Earthquakes and UFOs

[The Mighty Thor]

I've heard theories that reports of UFOs and "balls of light" increase before major earthquakes.

So, is this

Rash of UFOs in Eastern Hemisphere
Witnesses see action in skies of Indonesia, China, Australia
Posted: December 20, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42008

possibly related to this?

Asia reels from tides and tremors

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4125481.stm

If so, could this information be used to predict earthquakes?

 

[SezMe]

If so, could this information be used to predict earthquakes?

Sure, as long as you don't care about the accuracy of the predictions.

 

[CFLarsen]

Let's first find correlation. Then, we can worry about causation!

 

[The Mighty Thor]

Yep. Probably a coincidence.

I remember watching a programme about a chap who was investigating ball lightning. It was him who saw a link between increase in UFO / ball lightning sightings and subsequent earthquakes.

Was Michael Persinger involved with the suggestion?

Anyway, I was just reading about the Indonesian sightings and a possible meteor impact near Jakarta when the earthquake news came on TV. What's that fallacy called, again?

 

[The Mighty Thor]

Let's first find correlation. Then, we can worry about causation!

Yep. And I should have made it clear that I meant UFO's in the sense of unidentified balls of light, not alien spacecraft.

 

[Bikewer]

I remember reading something on this, along the lines of electromagnetic discharge from the buildup of stresses. Been years, though.
Either Skeptical Inquirer or perhaps the old Omni.

 

[swstephe]

the very slight connection

some people i was with, (in south east asia), were joking that the americans would blame the tsunamis on al qaeda or terrorists. i remembered the big meteor explosion exactly one week before the earthquake and joked about there being a connection and that it was caused by aliens.

the connection is that the indonesian news didn't report on either events at all. it was all game shows and soap operas. i think many lives could have been saved if they had broken in with news of the earthquake and tsunami warnings. i guess they were more concerned about their sponsor's dollars or panic or something.

but now the american news is starting to blame "human activity", (building next to the ocean -- excuse me ... they live on islands, you can't get very far from the ocean -- and nothing like this has happened since krakatoa). there are even more nutty people who have picked up on the report that the rotation of the earth was affected, (it was), and saying it will change the length of a day, (it won't).

 

[The Mighty Thor]

I remember reading something on this, along the lines of electromagnetic discharge from the buildup of stresses. Been years, though.
Either Skeptical Inquirer or perhaps the old Omni.

Thanks for confirming I didn't imagine seeing a documentary on this. The theory was indeed as you say. I seem to remember they had set up a "rock" to explode under pressure and managed to film a spark of light as it did.

I'm sure one of the experimenters showed a computer program that showed recent (at the time) increased sightings of light phenomena (UFO's, balls of light, etc.) They predicted that a plot of quakes over the same time and area would correspond, and so they did.

In the program was a guy who produced "ball lightning" using very high voltage (?) equipment.

I could have sworn Michael Persinger appeared on the program.

Of course, it was described as a theory, not a fact, that the two might be connected.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Many minerals exhibit piezoelectric behaviour. Squeeze 'em and you get current flow. Triboluminescence also occurs (squeeze 'em and they emit light). Simple examples are the "Sparking" quartz you often see in tourist shops- bang a couple of these quartz vein chunks together and you will see a faint glow within the mineral. (If you want external- oxidation sparks, try steel and pyrite.)

Now if you apply tectonic level stress along a region which is actually competent- ie hard (and probably crystalline), as opposed to soft, plastically deformable ocean floor gook, there is a real possibility of generating very high electrical discharges.

So far, so geologically feasible. For what happens next, you need a physicist.

While I find nothing inherently unreasonable about the idea that tectonic stress has electromagnetic effects, some of which may be visible, I know no geologist who has actually witnessed them.

Perhaps Fishbob or some of the other geofolk here have?

 

[The Mighty Thor]

Many minerals exhibit piezoelectric behaviour. Squeeze 'em and you get current flow. Triboluminescence also occurs (squeeze 'em and they emit light). Simple examples are the "Sparking" quartz you often see in tourist shops- bang a couple of these quartz vein chunks together and you will see a faint glow within the mineral. (If you want external- oxidation sparks, try steel and pyrite.)

Now if you apply tectonic level stress along a region which is actually competent- ie hard (and probably crystalline), as opposed to soft, plastically deformable ocean floor gook, there is a real possibility of generating very high electrical discharges.

So far, so geologically feasible. For what happens next, you need a physicist.

While I find nothing inherently unreasonable about the idea that tectonic stress has electromagnetic effects, some of which may be visible, I know no geologist who has actually witnessed them.

Perhaps Fishbob or some of the other geofolk here have?

Thanks for the explanation. It is one of those theories that sounds SO plausible and yet it might be total rubbish. Reading Lewis Wolpert's "The Unnatural Nature of Science" is a sobering experience.

Are there any geological faults near Bonnybridge?

And, seriously, is there a fault line that runs right through Scotland? Has it been active? I don't ever remember an earthquake en Ecosse in fifty years.

But (joking again) David Ike did say that Arran would be destroyed by an earthquake. I guess the meals at "Stalkers" were too much for him.

