Predicting Death: Strange History of the Premonitions Bureau

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

History Hit

Myths, Folklore, Mystery, History, Ghosts, Society & Culture, Murder, Ufos, True Crime, Paranormal, Supernatural, Serial Killers

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can we see beyond the veil, glimpse the future before it arrives? John Barker, a psychiatrist with a fascination for the unexplained, thought maybe we could. In 1966, he created a bureau for people who claimed to foresee disaster.

Maddy and Anthony are joined by Sam Knight, writer for the New Yorker and author of the book tells this incredible history: The Premonitions Bureau.

Edited by Tomos Delargy and Freddy Chick. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal is a History Hit podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, we're your host's Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling.
0:03.7	And if you would like After Dark myths, misdeeds and the paranormal, ad free and get early access, sign up to History Hit.
0:11.1	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week.
0:20.7	Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week.
0:24.8	Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.
0:36.4	The day before the disaster, 10-year-old Errol Mai Jones said to her mother,
0:40.0	Mommy, let me tell you about my dream last night.
0:43.5	Her mother answered, gently, but firmly,
0:46.8	Darling, I've got no time. Tell me again later.
0:51.4	The child replied, no, mummy, you must listen.
0:58.1	I dreamt I went to school, and there was no school there. Something black had come down all over it. The next morning, the morning of the 21st of October, 1966,
1:06.9	there were men up on the hills above the village of Abafan in Wales where Errol Mai lived.
1:14.0	There were always men up on this hill.
1:17.2	You see, Abafan was a mining town, and these men, Slingers, were getting ready to spend another day adding more black spoil from the coal mines to an already giant heap behind the town.
1:31.8	Tip number seven, as it was known, had been growing for almost a decade and was 111 feet high
1:40.0	by this point. Picture a gigantic pyramid of dark black rocks perched on top of a rolling Welsh hill.
1:50.5	But as soon as they reached the tip, the men saw something was wrong that morning. The heap had sunk
1:58.4	considerably overnight.
2:04.1	They sent a runner down the hill to the colliery office.
2:09.9	The message came back, do not add any more spoil to the pile.
2:21.6	A little while later, as they were having a cup of tea, they watched aghast as the tip rose up in front of their eyes, almost like a mountain that had become liquid. Witnesses said it sounded like a low-flying jet engine, as at 9.15 a.m.,
2:31.3	dark, glistening waves of spoil, six metres high, tore downwards, rolling terribly
	...

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