Roger advises us skeptics to "be patient." We have been. For years. As Petra's posts become more and more preening and self-congratulatory, it seems that perhaps she should be advised to be patient - to wait until the data to support her claims are in.

Petra's position is like that of a person who asserts that they have captured a unicorn, or invented a perpetual motion machine, without ever producing said chimeras. The analogy is furthered by the fanciful nature of her supposed discovery. The signals she claims to hear do not follow any of the known rules of propogation of sound, electromagnetic waves nor anything else known to science. They do not follow the inverse square law which seems near-universal, and, most telling, they carry far more information than any naturally-produced signal could conceivably carry.

Following the dictates of Occam's Razor has served the cause of reason well in the past. The simplest, most direct explanation of a phenomenon is the one most likely to be correct. Ear tones are far more likely to be physiological in origin than to be precursory phenomena. SHOW US THE UNICORN! For now, I'm going to have to believe that the Empress' new clothes are nonexistent, not invisible.

Granted that this board was established for the purpose of alternative prediction discussion. I am in no way trying to keep Pera quiet or to ask her to take her postings elsewhere. But as long as she continues making such outrageous claims in a public forum, viewed by so many, it is a social responsibility for those of us in the reality-based community to voice our doubts.

BTW, I also get ear tones exactly like those described by Petra. Around once a month or so I experience, in one ear, a sudden quietness (muffling of ambient noise), followed within one or two seconds by a remarkably steady, high-pitched tone. The tone lasts from two to ten seconds before suddenly stopping, and is so pure that it seems to have been generated by an elecronic device. I can see why people might conjure up extraordinary explanations for it, since it seems highly unnatural. Given that, and the natural tendency for the human neural network to see patterns where none exist, I think we have a naturalistic explanation for what is going on here that doesn't require great leaps of faith. I've been informally studying seismology for decades, including at least daily checks on California earthquake locations, and have never noticed any significan correlation beween quakes and my own ear tones.

Mike Williams in Arroyo Grande, CA