What if a dream or a sudden, unexplained feeling could warn you of a terrible event? This was the question that obsessed Dr John Barker, a well-regarded British psychiatrist with a deep and unsettling interest in the paranormal. The culmination of this obsession was the Premonitions Bureau, a fascinating and ultimately tragic experiment to prove that foretelling disaster was not just possible, but potentially common.
The Aberfan Tragedy
Barker’s journey began in the aftermath of the Aberfan disaster, a horrific event that took place on October 21st, 1966. In a small Welsh village, a massive mountain of coal waste collapsed, engulfing a primary school and killing 144 people, 116 of them children. It was a tragedy of unimaginable scale, and Barker, who was researching a book on the phenomenon of dying from fear, was drawn to the village.
While there, he heard deeply disturbing accounts of foreknowledge. A small boy, Paul Davis, who died in the school, had drawn a picture the night before of masked figures digging in the hillside with the chilling words “The End” written beneath. Even more visceral was the story of ten-year-old Errol May Jones, who told her mother the day before her death: “I dreamt I went to school and there was no school there. I think Blackford had come down all over it.” The consistency of these premonitions, and others about the sinking of the Titanic and the R-101 airship, convinced Barker that he had to act.
A Horrifying Run of Hits
In partnership with Peter Fairley, the science editor for London’s Evening Standard, Barker launched an appeal, asking for any dreams or visions of disaster. The response was immediate and overwhelming. Letters poured in, and Barker received 76 replies to his initial Aberfan appeal. Of those, 22 of the 60 plausible premonitions had been described before the tragedy took place. This was enough for Barker. He and Fairley approached the editor of the Evening Standard with a bold new idea: to open a permanent Premonitions Bureau.
The Bureau's first major hit came in March 1967. A man named Alan Hencher, a GPO telephone exchange operator, had a vision of a plane with “sweeping tail fins” crashing within three weeks, killing more than 60 people. Thirty-four days later, the prophecy was grimly fulfilled when a British Midland Argonaut crashed in Stockport, killing 72 people.
The hits kept coming. A woman named Miss Middleton had a vision of a “tremendous conflagration” and “flames leaping 100 feet high” at a large building with huge girders. At the very moment she sent her letter, the Innovation department store in Brussels went up in flames, killing 251 people in Belgium's worst peacetime disaster. Both Alan Hencher and Miss Middleton also had visions of a mainline rail crash. Hencher saw two carriages come to rest “one on top of the other,” while Miss Middleton had a vision of “a crash” at “Charing Cross.” On November 5th, a train derailed at Hither Green, just eight miles from Charing Cross, killing 49 people.
Perhaps most chillingly of all, on April 23rd, 1967, Miss Middleton had a vision of an astronaut on his way to the moon, writing that the “venture will end in tragedy.” Around the very same time, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was in orbit in the Soyuz 1 spacecraft. After a harrowing flight, his parachute failed to deploy, and he plummeted to Earth, becoming the first person to die during a space flight. It was an absolute disaster, and Miss Middleton had seen it coming.
The Human Cost and a Tragic End
The predictions were coming true, but at a severe emotional cost to the percipients. Alan Hencher’s nervous system was fraying under the strain of his “torment.” He felt exploited by the Bureau and, along with Miss Middleton, demanded more recognition. Their frustration culminated in a final hit that was Miss Middleton’s most chillingly accurate prediction of all. On June 4th, 1968, she called the Bureau three times warning of an imminent assassination. That night, after winning the California primary, Robert Kennedy was shot and killed.
The pressure on John Barker was also immense. He suffered terrible headaches but kept working from his hospital bed. On the night of July 27th, Miss Middleton had another premonition: she dreamt of her deceased parents taking her to a black car and pushing her away, a vision she took to mean the passing of “someone close to her.” When she woke, she was in a trance-like state and posted a note to the Bureau with a single line: “This may mean death.”
Just a few weeks later, on August 20th, 1968, John Barker collapsed in his home after a vessel burst in his brain. He died in hospital, and the final premonition from Miss Middleton was of his own death. The Bureau’s star percipients dropped out of the project soon after. The experiment continued for a time under his assistant, Jennifer Preston, who catalogued over 3,000 predictions. But despite all the hits and forewarnings, no disaster was ever officially prevented by its means.Barker's dream died with him, a final, tragic irony to a project that was always a proper mind-bender.