‘Wish me luck’: Ouija board told a woman she’d die at 28 in a shark attack. She had one plan to survive it, but her roommate blew it

Brooke Caragata (@brookecaragata), a content creator, has been living with a haunting prediction since her high school days. In a TikTok video that has gained more than 221,400 views, she revealed that she once used a Ouija board, and it told her she would die at the age of 28 in a shark attack. Now that she is actually 28, she is taking the prediction very seriously.

To stay safe, Caragata came up with a simple plan, avoid the ocean entirely while she is 28. It seemed like a solid strategy, until her roommate recently brought home something that threw her off completely. Her roommate came home with a Chill Pill fan cooling system, which is made by a company called Shark, and the brand name displayed right there in her living room clearly shook her.

In her TikTok video, Caragata flips the camera to show the box sitting on her coffee table. “Now I’m like scared of a lot of other things,” she says in the video. According to Brobible, she ended her update with a nervous, “So wish me luck.”

The psychology behind Ouija boards explains why predictions like this feel so real

Experts point to something called the ideomotor effect to explain why Ouija boards feel so convincing. This is when your body makes small, involuntary muscle movements without you being aware of it. When using the board, your brain may be processing information related to your questions, and your body reacts by moving the planchette without you consciously choosing to do so. Because it seems like something else is in control.

Research has also supported the idea that the subconscious mind holds more information than we realize. A 2012 study found that people using an Ouija board answered factual questions correctly about 65% of the time, compared to only 50% when they were guessing on their own. 

This suggests the board may serve as a way for the subconscious mind to express things a person is not consciously aware of. It is worth noting that real-life shark encounters can be just as terrifying as any prediction, as seen in the case of a 61-year-old surfer who survived a great white shark bite.

The history of the Ouija board is also worth knowing. According to Smithsonian Magazine, it became popular during the 19th-century American fascination with Spiritualism, which was the belief that the living could communicate with the dead. The first Ouija board was patented on February 10, 1891, by a group of businessmen in Baltimore who were more interested in making money than anything supernatural. 

To get the patent approved, they demonstrated the board to the chief patent officer, who was reportedly convinced after it spelled out his name. For many decades, the board was seen as a fun parlor game rather than something frightening. It was not until the 1973 film The Exorcist that people began associating it with the demonic. 

Before that movie, the board was a common household item, and in the 1940s alone, millions of them were sold as regular entertainment. Shark attacks, while rare, have produced some chilling real-world stories, including a missing Australian surfer whose board was found with bite marks, making Caragata’s fear feel far from irrational.

Caragata’s followers have been very engaged with her story. Some left encouraging comments, while others were more superstitious. One person wrote, “Just start using it once you turn 29,” while another shared, “My sister played it and told her that she would pass before 30. She passed at 28.” A third comment joked, “Look guys we’re in a documentary.”