Original subtitles

For millennia, humanity has sought guidance

from some of the most unexpected sources.

Seemingly divine phenomena,

both natural and contrived,

have ignited imaginations and shaped civilizations.

A self-proclaimed messiah weaves a web of prophecy

and divine revelation,

promising to finish the work of Jesus Christ himself.

His words inspire a global movement

but leave a trail of skepticism in their wake.

A psychic predicts the Kennedy assassination,

the Six-Day War in the Middle East,

and Chicago's paralyzing Blizzard of 1967,

amongst countless other eerie prophecies.

In the heart of ancient Rome,

the fate of empires hangs on the appetite

of a humble bird.

Can the mere peck

of a feathered prophet truly hold sway over human destiny?

On a crisp Easter morning in the mid 1930s,

a teenage boy kneels in prayer on a mountainside

in Japanese-occupied Korea.

His name is Sun Myung Moon,

and he is about to experience a vision

that will alter not only the course of his life,

but the lives of millions.

Moon claims that on this day,

Jesus Christ appeared to him in a vision.

Jesus asks him to complete the work

that he was unable to do due to his crucifixion.

This supposed encounter sparks a transformation

that will birth one of the most divisive religious movements

of the 20th century.

Within the Unification Church,

Moon claims that he is the perfect father,

that he has the capacity to create the perfect family,

really the perfect relationship

that is free from original sin.

His church will grow to claim millions

of members worldwide

and amass over 1 billion US in assets.

His influence will extend beyond religion,

his cause cultivating support

from some of the most influential members of society,

including US Presidents Richard Nixon,

Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

But as a young Moon begins

to share his message,

he finds himself mired in conflict

with the Japanese occupiers,

established Christian churches

and, following World War II,

the encroaching North Korean communist regime.

Moon's growing evangelical following

comes to the attention of the North Korean communist regime

who seeks to close down

his work with an iron fist.

Things get even worse for Moon

when he's accused of being a spy for South Korea

and he's sent to a labor camp.

Moon always predicted that he would be liberated,

and this came true in 1950,

when UN troops liberated the camp

before Moon was about to be executed.

Moon's suffering and subsequent escape

to South Korea only strengthens his conviction

in his divine mission.

But is this truly a miraculous fulfillment of prophecy,

or a fortunate coincidence reframed

through the lens of faith?

Is Sun Myung Moon a divinely inspired prophet

or a master of manipulation

destined to build a global empire

that would influence politics,

media and international affairs?

In 1920, in the rural countryside

of North Pyongyang Province,

Sun Myung Moon enters the world,

the second son of a farming family

living under Japanese colonial rule.

His family converts to Christianity in the 1930s,

and he himself becomes a Sunday school teacher

who's really well-known for his religious conviction

and his spiritual inquiry.

He grew up in poverty.

It's not surprising that he might be drawn to a religion

which was aimed at empowering people.

In 1941, Moon moves to Tokyo to study.

But as World War II comes to an end

and Korea gains independence from Japan in 1945,

the young leader decides that the time has come

to begin his divine work.

This is war torn Korea,

and so it is a moment

when people need stories

that allow them to believe

in things like leadership, futurity.

People need blessings, and he's tapping into that need,

According to some sources,

he is involved with two Seoul-based quasi-Christian groups

that practice ritual sex

as part of blood purification rites.

In 1946, Moon is charged with sexual immorality

and expelled from the Korean Presbyterian Church.

Being cast out of the church is this moment

where he has to find out whether

he can carry the credibility

of a charismatic spiritual leader

without the endorsement of an institution.

In the same year,

Moon claims that God suddenly issues a command to go north.

He heads across the 38th parallel into North Korea,

just under Soviet control.

He wants to sow the seeds in communist North Korea

of his new religious movement,

and he says that he wants to create the Kingdom of Heaven

in what he considers to be the kind of depths of hell.

In 1948, as tensions between

North and South Korea escalate,

Sun Myung Moon's religious teachings

began to draw the attention

of the North Korean communist regime.

According to the Unification Church,

Moon was arrested twice for disturbing the peace.

We know from Moon's own account of his life that he says

that one of the most formative experiences

on his path to becoming a religious leader

was the long time he spent in a prison camp.