 

[The Mighty Thor]

At last I found the reference to Persinger's theory in the Skeptik's Dictionary:

Persinger claims that his TST is not meant to debunk UFO claims but to provide a means of predicting earthquakes. "Persinger has apparently done a computer analysis of about 3,000 UFO sightings and has found that many of them occurred weeks or months before the start of earth tremors."*

http://skepdic.com/alp.html

 

[Correa Neto]

...snip...While I find nothing inherently unreasonable about the idea that tectonic stress has electromagnetic effects, some of which may be visible, I know no geologist who has actually witnessed them.

Perhaps Fishbob or some of the other geofolk here have?

I saw my share of weird lights in the night sky, but nothing really unexplainable. And nothing that could, I belive, be a possible Earth Light. But some points must be made:
(i) Brazil is not exactly the most seismically active area in the world;
(ii) I acknowledge its very vague, but I remember seeing a documentary on Discovery channel ages ago where a guy placed some cameras near a fault line (in USA, I guess) and managed to obtain some footage;
(iii) I really don´t belive one can find an area in the world where there are no faults, even if inactive ones. If I recall correctly the idea of the earth lights, a key factor would be the presence of quartz-rich rocks at the fault zone. Theoretically, relatively small stresses could be enought to create the Earth Lights, without no need for major movment along the fault. This could allow the phenomena, provided its real, to happen in many areas where no major seismic activity is present.
(iv) If the phenomea is real, wouldn´t one expect it to happen also close to volcanic areas?

 

[Soapy Sam]

Mighty Thor. There are faults all over Scotland. Three of the biggest are The Southern Upland fault, Highland Boundary Fault and Great Glen fault. The Midland Valley coalfields are riddled with them. (Including Bonnybrig- but I reckon Turnhouse and Buckfast are the explanations for most lights in the sky around there).
Some of these are very old lines of crustal weakness, along which immense movement has taken place over half a billion years or more- the GGF especially. Iona is OLD. Who knows where it started on it's world wanderings? The most recent shifts are post ice age, due to removal of stresses caused by the ice, and occasionally by mining.

One of the first seismic stations in the world was at Comrie , on the HBF. There are microtremors every day. The most recent big quakes were centred on faults in Galloway and in the Minch. Hardly disastrous, they rated 3-4 on the Richter scale. A few chimney pots tumbled.

I heard rumours of earthlights related to the HBF years ago, but it turned out to be a third hand story. I know of no reliable evidence of any such phenomena in Scotland- or anywhere. The theory seems credible, but unproven so far as I know.

I think CN's point (iii) above is the one to watch.

Explanatory edit- Turnhouse: Edinburgh Airport. Buckfast: Fortified wine. Favourite tipple of Scottish UFOlogists.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't ever remember an earthquake en Ecosse in fifty years.

I hate to say this, but there was one exactly 25 years ago. There were two tremors, the first woke me and I felt the second. Ignoring the fact that we had just moved into a house in a road labelled "liable to subsidence, closed to heavy traffic" (due to old mine workings), and that we were only a couple of miles from a (now-defunct) steel works with potential for major fireworks, I just thought, oh, a minor earth tremor, and went back to sleep.

In the morning, those who had slept through it accused those of us who'd felt it of having imbibed too freely of the festive fare. Because, guess what, it was Boxing Day it happened.

OK, I believe the epicentre was in England, near Carlisle, so maybe it doesn't count. But I believe there are frequent small movements in the three faults that run through Scotland.

Hey, Bam happened on Boxing Day too. What is it with Boxing Day and earthquakes?

Rolfe.

 

[The Mighty Thor]

Mighty Thor. There are faults all over Scotland. Three of the biggest are The Southern Upland fault, Highland Boundary Fault and Great Glen fault. The Midland Valley coalfields are riddled with them. (Including Bonnybrig- but I reckon Turnhouse and Buckfast are the explanations for most lights in the sky around there).
Some of these are very old lines of crustal weakness, along which immense movement has taken place over half a billion years or more- the GGF especially. Iona is OLD. Who knows where it started on it's world wanderings? The most recent shifts are post ice age, due to removal of stresses caused by the ice, and occasionally by mining.

One of the first seismic stations in the world was at Comrie , on the HBF. There are microtremors every day. The most recent big quakes were centred on faults in Galloway and in the Minch. Hardly disastrous, they rated 3-4 on the Richter scale. A few chimney pots tumbled.

I heard rumours of earthlights related to the HBF years ago, but it turned out to be a third hand story. I know of no reliable evidence of any such phenomena in Scotland- or anywhere. The theory seems credible, but unproven so far as I know.

I think CN's point (iii) above is the one to watch.

Explanatory edit- Turnhouse: Edinburgh Airport. Buckfast: Fortified wine. Favourite tipple of Scottish UFOlogists.

Soapy

Many thanks for that rundown. I knew nothing about the geology of Scotland except in very general terms. I looked up some stuff on google, and now I find the subject absolutely fascinating. So, it seems that the landmass we call Scotland did a bit of travelling, at one point being south of the equator, then up near Canada. And the arrival of England was the cause of the folding that became the Highlands.

This would be fascinating stuff for the last years of Primary school, never mind High school. It would really make kids aware of how our planet changes over millions of years, and how it can still change violently and suddenly.

But what did we get? How to make puppets out of papier mache, and a finish to that darned spelling book that ended with "Egypt". Not to forget "Singing Together".

And the Scottish education system used to be classed as the best in the world.