Sharks swimming in downtown Los Angeles

Brother Branham’s son, Billy Paul, recounted a conversation he had with his father in 1965, and which has become very famous among believers around the world. As he and his father were walking one day, the prophet turned to his son and said, “Billy, where are you standing?”

“Downtown Los Angeles,” Billy Paul replied.

Again, the prophet said to his son, “Be more specific, where are you standing?”

“In front of the May Company, downtown Los Angeles,” came the reply.

At this the prophet made a striking statement, and said, “Billy,” “I may not be here, but you won’t be an old man until sharks will swim right where we are standing.”

These prophetic words spoken by Brother Branham have been commonly associated with the sinking of Los Angeles which the prophet foretold in the message “The choosing of a Bride” (April 29, 1965). However, it is important here to consider the exact words of the prophet when he said that Billy Paul would not be an old man before the sharks would swim where they were standing on that specific day.

Billy Paul was born in 1935 and passed away in 2023 at the age of 88. He was most certainly an old man when he died, and the city of Los Angeles is still standing, not having been sunk beneath the waters of the Pacific as yet. In light of this, we must reconsider what exactly the prophet was referring to when he spoke of the sharks swimming in downtown Los Angeles. To answer this puzzling question, we need to rewind the clock a few decades and look at Los Angeles in the 1970’s when Billy Paul was still a relatively young man, having turned 40 in 1975.

In the mid to late 1970’s, a brother Charlie Spencer and his wife were in their kitchen listening to Paul Harvey, a radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio, where it was reported that there had been an earthquake in Los Angeles. During the report, the May Company building was mentioned, and that the resulting flood from the earthquake had brought in sharks that were swimming around the building. This very story was confirmed by a believer whose sister worked in the May Building at that time. She stated that they were all given a memo, a warning, not to go into the basement of the building because there were sharks swimming in the basement.

From this we learn how easy it is to make an assumption on what the prophet was speaking about, and then become all confused and concerned when things do not happen as we expected them to. But the words spoken by the prophet to his son Billy Paul in 1965 came to pass exactly as he said, although not in a manner that anyone expected.