Here, he describes having suffered

enormous abuse in the form of torture,

of having been near death,

and that he emerged from this convinced

that he had a special path.

Despite the inhumane conditions

and constant threat of death,

Moon's spirit remains unbroken.

Moon always predicted that he would be liberated,

and this came true in 1950

when UN troops liberated the camp

before he was about to be executed.

After his release,

Moon reportedly spends 40 days searching

for the members of his scattered flock in Pyongyang

before finally making the treacherous journey south.

Moon comes back to South Korea,

and in a small house in South Korea,

he starts the beginnings of his religious movement,

and very few could imagine

that from these humble beginnings,

he could start a movement

that both captivates and divides millions.

In 1954, four years

after reaching the relative safety of South Korea,

Moon formally establishes the Unification Church.

The teachings of the Unification Church

promise worldwide peace and unity

through a radical reinterpretation of Christianity.

Well, Moon reports that he actually had a conversation

with Jesus Christ, who visited him when he was 15 years old.

And this is the origin

of Moon's own spiritual mission

as he presents it to people.

Christ comes to him

and explains that he has

identified Moon as the person

who has to complete the work of salvation

that Christ himself left unfinished

2000 years earlier.

Moon describes the encounter

as both terrifying and awe-inspiring.

Overwhelmed by the weight of this cosmic task,

he initially resists the call.

Anybody would probably be wary

of someone who says Jesus has chosen him

to be their follow up act, so to speak.

But the way Moon does it is kind of interesting.

In his vision of his interaction with Jesus,

he falls to Jesus's feet, weeps, and says, you know,

"Why would you choose me?"

And that's a moment of humility

and a moment of vulnerability,

but then, of course, Jesus responds,

"No, no, this is something you must do.

You are my choice."

And so, in a way, now Moon can present this

to the followers and say, you know,

it's not me that's saying I'm the one.

It's him.

And that makes the message, I think, a little more palatable

and a little less open to skepticism.

Traditionally in Christianity,

the idea is that Jesus Christ will return on Judgment Day

to judge the living and the dead.

So this idea that Christ would reincarnate

into somebody in Korea

to set up a new cult really isn't in line

with mainstream Christianity

and, not surprisingly, was completely condemned.

At the core of Moon's teachings

lies a radical claim, one that positions him and his wife

at the center of a new spiritual lineage.

The theology of the Unification Church

centers around the concept of the Divine Principle.

This theology posits that God's original plan

was thwarted with the fall of Adam and Eve,

and that Jesus Christ's mission

to fulfill God's purpose was cut short

because of his crucifixion.

Within the Unification Church,

Moon claims that he has the capacity

to create the perfect family,

really the perfect relationship,

that is free from original sin.

This new religious movement really is based in marriage.

The church believes that matching by Moon

or church leaders helps to fulfill

and create a holy family.

Matched couples are seen as restoring the connection

between Adam and Eve before the Fall,

creating sinless marriages

and new, pure lineages, fulfilling God's work.

As Moon's influence grows,

so too does his penchant for grand ceremonies,

where thousands of couples simultaneously pledge their lives

not just only to each other,

but to a greater cosmic purpose.

After Moon's own marriage in 1960,

he begins hosting these mass marriage ceremonies.

The first one is in Seoul in 1961.

There are 36 couples involved.

These engineered ceremonies,

they tap into

kind of long-standing methods

of organizing societies

under a consolidated leader.

Moon argued that these marriages

were intended to create communities

that transcended national and political boundaries

and race boundaries.

Often, these couples had never met before.

They may come from different countries or different regions,

different races.

International and interracial matches

are seen as overcoming national barriers,

creating unified, pure, sinless families.

It wasn't necessarily a wedding of two people anymore.

It was a wedding of those two people to the church

and to the community.

Because you're accepting Moon's choice of partner, etc.,

you are showing, really, a faith to him.

But it would take until the 1990s

for these ceremonies

to truly reach their zenith,

both in size and notoriety.

By 1992, a ceremony at Seoul's Olympic Stadium

united 30,000 couples,

with another 300,000 participating via satellite.

In 1999, the church claims

that a staggering 360,000 couples

are blessed globally that year.

The ceremonies themselves are elaborate affairs,

full with symbolism and ritual,

but perhaps most controversial are the practices

that follow the ceremony.

