If the name Sylvia Browne rings a bell, you may recall her as the self-described psychic and spirit medium who routinely appeared on TheMontel Williams Show and Larry King Live. In 2020, Kim Kardashian tweeted about Browne’s 2008 book, End of Days, causing it to sell like wildfire on Amazon, according to Newsweek. Browne, whose last day on Earth ended in 2013, wrote that “in around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments.”

Some people view that passage as evidence that a psychic foresaw COVID-19, but aside from the year, her description could easily apply to the 1918 flu, too. In fact, in 2008, the National Institutes of Health said most fatalities resulted from pneumonia that developed “when the virus destroyed the cells that line the bronchial tubes and lungs.” Furthermore, multiple notable pandemics have emerged toward the end of decades (the flus of 1918, 1957, 1968, and 2009 and the 2019 coronavirus), and according to Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, an infectious disease expert at Mount Sinai, pandemics tend to occur “every 10 to 40 years.” So, maybe, Browne’s description was rather predictable. Interestingly, Brown’s book also prophesied a 2010 outbreak of a “funguslike, extremely contagious” bacterial infection resembling the “flesh-eating disease.” Transmitted by “almost microscopic mites,” it would supposedly prove impervious to existing medicine. Instead, “some combination of electrical currents and extreme heat” would kill the illness. 

Swing and a miss. Actually, Browne’s had multiple misses.

Did Sylvia Browne predict her own fraud conviction?

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