Post by Mr. Jon Donnis on Jul 18, 2012 8:33:16 GMT
We're all familiar by now of the lengths that psychics will go to in order to build a reputation for themselves. Get yourself a few positive articles in newspapers or magazines and you can comfortably live off that for years doing private readings.
And what could be better for building a reputation than claiming that you had predicted some sort of disaster in advance.
What we don't expect psychics to do is make explicit threats of violence when their claims are challenged. But that's what happened with one former high profile medium.
Many psychics have claimed in the media that they foretold the 9/11 terrorist attack, yet none of them managed to alert anyone to the fact that almost 3000 people were about to die. Strange that.
So it was with great interest when I read a article from April 2008 in the Hamilton Advertiser newspaper where, amongst various other claims to fame, former News Of The World psychic, Ruth 'The Truth' Urquhart reiterated her claims that she predicted the 9/11 attacks in New York.
tinyurl.com/57jjpr
Ruth produces a reading for each coming year, and with each accurate prediction, her reputation as a genuine psychic becomes more and more solid.
The predictions for 2001 were particularly important – the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers were predicted 11 months before the incident.
Ruth said: “I was looking into my crystal ball and I could see two towers burning. I was on Johnny Walker’s show on Radio 2 and was explaining this vision, but all I knew was that the words ‘American red alert’ were connected to it.
“As it got closer to September 2001, I would dream of the towers and there would be a pungent smell of petrol.”
Now, I'm no expert in petrochemicals, but I do know that aviation fuel has a significantly different smell compared to petrol. So, I thought I would quiz Ruth The Truth on this matter by submitting a question through her online comments form. After all, she must be interested in the Truth?
I read your article which was in the Hamilton Advertiser in which you claim to have predicted 9/11. You say you smelt petrol, but are you aware that petrol does not smell like jet fuel? I can only assume you were mistaken and had a vision of some other event that happened in the towers. Either that, or you are a big fat liar.
A bit cheeky maybe, but I used the term 'big fat liar' in the sense that she might not be telling the whole truth as opposed to describing any aspects of her body weight. It's quite a well used phrase. Maybe not as cheeky as trying to make personal gain from the loss of nearly 3000 lives however.
I wasn't quite expecting the speedy reply I received. Love and light it ain't.
You are a prize dick head. I have a copy of the news of the world dated December 28th 2000 where I said that a twin tower would be in flames and from that day America would be on red alert.
Don't waste my time you knob or I will come over and kick your head in.
Quite a threatening email by any stretch of the imagination. A couple of minutes later another email arrived in my inbox:
Big scaredy cat arsehole!
Charming, if somewhat immature.
Still, maybe Ruth had a point. Maybe she had predicted the demise of the twin towers. Maybe I am a prize dick head. So I set about investigating.
My first problem was that the 28th December 2000 was a Thursday. And I'm not aware of the News Of The World ever being published on a day that wasn't a Sunday.
However, I managed to find an article in the same newspaper from 23rd September 2001, where just 5 days after nearly 3000 people died in a terrorist attack, Ruth revealed to the world that she had actually predicted the event. So from that article I was able to piece together what Ruth had actually said.
"We're in for a rough ride next year."
"The most striking image I get is of a large tower in flames."
She also predicted: "There will be public disorder in the USA and President Bush will have to take drastic action."
So 3 statements which have been pulled from a number of predictions and written together as if there is some connection between them. If any tower in any country went on fire, then her prediction would come true. A rough ride could describe anything. When she says 'We're in for a rough ride', anyone reading that would naturally think that it referred to the UK, based on the fact she was writing in a UK newspaper. There wasn't public disorder in the USA resulting from the 9/11 attacks. In fact the American people reacted with great dignity despite the enormous amount of anger they felt.
There is nothing in this prediction about twin towers, nothing about terrorist attacks, nothing about New York, nothing about planes crashing into buildings, nothing about towers collapsing.
It goes without saying that these statements are so vague as to be completely meaningless. However Ruth is the kind of psychic who likes to shotgun her predictions - make as many educated guesses as possible and hope a few come true. In her predictions for 2002, I counted at least 35.
However, Ruth was able to give us some more background to her predictions after the event.
"I made my predictions in November and because of that some details weren't very clear. "I could see a very tall tower with flames shooting from it but I couldn't see the shape of the building properly because of the fire. But I could see the building was very, very tall and it was going to be a towering inferno."
"By July there was a sense this was imminent. About 10 days before the disaster, I began to have nightmares about being at the top of the burning tower. When I woke up, I had a horrible taste in my mouth like oil or smoke. It was getting stronger until Sunday when the nightmares suddenly stopped."
Let me make that clear again. After the event Ruth is able to tell us that the tower was 'very, very tall'. Also, she now has a taste like oil or smoke, not the petrol she tells us about in the Hamilton Advertiser. So, time to contact Ruth again:
Thank you for the threats, I can assure you I won't take those seriously.
A twin tower? I can't get access to the original article because it was in a supplement. However on 16th September the following article below was published. In it you make some vague claims about a large tower in flames. Nothing about a twin tower, nothing about terrorist attacks, nothing about towers collapsing. In fact, your prediction could have applied to any tower block which was on fire in 2001.
You only told us the building was 'very, very tall and it was going to be a towering inferno' after the event. So it doesn't look like you embellished your story at all.
In this article you tell us
""About 10 days before the disaster, I began to have nightmares about being at the top of the burning tower. "When I woke up, I had a horrible taste in my mouth like oil or smoke."
However in the Hamilton Advertiser you said
“As it got closer to September 2001, I would dream of the towers and there would be a pungent smell of petrol.”
Oil? Petrol? Smoke? Or was it actually jet fuel, which smells nothing like petrol or oil or smoke?
I would love to see your copy of the News Of The World from 28th December were you make these amazing predictions about the twin tower. Oh, I nearly forgot, 28th December was a Thursday.
A reply wasn't long coming...
I can assure you Mr FarSideOfTheMoon that you should not toy with me. If you were any type of man you would come to my house and discuss this with me instead you try and discredit me. I don't know what you are but I suspect you don't have much going on in your life if you can waste my time like this.
Don't e-mail me again or I will find you and then kick you in.
So, for the second time Ruth has told me that I will get kicked in.
I thought these were important points to make though, and that Ruth would welcome any opportunity to clear up this misunderstanding about my interpretation of her predictions. So, I sent one final email letting her know that I wasn't really impressed with her threats of violence.
I can assure you I have plenty going on in my life. I don't like to see people like you try to make names for themselves in the media by associating themselves with events like 9/11. You didn't predict 9/11, you know that, and to try to claim that you did is a slur on the nearly 3000 people who died that day. You didn't make any predictions about twin towers or New York or terrorist attacks. To continue to make those claims some seven years after the event is disgusting.
You and I both know your psychic predictions and readings are a complete sham. It's just a pity the gullible and vulnerable people you exploit with your allegedly psychic services don't know any better. It's also a pity they don't know what sort of person you really are, someone who makes threats to find people and kick them in when they ask a few straightforward questions. Charming.
Again a response was swift.
Don't you dare contact my wife again. If you want to talk call us on 01698-****** and we can talk like men. I don't appreciate you doing this and it is weird.
Ronald Urquhart
I don't know what is weirder - asking a few pertitent questions about the matter in hand, or being told that someone is going to find you and 'kick you in' via email.
However I decided to leave it there. The lovely Ronald and Ruth obviously prefer to sort out differences in opinion through threats of violence as opposed to reasoned dialogue.
By farsideofthemoon
