10 Doctor Who Futures That Are Now In The Past
9. The Underwater Menace - 1970(ish)
The exact date of The Underwater Menace is never made explicit, but Polly dates events to roughly 1970. That's because she finds a discarded 1968 Mexico Olympics bracelet.
This effectively means that Doctor Who is predicting that a Professor Zaroff-type will discover Atlantis in the years following The Underwater Menace's 1967 broadcast.
While it seems like a wild prediction, it's clear that writer Geoffrey Orme had read about the prophecies of American clairvoyant Edgar Cayce. In the 1930s, Cayce stated that:
“A portion of the temples may yet be discovered under the slime of ages and seawater near Bimini. Expect it in ‘68 or ’69.”
Perhaps Orme had come across Cayce's prediction and turned it into the first of Doctor Who's many forays into the mythical Lost City of Atlantis. However, the predictions didn't come true, and a mad scientist didn't use Atlantis to destroy the Earth in 1970.
And yet, in 1968, a group of divers discovered Bimini Road, just off the coast of the North Bimini island in the Bahamas. The mysterious rock formation was described by the divers as a "pavement" and some believe it may be the road to Atlantis.