 about the sinking of a fictional ship called the "Titan", which is remarkably similar to the "Titanic". The Titanic sank under almost the same conditions as described 14 years ago in the book "Futility."
Buffalo News summarized the similarities in a 1998 article on the University of Buffalo website:
- The Titan in Robertson's story was 800 meters long, the Titanic was 882.5.
- Both ships were built entirely of steel with three propellers and two masts.
- Each was built to carry about 3,000 people.
- The gross tonnage of the Titan was 46,328 and that of the Titanic was 45,000.
- Titan had 40,000 horsepower, Titanic had 46,000.
- Each has been described as the largest passenger ship ever built.
- Both were considered unsinkable until they traveled to the North Atlantic.
- There were far too few lifeboats on each of the two ships.
- Titan was traveling with 24 knots, Titanic with 22.5.
- Both sank in April.
- They both hit an iceberg at almost midnight.
3. Writer Philip K. Dick Meets His Character In Real Life
In 1970, popular science fiction author Philip K. Dick wrote a fiction novel entitled "Flow my Tears, the policeman said". He wrote it very quickly, under the impetus of a strong inspiration.
Dick later met a woman with the same name as one of his female characters. She was the same age and her boyfriend had the same name as the character's boyfriend. Moreover, she was involved in a criminal organization just like the character in the novel and later confessed to him that she had an affair with a police officer, just like Dick's character.
The mystery does not end there, writes Dick in his 1978 essay entitled "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later".
"Of course, these are strange coincidences. Maybe I have the ability to predict. But the mystery becomes even more amazing, the next stage completely confuses me ..."
"One afternoon I was talking to my priest - I am an Episcopalian — and I happened to mention to him an important scene near the end of the novel in which the character Felix Buckman meets a black stranger at an all-night gas station, and they begin to talk. As I described the scene in more and more detail, my priest became progressively more agitated.
At last, he said, 'That is a scene from the Book of Acts, from the Bible! In Acts, the person who meets the black man on the road is named Philip - your name'.
Father Rasch was so upset by the resemblance that he could not even locate the scene in his Bible.
'Read Acts. And you’ll agree. It’s the same down to specific details,' he instructed me."
Dick checked and found that the events matched in detail, and the names in his story were the same as those in the Bible.
(source: The Epoch Times)
