FT266

The 2010 World Cup provided plenty of memorable stories over its month-long course: Spain’s historic win, France’s excruciating public implosion and the usual English spectacle of unsustainable expectations followed by ignominious defeat. 

But at least this time around the tournament also produced a more unusual star, of as much interest to forteans as football fanciers, in the shape of Paul the Psychic Octopus. 

Paul became an unlikely World Cup hero after his surprisingly accurate match predictions caught the attention of the international media. Born in Weymouth, Dorset, some two and a half years ago, Paul is now resident at the Oberhausen Sea Life centre in Germany. His “predictions” were obtained by lowering mussels into his tank in two transparent acrylic boxes with the flags of each country on the front. The one he made for first was declared his tip to win. 

While octopuses are believed to be highly intelligent, possessed of both short- and long-term memory and capable of observational learning, they haven’t previously been touted as possessing psychic or prophetic abilities (unlike a number of other creatures, from Jim the Wonder Dog to Oscar the death-predicting cat) or an interest in sporting events, to the best of FT’s knowledge. 

Paul’s uncanny talents were first spotted during Euro 2008, when he correctly predicted the results of all German matches, save the final. “For the European Championship in 2008, Paul’s success rate was more than 80 per cent for Germany’s games,” said aquarium spokesperson Tanja Munzig on 25 June. “And for this World Cup, he has had a 100 per cent success rate so far.” That was before England lost to Germany, a result Paul predicted correctly, just as he had Germany’s victories over Australia and Ghana and their shock defeat by Serbia. He subsequently correctly predicted Germany’s win over Argentina. 

Sayco, an Argentine dolphin, challenged the mystic mollusc’s prediction for this quarter-final match by rejecting a ball marked in Germany’s colours in favour of a blue and white one, but all in vain, to the fury of Argentine fans. 

“We know that all octopuses have nine brains, so we know he has exceptional powers,” said Paul’s keeper, Oliver Walenciak. 

Paul’s mistake back in 2008 was predicting Germany would win in the final against Spain, which they didn’t; this time, however, he plumped for Spain over Germany in the second semi-final clash. German fans clung to the idea that when it came to Spain-Germany games Paul suffered some sort of psychic ‘blind spot’, making his otherwise impeccable predictions unreliable. Alas, German hopes were cruelly dashed when Paul’s prediction of a Spanish win proved accurate. 

Following this latest bull’s-eye, German newspapers and websites were filled with suggestions of what to do with Paul – most involved cooking and eating him, either roasted with olive oil and lemon juice or turned into paella. 

Next, Paul predicted Germany’s win over Uruguay for third place, following which he put his reputation firmly on the line with his first prediction for a non-German fixture: the result of the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands. Paul plumped for Spain. By this time, bookmakers were having to acknowledge the octopus’s predictive powers, slashing the odds on his correctly picking the victors of the final between Spain and Holland from evens to 10/11. William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said: “Punters are superstitious creatures at the best of times – and many have favourite tipsters they like to follow. But they tend to be human, so this is the first time we’ve genuinely had punters coming into betting shops and asking staff about the predictions made by an octopus.” 

At this point, a rival oracle came forward: an eight-year-old green parakeet in Singapore (or Kuala Lumpur; reports differ) called Mani (or Meena Kutti), which had correctly predicted all four winners in the quarter-finals, picked the Netherlands to trump Spain. Local media reports said Mani used his (or her) beak to pick a card bearing the flag of the Netherlands over one with Spain’s national colours. However, Mani, like Sayco, proved a false prophet when Spain produced their historic 1-0 victory. 

After Paul’s final triumph – eight out of eight matches correctly predicted – the intuitive invertebrate was presented with a replica World Cup. Hundreds turned up to the Sea Life aquarium to watch the golden trophy lowered into his tank, garnished with his favourite food – mussels. 

