Does literature contain secret forebodings?

What do we make of these mysterious intimations of future events? How do some souls obtain seemingly supernatural insight into the supraconscious realms? Is it mere coincidence?
Take this story for example.

Book Foretells the RMS Titanic Disaster
Author Morgan Robertson’s Book Very Similar to Real-Life Tragedy
© Emily Eppig
Nov 19, 2008

Morgan Robertson wrote Futility fourteen years before the RMS Titanic sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. Many details in his book are eerily similar to the real-life tragedy.

A book written in 1898 by Morgan Robertson entitled Futility closely mirrors the real-life tragedy of the RMS Titanic that occurred 14 years later. In Robertson’s book, a transatlantic liner called the Titan crosses the Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage, strikes an iceberg on her starboard side and sinks.
Similarities Between Futility and the RMS Titanic Disaster
• The first and most obvious similarity is that Robertson called his ship the Titan.
• Both the fictional ship and the real ship sunk during the month of April – the Titan on the 15th and the Titanic on the 14th.
• The Titan carried 24 lifeboats and 3,000 passengers while the Titanic carried 20 lifeboats and 2,207 passengers.
• The Titan measured at 800 feet long and weighed 75,000 tons and the Titanic measured at 882.5 feet and weighed 66,000 tons.
• Both ships had three propellers.
• Both ships were going between 23 to 25 knots upon striking an iceberg.
• Both ships sunk in similar areas of the Atlantic and the Titan left from New York to sail to England while the Titanic left England to sail to New York.
• In the fictional tale, the ship was called the largest ship of the time, unsinkable and “one of the greatest works of man”. The Titanic was also the largest ship at the time, it was called unsinkable, and “a wonder of the age”.
Details Were Added to Reprints of Futility after the Titanic Sunk
After the tragedy of the Titanic in 1912, Futility was reprinted and several reprints since then have claimed to be the original work. Jack W. Hannah in Mansfield, Ohio printed the only true genuine reprint of the original in 1975. All the others have added details to make the “prophecy” more compelling – as if the similarities were not already weird enough.
Was Morgan Robertson Psychic?
Some believe that Robertson did in fact possess some kind of extrasensory perception that enabled him to tell the story of the RMS Titanic 14 years prior to the sinking. Robertson was poor most of his life and no evidence supports that his situation changed after the real-life tragedy of the Titanic took place. Robertson died in 1915 of a drug overdose at the age of 53.
In fact, one of his other books has some mysterious parallels with a major world event. This particular book, written in 1905 and called the The Submarine Destroyer dealt with a futuristic war between the United States and Japan. In the book, Japan carries out sneak-attacks on the United States. In the fictional story, the United States entered into war with Japan during the month of December and the war was fought with aircraft carrying what he termed “sun bombs”. These sun bombs exploded with such ferocity that they emitted a flash of blinding light and destroyed whole cities.

Sources:
Gardner, Mark. The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold. Prometheus Books. 1007
Robertson, Morgan. The Wreck of the Titan or Futility. Filiguarian Publishing. 1996

Weird, wild, stuff.
bh