Time travel has been the topic of discussion for many decades now. Avoiding the complexities behind the physics involved in the time travelling, it can simply be referred to as travelling in the already happened past or/and in the expected future. Theories have been put to validate the time travel but till the date, the physical plausibility of such validations is uncertain. There are people in the world who claim as if they are time travellers and in most of the cases they claim to be travelling in the past from the future and are stuck in the past in which we are living as our present. They also produce shreds of evidence of time travelling while they are claiming so but it is quite suspicious to believe on their claims as we do not have any means to establish and prove that the shreds of evidence raised by them are valid enough to believe on. But what if you come to know that there is a person who has been predicting the future events very accurately with valid evidence? You will certainly be amazed, shocked and thrilled as most of the people have been.
This article is about Matthew Abraham Groening, an American cartoonist, writer, producer and animator and his television series ‘The Simpsons’ which has mysteriously predicted the future events with absolute accuracy for last 3 decades of its broadcast.
About the Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated cartoon series created by Matthew Abraham Groening alias Matt Groening which was broadcasted first in 1989. The Simpson family consists of Homer Simpson, Marge Simpson, Bart Simpson, Lisa Simpson and Maggie Simpson. The show is a depiction of the life of working-class in the fictional town of Springfield and throws light on the American culture and society. The series has completed 31 seasons since 1989 and the latest season just finished its telecast in May 2020 and it is assumed that this was the last season of this series and it is coming to an end after 30 years, according to the show’s composer Danny Elfman. ‘The Simpsons’ is believed to be America’s longest-running sitcom.
What is the mystifying fact?
The mystery of the Simpsons lies in the episodes telecasted over 3 decades. This animated cartoon series has featured a number of incidents in those episodes which exactly resembles the events occurred in real-time after several years of prediction. These episodes are designed to show the life of the working-class of the USA in a very casual way including the exercise of their daily life especially epitomized by the Simpsons family. The episodes do not mention these incidents as predictions of the future but unknowingly and in a very enigmatic way predict accurate predictions with proper circumstances within episodes which have been a mystery till now. It is quite electrifying to watch someone making such delicate predictions which no one would have thought of. If it was the case limited to two or three incidences predicting accurately, we would have assumed it to be a mere coincidence but surprisingly, the creator of the series has mysteriously added several predictions in the episodes which in the future has come true astonishingly which has left many perplexed.
People believe that such precise predictions can only be made if the creator and writer of this series, Matt Groening, has some source to the information of the future happenings or to be very clear; the person himself has an access to the time travelling. The rationale behind this article is to acknowledge the readers about the major 10 predictions which exactly resembled as what was showed in the sitcom years ago. So without any further delay, let us expose the suspense and start decoding this mystery of future predictions and time travelling by looking at the descriptions of the episodes featuring these incidents.
Here are 10 most eerie predictions which the Simpsons made back in the time and came true years after that.
- Season 6-Episode 19: Facetime or Video Conference
Predicted: 1995
Came true: 2010
In this episode, Lisa Simpson visits a fair and she meets a fortune teller there. Lisa gets transported 15 years ahead and the fortune-teller shows that Lisa is speaking with Marge Simpson using a video conference feature called ‘Picture-phone’. In 1995, even the smartphones were not accessible as well as the camera feature was also not included in any of the computers at that time. It was in 2010 that such video conference feature was introduced in the market. The question remains with the mystery as to how one can predict the future of such electronic accessories in the time when there was no such invention.
It was in the same episode that they featured Lisa’s fiancé using an extremely fashionable smart-watch to make a phone call. This came true in 2014 when such smartwatches were made available for the people when Google, Samsung, Apple contributed in the same. It was almost 19 years before the creator of the Simpsons predicted this.
The question remains as to how a person can be so accurate with the predictions of the inventions in the electronic devices. How can the creator, Matt Groening, even predict the direction in which the electronic media would progress in the near future?
- Season 5- Episode 10: Siegfried and Roy Tiger Attack
Predicted: 1993
Came true: 2003
In this episode, Mr Burns, one of the characters in the Simpsons opens a casino and organizes a magic show in which two other characters, Gunter and Ernst, perform tricks with a white tiger. Unfortunately, something goes wrong and the tiger attacks the two performers leaving them with pieces of clothes. That long-running show tragically ends because of the tiger attack. It was after 10 years when the prediction made through the Simpsons came true. In 2003, the famous Siegfried and Roy tiger attack occurred. Roy Horn, one of the two famous performers, was bruised and injured in the Siberian tiger attack at a performance in Las Vegas which left him partially paralysed and ended the show’s 13-year productions. Surprisingly, there were also two performers in the Simpsons which to some level resemble Siegfried and Roy.
- Season 9- Episode 1: The 9/11 Attack
Predicted: 1997
Came true: 2001
The Simpsons very creatively predicted the 9/11 attack in this episode by some hints. One of the characters holds a bus advertisement which mentions ‘NEW YORK $9 11’. The number 11 is not shown directly. The presence of number 11 is made visible by the Twin Towers on the advertisement where the attack had taken in reality. To believe on this or not is completely upon the readers but it’s very unlikely to be just a mere coincidence and you too might feel the same when you read the following incredible predictions which came true according to many who believe.
