Flood From the Great Lake, December 21, 1954
Chicago Housewife Relays Space Message: Flood Will Swamp the City Before Dawn, Dec. 21, 1954. Dawn Came Dry
Dorothy Martin said messages from the planet Clarion foretold a flood from the Great Lake. Her group waited for flying saucers; the study of that night became When Prophecy Fails.
What was claimed (paraphrase)
Lake City will be destroyed by a flood from the Great Lake just before dawn, Dec. 21
— Dorothy Martin (Chicago; 'Marian Keech' in When Prophecy Fails) · said 1954 · due Before dawn, Tuesday, December 21, 1954
Dawn on December 21, 1954 found the lake where it had been. Three social psychologists were in the room taking notes, and their book became a classic.
The fine print
The quote is the 1954 newspaper item's summary of her prophecy, as reprinted in Festinger, Riecken and Schachter's When Prophecy Fails (1956), which uses pseudonyms ('Marian Keech', 'Lake City'); it is the paper's wording, so quote_is_paraphrase is true. The item's headline: 'Prophecy from Planet Clarion Call to City: Flee The Flood. It'll Swamp Us on Dec. 21, Outer Space Tells Suburbanite.' She said the prophecy was not her own but came through automatic writing. Wikipedia's pseudonym table maps Marian Keech to Dorothy Martin and Lake City to Chicago.
As of Oct 9, 2026
since it didn't happen
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