You may know that ‘The Simpsons’ is a cult-classic cartoon that has been producing content since 1989, but what you might not know is that the lovable family from Springfield is involved in an extensive, convoluted conspiracy: ‘The Simpsons’ may be predicting the future.

Ok, I get it. My claims make it seem like I’m practically delusional, but try to stay with me. At worst, the “predictions” are suspiciously accurate coincidences, which I think counts for something. This conspiracy has been a long-running joke on the internet for years, but every year it gains more traction. Now I’m not saying that Matt Groening, the creator of the show, is somehow working with the government to predict the future, but I’m not not saying that. I’ve scoured the internet for what I believe are the five most convincing examples to hopefully unearth Springfield’s most mysterious secrets.

1. In the episode “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish,” (Season 2, Episode 4) which aired Nov 1, 1990, we are introduced to Bart’s three-eyed fish named Blinky. He and Lisa had been fishing downstream of the town’s nuclear power plant where they found him. Twenty one years later a fisherman in Argentina would discover a three-eyed wolf fish that would be a near spitting image of Blinky. This fish was also found in a reservoir near a nuclear power plant.

2. In the episode “Lisa the Greek” (Season 3, Episode 14) Lisa makes a bet with Homer that the Washington Redskins will win Super Bowl XXVI. Three days later, Super Bowl XXVI rolled around with the Buffalo Bills playing the Washington Redskins. Lisa’s predictions came true with Washington taking the title championship. Fox decided to air the episode before the Super Bowl the following year, but with a new, re-dubbed version to make it more current. They replaced Washington with the Dallas Cowboys which Lisa chose to win, and sure enough Dallas won against Buffalo. Then in the following year’s Super Bowl, Fox re-aired the episode with another updated, re-dubbed version. They decided to keep the teams the same, and Dallas won against Buffalo. For the third time in a row, ‘The Simpsons’ had correctly predicted the champions of the Super Bowl.

3. In the episode “Lisa’s Wedding” (Season 6, Episode 19) Lisa visits a fortune teller at a carnival and asks to hear her future. Throughout the episode we are shown the current state of Springfield and the future whereabouts of the Simpson family. Various characters use technology that was futuristic at that time, such as a smartwatch and video chat. The interesting thing about it is that the episode aired on March 19, 1995, which was years before even the first modern smartphone was invented.

4. In “Bart to the Future” (Season 11, Episode 17), Lisa is depicted as the president of the United States. This episode first aired March 19, 2000, and a prediction would later come true: Lisa refers to her predecessor, Donald Trump, who would take office in November of 2016. The episode shows her in the midst of a cabinet meeting where she says to her constituents, “We inherited quite the budget crunch from President Trump.” This was especially eerie due to the fact that she specifically mentioned America’s financial issues, possibly foreshadowing the recent stock market losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

5. The episode “Treehouse of Horror XIX” (Season 20, Episode 4) first aired Nov. 2, 2008. In one scene, Homer enters a voting booth for the election and casts his vote for Barack Obama. The machine ignores his vote and registers his vote for John McCain instead. This very situation occurred four years later in Pennsylvania, where a viral video circulated on the internet of a voting booth that selected Mitt Romney when the voter chose Barack Obama.

In addition to being the longest-running animated comedy, ‘The Simpsons’ has also played a part in the internet’s abyss of conspiracies. Regardless of the validity of each prediction, I found the show’s real-life correlations to be pretty interesting. And who knows, maybe sometime soon we’ll have to trade our textbooks in for episodes of ‘The Simpsons’.