There are these post-marriage rituals

that all of the couples are expected to observe.

They include a 40-day period of celibacy.

Then, to add the next layer

of when you do have sex,

I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it,

of course, there's a narrative that justifies this.

He says this is a way of making sure

that their most intimate practices

are not tainted by original sin.

But just in terms of social engineering,

it is this way of testing

just how much he can control the people

under his leadership.

Since the 1960s, Sun Myung Moon's vision

has poured beyond the borders of Korea.

With missionary zeal, his followers spread the message

of the Unification Church across continents,

igniting both fervent devotion and fierce controversy.

Moon is sending missions to the US and to Japan,

these kind of influential nations,

in order to gain footholds there,

and, eventually, there's this expansion of the church

to South America, to Europe, to other parts of Asia,

and in the 1970s, there's over 3 million members

in over 100 different countries.

But as the church's influence grows,

so does public scrutiny and alarm.

Parents watch in horror as their children abandon careers

and education to devote themselves fully to Moon's cause.

With the church's unconventional practices,

particularly its mass weddings,

capture global attention and fuel public unease,

the Unification Church finds itself

at the center of a growing anti-cult movement.

The Unification Church,

which was known more colloquially as Moonies

by the time we get to the '70s,

became a phenomenon that actually generated enormous amount

of controversy in the States and elsewhere.

And that's because, on the surface,

it looked very much like a cult.

There was enormous concern

that they were brainwashing children,

convincing people to go join them.

And this became such a concern

that it was attracting the eyes of the law as well.

There's a lot of concern,

especially among populations like middle-class Americans,

that their family members, and particularly their children,

are being overly influenced

by sinister forces.

And in this context,

Moon starts to come under particular scrutiny.

Despite the controversy,

or perhaps because of it, the Unification Church continues

to expand its influence,

extending into business and politics.

By the time we get to the '70s,

he has involvement in everything from ginseng

to arms manufacturing.

He is also becoming increasingly political,

active and influential globally,

and this is related to his anti-communism activities.

As Sun Myung Moon's influence grows,

so does the audacity of his prophetic claims.

He boldly predicts that communism

would begin to fall in 1978.

If you're someone like Moon,

who is fashioning themselves as the next Jesus,

then you want some of those things, too,

and predicting the fall of communism,

with some level of accuracy,

is one of these things that maybe nobody else saw coming,

and it allows him to kind of suggest,

"Yeah, I have some powers

that go beyond what the average human has.

Everything you've heard about me, you can believe it."

Never one to shy away from politics,

Moon's most visible business venture

in the United States becomes a powerful voice

in conservative media.

In 1982, we see that Moon buys "The Washington Times".

Why would he do this?

Well, here he's now bought a newspaper paper

that gives him a public voice in affairs

at the center of power in the United States.

Moon's growing influence doesn't come

without scrutiny and controversy.

In 1978,

a congressional investigation implicates Moon

in a South Korean intelligence operation

attempting to influence U.S. policy.

Later, in 1982, Moon is convicted of tax evasion

and serves 13 months in prison.

When you've built a community like this,

you really want an us-versus-them dynamic.

One of the ways of suggesting that is persecution.

If they, either the congregation

or the leader of the congregation,

is persecuted and has to suffer in that way,

that's almost evidence to the congregation that, "See?

There's us and there's them, and they're after me,

but they're not going to win."

Moon's political connections continue to grow,

reaching the highest levels of government.

We know that Moon had direct access to some

of the most powerful American

and European leaders of the time.

These included not only several Republican presidents,

including Gerald Ford and George H. Bush,

but also Mikhail Gorbachev.

When the Soviet Union falls in 1991,

Moon's followers point

to these fulfilled predictions

as evidence of his prophetic insight.

But were these truly divine revelations

or a display of strategic foresight?

When you make predictions and prophecies of various sort,

the question always is how divine

or how unexpected is that?

Or is this something that somebody could sort of foresee

on other grounds?

Anyone who understands human behavior well,

and especially someone who believes there needs to be

this sort of top-down force, which Moon was,

kind of holding the community together,

they may look at communism and say, "Nice idea.

It just won't work. I'll give it 20 years."

And so a sort of an informed guess.

On September 3rd, 2012,

Sun Myung Moon passes away at the age of 92,

leaving behind a complex legacy.

