American Gothic Prediction from January 2006

I just stumbled across this while looking into the Sy Hersh/Dick Cheney/Benazir Bhutto story. Click through for the details.

In July of 1999, the woman with whom I was romantically involved at that time -- call her Gabrielle -- woke up, woke me up, and announced that she had just had an exceptionally vivid dream. A prophetic dream.

A dream in which airplanes flew into the World Trade Center -- "or buildings like the World Trade Center."

...

Naturally, I wanted to know who would commit such an act. "It won't be who they say it is," she answered.

She mentioned that there would be a war in Iraq as a result, even though Iraq would not be responsible. (She also mentioned Saudi Arabia, but the reference was quite vague. I could not discern how that country figured into this scenario.)

...

Before continuing, I should fill in some more backstory.

In the mid-1990s, before she met me, Gabrielle had had a series of troubling dreams depicting a "small" nuclear explosion in Chicago. In each dream, she viewed the event from a closer perspective. In one dream, she saw it from the point of view of a reporter flying in a commercial airliner not far from the event.

Naturally, I wanted to know if the New York event was connected with the nuclear event in Chicago. Yes, she said. In a way. But the explosion in Chicago would happen later.

...

Would the same people be responsible for both events, I asked?

Not really, she answered, although the events are linked. In both cases, she emphasized, "it won't be who they say it is."

"Terrorists?"

"Yes and no. It's like people from the government are involved. Or at least they know about it."

She said that the public would be told that Iran was responsible for the Chicago event. "After that, it's World War Three."

She intimated that things would not play out the way "they" planned, and that the war would spin out of all control.

I asked for more details about the "small" nuclear event in Chicago. She mentioned the Sears tower.

Water played a role in the scenario she envisioned; the device would be transported via boat. I reminded her that Chicago is on one of the Great Lakes. (For some reason, I couldn't remember which one!) She said that the boat would not be on a lake. "You know those movable bridges?" she asked. One of those bridges had something to do with the event.

"You know that picture of the farmer and his wife?" she asked. I took this as a reference to Grant Wood's American Gothic, which I once saw on loan in San Francisco. (Incidentally, the woman in the painting is actually the man's sister.) I vaguely recalled that the work's "home" is in Chicago. She felt that the painting would be destroyed by the blast, and that we would subsequently see the image reproduced ad infinitum in news accounts.

(One doesn't need ESP to foresee how the lost work would take on symbolic, even propagandistic, value.)

Since her unusual trance-like state might never occur again, I attempted to pinpoint a date for these events. She could give neither year nor month, although she insisted that the Chicago event would occur after the fall of the skyscrapers in New York City. (She did not intimate how long after; for some reason, I came under the impression that the two events would occur within fairly quick order.)

...

"When the bomb goes off in Chicago, do you see snow?" She didn't. It won't happen in the winter.