On some Internet forums, Bulgarian prophet Baba Vanga has become a legendary figure. Social networks and many news sites suggest that Baba Vanga predicted 9/11 terrorist attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and conflicts in Ukraine.
Last week, some information spread even more strongly, raising the question: "Will prophet Vanga predict Israeli-Iranian conflict, US intervention, missiles and airspace closure?
A previous article speculated on Baba Vanga's "predictions for 2026", which are said to include the beginning of World War III and humanity's first contact with aliens.
Such statements have attracted public attention, but there have been opinions from Bulgaria and many other places warning that many prophecies are attributed to Baba Vanga even though she has never spoken about it.
It's absurd. Completely false words have been fabricated about this virtuous woman. Baba Vanga mainly solves people's health problems, not about disasters about to happen in the world," said Ivan Dramov of the Baba Vanga Foundation based in Bulgaria, listing false claims amplified on TikTok, YouTube and tabloid publications about Baba Vanga's prophecies about nuclear disasters or world wars.
The Baba Vanga Foundation was founded by followers of Ms. Vanga and chaired by prophet Vanga herself in the years before her death.
Baba Vanga's prophecies often focus on the lives of those who come to see her, as well as their loved ones, Mr. Dramov said. "She only tells people which doctors to see, what to do, but nothing more," he said.
Today, her name and alleged prophecies are often mentioned in Russia. Many predictions attributed to Baba Vanga, from the collapse of the Soviet Union to visions of a glorious future for Russia, can be traced back to the origins of Russian writer Valentin Sidorov, who claimed to have met Baba Vanga in the 1970s.
“However, there is no recording of these meetings, which allows writer Sidorov to freely interpret, or even construct what Ms. Vanga has said or has not said about Russia. Some of his articles from the early 1990s show that Ms. Vanga predicted Russia's future dominance over the US, a widely accepted argument in Russia today," said Viktoria Vitanova-Kerber, a doctoral research student and research assistant at the Faculty of Global Christianity and Interreligious Theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
According to Mr. Dramov of the Baba Vanga Foundation, this was partly a hint of the future that Ms. Vanga had foreseen. In 1989, when the regime in Bulgaria changed, Ms. Vanga witnessed her image and name begin to be used to sell everything, from clothes to handkerchiefs.
Although prophet Vanga never mentioned the possibility that misinformation and propaganda could be added to the list, "she said that her name would be abused". "She has repeatedly said that people would use her name throughout her life and even after her death" - Mr. Dramov said.
