Thread: "Disaster will prevent Obama from taking office."

AN AMERICAN MOMENT: Road to the inauguration

In Utah, the Parowan Prophet predicts disaster will prevent Obama from taking office

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Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Leland Freeborn and 12 other survivalists meet every Monday at his home. The group believes Leland is a prophet and they come to hear his predictions.
'He will not be the next president,' Leland Freeborn warns those who will listen. He and his followers expect nuclear explosions this Christmas season.
By PETER H. KING
December 13, 2008
Reporting from Parowan, Utah -- Our trip to the Parowan Prophet began with a letter to the St. George Spectrum. It was set among missives proposing that oil companies bail out Detroit automakers, that county inmates be forced to winter in tents, that lawyers be barred from public office. A rough crowd.

This particular letter to the editor in the St. George, Utah, newspaper carried the headline " 'Prophet' shares grim forecast," and it was signed by one Leland Freeborn of Parowan, who wrote that he was known to many as the Parowan Prophet.

After establishing his bona fides as an international talk radio guest and proprietor of a survivalist website that has "passed more than 100,000 hits," Freeborn wrote:

"I think that you should hear what my opinion about the Obama election is: that he will not be the next president. I said on my home page in August that if he lost to expect to see the 'riots' that 2 Peter 2:13 tells us about. He didn't lose. But the story is not finished yet. I still think they may begin the riots before Christmas 2008, as I said."

These riots, according to his prophecy, will encourage the "old, hard-line Soviet guard" to seize the moment and rain down nukes on the United States, killing at least 100 million of us.

"Prepare now," Freeborn's letter concluded. "We are downwind from Las Vegas. I hope you can survive."

It took an hour to reach the prophet, a high-country drive through stunning red-rock formations, the color of which matches the politics in this corner of southern Utah. A freeway billboard, depicting a nuclear mushroom cloud, provided directions to the prophet's two-story house.

The frontyard seemed a staging ground for rapid flight -- two or three motor boats, a raft, a canoe, a recreational vehicle and an old sedan, parked with its engine running.

The man who answered our unexpected knock wore a cowboy hat with a big feather stuck in the band, and a beard suggestive of St. Nick. We asked to see the prophet. He said we had the right guy.

Freeborn hobbled out the door on crutches and eased into a wheelchair on the porch. As it turned out, he was heating the car not for rapid escape from a nuclear cloud, but to take a neighbor to the doctor.

"I only have nine minutes," he said.

It was enough time to sketch out his history -- a Mormon of substance, a father of 12, he had crashed his airplane in 1975 and fallen into a three-week coma, during which he went through "to the other side" and emerged a prophet.

Freeborn, now 66, took "a plural wife," as he put it, and parted ways with the church. He forfeited his wealth, spreading word of his prophecies. He appears to live now mainly on sales of newsletters and survival information packets advertised on his website.

Asked for examples of successful prophecies, he offered O.J. Simpson's murder acquittal and Al Gore's winning of the popular vote in 2000. But his core insight has been a repeated dream of seeing nuclear flashes to the west while shopping at a Wal-Mart during Christmas season.

And this, he warned, appears to be the year.

As Freeborn rose to leave, he said he would be hosting a weekly religious meeting that night. He urged us to come.

"If you can write a story," Freeborn said, "you can save a lot of lives in L.A."

There were about a dozen believers in the two front rooms, men and women of all ages, squeezed together on couches and dining room chairs.

All of them had broken with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over polygamy and other departures from what they believe was the original vision of the church founder Joseph Smith. And all said they regarded Freeborn a prophet.

The cluttered room was filled with Bibles and religious tracts, government maps depicting potential nuclear targets, and framed photographs of mushroom clouds.

For 90 minutes -- while two boys played on the carpet with a calculator and a marked-up Book of Mormon -- the adults read aloud selected biblical verses, passages from Smith's biography and text pulled from an unidentified website.

After each reading, they discussed how these fragments all pointed to a singular end: nuclear destruction brought on by the Lord's wrath.

