Original subtitles

Ancient prophets who predicted

the fall of empires.

Mysterious oracles

who accessed unseen truths.

And three small children

who received a revelation

from a heavenly being.

Throughout history, there have been certain individuals

who were believed to have the power

to see into the future.

These so-called mystics, prophets,

clairvoyants received visions

of events that would change the course of history.

Just what secrets

did their stunning prophecies reveal?

And what predictions did they leave for us

about the future of mankind?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

In our modern world,

it might be tempting to assume that prophecy

is merely an antiquated fantasy from the past

that has no relevance today.

But the surprising truth

is that millions of people still rely

on psychics, palm readers

and fortune tellers of all kinds

for guidance about the future.

People want to know about the future.

Our hopes get projected into prophecies,

the things that might get better.

Our fears get projected into prophecies,

the things that might go bad.

And various writers and mystics

attempt to tell us

what is coming.

Sometimes they get it right.

Predictions continue to garner attention today

because human nature tends to

go in the direction

of something that it considers beneficial.

And so, when we speak of prognostication,

or peering into the future,

we at least have to give credence to the possibility

that prophecy works.

Is it possible that some people do, in fact,

have the ability to peer into the future?

Well, for thousands of years,

humanity has turned to so-called prophets

for information about what the future holds.

So perhaps a close examination of some ancient clairvoyants

and their bold predictions

will shed light on the mysterious power

of prophecy.

Deep in this remote mountainous region

lies a small village called Nan'tian Township.

In the center of this community,

there is a commemorative square,

within which stands a 15-foot-tall statue

dedicated to an ancient prophet

named Liu Bowen.

Liu Bowen

is one of the most well-known figures

in all of Chinese history.

He's born in 1311, he dies in 1375.

He was a close adviser

of the emperor of the Ming dynasty,

or the Hongwu Emperor.

In the surviving letters that we have,

the emperor repeatedly and explicitly

refers to Liu Bowen's ability

to see the future.

On account of Liu Bowen's access

to this untapped knowledge about the future,

the emperor was able to

predict where enemy troops were,

when they would strike,

and he was able to

defend or attack them successfully.

Very famously, there's a story that says

he helped the Ming emperor secure the throne

and overthrow the Mongols,

who ruled over China previously for a few hundred years.

So, Liu Bowen was a very useful adviser,

and he's seen as a kind of

a cultural hero nowadays in China.

Liu Bowen made thousands of predictions

related to Chinese affairs of state,

but his most famous prophecy was of an event that took place

not during his lifetime but rather

more than 500 years after his death.

All across China, uprisings occur against the Qing dynasty.

The revolution culminates in the abdication

of the child Emperor Puyi

and the end of the Chinese monarchy.

This is one of

the most important events in all of Chinese history

because it's the end of a dynastic system

that had been in play

since at least 221 BC.

So, we're talking about

2,000 years of history

that ends.

And Liu Bowen is credited with having seen this,

having seen the revolution in the 20th century.

For some, the idea that a man

who lived in the 1300s

could successfully predict the overthrow

of the last emperor of China in 1911

might sound impossible.

But many Chinese people believe that Liu Bowen

did, in fact, do just that.

And as evidence, they point to a cryptic poem

Bowen wrote that is called

the Song of Shaobing.

One of the most important parts of the song

is, it has a line about one of the last emperors

dying prematurely in his palace,

and this actually occurred.

The penultimate emperor died as a result

of what was probably poisoning

at a relatively young age in the palace.

And it happened only a number of years before the revolution.

Following this description

of the emperor's premature death,

there is a line about the appearance

of a "golden dragon."

Now, the term "golden dragon"

in Chinese culture refers to a ruler

who is adored by his people.

And this is, indeed, what happened

when Sun Yat-sen came to power

as the first provisional president

of the Republic of China following the revolution.

He was the savior and father of the Chinese nation.

Because of its parallels with the events

of the 1911 Revolution,

the ancient Song of Shaobing

is considered an authentic prophecy in Chinese culture.

And in fact, many people believe

that Liu Bowen's predictions

continue to have relevance today.

You can go online, social media,

YouTube, et cetera, et cetera,

and there are lengthy, detailed discussions

of Liu Bowen's prophecies

and how they might match current events.

