BellGab.com Archive

It's amazing how you're still wiggling out of this, David.  You want to be taken seriously yet you refuse to freely share your data.  What I posted in my CA analysis above took me an hour.  Surely, if you honestly believe your work, you'll better explain yourself and show exactly how your data support what you say.

I forgot to add until I was falling asleep last night this P.S. -- If your premise is that stronger tides cause earthquakes (that is your basic premise, right? that higher tides trigger (not "cause") earthquakes?) then even if you claim you don't bring in perigee moons, that would be a fatal flaw in your model:  Lunar tides are nearly 40% stronger when the moon's at perigee, so there should be at least some trend with more earthquakes being triggered when the moon's at perigee.  Similarly, the tides are about 11% stronger from the sun when Earth's at perihelion in late January.

Anyway, I'm not going to respond to you anymore until you actually present your data in a cogent manner.  I did.  I'm tired of people such as yourself trying to side-step it when confronted.  It certainly doesn't do you any favors, and at the very least, it makes those of us who are critical thinkers wonder what you're hiding if you won't comply with a simple request to lay out the data that you think makes a clear and obvious case (something about "probabilities of one out of 50 billion for [the earthquakes] to have happened randomly").

David, here is a direct quote from you:  "I looked at the history of the great killer quakes that struck in southern California that struck between Long Beach in '33 and North Ridge in '94 and during those 60 year, uh, during that 60-year duration of the 20th century, 23 large magnitude 6.0 earthquakes or greater struck in Southern California.  Now George, one-third, ONE-THIRD of them struck during the astoundingly thin target window represented by the hours between dawn and dusk during new and full moon near syzygy and or perigee.  That is to say, a third of the killer quakes in southern California struck within a time frame that represents about one-half of one percent of the total time during those 60 years, with the other two-thirds spread all over the clock all over the calendar."  (emphasis mine; this is from your C2C interview on Nov. 14, 2011, starting at 16:02 into the hour)

Again, if you want to make a claim, back it up with the data.  I'm not buying your book to get it.

You want to throw out perigee moons?  Fine.  I'm still showing that earthquakes happening during your definition of dawn and dusk are at chance level, and those that happen within a day of a new or full moon are at chance level.  If you want to say that I'm wrong in my analysis that shows you are wrong, then show us your data or where I made a mistake, it's as simple as that.

And I don't think any government should waste its time investigating something that isn't true.  This gets back to the idea that I often hear from people who make various claims:  "Look at the implications, not at the specifics of what I said or the terminology I use.  Look at the broader idea!"  Problem is, that broad idea is made up of individual pieces.  When those pieces fail to be real, the broader claim falls apart and is not worth looking into.

I really have no desire nor interest in debating.  My interest lies in determining what the data show and whether they support a hypothesis.  From my analysis, they don't.  You are claiming they do.  The proper thing would be to then show your data to determine why we reach different conclusions.  I've looked at your website, and either the link is well hidden or the data are not there.  If you have a direct link to your analysis showing when these quakes occur and when the closest new or full moon is that shows your 1/3 number hitting "during the astoundingly thin target window," I'll follow it.

P.S.  My point in writing all this is not that I'm out to "get" anyone nor "disprove" or "debunk" something.  I would be very happy if there were an obvious, clear, and easy way to predict earthquakes.  I honestly went into this investigation with no idea of what I would find.

What I do have a problem with is when people attack rather than present data.  In that respect, David, you honestly rubbed me the wrong way during your interview.  There's no kinder way to put it - you were ranting against what you see as "the establishment," or to actually quote you, "eminent professors."  To quote another part, you stated:

Quote"The whole idea that earthquake prediction is impossible, that's gotta be ditched right now.  It's absurd on the face of it.  We've measured the background radiation of the Big Bang from 14 years -- 14 billion years ago, that's possible but lonely little earthquake prediction isn't?!  We've cataloged the whole genome of the human race, 3.5 billion combinations.  That wasn't impossible.  Well, who said earthquake prediction was impossible by the way?  Albert Einstein?  Isaac Newton?  I've looked, I can't find it.  A few goofy people at USGS have said it, and then they've latched onto it from 100 years ago and that's been the orthodoxy, the Byzantine orthodoxy that we're sluggishly dragging along into the 21st century."

