The original plan for this article was to continue where "The Mechanics of Deception Cryptography - Part I" left off, going into detail on how deception cryptography conveyed information about the historical secrets outlined in my article "JFK Conspiracy and Other Historical Secrets." Next on the list was the assassination of Martin Luther King. Decoding book author Morten St. George says he will try to make the King prophecy available online. For this final interview, he wants to change the subject.

He wants to talk about a failed date cipher. In the more than twenty-five years he spent isolating and identifying the genuine prophecies in Nostradamus' book of prophecies, and in analyzing those prophecies, this would be the only failure he has encountered. It concerns prophecies numbered II-51 and II-52. St. George says these prophecies are connected because they are consecutive and because a word in the last line of II-51 reappears in the first line of II-52. However, there is no reasonable thematic connection between the Great Plague and Great Fire of London in 1666 and the devastating earthquakes of Corinth in 1858 and 1928. Thus, he argues, the two stanzas likely combine to produce a date for another catastrophic event, and the year 2006 is the only rational, numeric possibility he can find.

I looked at prophecies II-51 and II-52 in St. George's book. He has II-51 transitioning from the Great Fire to the Great Plague, with dating calculations thrown in. The key to the earthquakes of II-52 was the textual variant "Ephere," alluding to Ephyre, the old name of the city of Corinth. I saw no direct or indirect reference to the month of December that he had mentioned and I asked him about that. He replied: "December was only a guess. That last interview took place in the later half of November, so assuming a 2006 event, that only leaves December."

St. George says he has mixed feelings about the failed cipher. He says he lived in London for ten years and knows many people there. Unfortunately, it may not be over yet. St. George submitted the respective prophecies to additional analysis and found the possibility of a time postponement based on a quirk in the September 11 prophecy, the last prophecy to be fulfilled.

In the September 11 prophecy, a 1999 date was given but elsewhere the prophecies provided indications to advance two years (deception cryptography theory: the prophecies take measures to avoid a premature onslaught of attention). The "terror" prophecy, however, expressed the month of September as "sept mois," seventh month, not directly as "September." In his extensive analysis, St. George argued that for Nostradamus the year began on the Spring Equinox and not on January 1. Thus, to get rhyme with the word "Angolmois" at the end of the third verse, Nostradamus could have changed "September" to "sept mois" at the end of the first verse. Now, however, St. George sees another possibility: Maybe Nostradamus did not make a translation adjustment after all; maybe, instead, the prophecies are suddenly reverting to Nostradamus' calendar!St. George therefore claims that the earthquake prediction is not officially dead until March 19, 2007, which would be the last day of 2006 on Nostradamus' calendar, likewise on the calendar used in London in 1666. St. George may find himself forced to abandon his cherished conclusion that the prophecies use only the Gregorian calendar. Here's the amended prediction: "one or two major earthquakes or ground-shaking catastrophes prior to March 20, 2007, resulting in massive death in either London or the Greek islands." Will it happen? Perhaps not, but St. George considers himself the world's leading authority on the prophecies and he says this is the last chance he sees for the prophecies to make a notable prediction in the advance of the event.

Why the last chance? St. George explains that the prophecies are coming to an end. They're exhausted. At best, there are two or three unfulfilled prophecies. One may concern Iran. Another may concern North Korea and an atomic explosion, about which he comments: "It is unhelpful to make a prediction like that. Such possibilities are in the news all the time these days. Any fool can make a prediction like that. It's valueless even if it comes true."

Consequently, according to St. George, the prophecies of Nostradamus can be declared officially dead on March 20, 2007. For unknown reasons, their author failed to supply us with a single instance of being able to predict an event. St. George, never doubting that the future was accurately foreseen because of overwhelming retroactive evidence, is dismayed: "You need a successful prediction. That's the only thing people understand. That's the proof. I personally don't need to see an advance prediction because I learned to comprehend the thought processes behind the already fulfilled prophecies. Perhaps an expert at solving cryptic crossword puzzles could comprehend some elements of those thought processes, but, in general, cryptic thinking seems beyond the reach of most people. A clear and successful prediction is therefore needed to attract the attention of the world's scientists."

I considered the possibility that St. George correctly assessed a forthcoming catastrophe and I asked him what if, instead, the prophecies were wrong. He replied: "I see little likelihood of that. We discussed this before. There's strong evidence that we are facing super-civilization technology here. They make no mistakes. The only chance is that I'm hallucinating, seeing a re-application that just isn't there. I've been hallucinating a lot lately, so chances are high there will be no catastrophe."

Hallucinations aside, St. George maintains that it all depends on whether or not Nostradamus made a translation adjustment. If not, then the prophecies changed calendars, and if they changed calendars, they did so for a reason. The most apparent technical reason would be to extend the year 2006 by a few months.

The death of the Nostradamus prophecies is therefore close at hand. What would remain for St. George's theories? An earlier interview concerned three prophecies that may combine to provide galactic coordinates, possibly of use to a SETI astronomer. Another interview concerned the Revelations of Elijah, a presumed lost book of divine revelation. St. George claims that Nostradamus translated and included these revelations in his book of prophecies, and he insinuates that it merits investigation: "The story of the Revelations of Elijah begins in early medieval times and ends in the Renaissance. The problem here is that the whole period is post-biblical, likewise post-mythical. The descent of Elijah's chariot sounds like a typical mythical theme, but humankind is now long past its mythical period. This means it may not be myth at all. The story of the Revelations of Elijah could turn out to be more sensational than the story of the Da Vinci Code, with the added twist of being nonfiction."