People read current events

in light of those prophecies.

And he's credited now with having foreseen

coronavirus.

The prophecy describes

a massive plague

that will ravage China

and the rest of the world.

It mentions that the brunt of this plague

will occur in the Year of the Pig

and the Year of the Rat,

and this corresponds to

2019 and 2020.

The details are incredibly precise.

People revisited Liu Bowen's prophecies, and they see

this reference to the eruption of an epidemic.

And then this seems to provide answers,

to provide some sense of order, offer guidance and clarity.

He did foresee this, just as he's foreseen other things.

The predictions Liu Bowen made

over 700 years ago are remarkable.

But he's not alone.

History is filled with stories of mystics

who had the uncanny ability to know what the future held.

For instance, in Russia there were two prophets

who both foresaw the fall

of the Romanov dynasty.

Thousands of people gather to celebrate the coronation

of Czar Nicholas Romanov II

and his wife, the Empress Alexandra.

For more than 300 years, the Romanov dynasty

ruled the vast Russian Empire.

But Nicholas's reign would be a troubled one

during very troubling times.

Nicholas II,

the last Romanov on the throne, was probably

the last person who ever should have been on the throne.

He was weak, indecisive, passive.

And at the time, Russia was modernizing.

And so Nicholas was facing all sorts of challenges

from a society that wanted a greater voice

in politics and the economy.

But, in fact, Nicholas was dictatorial, authoritarian,

in many ways very brutal,

and he insisted on plunging the country

into what would become the First World War.

And was never able to sort of guide

the political institutions into the modern era.

And he failed in just an epic,

epic fashion.

Less than ten years into his reign,

Czar Nicholas was confronted with worker strikes

and military mutinies.

Russians across the country

were upset that while the aristocracy

lived a life of luxury,

average people struggled to make ends meet.

With civil unrest building momentum throughout the empire,

the Romanov family lived a secluded life

in the capital city of St. Petersburg.

In 1904, Alexandra gave birth to their fifth child,

a boy whom they named Alexei.

But the joy of having an heir apparent

to the Romanov dynasty was quickly overshadowed.

Alexandra gives birth to a son.

Glory, glory, glory.

Except the son has a hereditary medical condition.

Hemophilia.

He lacks a component in his blood

that allows it to clot.

So, to understand Alexandra,

you have to understand,

this is one of the reasons she will become drawn

to mysticism.

In order to ensure Alexei's well-being,

Nicholas and Alexandra sought the help

of a mysterious Siberian mystic

named Grigori Rasputin.

Grigori Rasputin was born around 1869.

And he was a strannik,

a kind of traveling... preacher.

Not a priest, not a monk.

But what he really was was a shaman.

Because what he's claiming is that,

"The spirits have spoken to me,

and they have given me powers."

So, what are the powers he claimed to have?

Well, the two most important, prophecy and healing.

In the early 20th century, Russians as a whole

were obsessed by the notion of mystics

and peasant holy men.

And that's the way that Rasputin

was finally able

to gain access to the palace

and to meet Nicholas and Alexandra for the first time,

because they were...

they were also fascinated by people like this.

Beginning in 1906,

Rasputin acted as an important faith healer for young Alexei

and a trusted prophet for Czar Nicholas.

From the very beginning

that Rasputin makes contact with the Romanovs,

and is embraced by them as a friend...

That's the actual word they use...

People become jealous, they become envious.

You have courtiers and mighty aristocrats

who don't get to go to court.

They would say, "Here, this 'dirty peasant'

gets to go in. Why don't I get to go in?"

Which was the sign of an aristocratic family.

By late 1916, there's already been several attempts

on the life of Rasputin,

and he begins to come to this realization

that he's a marked man.

He is not going to live much longer.

Rasputin tells the empress,

"If I'm killed by the nobles,

"that will mean the end of you and your dynasty,

and none in your family will live more than two years."

Now, that's a pretty scary prophecy because,

you know, he had mystical powers from the forces beyond.

Shortly after making his dark prediction,

Rasputin was invited

to the Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg,

where several Russian noblemen poisoned,

shot, and ultimately drowned the Siberian mystic

in the freezing waters of the Moika River.

It took a lot of effort to kill Rasputin,

but it was a treacherous murder,

and they did kill him.

