Some Comments – December 9, 2012

Hi Shan,

Thanks for the confirmation and comments.

Farther down in this posting there are some comments regarding that Japan earthquake. In this first section I am going to say something about one of the things I have been working on the past week or two.

This is a secondary type of URL for my earthquake forecasting Web page:

http://www.freewebs.com/eq-forecasting/Data.html

The recommendation on that Web page is that after people visit it they should in the future go directly to my Web site where the actual data are stored. That Freewebs site has download limitations. So the chart displayed there is called from one of my main Web sites. Only the text is on that Freewebs page. And that doesn’t require any bandwidth to download. Graphics charts do.

That Web page and my main Web page are undergoing a significant update so that more forecasting data are displayed. Since my main site essentially does not have any download limits, as many charts as desired can be displayed.

What I have been trying to decide on is what data to display and exactly what to say about them.

It has been my opinion for quite a while that in international circles I have a sufficiently high earthquake forecasting credibility rating that I need to be extremely careful about what I say regarding approaching earthquakes so that the general public don’t go into a panic. And if that credibility rating was actually not that high before my December 5, 2012 forecast for a Japan area earthquake then it certainly is now!

For example, when the 2002 Baseball World Series were being played on the U.S. West Coast, international news service personnel called me beforehand and asked if I thought that the games might be interrupted by an earthquake as they were back in 1989. I checked my data and told them, “Play Ball.” And I believe that that information then made it into an internationally circulated news report.

The new data that I want to display at my Web site are a lot more detailed than what are there now. And they could be considerably more frightening to the general public. One needs to remember that children visit Web sites like that. And they wouldn’t understand what scientists are talking about when they discuss earthquake forecasts in terms of probabilities.

So, what I am planning to do is use a public relations procedure that I believe will work.

In E-mail Earthquake Warnings etc. and notes posted to private bulletin boards and perhaps even in a few Newsgroup I will explain what the new data at my Web site mean. However, on the Web pages themselves there will be only some general information regarding the significance of the data.

Believe it or not, that actually works. People in the general public, especially children, visit Web sites and don’t spend too much time trying to decipher what the information stored there might mean. If it isn’t extremely clear at first look it gets ignored.

So, people who need to know what those data mean will understand them. Everyone else will probably ignore them. Anyway, that is the theory. That approach has worked in the past.

THE DECEMBER 7, 2012 JAPAN EARTHQUAKE

It is my intention to circulate an E-mail update for my December 5, 2012 prediction for a Japan area earthquake. However, it is going to take me part of a week to get to that for the following reason in addition to the fact that I am creating an update for my forecasting Web page.

I have been reviewing forecast data sent to me by people around the world both before and after that Japan earthquake. And it is overwhelming to the point of being frightening.

Many of those data were sent to me in confidence. So, I can’t discuss them in detail or state who sent them to me. But I can say the following:

The agreement between some of those data and my own data are STUNNING !!!

They are so shocking that I hardly even know what to say about them.

One thing that I can say is that considering what I have seen, if the sun shadow forecasting method you have developed DID NOT detect the approach of that December 7, 2012 Japan earthquake then I would have been quite surprised!

Another thing is that other forecasting personnel were also watching the Japan area for expected approaching seismic activity at that time.

And finally, I will remind people that in one of his postings to this bulletin board, Amit Dave predicted that December 6, 2012 would be a high probability date for an earthquake if I understand his data correctly. So, he was fairly close with the time.

I have a copy of your Web page with that forecast information you have listed there. And if you don’t object I will circulate part of your Web page with my E-mail Japan prediction update to once again tell earthquake researchers around the world that they should be trying to duplicate and use the forecasting method you have developed.

My “These are personal opinions” statements at the end of my notes are legal disclaimers of a sort. They make it clear that the data represent opinions rather than established fact. And here in the U.S., that can have some importance.