30+ Times Someone Bravely Tried To Alert The World

Across the annals of history, there have always been individuals who foresaw even the most staggering disasters. Regrettably, their cautionary voices often fell on deaf ears. Presented here are 30 individuals who valiantly endeavored to alert the world about the impending future.

In 2005, Courtney Love was asked what advice she’d give young, up and coming actresses. She said “If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a private party at his Four Seasons hotel room, don’t go.” And for whatever reason, you didn’t see her in many movies after that.

President George Washington, in his address when leaving office. He warned against the danger of a two party system in future politics. He felt that several parties on equal footing would be better. Especially in presidential elections. The more legitimate choices, the better.

Rowley warned her FBI superiors on June 01 that names on their jihadi watch list were taking flying lessons, but were not interested in learning how to land. Her report didn’t get read until October.

Ignaz Semmelweis was often described as the father of hand washing. In the 1800s he discovered that infant maternal mortality could be drastically reduced by doctors washing their hands between patients. He was largely ignored and his book got absolutely slated. This is supposed to have contributed to him having a mental breakdown and he died in a psychiatric hospital.

Rick Rescorla, Director of Corporate Security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, published a report in 1990 detailing the vulnerability of the World Trade Center parking garage. He and a colleague found they were able to freely walk into the garage, which contained many structural support columns, unchallenged by any security. Additionally no ID checks or screening was done on any of the entering delivery vehicles. Three years later a truck bomb was driven into the garage and detonated in an attempt to damage the building’s structure. Later he and his same college would correctly predict the next attack on the building would come from the air. The evacuation plan and drills he put in place are credited with saving over 2,600 lives on September 11th.

French general Ferdinand Foch reportedly called the Treaty of Versailles a “twenty-year armistice.” WWII broke out approximately twenty years later.

Al Gore got an entire apology episode from the creators of South Park after they mocked him for trying to warn people about climate change.

Johnny Rotten attempted to warn people about Jimmy Saville.

Pearl Jam warned us about Ticketmaster years ago. Nobody listened, now we’re stuck with them… and only them..

Isaac Asimov in 1980: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

Harry Marcopolos notified the SEC 3 times that whatever Bernie Madoff was doing wasn’t legit and should be investigated, and all 3 times he was ignored.

There was a book Nikola Tesla wrote called “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy” where he talked about slowing down the process of burning carbon until we understood it better.

Jason Salemi, epidemiologist at USF. I was working on medical ML research and was asked to help analyze some data about a new virus in China. In the middle of January we had a research meeting, and Dr. Salemi said, “I don’t like this one, I have a bad feeling about SARS-NCOV,” (as it was then called). On Feb 2020 I was put full time on the SARS-COV-2 team. The rest is history.

David Attenborough, and I don’t think we are listening. Well certainly not doing enough.

Gary Webb found ties linking the crack epidemic that wasted inner cities in the 90s, and “justified” the war on drugs, while also destabilizing the Nicaraguan government. He was basically raked over the coals for it, and wound up “committing suicide” with two bullets to the head.

12 TRW engineers resigned their positions the morning of the Challenger incident in protest against risking the flight. NASA launched anyway. Should have listened.

An engineer involved with the Space Shuttle program warned his superiors for months prior to the Challenger disaster that launching in cold weather could cause the O-rings to fail. Care to guess what caused the Challenger disaster?

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority… The dumbing-down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites, lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.” -Carl Sagan

H. G. Wells said he wanted his epitaph to be “I told you so. You damned fools!” In “The Land Ironclads” he had written about a stalemated war fought by trench warfare that was broken by the invention of tanks, predicting what would happen in WW1. In “The War in the Air” he predicted how airplanes would be used in war, including aerial bombardment of cities, and saw his predictions come true in WW2.

Eddie Murphy took a shot at Bill Cosby’s holier than thou attitude in his comedy special “Raw” in 1987 during the height of “The Cosby Show.”

Seth Macfarlene has made fun of sleazy people in Hollywood for years before the Me Too movement. “Help I just escaped Kevin’s Spacey’s house,” says Stewie running naked through a crowd of people.

Cassandra of Troy was pretty spot on about that wooden horse.

John O’Neill worked in the FBI as an anti-terrorist officer. After the car-bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, he remained convinced that Al Qaeda would try to finish the job. The FBI convinced itself that it was over, and O’Neill, who kept at the investigation, was passed over for promotions to the point he wound up quitting the FBI. They thought he was too obsessed with it. He took a job managing security at the WTC and lost his life on September 11.

“In like ‘92, me and my Muslim roommate were watching something on tv about Osama Bin Laden. And he said, ‘this guy is determined to accomplish an attack on American soil. And it’s going to happen in the next 10 years.’ At the time, I thought he was crazy.”

Turkish Airlines flight 981 would never have happened if McDonnell Douglas and Convair had heeded Dan Applegate’s warning about the cargo doors coming open during flight. He wrote a memo after the nonfatal American Airlines flight 96 advising that the doors had design flaws which would cause them to show as properly latched even when they weren’t. If nothing were done, he said it would lead to catastrophic failure that would likely result in the loss of the plane. However, the fixes would be expensive and no one agreed who would eat the cost, so proper upgrades were put off. Instead, they tried implementing cheaper band-aid solutions that would ultimately prove ineffective.

Bismarck warned the ruling German monarch of his time that Germany’s status in Europe and the relative peace of the continent would last for only a short time. After his forced resignation, Bismarck said: “Jena came twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great; the crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this”. Twenty years later, Germany lost WWI and almost collapsed.

Every single junior officer working in Afghanistan for the last 20 years who universally called the ANA a worthless POS army and their government a hallow, dead money pit.

“In the UK we have a serial rapist and pedophile, TV and radio presenter called Jimmy Saville who was protected by his (admittedly) great charity work. In reality it was all just to divert attention away from his decades long abuse. Lots of people complained and they were all ridiculed, abused or ignored. Institutionally.

Mitt Romney warned that Russia was the enemy of peace. He was laughed at by both sides.

Harry Markopolos. He figured out what Madoff was up to, and the SEC still blew him off for years, presumably because the proof he was presenting required math to understand.