Miraculous Healings, Prophecies, and Mysterious Clouds: The Strange Life of William Branham

Throughout history, there have been those people who have become larger than life and almost legendary- their histories, deeds, or purported powers propelling them to transcend the norm and become almost more than human. Certainly one of these was a reverend who was deeply associated with miraculous abilities, prophetic visions, and strange phenomena. 

William Marrion Branham was born in 1909 near Burkesville, Kentucky, and from an early age, he was already claiming mystical experiences. As a child, he claimed that he remembered his birth and that a "Light come whirling through the window, about the size of a pillow, and circled around where I was, and went down on the bed.” From the age of three, he was already claiming to hear messages from God, which alienated him from others of his age and even his own family. When he was 19, he traveled to Phoenix, Arizona in search of a better life, and found himself mostly working on a ranch and other odd jobs, as well as pursuing a career in boxing, but then he would have an experience that would change the course of his life.

One day in 1929, while working at the Public Service Company of Indiana, Branham was incapacitated by a gas leak and had to be hospitalized. During this time, he would claim that he was contacted by angels and God, and shortly after that, he began attending the First Pentecostal Baptist Church of Jeffersonville, where he converted to Christianity. Not long after this, he became a Baptist minister, and by 1933 he was holding regular tent revival sermons, with his charisma and stage presence making him immediately popular among audiences. Before long Branham had a huge following, with his inter-denominational meetings being some of the largest religious meetings ever held in some American cities.

It was in 1933 that Branham had a series of seven prophetic visions that fueled his popularity and garnered him even more followers. In the first vision, he was told that Mussolini would invade Ethiopia, that the nation would “fall at his steps,” and that Mussolini would come to meet a horrible end at the hands of his own people turning on him, both things that would come to pass. The second vision foretold that an Austrian by the name of Adolph Hitler would rise up as dictator over Germany and that he would draw the world into war, which we now know happened. The third foretold that there would be three great “isms,”, fascism, Nazism, and Communism, but that the first two would be swallowed up into the third, with the voice warning that Russia was a major future threat. The fourth vision showed the great advances in science that would come after the second world war, such as driverless cars and video games. The fifth had to do with increasing women’s rights, the sixth predicting a woman rising to great power, and the seventh alluding to Armageddon and the end of the world, with all of America being reduced to “nothing but debris, craters, and smoke.”

Besides these prophetic visions, one of things Branham became most known for was his purported faith healing abilities and other “miracles” that supposedly occurred at his congregations. One of the most famous of these healings was that of a young girl who he allegedly healed of tuberculosis in 1942, and he was claimed to be able to miraculously heal all manner of diseases, injuries, and ailments. By 1946 Branham was renowned as a faith healer, and indeed was a huge influence on the whole faith healing revival going on at the time all over America, spawning an army of imitators and emulators. His popularity was only further propelled by his claims of angelic visitations at the time, and he would regularly draw in thousands of followers to his sermons, many who claimed to have been healed or to have witnessed other miracles at these meetings, including at least one reported resurrection. With rumors of these miracles spreading and a crack team of publicists at his side, Branham was soon garnering national and international attention, with some of his meetings drawing in tens of thousands of people. In the meantime, Branham was still claiming to have visions and to be the center of miracles. In 1946, the Angel of the Lord apparently met him in a cave near Jeffersonville, saying:

“Do not fear, I am sent from the presence of Almighty God. Your peculiar birth and misunderstood life has been to indicate that you’re to go to all the world and pray for the sick people….If you get the people to believe you, and be sincere when you pray, nothing shall stand before your prayers, not even cancer.”

In January of 1950, Branham had another supposed “miracle” during a series of services in Houston, Texas. During one of these services, a Baptist minister and doctor who disagreed with the idea of divine healing challenged Branham to a debate on the matter. Branham refused, but one of his followers, a Brother Fred F. Bosworth accepted and the debate was carried out. The challenger seemed to soundly lose the debate, and finally, Branham came to the podium and declared that “if the gift was in question, then God speaks for Himself.” At that moment, a pillar of fire allegedly formed over Branham’s head, and this was photographed, although skeptics point out that it was likely just a play of light on the lens. 

In 1960, Branham claimed that he had journeyed “beyond the curtain of time,” and would say of it:

“Oh, my precious friend, my beloved, my darlings of the Gospel, my begotten children unto God, listen to me, your pastor. I wish there was some way I could explain it to you. There's no words. I couldn't find it. It's not found anywhere.But just beyond this last breath is the most glorious thing that you ever-- There is no way to explain it. There's no way. I just can't do it. But whatever you do, friends, lay aside everything else till you get perfect love. Get to a spot that you can love everybody, every enemy, everything else. That one visit there to me has made me a different man. I can never, never, never be the same Brother Branham that I was. Whether the planes are rocking, whether lightning's a-flashing, whether the spies has a gun on me, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. I'm going to press the battle by the grace of God while I preach the Gospel to every creature and every person that I can, persuading them to that beautiful land yonder.”