It was at a very bad time because there was nobody else

to give advice to Nicholas II.

But it was not as bad as what came after.

After 300 years of Romanov rule,

Czar Nicholas II is overthrown by the Communist Bolsheviks.

In the aftermath of the revolution,

Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and their five children

are exiled to the remote town of Yekaterinburg.

At that time,

the decision is made to execute the family.

They are awakened at night

and forced to go down

to the cellar.

The person in charge,

he says, "By the decree of the people,

"to prevent your liberation,

you are to be executed,"

and shoots the czar.

The czar is killed immediately,

and so was his wife,

and of course the royal family.

Rasputin prophecy of doom was absolutely correct.

He was killed by aristocrats,

and after that, less than two years, czar was gone

and his family was gone.

Did Rasputin somehow channel mystical powers

that allowed him to foresee the execution of the Romanov family?

Perhaps, but what's even more extraordinary

is that there is another Russian who is also said

to have predicted the fall of the Romanovs

more than 300 years earlier.

After a period of lawlessness and civil war,

Mikhail Romanov becomes czar of Russia.

Mikhail is the first czar of the Romanov dynasty,

but he also faces an immediate threat to his power

because one of his rivals who was killed in the war

left behind a four-year-old son

named Ivan Dmitriyevich,

and some Russians think

that young Ivan is the rightful heir to throne.

The new czar Mikhail Romanov is not going to

let this Ivan, who's only four years old,

survive and be some sort of pretender to the throne

around which various factions might mobilize.

So he sends forces to seize Ivan

and has this little boy taken out

and hanged publicly.

News of the cruel execution shocked the country,

and no one was more affected than Ivan's mother

Marina Mniszech,

an influential noblewoman

who had been imprisoned by the new czar.

When she learned of her child's gruesome fate,

Marina reportedly uttered a vengeful prophecy

about the collapse of the Romanov dynasty.

There's a story that when Marina heard about

the gruesome hanging of her four-year-old child,

that she said that, "As your reign began

with the hanging of little Ivan," her son,

"so shall your reign end,

with the death of a male son to inherit the throne."

And in fact, 300 years later,

the Romanov dynasty would then end

with the death of Alexei, the hemophiliac son

of Nicholas and Alexandra, after the revolution.

Marina was obviously devastated,

and with the prophecy that she authored,

this bloody prophecy against the Romanovs,

it seemed that she had this insight

into the future of Russia.

And so you have two people that were

around the Romanovs, one way or another.

And their destinies was to have precognition,

which played out in a very bad way.

Here, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus,

lie the ruins of several holy sanctuaries

that were constructed by the ancient Greeks.

The most famous of these structures

is the Temple of Apollo.

Built in the fifth century BC,

the Temple of Apollo was the site of a sacred ceremony

in which farmers, merchants and even kings

would come to hear prophecies about their future

from a high priestess who was known

as the Oracle of Delphi.

The Oracle of Delphi is a unique individual in the past.

This is a woman who, through her prophecy,

was able to see the future.

And people are coming to her and expecting to get information

that helps sway their actions.

So, the Oracle at Delphi

was one of the most powerful women in ancient Greece.

Inside the Temple of Apollo,

the Oracle was seated on a high tripod

and would be open for consultations,

and people would come from all over the world.

So, kings would come.

Farmers would come if they wanted to know

about the next harvest.

Everybody came, in the ancient world, to Delphi

with a life-changing question, and she could then prophesy,

give you a sign, what's the right way to go.

Her magical power to channel

the prophetic gods was at your service.

The Oracle of Delphi reportedly predicted

numerous important events in the ancient world,

including the rise of Alexander the Great

and the death of the Roman Emperor Nero.

Many historians believe a clue to her powers of prophecy

can be found in the writings of an ancient Greek historian

named Plutarch.

Plutarch wrote three long pieces about Delphi.

And Plutarch described how, when the Oracle

was in the trance, the ecstasy of the prophecy,

this "breath" came up from Mother Earth,

and Plutarch also said it smelled sweet like perfume.

And when Mother Earth is breathing at Delphi,

the Delphic Oracle goes into an altered state

and she becomes like a ventriloquist dummy,

but the ventriloquist

is the wisdom of Mother Earth spoken through

the Delphic Oracle in Greece.

