In the early 1950s, Dorothy Martin, a housewife in Oak Park, Illinois, claimed to receive messages from extraterrestrial beings predicting a catastrophic flood on 21 December 1954. Her followers, known as the Seekers, prepared for salvation via flying saucers, but the date passed with no disaster. Undeterred, the group waited again on Christmas Eve, singing carols outside Martin's house, yet no rescue arrived.
Psychologists Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter studied the group, producing When Prophecy Fails, a seminal work on cognitive dissonance. The episode illustrates how belief can persist even after repeated failure, particularly when tied to culturally significant events like Christmas. Martin's story remains a classic example of the enduring appeal of psychic predictions and the importance of scepticism.
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