The news of the strange happening greatly excited the people of the town, and the city officials made inquiry regarding it.  Swedenborg was summoned before the authorities, and requested to relate in detail what he had seen.  Answering the questions put to him, he told when and how the fire started; how it had begun; how, when and where it had stopped; the time it had lasted; the number of houses destroyed or damaged, and the number of persons injured.  On the following Monday morning a courier arrived from Stockholm, bringing news of the fire, having left the town while it was still burning.  On the next day after, Tuesday morning, another courier arrived at the city hall with a full report of the fire, which corresponded precisely with the vision of Swedenborg.  The fire had stopped precisely at eight o’clock, the very minute that Swedenborg had so announced it to the company.

A similar case is related by Stead, having been told to him by the wife of a Dean in the Episcopal Church.  He relates it as follows:  “I was staying in Virginia, some hundred miles away from home, when one morning about eleven o’clock I felt an overpowering sleepiness, which drowsiness was quite unusual, and which caused me to lie down.  In my sleep I saw quite distinctly my home in Richmond in flames.  The fire had broken out in one wing of the house, which I saw with dismay was where I kept all my best dresses.  The people were all trying to check the flames, but it was no use.  My husband was there, walking about before the burning house, carrying a portrait in his hand.  Everything was quite clear and distinct, exactly as if I had actually been present and seen everything.  After a time, I woke up, and going down stairs told my friends the strange dream I had had.  They laughed at me, and made such game of my vision that I did my best to think no more about it.  I was traveling about, a day or two passed, and when Sunday came I found myself in a church where some relatives were worshipping.  When I entered the pew they looked very strange, and as soon as the service was over I asked them what was the matter.  ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ they said, ‘there is nothing serious.’  Then they handed me a post-card from my husband which simply said, ’House burned out; covered by insurance.’  The day was the date upon which my dream occurred.  I hastened home, and then I learned that everything had happened exactly as I had seen it.  The fire had broken out in the wing I had seen blazing.  My clothes were all burned, and the oddest thing about it was that my husband, having rescued a favorite picture from the burning building, had carried it about among the crowd for some time before he could find a place in which to put it safely.”