The new Nostradamus: Baba Vanga predicted a 'great Muslim war' in 2016

It's hard for non-believers, atheists and the like to pay attention to anything starting with the word prediction - especially of the astrological sort. After all, if you're inclined to think rationally, imagining the world's future through Pluto's movements doesn't quite seem to make sense. Hell, Pluto didn't even know it's not a planet till not long ago.

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Yes, we've all been told since childhood that Nostradamus, the French apothecary who made prophecies, got the rise of Hitler, Napoleon and many other things right.

And this week, we're being told Nostradamus seems to have a successor - Vangelia Pandeva Dimitrova, more known as the blind Bulgarian seer Baba Vanga - who has a roster of terrifying predictions for our future, including a big Muslim invasion of Europe in 2016, reportsHuffington Post.

Just who was (the late) Baba Vanga?

It's a story that Bollywood must already be sinking its teeth into.

Local legend has it that Baba Vanga, the 'Nostradamus of the Balkans' - first gained the ability to see the future when she was blinded in a terrible storm at age 12.

She began to make predictions at the age of 16 and "her powers of foreseeing took shape after she turned 30".

In the autumn of 1952, the prophetess found herself in big trouble when she said that Josef Stalin would go into the nether world. She was jailed as a result of that prediction, albeit not for long.

It's claimed she predicted the assassinations of prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi

In 1967, she was employed for a non-existent position as a 'state official' despite being thought of as a witch by sections of the Communist authorities. One story claims that Adolf Hitler visited her one day only to leave looking incredibly upset.

Vanga eventually died in 1996, but not before predicting thousands of things, apparently including two of the biggest global disasters post the turn of the millennium, the 2004 tsunami and 9/11.

What 2016 may hold

And thanks to one of her predictions being set in 2016, Baba Yanga is back in the news, 20 years after her death.

Because 2016, she said, would be the year that "Muslims will invade Europe".

The political climate across Europe and the Middle East are, naturally, fuelling this anxiety. Europe has been under pressure like never before over the immigrant situation, and cracks in the union have been widening as different countries take different positions on the issue.

Vanga's other key prediction for the near future? That in 2018 China will become the No 1 'superpower' in the world, taking the lead from the already worn US. In the same year, she said, a space probe will discover 'a new form of energy' on Venus.

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Why does she have any traction?

Believers claim she correctly predicted some key global events of the past few decades including:

• The assassinations of Indian prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi

• The Kursk nuclear submarine disaster

• Global warming

• 9/11: "Horror, horror! The American brethren will fall after being attacked by the steel birds. The wolves will be howling in a bush, and innocent blood will be gushing."

• The 2004 tsunami: "A huge wave will cover a big coast covered with people and towns, and everything will disappear beneath the water. Everything will melt, just like ice."

• A "great Muslim war" beginning with the Arab Spring and culminating in the rise of ISIS

• The election of Barack Obama: she predicted that the 44th President would be an African American. She also predicted he would be the last US President

• World War II

• The date on which Tsar Boris III died

• The break-up of Czechoslovakia

• The break-up of the Soviet Union

• The break-up of Yugoslavia

• East and West Germany's reunification

• Boris Yeltsin's election

• The Chernobyl disaster

• The date of Stalin's death

• The conflicts in Syria

• The separation of Crimea

Why you should be skeptical

'Specialists' have calculated that 68% of her prophecies have come true.

But the biggest problem with these predictions is that they have no official source. While Nostradamus left written articles, Baba Vanga did not. Which is why changing what she may have said to imbue events with meaning post facto is not just possible but probable - think of it like playing Chinese whispers.

Still interested in knowing what she thought would happen?

Here's the future according to Baba Vango - or at least her acolytes:

2016: Muslims invade Europe

2018: China will become World Power No.1, dethroning the US

2023: There will be major changes in the Earth's orbit

2025-2028: Hunger will be eradicated

2025: The population of Europe will disappear as a result of wars

2028: There will be an attempt to travel to other planets like Venus, with the hope of finding other sources of energy

2033: Water levels rise due to the melting of the poles

2045: Ice caps would not longer exist

2076: Communism will return

2084: The rebirth of nature (no one is sure about what that means)

2100: A new sun illuminates the dark side of the planet. This could refer to a scientific project that began in 2008 that wants to create an artificial sun using nuclear energy

2130: We may make contact with aliens

2170: Global drought

2262: Mars is threatened by a comet

2304: Man will be able to time travel

2480: Two artificial Suns collide and leave the Earth in total darkness

3005: A war on Mars will change the trajectory of the planet

3010: A comet reaches the Moon, so the Earth is covered by a ring of rocks and ashes

3797: The Earth dies but mankind has advanced enough to move to a new solar system

4674: Mankind will be assimilated with aliens

5079: The universe will end.

So what do you think?

(Before you begin to ready yourself for this horrific future, just remember this: Baba Vanga predicted a nuclear World War from November 2010 to October 2014. Oh, and assassination attempts on four heads of state, potentially Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and Gordon Brown. They're all fine.)

via GIPHY

Not dead.

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