My friend Jessica “I drink whiskey and dance” Pace sent this to me today, and I find it interesting. Read it, fool! I find this kind of stuff amazing.
BEIJING - First, the water level in a pond inexplicably plunged. Then, thousands of toads appeared on streets in a nearby province. Finally, just hours before China’s worst earthquake in three decades, animals at a local zoo began acting strangely.
As bodies are pulled from the wreckage of Monday’s quake, Chinese online chat rooms and blogs are buzzing with a question: Why didn’t these natural signs alert the government that a disaster was coming?
The fact that many of these signs were ignored boggles my mind.
I whole heartedly believe that animals can predict earthquakes. I have been in several earthquakes and have observed crazy animals. During the last big earthquake in seattle, about….8 years ago, I was sitting in my house and all of a sudden molly started barking really loud, ran down the stairs and right into the back door. She started whimpering and pawing the glass. I let her out and she ran into the most open part of the lawn and laid down. About 2 minutes later the earthquake hit and shook all of the water out of my pond. Molly kept laying on the lawn for about 5 minutes after its over.
Just so you all know, Molly is my dog.
The idea that animals can perceive things that most of us lowly humans cannot should be nothing new to anyone. From a wide assortment of animals using the earths magnetic field to navigate to insects seeing in the ultraviolet or infrared spectrum to super hearing or smell to spider-mans lack of ability to perceive the crappyness of a script, animals have us beat in the sensing department in almost every instance. I have no problem believing that animals who are sensitive to these things can perceive the mild electromagnetic fields created when rocks are compressed or broken, or the mild shocks that are far to weak for us to feel that would normally precede an earthquake.
Unfortunately modern science is so pig-headed and stubbornly stuck on technology as a means of deduction they fail to realize a source of insight that is right under their nose.
this is from jessica, by proxy through me:
Did you also know that shrimp can see in 12 primary colors? I’m so jealous… Like… a lot. Wow. profound. awesome. go me.
I’ve always noted my animals acting strange when something is about to occur. I find it idiotic that those signs are ignored as well. Funny how creatures who have been on this earth the longest can survive quite easily without any technology, yet our massive advances in the world of science and space and what have you can’t save us from saving others.
I think its possible that we can retrain our senses to become more aware, we’ve just been raised in such an environment that we rely on external stimuli to entertain and communicate, rather than listening internally, about everything. What do OTHER people think I should do, wear, eat, say, etc. etc. When in reality (and this can be taken on all levels) we should be focusing internally and seeing what we can take from within and our surroundings.
I guess I have been label hypersensitive, by myself and others, which makes sense, but I feel that at times I have the extreme upper hand with which i can be very intouch with my surrounds and subconcious occourances. (interesting article on that: http://www.swedish.org/17003.cfm)
see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_children (you might think thats witchcraft. IDK)
AND…. back to nanimals on a completely different tip: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1282796533661048967
I haven’t watched it yet, but you’re smart. Tell me what you think.
I bet it works now…
god damnit!
Yeah but thinking further forward, you gotta wonder, does it really matter? Even if you know it’s coming, Theres not really much you can do to stop it.
but an interesting thing about earthquakes, they just came out with a nifty lil tech document the other day (that i was bored enough to go through)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_wa_seismic_seattle.html
You can do as much damage control as possible (IE: evacuation. and perperation for after the quake.) Knowledge is power! Yeah school house rock!
Boy, the Chinese Department of Watching Animals in Case They do Crazy Shit which Might Predict an Earthquake really dropped the ball on that one.
Questions I would have for these bloggers who expect the chinese government to be omniscient: Which animals should they be watching? Whats the earthquake detection mechanism? What’s the behavior that alerts us? Should cities of millions be evacuated every time a toad does something weird?
Fact is, weird shit happen every day. You’re just more likely to remember it when the world happens to fall apart immediately afterward.
I agree completely, bone and Shauk. I just think its kinda neat that animals can see these things coming, thats all.
too bad that you specified Molly as your dog. I liked the idea of thinking that you could have a girlfriend THAT smart.
hasn’t happened yet.