A few years later, in December of 1962, William Branham began claiming to have had a vision of five angels that would come from the heavens in the form of a “pyramid" somewhere outside of Tuscon, Arizona. He traveled west hoping to see this for himself, also claiming that these five angels would bring him the "Message from the Lord,” arranging to go there for a hunting trip. Rather oddly, in February of 1963, a highly unusual cloud formation formed somewhere over Flagstaff, Arizona, which was photographed and appeared in Life magazine and Science Magazine. At the time it was seen as a highly anomalous atmospheric phenomenon, and an abstract on the event by the James E. McDonald Institute of Atmospheric Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson describes it as follows:

“An unusual ring-shaped cloud was widely observed over northern Arizona near sunset on 28 February 1963. From a large number of observers' reports it is known to have appeared overhead near Flagstaff, Arizona. From initial computations based on four photos taken in Tucson, 190 miles south of the cloud, its altitude was approximately 35 kilometers. The most distant observation reported was made 280 miles from the cloud. The cloud remained sunlit for 28 minutes after local sunset. Iridescence was noted by many observers. Tentatively, the cloud may be regarded as similar to a nacreous cloud; but its unusually great height and unusually low altitude, plus its remarkable shape, suggest that it was a cloud of previously unrecorded type.

Near sunset, on 28 February 1963, a cloud of unusual configuration and coloration was observed in widely scattered localities in Arizona and some surrounding states. The cloud took the form of a large oval ring (clear in the middle) with the long axis running north and south. It remained brightly illuminated well after the sun had set on high cirrus clouds to the west. From Tucson, 190 miles to the south, its angular elevation appeared to be about 6 degrees. A rough computation of its height, based on sunset geometry, made immediately after the cloud entered the earth's shadow, led me to appeal by press and radio for confirmatory reports in order to establish the approximate location and to secure descriptions from the largest possible number of other observers.

From approximately 150 reports, many communicated by persons well aware that they had seen a type of cloud unprecedented in years of skywatching, it was quickly established that the cloud lay overhead in the vicinity of Flagstaff, Arizona, that it exhibited iridescence of the sort associated with stratospheric nacreous clouds in the arctic and that its internal structure was very peculiar. To observers nearly underneath, the colors green and blue were visible, and a pinkish cast was noted at times. A fibrous texture, described by several independent observers as resembling a "wood grain" appearance, was present over much of its northern extent, but its southern end was denser and more cumuliform. Its overall shape was compared by some (ranchers) to a horseshoe or a horsecollar if it was viewed from south; from the north it appeared as a closed loop with a long thin trail that could be seen extending northward, from the oval, and several observers in that sector compared its shape with that of a "hangman's noose." The cloud was seen from distances as great as 280 miles (near Douglas, Arizona and Albuquerque, New Mexico, respectively).

Many observers reported a second cloud off to the northwest of the main cloud, with shape very much like that of the main cloud, but only about a quarter as large. Correctness of these reports has been established from some of the first photographs that have come in from northern Arizona. The cloud was evidently moving generally south-eastward, though visual reports are in some conflict on this point; this point can only be resolved from further studies by triangulation. By fortunate coincidence, the cloud appeared within a few tens of miles of the U.S. Weather Bureau radiosonde station at Winslow, Arizona, and a high-altitude sounding had been completed there only an hour before the appearance of the cloud. A jet stream lay almost directly under the cloud and over Flagstaff, and there were peak winds of 98 knots from the northwest occurring over Winslow at an altitude of about 11 kilometers. These preliminary indications mark the Flagstaff cloud of 28 February as a most unusual phenomenon of considerable meteorological interest.”

While meteorologists pondered on what they saw as a unique atmospheric phenomenon, according to Branham it was a “constellation of angels” with even faces clearly visible in the formation. He would also claim that he had not only predicted the event but that he had witnessed it himself. He would say of what happened:

“When I come, one thing, was by a vision, that I was standing above Tucson up here when a--a--a blast went off. Well, Brother Fred was there when it went off. And they took that picture now, you know, in the sky. And I didn't think much about it, never noticed it. So it begin to impress me somehow, other day. And Brother Norman, Norma's father here, told me, said, "Did you notice this? And just as I looked, right there was them Angels just as plain as They could be, setting right there in that picture. See? I looked to see when it was, and it was time, same, about day or two before, or day or two after I was up there. I looked where it was at. "Northeast of Flagstaff, or Prescott, which is below Flagstaff. Well, that's just where we was at, see, just exactly.

