Anyone in his or her right mind would agree Prescient Paul, the octopus who predicted the outcome of the World Cup, was the star of the tournament. He unfailingly hit the target while big names like Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Kaka were largely disappointing.

China's equivalent of the prognosticating Octopoda is an individual called "X From the Future", who correctly forecast before the World Cup began that Spain would meet Netherlands in the final.

On June 13 he/she wrote on a Baidu forum: "I come from the near future. I know many people will think this is a joke but here are some facts. The evidence (for what I have said) is that the World Cup final will include the Netherlands and Spain."

X From the Future then wrongly predicted a 2-1 victory for the Netherlands, with Sneijder and "someone else from the bench" scoring the Dutch goals.

"I will come back one month later, at that time you will believe everything I say about the future."

Well, he was less prescient than a mollusc but the interesting thing is how quickly X From the Future became an Internet phenomenon.

His fans quickly started calling him "Emperor of the Future" and up to the final on Sunday his post attracted 33.2 million hits, or up to 20,000 a second at one point, and there were nearly 380,000 comments, enough to give him a Baidu Wiki.

So, from zero to hero in four weeks, all on the back of a 15-1 shot at guessing who would win a few soccer matches.

As X From the Future had promised, there was a follow-up post on Monday that admitted: "I do not come from the future, I exist in the real world of an ordinary person."

The honest soothsayer said his prediction came in a dream and then rubbished claims made by his critics, who insisted he was a gambling speculator, an alien or an octopus in disguise.