With the passing of Moon,

the administration of the church is taken over by his wife.

But since that time,

the church's size had started to shrink.

This seems to be the result of many factors,

including in-fighting, losing appeal amongst young people,

and we should also mention that the loss

of this charismatic figure also would have played a role,

because he had drawn people to this church.

As with many prophetic figures,

the true nature of Moon's claims

remains a subject of debate

long after his death.

Was he a divinely appointed messiah,

a charismatic charlatan, or something in between?

Moon stands out

because he presents himself as the Messiah.

He really kind of sets a mold

for tapping into people's spiritual beliefs

and spiritual needs

to climb the hierarchy of social power

and political power that exists in the world

beyond your church.

While Sun Myung Moon's prophecies

and controversial teachings captivate followers

across the globe,

in the summer of 1966,

a seemingly ordinary American woman

makes a startling prediction

that would bring her to national attention.

On January 26th, 1967,

a blizzard slams into the state of Illinois,

paralyzing the city of Chicago.

Thousands are stranded in offices and schools.

Tens of thousands of abandoned vehicles litter the city,

and 26 people lose their lives.

Almost no one sees it coming, except for one person.

Irene Hughes really had the good fortune

to become a media figure at a time

when TV was reaching the height of its power.

And now to tune in on the belongings of our visitor,

here is our clairvoyant, Irene Hughes.

Irene, what vibrations do you pick up?

Well, I feel that this man

loved the out-of-doors very much.

And she came out with an astonishing prophecy

that a huge snowstorm was going to hit the Chicago area

on the 26th of January, 1967,

and lo and behold, it happened.

And this

sparked her media career as a nationally known psychic.

However, her snowy prediction

comes to her earlier,

during a hot and humid August evening

at a gathering to commemorate

the 1887 Great Chatsworth train wreck

that killed dozens.

Suddenly, Irene is overcome with shivers

and visions of snow.

She feels

a strong wind against her.

She sees a ticker tape

in front of her that reads January 26, 27, 28 and 29.

We often think of psychics and mediums

as going into a trance

where they receive messages,

but they can also occur

through sensory experiences involving,

for example, seeing a vision or hearing a voice.

The snowstorm arrives

on the exact day Irene predicts and lasts for two days,

with an accumulation of 23 inches.

A blizzard in Chicago is not

out of the realm of the ordinary, by any means,

but just two days before,

the city had been experiencing record warm temperatures.

So in this particular moment,

the expectation of a blizzard did seem out of the ordinary.

Anything about the winter? Is it going to be tough?

Oh, it's going to be a very tough winter,

and that's in one of my books,

where I said that after a most unusually warm September,

that we'd better look out for a very hard winter

that will go up through March.

The blizzard dumps

a staggering 23 inches of snow in just 29 hours,

bringing the bustling metropolis

to a complete standstill,

trapping thousands.

Its ferocity is amplified by wind gusts reaching

up to 53 miles per hour

with vehicles abandoned all over the city

and claiming over 60 lives in the Greater Chicago Area.

This remarkably accurate prediction

catapults Irene into stardom,

bringing the world to her door.

Here's our clairvoyant,

Irene Hughes.

At this point, Irene really is on the national stage.

Well, our next guest may

make a believer out of her and out of you,

if you don't believe already.

Irene Hughes is joining us.

Welcome, Irene.

- Welcome. - Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here today.

She's on talk shows,

and she even gets acknowledged by the Pope.

Irene has a humble upbringing in Tennessee,

and discovers her gift of sight

at a young age.

Irene's story begins when she has this experience

where she is drawn to a ladder that leads to the attic,

and she hears a voice calling her name,

so she follows it,

and she hears what she believes is the voice of Jesus.

The voice says to her mind will be open

and she will know many things.

This experience sets the stage

for Irene's lifelong journey

into the metaphysical.

As she gets older,

her visions become a part of her everyday life,

and her premonitions tend to involve people close to her,

family members, friends,

people that she knows very well.

Irene spends her early career

as a reporter for a local TV news station in Chicago.

It isn't until 1961 that she has her first profound vision

of the fate of a family

with which she will become inextricably tied.

Irene begins to make predictions about public figures,

particularly political leaders.

She has a very clear vision

where she sees John F. Kennedy

in a room shrouded in white,

suddenly shot.