Freeborn sprawled in a stuffed chair, directing the discussion and sometimes correcting his acolytes. It was a congenial group, but not much given to small talk. As the night wound down, Freeborn returned to his core prophecy.

"I really believe we are out of time," he said. "I really do."

Freeborn conceded that he'd issued similar warnings many times before, and still the world kept spinning. Prophecy, he said, is not an exact science.

"I've been at it for 30 years, and I have always really believed it," he said. "Now, if we go on, that's great. Maybe we can get some more people to repent."

He seemed weary, referring to himself as a "gimpy old crippled guy from Parowan." He described going on radio and, mocked by the host, receiving not a single request from the audience for survival information. He said he has been shunned in town, his property vandalized. He recited from memory a scriptural passage about "scoffers."

The prophet's eyes reddened, and I could sense his frustration as he sized us up as two more likely nonsubscribers. As he dropped his head in contemplation, it occurred to me: How terrible it must be to believe what this man truly appears to believe, and yet have so few willing to listen.

Perhaps for our benefit, the group volunteered some secular support for Freeborn's prophecy. Perhaps economic meltdown would trigger the riots. Maybe there would be an uprising over an automaker bailout.

"One thought you might have," came a voice from somewhere behind me, "is that we don't have any leadership now until January. See what I am saying? We are in limbo. If they do something tomorrow, who is going to decide?"

The night's last word belonged to the prophet.

"Everything is coming together," Freeborn said, "and it fits right now."

He presented us with brown medicine bottles filled with iodide crystals -- to ward off the effects of radiation.

"I don't think you are going to finish your trip back East," the Parowan Prophet said, urging us to reconsider our journey to the inauguration.

Nonetheless, with our little brown bottles of iodide, we will press on. The rest of you are warned.

King is a Times staff writer.

peter.king@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 1803.story

moving to other topics

More on his prophesies, this from 2003

Parowan Prophet predicts end of world
Death of LDS Prophet will spur nuclear Armageddon
Paul Garcia | features editor
Issue date: 3/26/03 Section: Features
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Leland Freeborn, the "Parowan Prophet" emerges from his bomb shelter .
[Click to enlarge]



Freeborn claims Russia will launch a nuclear assault against America, he said the sickle will reap the earth.
[Click to enlarge]


The temperature along the Wasatch Front will be 11 million degrees at the end of the world if Leland Freeborn is accurate.

Freeborn, self-proclaimed Parowan Prophet from Parowan, Utah, claims to have seen the end of the world. After a plane wreck 20 years ago, Freeborn was in a coma, which he said started his prophetic visions. During his coma, he said God showed him the end of the world, which began with World War III. According to Freeborn, the end of the world begins when Russia launches nuclear missiles over the North Pole -- with Hill Air Force Base as a target.

'I"ve never lived through an explosion,' Freeborn said. 'But I"ve stood in the fire [in a vision], I"ve smelled the smoke, I"ve felt the blast and the wind. God has realistic videos that are fantastic.'

Freeborn"s visions get grimmer.

'One million will die between Brigham City and St. George,' he said. 'If you live beyond 10 miles of Hill Air Force Base don"t let the sun go down without a full tank of gas.' He suggested going there because Cache Valley won"t suffer as much damage as the rest of northern Utah.

Freeborn said Russia will attack because it thinks America is the modern-day Babylon, the center of wealth and cruelty. With U.S. forces in Iraq, America cannot defend itself and its ammunition dumps. In fact, the United States will have problems defending itself in Operation Iraqi Freedom; it has underestimated Iraq"s strength.

'We will lose tens of thousands of our military,' Freeborn said. 'In less than six weeks, we will use nukes.'

In a 1988 vision, an angel took Freeborn to Babylon. There, Saddam Hussein has an underground germ warfare complex. To destroy it, the United States will use nuclear bombs, killing thousands.

Freeborn said Russia is waiting for Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to die before striking.

'I cannot tell you why God does what he does,' Freeborn said. 'I only have to make some suppositions.'