That entire 49 seconds of airtime has at least five logical fallacies that have nothing to do with the actual data and in no way help your case to anyone who realizes it.  (Non sequiturs abound in it, argument from persecution is present, along with ad hominems, non-argument from authority, and argument from personal incredulity.)  Because my podcast is also about critical thinking, I chose to point them out.

But again, in the end, it's about the data.  Since the data that I found do NOT support your conclusions and the statements that you made, I have requested your data to see where we differ.  This is exactly the same thing that I do in my day job -- if I find results that differ from someone else's, I dig through their research to find out why, and/or I ask them about it.  We then work together to figure out why I got one thing and they got another.

First, since you've now raised this point twice:  Your outrage that I didn't contact you before I did a podcast that included parts of an interview you gave is, well, let's just say somewhat confusing.  Do you honestly expect anyone who writes something that mentions someone has to contact them first?  Did you contact anyone at USGS before you went on Coast in November and ranted against them for several minutes?  Under your logic, you should have done so to allow them to comment before you went on.  I suggest you harbor your emotional energies.  I also suggest that your ranting against USGS and numerous other blatant logical fallacies (non sequiturs, argument from persecution, argument from authority, argument against authority, argument from personal credulity, misuse of statistics, correlation = causation, remembering the hits while forgetting the misses, data mining) do not help your case.

But now, more to the point: the data.  The data should speak for itself.  Even if someone can point to a hypothesis for why something should happen, if the data don't show it, then it needs to be rejected or significantly modified.

I count 29 earthquakes using your definition of southern California, though since 5 of those occurred within 1 day of another, they could probably be considered duplications or after-shocks or just parts of the same one but with a large epicenter -- I chose the bigger of the two.  That's still 24 earthquakes.

Of those 24, I count 8 that occur during the 6 hours that you define as "dawn" or "dusk" (4:45-7:55 AM or PM).  Considering that you're blocking out 6 of 24 hours, one would expect 25% of the 24 earthquakes to occur during that time by chance, which is 6.0±2.4 earthquakes ... basically a ~1-sigma result, which is well within chance.

I then went through and manually found the closest perigee, new, and full moons to each of the 24 earthquakes.  And absolutely positively ZERO of the earthquakes were within one day of BOTH a perigee AND (new OR full) moon.  I found 3 that happened within a day of a new or full moon.  When you define a "hit" as a 4 of 28-day window (±1 day of a new moon, ±1 day of a full moon), then the chance is 14.3%.  14.3% of 24 is 3.4±2.6 expected, and the result is 3±1.7 ... a 1-sigma result, well within chance.  If you reduce the window to ±0.5 days surrounding a new or full moon, you're talking about 2/28, or 1.7±1.3 earthquakes expected, and the actual data are 2±1.4 ... again, a 1-sigma result, well within chance.

I found that 3 occurred within ±1 day of perigee.  Perigees happen roughly once every 28.5 days, so when you define a ±1 day window, you would expect 3.5% to fall within it, which is 0.84±0.92.  A sample of 3 is a 2-sigma result, which means that there's a ~5% chance of that happening randomly.  However, these earthquakes that occurred near perigee were 2.4, 3.7, and 3.3 days from a new or full moon.

Similarly, only two of these that happened near a new or full or perigee moon were within a month of perihelion, when the tides from the sun would be largest ... shouldn't there be a pattern of more earthquakes when we're closest to the sun?

I also count only one earthquake that occurred within dawn or dusk and a full or new moon, and I count two that occurred within dawn or dusk and a perigee moon.

For ZERO of the earthquakes was there both a perigee and new or full moon within 24 hours of each other and the earthquake.  There was, however, one earthquake that was within 33.6 hours of a new and APOGEE moon, when lunar tides are at their minimum, AND when Earth was farthest from the sun.  It occurred 13 days after a perigee and full moon (within 0.94 days of each other).  There was a time an earthquake occurred 2 days after a perigee and full moon that were within 0.05 days of each other, but the quake was 2 days later.

The data for new and full moons comes from the Lunar Perigee and Apogee Moon Calculator.

So, David, care to share your data?  I've shared mine and my sources (
original writeup ||
California data detailed).  Remember: Scientists share their data, they don't tell people to go buy their book to find it.