And this vision occurs again.

She confides in a friend

and predicts that in a couple of weeks time,

he'll be shot dead.

Kennedy is assassinated November 22nd, 1963.

In November 1963, an event happened

that really scarred the 1960s,

the shocking assassination of President John F, Kennedy

on a visit to Dallas, Texas.

While driving through Dallas, he was gunned down

from the Book Depository building by Lee Harvey Oswald.

This is not the last vision Irene will have

about a Kennedy.

Next, a vision of his younger brother, Robert.

In early May of 1968,

she tells a reporter for Chicago Sunday American Magazine

that Robert Kennedy would be shot within six weeks

while on the campaign trail.

Robert Kennedy is the younger brother of JFK,

and he served as attorney general in his administration.

In 1963, after the assassination of JFK,

Robert continued his public service

as a senator from New York,

but he also began to have political aspirations

to run for president himself.

Five weeks later, on June 5th, 1968,

Robert Kennedy is shot while leaving a Los Angeles hotel.

Irene's predictions continue to haunt the Kennedys,

with one final vision, this time of Ted Kennedy.

Irene runs into Senator Ted Kennedy.

She warns him that she's seen something terrible,

and he replies, "I think my family is cursed."

Several weeks later,

Ted Kennedy accidentally drives off a bridge

into the ocean strait of Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts.

He survives, but his companion, Mary Jo Kopechne, is killed.

Irene begins to gain a reputation

for having a preternatural ability

to predict the death of important people.

My prediction about Ted Kennedy

is that he will leave politics.

Irene's prediction stuns politicians

from all levels of government.

However, one of her most accurate political revelations

is not for America.

In 1970,

the province of Quebec in Canada

is on the verge of a crisis.

A terrorist group known

as the Front de libération du Québec, the FLQ,

is increasingly becoming radical.

Now, the FLQ seeks the independence of Quebec.

They are the culmination of building nationalist sentiment

that had been going on for decades in the province.

However, by 1970,

they are increasingly taking a violent turn.

They start to begin to place bombs in military installations

and in the mailboxes of English neighborhoods.

They attack the symbols

of what they consider English colonialism,

which is oppressing the Francophone population

in the province.

On October 5th, 1970,

the FLQ kidnaps British diplomat James Cross.

Five days later, Quebec Minister of Labor, Pierre Laporte,

is also taken hostage.

This puts the country into crisis.

In 1970, Irene appears

on Robert Cumming's radio show nine times

to offer her take

on the FLQ crisis that is playing out in Quebec,

based on the visions that she's having.

Irene predicts that British Trade Commissioner James Cross

will be found alive,

but that Labor Minister Pierre Laporte

will be killed by his captors,

and these predictions turn out to be true.

On October 17th, 1970,

the body of Pierre Laporte is found in the trunk of a car

near a Montreal airport.

James Cross is freed on December 3rd, 1970.

When you're suggesting that somebody

is going to be found alive,

or somebody is going to found dead,

we understand how many people are hanging on those words,

and when those predictions turn out to be accurate,

that's about as dramatic as one can get.

She had the world's attention.

It's not unusual for psychics

to assist in criminal investigations.

Throughout her career, she lends her skill

to law enforcement agencies across the United States,

assisting in over 2000 cases.

Irene keeps her work on murder cases very private,

aware that the police are always shy of the press

revealing that they use psychic mediums.

And her way into a case is through tactile means,

feeling a photograph, requesting the clothing of the victim.

Irene then turns the photos face down,

touching the photos with her fingertips,

and within a few days, may have a feeling or vision

she shares with investigators.

Irene considers her ability

to see death as one of her most powerful gifts,

but she's cautious about sharing what she sees.

Irene makes an exception

in the case of one of her clients,

who is Helen Brach,

the heiress to a massive candy company.

Helen is a client of Irene's,

and in their work together,

Irene tells her that something bad

is coming for Helen.

Irene reveals that she sees her murder.

Helen tells Irene she's planning a trip to Minnesota

for a medical appointment.

Irene warns her to be careful.

Helen Brach never returns.

Helen eventually becomes involved

with a gigolo named Richard Bailey,

who seems to have seen an opportunity

in Helen.