What was the mysterious "breath" from Mother Earth

that gave the Oracle her prophetic powers?

Well, in 2003,

a team led by archaeologist Dr. John Hale

uncovered evidence which suggests

that the answer to this ancient riddle

does, in fact, lie in the earth itself.

The Temple of Apollo had been built

around a subterranean cleft.

We wanted to collect some rocks and see if,

by any chance, that big geological fault

that runs under the temple released intoxicating gases

that the woman got into her altered state from.

So we took our rock samples,

we had them analyzed in the labs,

and they showed a cocktail

of light hydrocarbon gases:

methane, ethane, and ethylene.

Ethylene is what puts the sweet smell in every flower,

in the grapes you harvest,

in living things that smell sweet,

and it is one of the most instantly intoxicating gases

known to humanity.

It's the ethylene that does it.

The woman is seated on that tripod

directly above the cleft.

And as the gases come up and she inhales them,

these sweet-smelling gases,

with the first whiff she would be in an altered state

because it could go straight through her nasal passages

and into her brain.

The Oracle of Delphi may have been

in a state of intoxication

that would give visions to the prophetess.

Psychedelic substances

bring about a relaxation of inhibitions,

and there are experiments that have been done

that have raised tantalizing questions

about the possibility of precognition

using what we would call narcotics today.

Did inhaling gas that rose out of the earth

allow the Oracle of Delphi to see the future?

It's a fascinating possibility.

And, in fact, for thousands of years,

priests, prophets and shamans from all over the world

have used exotic substances

to unlock prophetic abilities.

One of the best-known examples

is a curious drink called ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca is a brewed

concoction made amongst a number of Amazonian tribes

and contains a number of different kinds of plants.

Ayahuasca has been purported to elicit

feelings of flying, and shamans

use ayahuasca to have an ability to see the future

or to be able to make prophecy.

Ayahuasca is often ingested in religious ceremonies

in the Amazon basin

and used as a sacred

ceremonial substance or sacrament.

It is said to release the mind

into a deeper, realer

state of being, of vision,

to help somebody glean information

that they might be closed off from under normal circumstances,

in an effort to foretell the future.

The fact that ancient cultures around the world

used mind-altering substances to enable prophecy

raises a fascinating question.

Did these concoctions actually

help our ancestors see the future,

as people have believed for centuries?

Anytime you're playing with intoxicants

and your brain, especially, is being affected,

you can't always be sure what's going to happen.

Delphi shows us an example of a culture

in which, when they say there was an external force

coming up out of the rock that triggered the trance,

we can back that up with the geology to show people,

"Take these ancient accounts seriously."

Will scientific research prove that drinking

or inhaling certain substances

allowed the ancients to see visions of the future?

It's an exciting prospect, but on the other hand,

there are many who believe that prophecies

come not from earthly sources

but rather from divine inspiration.

For example, in 1917, three young children

reportedly received holy revelations

from the Virgin Mary.

In the hills located just outside

this small farming village,

three young children are walking through a sheep pasture

when suddenly

a bright light appears in the sky.

They are shocked to see what looks like a heavenly angel

floating above them.

The children believe that this otherworldly figure

is the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.

These three shepherd children... Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia...

They are out in the field, and Our Lady,

the Blessed Mother, appears to them.

When Our Lady began speaking to these children in Fátima,

she told them that she would come back

on the 13th of each month.

And those children, they immediately

told this story of this apparition to their parents.

When these children go and tell this story

to the people of the town,

they don't believe them.

Three little kids, you know.

Shepherds up there in the mountains,

they're not gonna believe them.

People said, "You're lying."

Despite the skepticism,

the children insisted that they were being visited

by the Virgin Mary on the 13th of every month.

In fact, they reported that the apparition

had specifically told them she would return

to perform a miracle on October 13th.

For months, the residents of Fátima wondered

whether this extraordinary prophecy would come true.

And so, on October 13, 1917,

thousands of people gathered with the children to see

if the Virgin Mary would appear,

and the crowd witnessed

an incredible celestial event

that came to be known

as the "Miracle of the Sun."

There was a crowd of anywhere between 70,000 to 100,000 people

on that day, and it had been pouring rain.