I'm not going to respond to the details of David's post at the moment, but I will point out that he has not answered the questions posed when he commented on my podcast.  If he would like to continue, we asked him:

- Which specific earthquakes did you use in your analysis?
- Why do you define dawn and dusk as set times and not use the astronomical definition?
- What is your definition of Degree Syzygy? Does it incorporate Right Ascension only or does it include Declination?
- What did you use to determine the Moon's position for your calculations?
- Have you looked at the statistics document I wrote?
- Have you done statistics on what the null hypothesis would be?
- Why do your limit your list of quakes to southern California? Why not the entire world?
- What happens to your claimed pattern after 1994? Before 1933?

- The Moon was 30° from the Sun in RA during the Landers quake. None of the other angular distances from the Sun for the remaining quakes are less than the value of your "Degrees Syzygy", whatever that is. They range from 1.3° up to 17°. And that is just in RA; the angles would often be greater if Declination were included.


Basically, you made a claim, and a fairly pointed one that should be easy to show is valid.  In my own independent analysis, I found the evidence for it lacking.  I have posted my own analysis of the earthquake data, free for anyone to take a look at and analyze themselves -- do you find faults with it, and if so, what are they specifically?  When you criticized my analysis of the information you relayed in your interview, we started to dig deeper into it and came up with the questions above.  Please answer them.

Regarding the delay ... When I called in on Monday, the delay on my phone line was maybe 1 second.  Between my phone and the KOA online radio station out of Denver that I was listening to, the delay was roughly 70 seconds.  Between KOA and a station a friend was listening to in Wyoming, the delay was another 15 seconds or so.

Quote from: someguy on September 27, 2012, 05:36:46 PMThis is totally true. Art Bell would always be like "Now there's a great time for a cliffhanger! We'll be back!" and he'd pick the thread back up. Noory literally stammers and cuts people off, then goes into something totally unrelated when the show comes back.

The one time I was on a lengthy (4-hr) radio program, I was in-studio (the woman's basement).  I actually wrote down what we were discussing before each break and reminded her during the bumper music coming back so that it was cohesive.  George not picking up where they left off, despite the promise to do so, always annoys me.

If anyone is interested in just my stuff with Mike,
I've clipped their official version down to just my part, 7:06 long.  You can go to just the directory (/media/) and right-click on the file to download if you want to do that directly.  And actually, Bara and I are really only in the first ~4-5 minutes, the rest is Mike ranting against Skeptics but George for once trying to appear balanced.

Quote from: NoMoreNoory on September 25, 2012, 11:54:19 AMAnd last night, introducing Mike Bara, he referred to his:
'artificial study of structures on the moon.'
Well, if it's an artificial study, George, we should ignore it and move on to a real study of artificial structures on the moon, shouldn't we?

Yeah, caught that.  I smiled.

Thanks folks.

ziznak - Yup, he pretty much dodged that.

Morgus - We'll see.  I'll follow-up in a few days if they don't.  Need to remember to keep my cell phone with me.

RedMichael - Thanks.  That was really my goal, to not "win" 'cause it's their turf, but to post questions - that to anyone who could think for themselves - would force Mike to not directly answer or answer with conspiracy.  Or say that he doesn't have the evidence.

Also, I really wanted to follow-up on the claim he made about the Japanese craft's images, since, um, yeah ... if you use low-res low-quality JPGs, there are going to be artifacts.  Try getting the actual full image and there aren't.

I was going to respond to the Japanese artifacts claim, but they cut me off.  Wanted to say that yeah, you're going to get artifacts when you use a low-resolution JPG image to work from.

And no, I'm not the one who sent those.

They cut me off after I said my last thing.  And Tom (I assume Tom) took my cell phone number.

Quote from: Morgus on September 25, 2012, 02:41:36 AM
This caller says his real name is 'Dan' not Stuart...

Yeah.  This is the first time I've heard Mike make this particular claim.  I haven't listened to his paracast interview from last night, though, yet.  I just got back from a conference and am catching up on stuff ...

Quote from: ziznak on September 25, 2012, 02:33:49 AM
i hope you get on astro.  I'm guessing they will need to give mike the heads up and get approval or something? Being that you were already mentioned by name and George was saying it would only be right to hear you out I can't see how they wouldnt take this opportunity to seem inpartial.

If I don't get on, I will follow-up with them on Wednesday or so.