She has no living family members,

she has no heirs, and she disappears,

and her body is never found,

but there is a palpable amount of evidence

that is used to convict Richard Bailey of her murder,

and Irene is involved in the investigation

and is aiding the investigation with her visions.

Richard Bailey is charged

with conspiracy to commit murder

and spends 24 years in prison.

A litany of Irene's uncanny projections

through the latter part of the 20th century come true,

some unfathomable and fatal.

Irene claims to foresee a number of major events

in the United States,

from the failed Apollo 13 mission

to the stock market crash of '87,

to the 2001 anthrax attack that killed five people.

Circling back to the Kennedy connection,

she also predicts that Jackie Kennedy

will remarry in 1969

to a much older man.

That man is never named.

We know now his name was Aristotle Onassis.

The 1970s and 1980s, Irene does this talk show circuit

and really becomes known then as "America's Psychic."

Our clairvoyant

is Irene Hughes.

In the 1990s and 2000s,

Irene moves out of the media spotlight,

but is no less active, dedicating her time and skill

to various social causes and charities.

She passes away on December 7th, 2012.

Irene believes that everything and anything

that anyone experiences is part

of the universe's master plan,

and her gift, a window into its predestined plots.

Irene is part of a long lineage of human soothsayers

which have captured the public's attention for centuries.

But these prophets have not always been human.

In ancient Rome, an unusual form of prediction

proves popular among both ordinary citizens

and the ruling elite.

Roman naval commander Publius Claudius Pulcher

stands on the deck of his ship, eyes fixed on the horizon.

The Roman Republic was locked

into a life and death struggle

against the Carthaginian Empire,

in what we call the Punic Wars, and one of the leaders

was Publius Claudius Pulcher.

He was in charge of a ship that was engaged

in a naval battle with the Carthaginian fleet.

At this point, the Romans have already suffered

a major defeat against the Carthaginians at sea.

Pulcher is in command of a Roman fleet,

and this time he wants to take the battle

to the Carthaginians at Sicily.

The Carthaginian fleet lies ahead,

and Pulcher's blood boils

with the desire for battle.

But before he can give the order to engage,

an ancient ritual must be observed, one that involves fowl.

The practice of consulting sacred chickens

before major military engagements

was a crucial aspect of Roman divination.

The Romans were very careful

not to give out false omens drawn

from the sacred chickens,

as the consequences could be dire.

He had to do what every Roman would do in this situation,

get some sacred chicken on the deck of the ship

to eat some grain.

The question is whether

they're going to eat the feed or not.

If they eat the feed, then you go one direction.

If they don't eat the feed, you go another direction.

Sacred chickens are presented,

and grain is scattered before them,

but to Pulcher's dismay,

the birds refuse to eat,

a clear sign that the gods do not favor battle this day.

The chickens don't give him the answer that he wants,

because he wants to attack,

and the chickens are indicating that he should not.

We find him at this place where the power vested in him

as the leader is coming into conflict

with the authority of the sacred chickens.

Enraged by the chickens refusal to eat,

Pulcher allegedly utters words that will live in infamy:

"If they will not eat, let them drink."

With that, he is said

to seize the sacred birds and hurl them overboard

into the churning seas.

This act of sacrilege, born of frustration and bloodlust,

will have far-reaching consequences,

not only for Pulcher, but for the entire Roman fleet.

It's the cultural power

that is vested in them that he violates,

and it comes with very bad consequences.

These seemingly ordinary birds are believed

to hold a power far beyond their humble appearance,

but what role do they really play

in shaping the destiny of Ancient Rome?

In the heart of Ancient Rome,

where mighty rulers reign and legions conquer,

a peculiar practice holds sway over the fate of empires.

From the humblest resident to the most powerful general,

all turn to the mystical arts

of divination to glimpse the will of the gods.

Divination was central to Roman society.

Romans practiced many different forms of divination,

such as augury, which was interpreting the signs of nature

such as the flight of birds

to determine the future.

A lot of ancient people were obsessed with signs,

and divinations, really, I think, for two reasons.

One is a genuine belief that there were forces out there.

But in another way, what they also do is allow us

to kind of manipulate the morale of the troops.

If we're about to go

into some dangerous situation

and we do these rituals and they tell us everything's great,

then we're going to go into that with a little more vigor

and a little more confidence.