And the blast did just exactly the way It said it. Is that right, Brother Fred? And I--I--I must have jumped way off of the ground. And just above me was the Angels of the Lord that sent Message back, for me to come here to break these Seals… And, now, I didn't know at the time, that they were taking pictures of that, scientists was, as the Angels lowered themselves from Heaven, to bring the Message...How many saw, "A mysterious cloud in the sky"? You see the hands. And now the Life magazine picked it up. And I have the--the article here this morning, in the Life magazine, of to show. Now here It is, the same time I was there. See the pyramid of the Cloud? I was standing just below this. But there was no plane in the district. They've checked it.

And then while I was praying on this subject, of wondering what would happen to me, and you know where I was at? North of Tucson, east of Flagstaff; just exactly, positionally, where I told you, months before it happened, I'd be standing. And exactly according to this paper here, and of papers and this magazine, and our own testimony, exactly where it taken place. God is perfect and cannot lie, and it will come to pass. And now the Life magazine picked it up. And I have the--the article here this morning, in the Life magazine, of to show. Now here It is, the same time I was there. See the pyramid of the Cloud? I was standing just below this. And science is baffled. Standing right under where it was happening there... Now science took the picture of It, you seen It, went on Associated Press. They didn't know what It was. There is a Cloud hanging, twenty-six miles high. That's fifteen miles, or twenty, above even where vapor is at. They don't know what it's all going about, and they are trying to investigate It. And there, right under It, I was standing.

Stand north of Tucson, witnesses standing here with it, when a blast come, that shook the mountains off the ground, almost. And at the same time, a circle of Light hanging yonder in the air, when the science took the pictures now. It's a mysterious cloud. The cloud is twenty-six miles high and thirty miles across. And that's what we were speaking of here. That's where the Angel of the Lord came down and shook the place...It went so loud, right on me, like that. Then, all at once, Something said, "Look up." There It was... met Brother Fred and Brother Norman, about a hour later, when I found them. They were excited and talking about it. There it is. And science says that it's impossible for--for any kind of a--a mist or anything get that high, fog, vapor.

Like the March 17th, the March issue of the Life magazine, you seen that circle of Light in the skies, thirty miles high, twenty-seven miles across. Why, moisture is only about nine miles high, and they can't even make up what it was. And right standing beneath that, a man that is sitting right present now, was right standing there by me, when seven Angels come down from God, visibly standing right there...And I looked up, there was that white Circle above me there, circling around. Here come seven Angels, come moving down out of the air, picked me up...I didn't know it; but cameras from all over the country was taking the picture of That, as the white Cloud settled down, went on the Associated Press. I think your Chicago paper packed it, all around. Life magazine packed it. How many has seen it in there, that Mr.... That, see, that was it right there, just exactly the way it said it, standing right under It when It come down and formed. They said, "It was way beyond, and it's... hunted the country, there was no airplanes or nothing in there. And It was too high, twenty-six miles high, where there is no vapor or nothing. You couldn't, they couldn't make vapor, anyhow. And thirty miles across It.”

He would ramble on and on quite a bit on the cloud and its significance, or about how he had foreseen the appearance of the cloud days before it had actually appeared, on another occasion explaining:

“And when they ascended up on High, like that, went thirty miles high in the air; and, on the same day, they took the picture of It, science did, and went around the world. Later, the Angels appeared as was prophesied. And at the same time, a great cluster of Light left where I was standing, and moved thirty miles high in the air, and around the circle, like the wings of the Angels, and drawed into the skies a shape of a pyramid in the same constellation of Angels that appeared.

Science took the picture, all the way from Mexico, as it moved from northern Arizona, where the Holy Spirit said I would be standing, "forty miles northeast of Tucson." And it went into the air, and Life magazine packed the pictures, A mystic something way in the spheres, where there could be no moisture, where there could be no evaporations of anything; thirty miles high, and twenty-seven miles across, and coming right up from where those Angels were...

But did you notice before the Seven Seals was revealed, before the great mysterious Light showed forth in the heavens up here at above Tucson, Flagstaff, where we were? Brother Fred, two of the man that was... the two men was with me that morning...That day they took pictures all across southern United States and Mexico. There it hangs now in the Life Magazine, still a mystery to them. But He declares it in the heavens before He does it on earth. He always does that. He shows His signs in the heavens first. Now, they asked, to know. Science, the one of them in Tucson, wanted to know any significance, but I didn't tell them. You all knew it, told beforehand. But it wasn't for them; it was for you.”

He also said that the angels met him and gave him great secrets, of which he says:

“And I started up the mountain, running as hard as I could on the other side. All of a sudden, I thought somebody shot me. I never heard such a blast; it shook the whole country. And, when it did, standing before me was seven Angels in a cluster.