Everybody was drenched.

And everybody looked up.

The clouds had parted, they could see the Sun,

and the Sun was going all around the sky.

And then it was coming crashing into the Earth.

People were crying, they were screaming,

some were openly confessing their sins.

But then, gradually, the Sun went back

to its place in the sky.

And when everybody looked around,

their clothes and the ground were completely dry.

So, after all of this had happened,

that changed the opinions of many people

because you can't explain those things.

If they had doubted, now they believed.

After conducting a thorough investigation,

the Catholic Church declared that the Miracle of the Sun

was an event that was "worthy of credence."

Also taken seriously were visions and prophecies

the Blessed Mother shared with one of the children.

At one point, one of these children,

Lucia, was given three secrets.

The first was that she got to see

what hell looked like...

to see how horrible it is.

And the second was that there would be

an end to the war...

This is World War I... but

that another war would come.

This would be World War II.

Our Lady said, "When you see a night illuminated

"by a great light in the sky,

"know that it is when God

is about to punish the world for its crimes."

Well, that great light happened in January of 1938.

It was reported as an aurora borealis.

Even The New York Times had a story on it back then.

And shortly thereafter, Hitler annexed Austria,

and some believe that to be

the real beginning of World War II.

For the faithful, the second secret was further proof

that the children had received prophecies from the Virgin Mary.

However, for decades,

the third and final secret

was kept in a sealed envelope in the Vatican.

But then, on the 64th anniversary

of the first vision of Fátima,

an event took place

which ultimately led to the third secret being revealed.

This secret remained sealed until May 13, 1981,

when Pope John Paul was in Vatican Square

and an assassination attempt was made on his life.

He was shot and very close to death,

but he survived.

After recovering from his gunshot wounds,

Pope John Paul II decided to open the envelope

containing the third secret because he believed

that the attempt on his life taking place

on the anniversary of the Fátima vision

was not a coincidence.

The third secret of Fátima talks about this vision

of a man in white who is walking about a city,

and then he arrives at a cross,

and then at this cross

he is shot with bullets and dies there.

A lot of those who have looked at this third secret of Fátima

really see that this man in white has to be the Holy Father.

If the bullet went a fraction one way or the other,

it would have killed the Pope.

And because it happened on May 13th,

which is the anniversary of the first apparition

of Our Lady of Fátima,

he believed that it was the Virgin Mary

that had saved his life.

Pope John Paul II

saw this as verification

of these three children,

the Miracle of the Sun, all of it being true.

So Pope John Paul II then beatified two of the children,

and they became saints,

and the third one, who recently died,

is now in the process of canonization

and becoming a saint.

Now, does this prove the children's story?

We don't know.

But a lot of people,

from a long time ago and to today,

believe this story.

In the past 105 years or so,

the town of Fátima has become a huge place of pilgrimage.

And we're still, to this day,

trying to make sense of it.

And as we put those pieces together, we realize

the importance of Fátima

is only being more proven over time.

The apparitions and prophecies

received by the three shepherd children at Fátima

are profound spiritual and historical events.

But believe it or not, there are other people

who claim to have had even more extraordinary visions,

including a 20th century American prophet

named Edgar Cayce, who, it's said,

had the power see both the distant future

and the ancient past.

In this small city at 21 Broad Street

stands what looks like an ordinary brick building.

But curiously, a historic marker plaque explains that

this was once the home

of an extraordinary man named Edgar Cayce.

In the 1920s, people from all over the country

came to Selma to visit Cayce

and seek information about the future

from the man known as

the "Sleeping Prophet."

Edgar Cayce was a man born

in the agricultural South

in the late 1870s.

But as he grew older, he detected in himself

the ability to enter into a sleep-like trance state

and be able to perform

what were considered

medically clairvoyant readings of subjects.

He was said to have the ability

to diagnose and prescribe cures

for different bodily ailments.

In his writings,

Edgar Cayce described the process

as accessing information.

And he would read that information,

speak it in trance.

Edgar believed that his abilities were a gift...

but that it wasn't a power of his own.

He was channeling

a higher power.

Cayce comes at the time when

there was a strong interest

in fortune tellings of all kind.

For one thing, there were tea rooms

in which you could sell tea

and someone could look at the tea leaves,

usually a fortune teller.