- Season 9- Episode 3: The Ebola Outbreak
Predicted: 1997
Came true: 2014
In this episode, the Simpsons signalled the Ebola Virus outbreak with the help of a book’s cover page. Bart Simpsons gets sick and depressed and lies down on the bed. Marge Simpson tries to get him out of the bed and offers him to read a book which names ‘Curious George and the Ebola Virus’. Bart looks very frightened and rejects to get out of the bed. It was one of the famous controversies which went viral online later when such resemblance was found after the outbreak of the Ebola Virus in 2014. So many indirect predictions with actual replications in the present, certainly leave us to think twice on it. After all, to believe it or not, is a very personal choice.
- Season 10- Episode 2: Higgs Boson: The God Particle
Predicted: 1998
Came true: 2012
This prediction might let us believe that the writers of the Simpsons could be good mathematicians as well. In the episode telecasted in 1998, Homer Simpson assumes himself a scientist and is shown with a blackboard, chalk and some equations on the board with which Homer is trying to conclude something. Unexpectedly, if you solve the equation on the board, you will be very close to what a mass of Higgs Boson would be wherein the Higgs Boson was confirmed to be discovered in 2012, almost after 14 years of this episode. You might receive the reference of this in, ‘The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets’ wrote by Simon Singh. So how could the creator of the Simpsons, even by mistake, again show something, which like the previous episodes, found a resemblance in the future?
- Season 10- Episode 5: Disney Owns 20th Century Fox
Predicted: 1998
Came true: 2017
A very weird prediction was done in this episode where the creators had shown a scene in The Simpsons where it mentions ‘A Division of Walt Disney Co.’ below the ’20th Century Fox’ on an advertisement board and no more to our surprise, this prediction also came true in 2017 where the Disney owned the 21st Century Fox in reality. Quite weird, isn’t it?
- Season 11- Episode 17: Donald Trump: The President of America
Predicted: 2000
Came true: 2016
This mysterious prediction is stunning at the very first glance. In 2000, Donald Trump had opted for the presidential election. It might be possible that from this situation, the creators might have taken the reference of Mr Trump being the President of America. This episode features a person named Trump as the president of America. In one of the scenes which have got very famous across the world, Mr Trump is escalating down using an escalator during a presidential election’s campaign. The crowd near the escalator greets the presence of Mr Trump. When he is escalating down, he waves at the audience and gives a thumbs up. At the very same time, a placard falls near the escalator from the hands of one of the persons in the crowd. In 2016, during the presidential election’s campaign at the Trump Tower, a resembling incidence happened including the same movement of hands and the falling of the placard at the same place.
This is weird because even if we believe it to be a coincidence, the falling of the placard in the sitcom and the real-life makes it quite complex and tricky to understand and admit if it is a mere coincidence.
- Season 20- Episode 4: Faulty Voting Machines
Predicted: 2008
Came true: 2012
This episode proves its resemblance to what happened in the 2012 presidential election. Homer Simpson tries to vote Mr Barak Obama in this episode but because of the faulty and manipulated voting machine, the vote is automatically transferred to the other candidate. A similar occurrence was observed during the 2012 presidential election when a video surfed online where a voter shoots the voting process. He votes to Mr Barak Obama but instead of transferring the vote to Mr Obama, it is added to the other candidate’s bank.
- Season 22- Episode 1: Noble Prize Winner
Predicted: 2010
Came true: 2016
To our amazement, the Simpsons had their contribution in predicting the Noble Prize winner as well. The episode broadcasts an announcement where Noble Prize winner for Economics is being declared. It also shows a pamphlet where the Noble Prize for Economics goes to ‘Bengt R. Holmstrom’, a Prof. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), according to Millhouse betting pool. Years later in 2016, to no wonder, the Noble Prize in Economics was declared and Bengt R. Holmstrom of MIT was one of the joint winners of the Prize. In 2016, after the announcement, MIT had tweeted mentioning the prediction of the Simpsons which came true. How one can even think of including such a difficult name in the prediction if he is not certain about the same, is still a mystery to be solved.
- Season 2- Episode 4: Three-Eyed Fish
Predicted: 1990
Came true: 2011
If you are a Simpsons fan, you might know about ‘Blinky’, a three-eyed fish caught by Bart Simpson from a lake near the Springfield nuclear power plant. It was a mutation caused by releasing the remains in the lake-water. This prediction came true in 2011 when it was confirmed that a mutated three-eyed catfish was caught by the fisherman near Argentina’s nuclear power plant. The fish found no resemblance with Blinky but still, it remained the topic of discussion for many because of the Simpsons.
These are the 10 weirdest predictions in the list of accurate predictions which the Simpsons made and have left the people in the baffled. There were various other predictions which take their place in the list including virtual reality revolution, call tracking by NSA, FIFA betting scandal, mutated food especially tomatoes, Lady Gaga’s performance, Europe putting Greece on eBay, autocorrect feature in the smartphones and many such predictions to count on.
It’s not always that the predictions forecasted by the Simpsons have come true. Some of the predictions including the Big Ben in London getting digital have not yet come to reality but it cannot be denied that the near future might be waiting for these predictions to come true. The future of time travelling, its possibility might be revealed subsequently but for now, these mysteriously accurate predictions have certainly left many speechless. Theories were made and questions were raised about the predictions made by the Simpsons but no one has yet cleared any of them, maybe no one would ever clarify it. The Simpsons have been the part of unsolved, baffling mysteries in today’s date. To believe it or to not, be the question left to you.
Sahil Pravin Patil, Alibag, Maharashtra, India
Great work Sahil!
It’s amazing buddy