World5 min(s) read
Published 12:29 07 Aug 2026 GMT
The blind Bulgarian mystic who followers credit with predicting 9/11, Princess Diana's death, and COVID left a string of prophecies for 2026.
Two of them appear to have come true already.
The rest are the kind of thing that will either make you laugh or keep you up at night, depending on how much stock you put in the words of a woman who died 30 years ago.
Baba Vanga, born Vangeliya Pandeva Gushterova, was a Bulgarian clairvoyant who lost her sight as a child after reportedly being lifted into the air by a violent storm and thrown into a nearby field.
When her family found her, she was covered in sand and dirt and unable to open her eyes.
The family could only afford partial treatment and she gradually went blind.
She claimed the visions started after she lost her sight.
Over the following decades, she became known as the 'Nostradamus of the Balkans'.
Followers have credited her with an 85% accuracy rate on her predictions, though sceptics point out that she left no written records.
Everything attributed to her comes from relatives and followers who documented her alleged prophecies after her death in 1996.
She reportedly made predictions stretching more than 3,000 years into the future.
Here is what she is said to have foreseen for 2026.
Baba Vanga allegedly predicted that 2026 would be plagued by catastrophic natural disasters.
This one has come true by any reasonable measure.
In March, a 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar, killing thousands and causing widespread destruction across the region. Thailand suffered significant damage too.
Europe has battled one of its most intense summers on record, with Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy all experiencing record-breaking temperatures and devastating wildfires.
Torrential rainfall triggered flash floods across parts of Asia. The US has been hit by severe storms throughout the spring and summer.
Whether a dead mystic 'predicted' extreme weather or whether extreme weather is just what happens now is a question for your own judgment.
Baba Vanga is said to have foreseen that machines would begin replacing humans in the workplace on a large scale.
This is also, at this point, undeniably happening.
In recent months, a string of major companies have announced job cuts while explicitly citing AI as the reason.
Tasks that were previously done by people are being automated. Entire departments have been restructured around technology that did not exist five years ago.
Business Insider has been tracking the companies involved. The list is long and growing.
This is where it gets properly wild.
Baba Vanga allegedly pictured a 'massive spaceship' penetrating Earth's atmosphere, with the contact taking place specifically in November 2026.
The timing is interesting given that the Pentagon has spent the last three months releasing declassified UFO files under President Trump's PURSUE programme, including footage of objects that US military personnel could not explain.
But there is a long distance between unexplained aerial footage and a spaceship arriving in November.
One to revisit in a few months.
Her most alarming forecast involves the beginning of a global conflict.
According to interpretations of her visions, Baba Vanga foresaw China seizing Taiwan and a direct military confrontation between Russia and the United States.
Neither has happened.
Tensions between the US and both countries remain high, and the war in Ukraine continues, but there has been no direct clash between the US and Russia, and Taiwan remains independent.
Nostradamus made similar predictions for 2026, describing 'cruel wars' in Europe. Both mystics appear to have landed on the same broad theme for this year.
Baba Vanga also allegedly foresaw Russia getting a new leader in 2026.
Vladimir Putin has been in power for more than 18 years across two separate blocks and shows no public sign of stepping down.
Followers of Baba Vanga point to the ongoing strain of the Ukraine conflict and speculation about Putin's health. But as of today, August 7, he remains firmly in charge.
That depends entirely on how generously you interpret her.
Her followers say she predicted 9/11 with the phrase: "Horror, horror! The American brethren will fall after being attacked by the steel birds."
That is either astonishingly specific or vague enough to apply to any number of events involving aircraft.
She is credited with predicting COVID, the 2004 tsunami, and the Chernobyl disaster.
She is also credited with predicting that the world would end in 2023 due to nuclear bioweapons and a solar storm.
It did not, as you may remember.
She left no written records.
Her predictions exist only through the accounts of people close to her, many of whom have a vested interest in maintaining her legacy.
The '85% accuracy rate' that gets often quoted in about her has no verified source.
But two of her 2026 predictions have landed.
Three more are still outstanding, and November is not that far away.