In times of turmoil, it isn"t unusual for people to think about the end of the world, said Jeff Hurst,Weber State University"s counseling and psychological services director.

'They could see prophecies of the end of the world with these events,' he said.

Science speaks up

Amid Freeborn"s predictions of nuclear Armageddon, Applied Geotechnical Engineering Consultants, Inc. geologist Michael Davis has a scientific stance on the state of the 4.5-billion-year-old planet.

'There are very few natural events that could bring about an "end of the world" scenario such as an impact with a celestial object,' Davis said. This is what happened to the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. He pointed out that the world did not end entirely.

'And the world continued, although for the dinosaurs it was the end,' he said.

If a nuclear catastrophe were to occur, the bombs" targets would be destroyed due to the pressure of the explosion Davis said. The attack would cause a nuclear winter where debris and dust block the sunlight, prevent photosynthesis, would decrease temperatures and cause mass extinction of life.

Religions speak out

The LDS Church believes in the 'latter-days': the belief in the end of the world, and the beginning of the millennium. This is a time of peace; when Jesus will come again.

'Before he comes, there will be events that will be quite dramatic or dynamic,' said Ronald Zollinger, Ogden LDS Institute of Religion instructor. 'He called these events "the last days."'

Members also believe Christ predicted men such as Freeborn would call themselves prophets.

'Christ said there would be false prophets and some people will be deceived by them,' Zollinger said.

While Zollinger does not agree with Freeborn, he said it is of interest for followers of the LDS religion to read what Freeborn has to say because it will bolster their own faith in their prophet -- Hinckley.

Freeborn is used to those kinds of statements.

'I would love to be a false prophet,' he said. 'Wonderful, great, if millions of people go on living that"s great.'

While the Roman Catholic Church believes in the Parousiah, Greek for the second coming, they do differ somewhat from the LDS view. Unlike LDS docrine, which says the second coming has been foretold, Catholics do not know when it will come.

'Who knows, maybe he is here right now, we ought to treat everyone as if he was Jesus Christ in person,' said Father Charles T. Cummings, Newman Center director.

He said people should live every day like it"s the last.

'If we live every day the best we can in our creator"s eyes, we don"t have to worry about the end of the world,' Cummings said. 'Fear will cripple us more than getting hit by a car.'

Doing what seems right

'I used to cry a lot more than I do now,' Freeborn said about the disbelief of others in regards to his visions.

In Parowan, he is well known by most of the town"s 2,500 residents for his visions and warnings to prepare.

Parowan Police Chief Wayne Townsend said Freeborn is an interesting member of the community.

'They [city council] may think his intentions are good, but they don"t take what he has to say to heart,' Townsend said of Freeborn"s warnings.

As visions come, Freeborn sits in his 127-year-old house and places information about what he has seen on the Internet for others. In his eyes, he has done all he can; it is up to individuals to prepare or perish.

'People don"t want to hear what I have to say because I've got a somber, sad message about the start of World War III and the destruction of 100 million people in the United States.' You can reach reporter Paul Garcia by calling 626-7621.

http://media.www.wsusignpost.com/media/ ... 7137.shtml

May I out-prophesize Mr. Freeborn? He will one day be checked by a medical and psychological expert or two and found to be not the most reality-based candle on the cake. And I am sure the Secret Service and the FBI will probably take a good close look at him for his prediction that Obama will not be prez.

Here's his website: http://www.parowanprophet.com/

While flying my plane home from one of my farms in another county I crashed AND was in a "coma" for (3) weeks and learned of World War III.

http://www.parowanprophet.com/prophet%20intro.htm

He is delusional due to head injury.

Nothing to do with illegal immigration.

Originally Posted by vortex

May I out-prophesize Mr. Freeborn? He will one day be checked by a medical and psychological expert or two and found to be not the most reality-based candle on the cake. And I am sure the Secret Service and the FBI will probably take a good close look at him for his prediction that Obama will not be prez.

Watch out, what a mess Is this guy moving?

Freeborn and his followers are insane, but I have heard lots stories that Bush will declare martial law before the next president is sworn in.