By Reda Wigle
As the new year dawns, it’s time to talk doomsday, my babies — and no one grips us with grim quite like Nostradamus.
Michel de Nostredame, Nostradamus, or Nos if you’re nasty, was a 16th-century astrologer, doctor, enemy of the church and bearded soothsayer who has been credited with foretelling the Great Fire of London, Hitler’s rise to power, the 9/11 attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, the deaths of Queen Elizabeth II and Pope Francis and the powerful earthquake that rocked Japan on New Year’s Day 2024 to name a few.
Known as the “prophet of doom,” Nostradamus’ decidedly dark worldview was shaped by a steady diet of Old Testament brimstone and the trauma of losing his wife and young children to plague. Unable to cure the ones he loved most, it seems he set out to forewarn the rest of us through his revelations of ruin.
Nostradamus predictions
Sometimes right on the money but more often than not missing the mark, our man’s prophecies lean toward conflagration and catastrophe.
With the publication of his famed book “Les Prophéties” in 1555, Nostradamus gifted the world and its future generations a quasi-poetic tome that predicts wars, pestilence, natural disasters, civil unrest, political assassinations and other such lighthearted fare.
Heavy on language such as “blood rain,” the book is an enduring classic, and with 2026 on the horizon, we’re looking at what fury and hellfire lie in store.
But first, a look back.
In 2025, Nostradamus predicted an end to the conflict in Ukraine, a gigantic asteroid hitting Earth, the flooding of the Amazon and the rise of an aquatic empire.
How’d he do?
War still rages in Ukraine, and while Russian President Vladimir Putin is allegedly in the midst of planning peace with the help of the US, so far, there has been no ceasefire.
In terms of apocalyptic asteroids, NASA reports that as of December, 191 asteroids have passed dangerously close to Earth in 2025, but so far, no annihilation.
In February and March of this year, following a prolonged drought, the Ene River in the Amazon basin experienced severe rainfall and destructive flooding that devastated Indigenous Asháninka communities.
While there has been no explicit aquatic kingdom coming for the crown, we could call the controversial rise of AI, powered by aquatic centers that use water for cooling and humidification, as an empire on the make and the egregious environmental take.
Nostradamus predictions 2026
Nostadamus never explicitly wrote predictions for the year 2026. However, true believers in the bats–t look to quatrains numbered “26” to see what disasters lie ahead.
A popular figure struck down by a thunderbolt
According to the 26th verse of Century I, “The great man will be struck down in the day by a thunderbolt.”
We could interpret this line as the assassination of a prominent male figure or perhaps a political coup that rocks a political regime.
Thunderstruck indeed.
Blood floweth
In the quatrain, II:26, Nostradamus writes, “Because of the favour that the city will show, the Ticino will overflow with blood.”
For the uninitiated, Ticino is an Italian-speaking region in southern Switzerland, studded with lakes and Alpine peaks.
While the aforementioned overflow sounds grim AF, blood doesn’t necessarily mean bad news, as this prediction could reflect a potential surge in stem cell preservation.
As of 2025, umbilical cord blood stem cells from mothers giving birth in Ticino can now be preserved for private family use and for solidarity donation.
High seas, high stakes
In quatrain VII: 26, Nos gets nautical, writing, “Foists and galleys around seven ships, a mortal war will be let loose.”
For the non-seafaring among us, foists are lightweight sailing ships, and galleys are ships propelled by oars. This prediction seems to reference a naval melee.
Experts suspect the war in question will involve China, which has laid a controversial claim to vast expanses of ocean off its southern coast.
China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines have overlapping claims to these islands, reefs and waters, making for a collection of seven countries, or if you’re the poetic sort, “ships,” primed for coastal conflict.
Biblical bees
In the quatrain I:26, our man writes: “The great swarm of bees will arise … by night the ambush …”
Conspiracy theorists connect the imagery of the bee to politics. In this sense, the hive mind of certain ideologies could continue to rise and rile.
As black is the preferred color of fascists and swarming insects, we can further intimate that totalitarian-leaning regimes will add to their rancid ranks in 2026.