September 28, 2004

Woman's Singing Teeth and Shar Pei Predict Earthquake

Scientists Have New Tool in Irene Wilson and Pug Ugly

About 11 a.m. eastern time yesterday, Pug Ugly, the Shar Pei hired by the U.S. Geological Survey to predict earthquakes and asteroid passes, began telling her people that an earthquake was coming. She lives in Lexington, Virginia, and while her accuracy is good, she can't communicate where the earthquake might strike.

A few minutes later, Irene Wilson, 83, who has lived in Parkfield, California all her life, called Pug Ugly's owner, Julia Griswold and announced: "My teeth are humming. There's a quake coming real soon."

The dog's signals and Irene's teeth were all the confirmation the two women needed. They immediately arranged a conference call to the U.S. Geological Survey office in Meno Park, south of San Francisco. They told the USGS scientists that there was a high probability of an earthquake along the San Andreas Fault, probably somewhere in the Parkfield area.

Sure enough, two hours later an earthquake of Richter magnitude 6.0 struck seven miles southeast of Parkfield. There were no reports of serious damage or injuries, although 6.0 earthquakes sometimes cause extensive damage.

The combination of Pug Ugly and Irene Wilson as earthquake prognosticators has been a pleasant surprise for USGS scientists. When they hired Pug Ugly early this year, they had no idea she would team up with Irene Wilson's teeth.

Mrs. Wilson's teeth have been predicting California earthquakes since the early 1970s when she had extensive dental work done. Before the dental work, her teeth had no predictive powers. Afterwards, her teeth began to hum whenever a California earthquake of any serious magnitude was about to strike.

"At first, when my teeth would hum, I had no idea anything was going on. It took me several years to even make a connection between earthquakes and my singing teeth," she said.

After she made the connection, it took considerable time to convince earthquake scientists and public officials that she had a predictive power they might find useful. She is now regularly consulted by USGS and university scientists and has standing orders to call anytime her teeth begin singing.

The ability of animals to predict earthquakes and asteroids that will pass close to earth has begun to be widely accepted by scientists. Two years ago, USGS scientists began a search for an animal with significant asteroid and earthquake predictive powers. They eventually settled upon Pug Ugly.

The Shar Pei successfully predicted asteroid 2004 FH, which passed within 26,500 miles of earth last March. Pug Ugly also predicted the devastating earthquake that struck the Iranian city of Bam last year.

Curious about whether the dog and the teeth might team up, the scientists arranged for the two to spend time together. They successfully predicted the Paso Robles, California earthquake last December, but only about 15 minutes in advance. Their prediction wasn't relayed to scientists until after the earthquake.

The two-hour lead time for their prediction Tuesday would appear to give Pug Ugly and Mrs. Wilson added credibility. But their success highlights an issue earthquake scientists have grappled with for some time. If you have a predictive capability that can say more or less where and when an earthquake might strike, when do you begin making it available to the public?

More troublesome in the case of Pug Ugly and Irene Wilson, how do you get the public to take seriously the predictions made by a dog in Virginia and the singing teeth of an elderly woman in California?

"The public might not be ready for this, just yet," a USGS scientist admitted recently.

Copyright 2003-2004 William Stockton & Smithtown Creek Productions
All Rights Reserved
satire | humor | comedy | parody| satirical headlines