Prediction: "Aerial flight is one of that great class of problems with which man can never cope. . . The construction of an aerial vehicle which could carry even a single man from place to place at pleasure, requires the discovery of a new metal or a new force." - Simon Newcomb, U. S. astronomer, 1903.

Reality: The Wright brothers accomplished it the same year.

Prediction: "Landing and moving around the moon offers so many serious problems for human beings that it may take science another 200 years to lick them." - Science Digest, Aug. 1948.

Reality: Neil Armstrong walked on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Prediction: "I must confess that my imagination, in spite even of surfacing, refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea." H.G. Wells, father of modern futurists, 1901.

Prediction: "DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and misleading statements, the misguided public ... has been persuaded to purchase stock in his Company." - A U.S. attorney prosecuting inventor Lee DeForest, alleging fraud, 1913.

Reality: The first transatlantic voice broadcast occurred in 1923.

Prediction: "Television" won't be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." - Darryl F. Zanuck.

Reality: Check the local listings.

Prediction: ."it is hardly necessary to inform you that life in those times will be as nearly a holiday as it is possible to make it. Work will be reduced to a minimum by machinery. Nobody who is anybody a hundred years hence will walk but will have his automobile and his air yacht...." -The Brooklyn Eagle, 1899.

Reality: You decide.

Such predictions seem humorous now, but there are others that would be down-right laughable if it were not for the fact that they bring about such serious consequences. I refer to the predictions of religious charlatans. As Robert A Nisbet, sociologist, predicted. in 1968, the new millennium has witnessed a flood of such wild predictions. But, there have always been those who have claimed the power to foresee the future. Back in the early 1900's, there was a book, Millions Now Living Will Never Die. This was a prophecy (so-called) of the second coming of Christ. It never occurred, of course. There have been hundreds of others since then who have claimed to know when Christ is coming again. When it doesn't happen, they just ignore it and go ahead and write another book of absurd predictions. There seems to be no embarrassment, no corrections nor apology. The amazing thing is that there are so many gullible people who accept it without question. However, this has always been the case.

In the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy (18:22) there is given the test of a prophet: When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow now, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

*Source: KING OF KINGS: A Study of Revelation