Are Animals Psychic? Octopus That Predicted Japan's World Cup Results Chopped, Eaten

The “psychic” octopus who had correctly predicted the outcome of Japan's first three football World Cup matches was slaughtered and sold at a seafood market Monday, shortly before the Asian country crashed out of the tournament.

Rabiot, a giant Pacific octopus, was caught off the port of Obira in the Japanese island of Hokkaido before FIFA to predict Japan’s results and had done so accurately during the country’s matches against Colombia, Poland and Senegal.

Kimio Abe, the fisherman who caught the famous octopus and also later sold it to the market, used to keep three baskets of food before it, each representing whether Japan would win, lose or draw in the match.

“I'm glad that all the forecasts turned out correct and Japan moved on to the knockout stage,” Abe said, adding he had to sell the octopus to run the business and also that he had a substitute for Rabiot.

“I hope the second Rabiot will also predict all the outcomes correctly and that Japan will go all the way,” he had said before the octopus was killed, local daily SoraNews24 reported.

The octopus’ fans blamed the mollusk’s death for Japan’s exit from the FIFA World Cup on Tuesday.

Rabiot is not the first octopus to predict results correctly.

Paul, which was born at the Sea Life Centre, England, in 2008, was the first octopus with a series of correct calls during the 2010 World Cup at the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium in Germany.

The mollusk correctly predicted eight matches during the competition.

While feeding the octopus, staff at the aquarium kept mussels in two different glass boxes — one bearing the German flag, and another with that of the opponent — in front of Paul. Whichever mussel box Paul choose was considered his prediction.

Paul sent shudders when he predicted Germany's semifinal loss against Spain and managed to lose his countrymen's affection immediately who threatened to chop him up and fry him into calamari.

The octopus aged two-and-a-half was found dead a few months later, Oct. 26, 2010.

Animals do not have a rational thought process like human beings and survive on their awareness due to which they are not limited to five senses.

Joseph Banks Rhine, father of Modern Parapsychology, investigated the existence of psychic abilities in animals and the results showed some do have them.

Cats are considered gifted with psychic abilities and can predict natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. Dogs also have some kind of telepathic communication skills because of which they can notice the moods of their owner.

However, these abilities do not help them predict a match.

“Particularly among invertebrates, octopi are very intelligent, but that intelligence can be defined in different ways,” Alan Peters, invertebrate curator at the Smithsonian's National Zoo said about Paul, Seekers reported. “Predictive power I don't think is part of that.”

He also said they cannot differentiate between the colors and there must be some similarities on all the flags the octopus chose.