It was estimated that bookies had paid out somewhere in the region of half a million pounds based on Paul’s World Cup picks, while there was much argument as to whether or not his eight-on-eight run was significantly above chance; the odds were reported as being variously 1/256, 1/300 or 1/512. Statisticians were unimpressed, and sceptics maintained that Paul had just got lucky or that his keepers had, consciously or not, guided his choices (which, presumably, would make them psychic). Perhaps the most interesting take came from Roger Cohen, writing in the International Herald Tribune, who suggested an instance of Jungian synchronicity at work: “The World Cup, after all, is the world’s most watched event. If any occurrence – social, emotional, psychological and spiritual – is capable of channelling human energy to an octopus in Oberhausen, then surely this one is.” 

After all this excitement, said Tanja Munzig, Paul was going to “step back from the official oracle business”. But once fame has come calling, retiring from the spotlight isn’t that simple, and the media frenzy seemed set to continue. First, someone called Verena Barscht, supposedly Paul’s trainer, threw doubts on Paul’s British origins, claiming the psychic cephalopod wasn’t from Weymouth, as she had caught him off the Italian island of Elba in April; Italian newspaper La Repubblica called for ‘Paolo’ to be repatriated. 

There was talk of ‘transfers’ and ‘bidding wars’. Honorary Spanish citizenship from the Galician town of O Carballiño was followed by a bid of 30,000 euro from local chef Manuel Pazos, who believed the octopus would attract tourism to the area. Then, Madrid Zoo officials announced they’d made an offer Paul’s German keepers wouldn’t be able to refuse – whether of cash or an animal exchange remained unclear – stating: “We hope within the next few days we will be able to confirm news that the admirable Paul will be part of the most loved and charismatic animals of the Madrid Zoo.” 

The Oberhausen Sea Life centre quickly poured cold water on the Spanish transfer, declaring that Paul would be staying put and that no offers were being considered. Like any canny football club, the Germans had perhaps realised that a one-off sale of their star player was not the best way of maximising Paul’s newfound value and that product endorsements, branding and television commercials were the way forward. Publicist Max Clifford even pitched in to offer his advice on Paul’s next career move: “If you get it right, and remember Paul has had worldwide success… you’re talking about earning potential of £2 or £3 million, maybe more… You’ve got the world’s first multimillion-pound octopus here.” 

And it didn’t take long before others tried to cash in on his fame, with the announcement that a Brazilian company had already launched an iPhone application called “Ask the Octopus”, randomly choosing between any two options for indecisive users. 

By now, Paul’s reach had become truly global. In mid-July, the ever-reliable Russian newspaper Pravda reported that it had managed to gain access to Paul in an attempt to forecast who would be Russia’s next president. Two sheets of paper, bearing the names Putin and Medvedev, were held up to Paul’s tank, and he is supposed to have pointed to one of them with a tentacle. The results were placed in a sealed envelope until the 2012 election. But as the Russians paid court to the oracular octopus, others were less happy about his pronouncements. Kazakh bookmakers accused him of having ruined their takings and, somewhat more bizarrely, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmanadinejad, in a speech in Tehran, denounced him as a symbol of Western decadence and accused him of spreading “Western propaganda and superstition.” 

Perhaps the strangest (and least credible) report on Paul’s future plans was that he had a new agent – one Chris Davies, from Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire – who intended to turn him into an Elvis Presley tribute act. “One of the most exciting things is that he has a record deal in place for an album, called Paul the Octopus Sings Elvis,” said Mr Davies.

Times, 26 June; D.Mirror, 26 June, 13 July; D.Telegraph, 7+8+9+11+12+16+19+27 July; Sun, 7 July; Metro, 7 July, 1 Aug; [AFP] D.Mail, 9 July; Independent on Sunday, 11 July; [R]12 July; Independent, Int. Herald Tribune, 13 July; CNN.com, 14 July; BBC News, AOL News, Washington Post, 16 July; thelocal.de, 20 July 2010.