The brain works in peculiar ways

Intuition works off our biases. By that, I mean our brain takes visual clues from the environment to conclude what is going on. Most of intuition must be subconscious, too. There are stories of people who avoided disaster due to a bad feeling inside themselves. This could be chalked up to coincidence or anxiety, but there is some truth in it. Intuition is a survival response. It can be impacted by trauma and used in situations where it is unhelpful, but it also allows the brain to pick up on subtle cues that indicate danger which allows our body time to react. 

In my own experience, intuition has often been accurate in an inaccurate way with some occasions that lived up to my intuition's standards. It didn't save my life, but it did pick up on things that I didn't realize were there. 

I was riding my bike in Downtown Burlington with my mom. I was seven. We rode a few miles along the bike path bordering Lake Champlain, turned around, and rode back. Our faces the color of strawberry juice, panting; we were just a few minutes from reaching our car. Suddenly, I heard my mother's name come out of a passing jogger's mouth. They conversed like fireflies, while I hid behind my bike and looked at the ground. I later told my mom that I really did not like that man. Turns out my father didn't either when the man and my mom were co-workers. I heard the story of jealousy from that time a few years later once I was mature enough to understand. Maybe that time wasn't exactly intuition, but something similar, information from memory turned to bias and environmental cues that subconsciously sent bursts of warning lights off in my brain played the part in fueling my distaste for a stranger. 

My sister's first boyfriend was someone I despised. Since the first moment I'd met him, I had told my sister that I didn't like him. She, for a good reason, got defensive; her 14 year old sister who is the closest thing to a loner than anyone she knows shouldn't judge her for the company she keeps. At that point, I would realistically agree with her. That hate, though. It rose from somewhere deep. When they broke up, we all were freed. That includes my sister. He had coerced her to do things that she didn't want. His manipulation bound her to him. Perhaps he didn't realize what he did, but the marks on my sister's heart were there. I knew nothing of who he was before my sister brought him home. All I knew was he was a stranger, and that I hated him. To this day, we all still hate him.

There are a few other stories that have similar endings. Distaste for strangers that was undeserved and deserved. Too many to count really. Overall, what I would say is the cause for those predictions is some strange form of intuition.