I met Brother Fred and them, a little after. Said, "What was it?"

I said, "That was it."

"What are you going to do?

"Return home. For, THUS SAITH THE LORD, the seven mysteries that's been hid in the Bible all these years, these denominations and everything, God is going to open those seven mysteries to us in the Seven Seals."

There was that circle coming up from the earth, like a mist forming. When It did, It went plumb up into the mountain, begin to circle on westward, from the way It come. Science found It after a while, thirty miles high and twenty-five miles across, just exactly in the circle of the pyramid. In there I watched it until that circle went up, started sweeping up, and they turned into like a mystic light, like a fog. Just exactly the way... How many seen the picture of It that was taken in Houston? Remember that? See? Well, that's just the way this was. It turned into the same thing, It kept going higher and higher. I was running and running, trying to find Brother Fred and them...As it went up, I didn't know that the observatories and things, plumb into Mexico, was taking that picture. Life magazine packed it as It went up.”

There has been more than one skeptic who has pointed out that not only did Branham get the date wrong for the cloud phenomenon, but that he often contradicted himself when retelling the events, and perhaps most damningly he was nowhere near Flagstaff at the time, instead over 200 miles away at a place called Rattlesnake Mesa, which has affected the credibility of his story. Meteorologists said it was just a strange cloud formation and the military would claim that it was the result of a military exercise, with no mention of angels. So what was going on here? Who knows?

In 1964, Brother Branham was hunting at Sunset/Klondyke when a whirlwind supposedly descended three times, and the Lord told him: “Judgment---Striking---West Coast.” He took this to mean that a catastrophic earthquake was coming, something that he had intermittently predicted since all the way back in 1935. A matter of days after this, on Good Friday, March 28, 1964, an earthquake hit Prince William Sound, Alaska, measuring a 9.2 magnitude. The quake was felt over a large area of Alaska and in parts of western Yukon Territory and British Columbia, Canada, and to this day remains the largest earthquake to hit North America. Prophecy or a lucky guess? 

Throughout his career, having skepticism directed at him was nothing new to Branham, and he was frequently accused of fraud by investigative news reporters, government agencies, and even fellow ministers and host churches. It was often pointed out that numerous people who he had claimed to have healed had died shortly after from their “cured” conditions, as well as other failed healings and his supposed miracles were accused of being staged. There were also found to be actors who would appear at numerous services posing as diseased or crippled people to be miraculously cured. Several investigations found evidence of fraudulent healings that were either exaggerated or just plain made up, which left a sour taste in the mouths of many who had once fervently believed in these fantastic powers, and it eroded their trust. Ern Baxter, who actively participated in most of Branham's campaigns between November 1947 and 1953, would explain of this:

“I remember in the beginning of the healing movement, simply to report a healing would produce great jubilation and praise from congregations. However, the cynicism became so deep that the people's confidence was diminished. Even to this day, people are affected. People began to circulate healing testimonies which, when they were checked out by reputable journalists and reporters, even those who were friendly to the movement, were found to be false. The percentage of healings that stood up after investigation was embarrassingly low.”

Branham was also accused of adding a great amount of flourishes and embellishments to facts, and of manufacturing supposed facts about his early life. This reputation caused him critical news coverage and legal issues, and he was banned from practicing in a few countries. Branham also faced harsh criticism for some of the company he kept. He was well known for having deep ties to the Ku Klux Klan, and perhaps most notoriously he helped launch and popularize the ministry of Jim Jones, the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, who infamously coaxed a large number of followers into a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 302 of them children; almost all of whom died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide. 

None of this stopped Branham from amassing millions of converts and followers all over the world, and he was a major influence on other religious figures and movements. However, the popularity of the revivalist movement and faith healing began to wane in the 1960s, and this, plus the swelling number of competitors crowding the field, caused Branham’s followers to evaporate. Branham kept at it, unfettered by falling attendance and starting a teaching ministry preaching highly controversial doctrines that even had some other religious figures labeling him as a heretic. Among his most ardent followers, he was seen as almost divine, and his group was increasingly seen as being a doomsday cult that believed the Rapture was impending. In the meantime, Branham continued to travel to churches to conduct sermons all the way up to his death by car accident on December 24,1965. Even in death, there were those that expected him to be resurrected, and he continues to have followers to this day spread out throughout the world.

It is hard to know just how much of Branham's claims were legitimate and how much was hokum. It is impossible to know whether he really did have powers of insight or contact with otherworldly forces. Similarly, we can't really know just exactly what the mystery cloud was, or how much of a connection Branham had with it. What we do know is that he was definitely a colorful character with a strange life, and a reputation and larger-than-life persona that elevates him into the realm of truly mysterious people.