23 Novels and Publications That Made Dead On — Or Dead Wrong — Predictions About the Future

Who’s this dude writing about Moon missions 100 years before they were a thing?
23 Novels and Publications That Made Dead On — Or Dead Wrong — Predictions About the Future

We know firsthand that writers are incredibly creative and stunningly gorgeous, but when some wildly attractive writer starts making wildly outrageous claims about the future, we’re all like, “Okay, sexy, your creativity might be getting a little out of hand.”

The accurate ones are completely jaw-dropping, but the inaccurate ones are… Oof, a swing and a miss! 

See, writers know baseball terms too. We can be creative, hot and sporty. Maybe we should get out from behind this computer and strut our stuff around town a bit more.

Nautilus

The Nautilus had some features of today's submarines. The boat in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, published in 1870, could stay underwater for long periods, allowing for extended secret operation. Just like the nuclear subs that arrived in the late 1950s. CRACKED.COM

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

CRACKED.COM amazonkindle The Hitchhiker's DON'T Guide to PANIC the Galaxy revolves around an ebook. 1 - - Menu L In Douglas Adams' radio series and subsequent novel, written in the '70s, the titular guide is a huge reference book stored in a handheld device.

Fahrenheit 451

CRACKED.COM A character in Fahrenheit 451 wears AirPods. Back in 1953, when headphones were big, clunky things, Ray Bradbury described wireless earbuds. And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind.

Brave New World

CRAGKED.COM Brave New World has in vitro fertilization. Aldous Huxley's novel described the process 46 years before Louise Brown, the first test tube baby, was born in 1978. ... ... the eggs ... were BRAVE NEW WORLD inspected for abnormalities, counted and transferred to a porous receptacle this receptacle was immersed in a warm bouillon containing free-swimming spermatozoa... ALDOUS HUXLEY

From the Earth to the Moon

Jules Verne nailed several things about Moon missions. In From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon, both written 100 years before actual Moon missions, three brave men are launched in a capsule from Florida, and parachute to the Pacific Ocean upon their return. CRACKED.COM

The War in the Air

H. G. Wells wrote about air warfare before it was a thing. The War in the Air, written in 1907, anticipated the horror of air bombings. The war comes through the air, bombs drop in the night. Quiet people go out in the morning, and see air-fleets passing overhead- dripping death- dripping death! CRACKED.COM

The War of the Worlds

The heat ray from The War of the Worlds is becoming a reality. The U.S. Navy is already using directed energy weapons, like the Martians in H. G. Wells' 1897 novel. CRACKED COM

Playboy

By the mid 1980's, automated autos, noiseless pneumatic sub- ways and luxury-liner hovercraft will have radically restructured our surface mobility David Rorvik in the October 1970 issue of CRACKED.COM Playboy magazine

Popular Mechanics

Where a calculator like ENIAC today is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1.5 tons. Popular Mechanics, 1949 ٠٥٥٠ - GRAGKED.COM

False Advertising

We'll go full Flintstones. To Find Some Use For Every Wild Animal Man's Steadily Increasing Need for More Space Will Eventually Force Untamed Beasts to Pay Their Way in the Scheme of Things or Join the Species Already Extinct The - - - Cash TM breading .. - lato presim - been AND HOME - - must S - - - CRACKED.COM - - - clare It was once commonly thought that we'd train endangered species to perform menial tasks as we continued to encroach into their territory. We've opted to just indiscriminately kill them instead!

British Journalist John Langdon-Davies

50 DEMOCRACY 5 1936 CRACKED.COM Democracy will be dead by 1950. -John Langdon-Davies, British journalist. Yeah, it got hairy there for a bit, but they haven't quite managed to get rid of democracy so far.

Vogue

50 FASHION in FEBRUARY 1939 CRACKED COM The man of the next century will revolt against shaving... His hat will be an antenna. His socks, disposable. His belt will hold all his pockets ever did. -Vogue. They were right about beards, at least.

Associated Press

FEMALE 50 5 EVOLUTION DECEMBER 1950 1950 , 2000 O 6 GRACKED.COM The woman of the year 2000 will be will be more than six feet tall, wear a size 11 shoe, have shoulders like a wrestler and muscles like a truck driver. -Associated Press. True for some women. AP also predicted, She may even be president.

Popular Mechanics

50 REMOTE 5 DIAGNOSES 1905 CRACKED.COM The Popular Mechanics version of medical video conferencing included an electric handshake that touches you from afar. That didn't come to pass. And if it did, you know we'd have it shaking body parts for decidedly non-medical purposes.

Time Magazine

Brick-and-mortar stores have nothing to worry about. TIME MAGAZINE CRACKED.COM Their 1966 prediction that remote shopping will flop was based on the observation that women like to get out of the house.

Western Union Internal Memo

The telephone has no legs. WESTERN UNION CRACKED COM In an internal memo, employees were told that the telephone shouldn't be seriously considered as a means of communication.

Saturday Evening Post

50 THE ALPHABET 5 DECEMBER 1900 Mo D O CRACKED COM There will be no C, x or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. -John Watkins, from the Saturday Evening Post. Yes, we'd develop informal spelling but wouldn't drop any letters entirely, bc that idea sux, dafuq would be the point in doing that?

The National Cancer Institute’s Environmental Cancer Section

Smoking's probably fine. NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE CRACKED.COM W.C. Heuper, director of the institute's Environmental Cancer Section, was pretty darn sure that, if smoking played a part in lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.

Gulliver’s Travels

GRACKED.COM two lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve about Mars...- Jonathan Swift, describing the Red Planet's moons in his 1726 novel Gulliver'siTravels. Phobos and Deimos, discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall

Stand on Zanzibar

JOHN BRUNNER STAND ON ZANZIBAR takes place in 2010 and has a popular leader named President Obomi, who happens to be African It was published in 1968. CRACKED.COM

Stranger in a Strange Land

ROBERT HEINLEIN'S 1961 NOVEL STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND PREDICTED 3-D COMPUTERS IN EVERY HOME. IT ALSO CAME UP WITH A MUCH MORE SPECIFIC PREDICTION: SCREENSAVERS. A stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on, guppies and tetras gave way to the face of the well-known Winchell. Fish in an aquarium would become one of the most popular screensavers out there. CRACKED.COM

National Comics #18

AT THE SAME TIME ENEMY WARSHIPS FIRE ON PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII.. NATIONAL COMICS #18 DEPICTED UNCLE SAM DEFENDING PEARL HARBOR IT WAS RELEASED IN 10° NOVEMBER, 1941. AMERICA'S HERO UNCLE SAM ON DECEMBER 7, 1941, JAPAN ATTACKED PEARL HARBOR CRACKED.CON

The Wreck of the Titan

The Wreck In 1898, Morgan Robertson published a of the book about a supposedly unsinkable Titan boat, the largest one ever made, that sank in the North Atlantic after hitting an OF, Futility iceberg. Не called the boat The Titan. Since this was 14 years before the Titanic disaster, we can't blame him for missing the name of the boat by two letters. Morgan Robertson SOURCE: http://www.cracked.com/article_18421_6-insane- CRACKED COM coincidences-you-wont-believe-actually-happened.html

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