Quote from: Morgus on September 25, 2012, 02:19:55 AM
Noory just asked Bara what some of the skeptics/debunkers say about his theories...

Yeah.  Mike doesn't realize that I withhold judgement of a claim until there is evidence for that.  Until there is evidence for it, I accept the null hypothesis.  In this case, that's that there is no ziggy.

Quote from: Morgus on September 25, 2012, 02:18:51 AM
If you call in with skype, remember Noory warned last week that Tommy watches you on the video feed and doesn't allow people that are naked.

I'm clothed, and I also don't have a video camera on this computer.

Got in on a wild card line.  He took my name 3x, though could be 'cause he said I spoke too quickly.  I'm on hold now, possibly for the next 40 minutes until the end of the program.  We'll see now.

Ah, didn't have him added.  Now I have an add request pending.  Thought I could call without him being added.  He shows up as a grey question mark to me

So how the heck do I call the Skype line?  Is it even open?

I didn't hear "wacko," but I heard "hater."  George also just said that he'll have to have me on.

Yeah.  Interesting that he's talking about this anybody thing was me.  I have no idea what he's talking about.  So, it could be someone impersonating me or whatever.

Ah, he's now talking about me!

Among other things, Mike just claimed that pareidolia doesn't exist and that the term was invented in the 1990s.  Too bad he's wrong.

Factually wrong:  Apollo 17 was not at 19.5°, it was at 20.2°N.

Factually wrong:  Apollo 17 was not the only landing away from the equator, and was not the farthest from the equator.  Apollo 15 landed at 26.1°N.

According to Mike Bara, glass is 2x stronger than steel in a microgravity dry environment.  WTF?  Carbon steel on Earth has a tensile strength 25.5x more than glass, so he'd have to increase the tensile strength of glass by 51x for this to be true.

Quote from: ChewMouse on September 24, 2012, 11:55:42 PM
I agree with Morgus on the timing, but I'm willing to bet that you're on some kind of list (maybe a short list) of people that Bara provided to the screener as "don't let this one on the air!"

Are you going to identify yourself honestly? If lying is an issue, maybe you have a middle name you can use? Or you could say you must be anonymous, that might actually work in your favor.

I plan on being open about this.  If I'm in some way caught in a lie or being deceitful (and Mike claims he watched my video debunking of the ziggurat so may recognize my voice), it can only make me look worse.  After all, he accuses me of having no intellectual honesty, and I don't have any plans to help make his case.  I figure if C2C hopes to have any intellectual honesty itself, that they'll let me through if Mike spends any portion complaining about me (he spent ~75% of his 2-hr interview with Melissa Morton ranting against me).

That said, if anyone else would like to call in for me (as in, try calling in so we have more people challenging him), ask one or both of these questions, as they are the key ones:

1. What would it take to falsify your belief in the ziggurat?  Follow-up if the answer is effectively "nothing" or something we can't possibly do at this point:  Then his statements are effectively a religious belief and not science because science requires the ability to falsify a claim with evidence.

2. Why do you only believe an image from a video game forum that can't be independently verified versus all other images from all other spacecraft, including non-NASA ones?

Quote from: Morgus on September 24, 2012, 11:45:57 PM
Usually the last hour of the show is when Noory takes callers.
But sometimes its an hour before that if he cuts the guest down to 2 hours or runs out of his own questions early.
Have to listen to the show live to be sure and when Noory says he is taking callers.
You have to get thru the screener too, who make sure you are not anti-guest...

I thought that the phone lines "light up" well before they start to take calls, or at least that's what George sometimes says ("all the phone lines are lit and we're not even going to take callers for an hour!").

And yeah, I know I'd need to get through a screener, and I will be open that I will challenge the guest.  But, I'm only going to do this if Mikey names me or alludes to me (he has in the last 3 interviews he's done in the last month).

Quote from: Morgus on September 24, 2012, 11:44:23 PM
That longtime annoying caller "Bill from West Hartford, Conn" who always remind us he is an atheist amateur astronomer called in again in the first hour tonight.
Tonight he revealed he is the same age as Noory (62)

Yeah, but at least he asked a non-stupid question unlike Linda is doing now (or whatever her name is).

If I want to call in tonight and ask Mike a question, at what time would you recommend calling into the Skype line?  during hour 3?

Bara has had that up since the interview with Mrs. Morton.