The practice isn't mere superstition,

but an integral part of Roman law and decision-making,

deeply embedded in religious and political systems.

Even Rome's mythic founding involved divination.

According to legend, the twin brothers Romulus and Remus

used augury and bird sign

to determine the location for the future city of Rome.

According to legend, Remus saw six birds on one hill

and Romulus saw 12 birds on another hill.

The 12 birds was considered more significant,

and thus, that was where the city would be built.

But among the myriad of forms of divination,

the method that stands out most

for its sheer peculiarity

is the sacred chickens of Rome.

A popular method of divination in the Roman Empire

was known as alectryomancy,

and this essentially involved chickens or sacred chickens.

The humble chicken could determine

the fate of battles,

the rise and fall of leaders,

and the very course of Roman history.

What they did was that they would bring

the sacred chickens before them

when they needed to make a decision about going to war.

A priest, known as a pullarius,

would put grain on the ground

and observe chickens eating the grain.

If the chickens ate it enthusiastically and quickly,

this was considered a very favorable omen.

If they didn't, it was the opposite.

The sacred chickens played a role

in some of Rome's most pivotal moments,

extending from battlefields

to halls of power.

Their influence dictated not only military strategies

but political appointments.

During the reign of Emperor Valens,

which lasted from 364 to 378 C.E.,

a group of Roman courtiers employ divination

to uncover the name of Valens' successor.

The courtiers prepare an elaborate ritual,

drawing a circle on the ground

and dividing it into segments.

There are letters spread out on the ground

and then seed is scattered,

and the chickens are brought in

and based on where

they choose to feed,

the letters are then taken in a particular order

to spell a name.

As the chicken moves about the circle,

the courtiers watch with bated breath.

Three letters emerged which began to spell the name T-H-E,

and then there was an O as well, so Theo.

But the consequences of this divination

would prove dire.

For some reason,

this causes much distress with the emperor.

He goes literally mad.

He orders the execution of several people

who have that name, even all of the people who were there

to witness the divination.

It is Theodosius I who does succeed Emperor Valens.

So the chickens seem to have gotten it right.

Theodosius' ascent to power

is just one instance prophesized by those sacred birds

that spurs paranoia.

Six centuries earlier,

in 249 BC as dawn breaks over the Sicilian coast,

the Roman fleet under Publius Claudius Pulcher

approaches the harbor of Drepana.

Despite the unsuccessful blessing

from the feathered prophets,

the element of surprise is lost,

as Carthaginian lookouts

spot the advancing ships.

Pulcher's decision to launch a surprise attack,

in theory at least, wasn't bad.

The problem was,

is that it was night time

and the Carthaginians were renowned sailors,

much better than the Romans.

Pulcher's fleet very quickly became disorganized

in the dark.

This gave the Carthaginian commander, Adherbal, a chance.

He managed to maneuver his fleet

around the Romans at night and attack them from behind.

The result was devastating.

Pulcher's fleet, pinned against the shore,

begins to falter.

As the day wears on, the Roman fleet crumbles.

Pulcher flees with only 30 ships,

leaving the remaining 93 to their fate.

The Battle of Drepana stands

as Rome's greatest naval defeat in the First Punic War.

It exposes the vulnerabilities

of Rome's naval strategy

and highlights the risks of overconfidence.

At least 20,000 Roman men were killed or captured.

This defeat would force Rome to reassess its naval tactics

and lead to a period,

where they all but abandoned major naval operations.

Pulcher's infamous chicken incident,

paired with the defeat at Drepana,

is regarded as a cautionary tale of hubris and impiety.

In that moment, just before battle,

Pulcher shows a strongly emotional reaction.

He basically loses his temper,

and does something that's essentially sacrilegious.

That can make it hard for troops

to then follow that man into battle.

Those are not the attributes we look for in a leader

and may have actually helped to contribute

to their lack of success.

Pulcher was forced to return to Rome in disgrace.

Rome's sacred chickens reveal that even

the most unassuming creatures

can wield immense influence,

even when their omens are ignored.

This skepticism has echoed through centuries

from the self-proclaimed messiah

that sparked controversy worldwide,

to a psychic superstar

whose powers enticed believers and cynics alike.

Prophecy will always leave its mark

on those willing to listen,

and perhaps even more so on those who refuse.