Do you ever get that nagging little “feeling” that something is just going to happen? Something really bad? And do you ignore that feeling, and just say to yourself, “Naw, that’s crazy, forget about it” … and then something terrible does actually happen?
Sort of like the time when I had that strange dream about a plane crash… the week before Nine Eleven.
Well, what if multiple people got that “feeling” and felt that something truly horrible was soon to happen, and yet, naturally they did not listen to their intuition? And why would they, after all? They were just “feelings,” dreams, silly old nightmares, sensations… premonitions.
Are tragedies preventable?
Let’s read on and find out…
In 1966, in the village of Aberfan, South Wales, an event occurred which horrified all of Great Britain and the world. Aberfan was a small village known for coal mining. And dangerously hovering near and above the little village was a dark mountain of coal waste – half a millions tons, in fact. A vast mountain of dark horror – including boiler ash, mine rubbish, slurry, discarded coal, and other assorted hazardous garbage - just waiting to slide down and land on the town and its people. The village was below the mountain of coal. And the top of the mountain was used to continually dump more and more coal waste from the mines…
Not too smart when you think about it, especially since down below at the bottom was a public school full of little kids!
And prior to the disaster, many people – and not just people who lived in the village, but people all around England and Wales believe or not – had that certain sensation that something was about to go terribly wrong.
As reported by Dr. John C. Barker, a member of the British Society for Psychical Research, many people recalled that they “somehow knew” that something terrible was about to happen.
Dr. Barker visited Aberfan after the tragic disaster occurred. He had an interest in paranormal research, so he made it known that he wanted information as to whether anyone had any sort of premonition prior to the event. Amazingly, he received numerous replies from various people who believed they foresaw this tragedy.
For example:
Suddenly for no apparent reason, weeks before this horrific event that was soon to happen, a little girl, nine year old Eryl Mai Jones, told her mother, “Mummy, I’m not afraid to die.”
On October 14, 1966, Alexander Venn said to his wife, “Something terrible is going to happen.” Art was his hobby and he began to sketch what was troubling him. He was thinking of coal dust and drew a human head surrounded by darkness.
On October 17, a man in Kent realized that he suddenly “just knew” that something terrible was going to happen, “something connected with death.” He didn’t know what it was that would happen, but he just knew that some tragedy was soon to occur.
Early Thursday morning, October 20, an English woman woke up from a terrible nightmare of being smothered in “deep blackness.”
Strangely, during the night, many other people around the United Kingdom reported similar dreams, such as about “blackness,” and of a mountain flowing downward, and of a small child running and screaming...
Later the same day, October 20, a London television personality suddenly canceled his prerecorded show – a show about a Welsh mining village – as he somehow had a “feeling” that he just should not air the show.
On that Thursday evening, a Mrs. Milden was at a spiritualist meeting in Plymouth, England, when she experienced a “vision”. The vision showed her a schoolhouse in a valley with an avalanche of coal rushing downhill toward it. Also in the vision was the image of a frightened little boy, surrounded by rescue workers as they dug into the coal looking for bodies.
Very early Friday morning, a woman in London woke up with the feeling that the walls of her room were caving in.
Another woman, a Mrs. Brown, had a terrifying dream of a screaming child also in her dream was a black, billowing mass. She woke up and told her husband that, “Something terrible has happened.”
Also in the early hours of Friday morning, October 21, an old man in the northwest of England had a very unusual dream – he dreamed of the word ABERFAN. The word meant nothing to him, until he heard about it on a radio news broadcast.
And at about a quarter past nine that morning, a Mrs. McBean, a secretary, had a feeling that something terrible was about to happen. She had a vision of a black mountain moving and children buried under it. So upset by this, she left her desk and went to sit in the ladies room.
Then, finally, it happened.
The horror of so many people’s nightmares came to be. Half a million tons of deep black coal waste, made slick by two days of heavy rain, suddenly began to roll down hill and pour down upon the village, a mass of blackness rushing down to wreak havoc and destruction. Trees and homes in its pathway were destroyed. And Pantglas Junior School was buried, along with over a hundred children. Rescue workers dug all day and all night but could only recover bodies.
A mass funeral was held on October 25th for the victims, including little Eryl Mai, who said she “wasn’t afraid to die.”
Dr. Barker came to treat survivors of this tragedy and as he had an interest in the paranormal, he convinced the Evening Standard to ask its readers if any of them could have possibly foreseen what happened. The newspaper ran the headline, “Did Anyone Have Premonition of Aberfan Disaster?” “In advance of most of the great disasters of history,” the article with the request began, “such as the Titanic sinking, somebody seems to have had a premonition. Did anyone have a genuine premonition before the coal tip fell on Aberfan?”
Also the BBC Home Service broadcasted a similar request. The Today program reported that, “this sort of foresight is now being taken a good deal more seriously.”
There were over seventy responses to this request for information, such as those described in the paragraphs above.
And weeks after this tragedy, the mother of an eight year old boy found a drawing done by her child – a drawing of people digging with the words, “The End.” Sadly, the boy died when the school was buried under the coal.
Did so many random people around England and Wales during the 1960’s actually predict this tragedy? Or were those premonitions just their in their wild imaginations? Are there really no coincidences? Can ordinary, everyday people sense when bad things are about to happen?
Perhaps the lesson in this sad, strange tale is that sometimes dreams – and nightmares – do come true.
If you want to know more about the Aberfan disaster, check out these sources:
1. Williams, Gary, “The Foreseeable Future,” Sixth Books, 2019.
2. Lachman, Gary, “I Dream the Future, and So Do You,” Fortean Times, February 2022.
3. Knight, Sam, “The Premonitions Bureau,” Penguin Press, 2022.