But, on the other hand,

Edgar Cayce is a little different.

The level of prophecy,

the predictions he's making are-are

way beyond anything that happens in a gypsy tea room.

At first, it was just local people

coming for these consultations,

but gradually, over time, his fame spread.

And Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Woodrow Wilson

asked his advice about what might be coming up.

Edgar Cayce had a series of readings we call

the World Affairs Readings...

in which he actually predicted the crash

of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929.

He also described the Asian involvement

in the European war of World War II.

Another fascinating

aspect of Edgar Cayce's readings

is that he foresaw and talked about

the Dead Sea Scrolls

long before they were discovered in 1947.

He was talking about it in the '30s and '40s.

And so Edgar Cayce had a great deal of success

with his psychic readings.

Edgar Cayce is considered by many to be

the best documented prophet of the 20th century.

Unlike most of his contemporaries,

Cayce was widely believed to be

not a showman or an entertainer

but rather a genuine clairvoyant.

But just where was this information

he prophesied coming from?

Cayce's method to

perform acts of clairvoyance was to

glean information from what he called "the source,"

or what he at other times referred to

as the Akashic records.

The concept of Akasha extends back

to ancient Vedic culture,

and, according to Hindu tradition,

it was like a ethereal hall of records

in which all events that ever occurred were imprinted.

And Edgar Cayce said that this was the record book

that he was using to gain access to extrasensory information.

Was Edgar Cayce somehow able to tap into

a universal source of knowledge

that existed outside of his own mind?

For now, the answer is unclear.

But people continue to read Edgar Cayce's predictions

in hopes of uncovering more prophecies

that actually came true.

Edgar Cayce's readings first started being recorded

systematically in 1923, and

there are 14,308 surviving readings.

And there are thousands of readings

that have never been fully explored.

There is a vast amount that could be studied that might have

information about the future.

And it's fascinating to theorize about.

Did Edgar Cayce, the so-called Sleeping Prophet,

tap into the power of the subconscious mind

to access the past and the future?

For the moment, the answer is unclear,

but it's a question that certainly

deserves our attention.

Because Cayce,

along with many other clairvoyants,

warned of deadly events

that might one day take place,

including predictions concerning

the end of the world.

An opinion poll conducted by the organization YouGov

reveals that almost 30% of Americans believe

that there will be an apocalyptic disaster

in their lifetime.

But while it may seem like fears about doomsday

are at an all-time high,

the truth is that, for centuries,

humanity has been strangely

fascinated by prophecies

concerning the end of the world.

Some of the oldest of these dark predictions

are contained in the Bible.

In the Holy Bible

we can look and see what the end of the world

might look like.

For example,

Noah was told by God to build the Ark.

And there was this prophetic nature to this.

And then he builds the Ark, and God floods the Earth.

And so Noah does what God asks him to do,

and he was able to survive.

Another expectation of some Christians

would be looking at the Book of Revelation.

There was kind of this Armageddon-type reality

that will be the judgment of the world.

And there will be a new heaven and a new Earth.

This is something

that we've believed for thousands of years,

as it's been handed down in the holy scriptures.

The fact that doomsday predictions

have captivated people from antiquity,

up through modern times,

raises a fascinating question.

Why do human beings believe so strongly

that clues about the end of the world can be revealed

by the power of prophecy?

Generally speaking,

prophecy always contains

some element of the apocalyptic.

"End of the world" is usually the number one people think of.

So, for example, especially in media,

people have written about this.

And this is important because

people are scared of the unknown.

It's our nature.

Humans want to understand the future

because there is anxiety about

being able to prepare

for what's coming.

So it makes sense that people

would seek out individuals

who are known to have an ability to see the future.

The fact is, there are enough people alive

at any point, at any generation

who will tell you

of instances in their own lives

in which prophetic methods,

whether astrology or the I Ching

or tarot cards or clairvoyance

has proven true,

has saved them from a disaster.

We pay attention to prophecies because

sometimes they turn out to be true.

Will one of the many doomsday predictions

that have been made throughout history

eventually come true?

It's impossible to say for sure, but one thing is certain.

Visions, prophecies, forecasts of the future

will continue to be a source of intrigue

and fascination that, for the moment,

remain unexplained.

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