Observation of Animal Behavior in the Prediction of Unnatural Disasters

by Servando Gonzalez

On December 26, 2004, a tsunami killed thousands of people in Asia and East Africa. But wildlife officials reported almost no deaths among the animals at Sri Lanka's Yala National Park, a wildlife reserve populated by hundreds of wild animals including elephants, leopards, and monkeys. Some scientists believe that these animals sensed the danger long before humans and managed to escape to safe ground.

But the fact that animals, for some unknown reason, can predict natural disasters is not new. In 373 B.C. historians recorded that animals, including rats, snakes and weasels, deserted the Greek city of Helice in droves just days before a quake devastated the place. This may be the first recorded instance of such reporting.

Accounts of similar animal anticipation of earthquakes and other natural disasters have been mentioned across the centuries since. Catfish moving violently, chickens that stop laying eggs and bees leaving their hive in a panic have been reported. Countless pet owners claimed to have witnessed their cats and dogs acting strangely before the ground shook -- barking or whining for no apparent reason, or showing signs of nervousness and restlessness.

It is also known that several countries have successfully predicted the occurrence of natural disasters by the careful observation of the behavior of animals, China and Japan among them. In 1975 Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city had not been evacuated, it is estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000. In September 2003 a medical doctor in Japan published a study indicating that erratic behavior in dogs, such as excessive barking or biting, could be used to forecast quakes.

Of late, some scientists have been studying the behavior of animals for the prediction of natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc. Chinese scientists continue to look at animal behavior as an aid to earthquake prediction. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake, author of the books, Dogs that Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and The Sense of Being Stared At, mentions that the Chinese have had several notable successes and also a few false alarms. Nevertheless, he has done his own study looking at animal behavior before major earthquakes, including the Northridge, California, quake in 1994, and the Greek and Turkish quakes in 1999. In all cases, he said, there were reports of peculiar behavior beforehand, including dogs mysteriously howling in the night, caged birds becoming restless, and nervous cats hiding.

More research is needed and is long overdue, said Sheldrake, but the results may be promising and could save uncountable human lives. Therefore, he proposes “a special hotline or Web site where people could call or write in if they saw strange behavior in their animals. A computer would then analyze the incoming messages to determine where they originated. A sudden surge of calls or e-mails from a particular region might indicate that a quake was imminent.”

The information would be checked to make sure the observations were not caused by other circumstances known to affect the behavior of animals, such as fireworks, or changes in weather. And to avoid issuing false warnings, Sheldrake said, the data would be used in conjunction with other monitoring devices such as seismological measurements.

"Such a project would capture the imagination of millions of people, encourage large-scale public participation and research—and would be fun," he said. "What is holding this research back is not money but dogmatism and narrow-mindedness."

But, what about the prediction unnatural disasters? Is there a way to predict the occurrence of these events? Well, there might be.

I am advancing a new hypothesis relating to the observation of animals for the prediction of unnatural disasters, particularly terrorist attacks. But, these predictions will be based on the observation of two-legged animals, namely humans.

The fact that some humans have shown strange behavior before the occurrence of a terrorist attack is well known and has been extensively documented. For example, it was widely reported that, eight hours before the September 11 events, San Francisco mayor Willie Brown received a strange call, from whom he described as his airport security, (later it was known that it was from Condy Rice, who apparently was moonlighting as a baggage handler at SFO) advising him to be cautious about air traveling.

In the same fashion, it became known that, just four days before the 9/11 events, Florida governor Jeb Bush signed an executive order authorizing the use of the Florida National Guard in the event of “acts of terrorism.”

But Willie Brown and Jeb Bush were not the only ones. It was reported that Attorney General John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial airliners in the weeks before September 11. Even more revealing is the fact that, though the Pentagon is perhaps the building housing more generals per square feet, no general was reported hurt after the 9/11 attack to the Pentagon. Some people have speculated that the generals got their foreknowledge from an ultra secret Pentagon experiment in extra sensory perception and remote viewing.

Actually, far from being isolated incidents, these cases of estrange human behavior prior to an unnatural disaster abound. On October 2005, a terrorist attack on New York’s subway was thwarted when some highly placed officials in the Department of Homeland Security sent e-mails to their relatives and close friends to stay out of the subway from October 7 through 10th. Some of the recipients of the e-mails in turn send e-mails to their friends, thus starting an informational chain reaction. Eventually, the information reached the Mayor’s office, who apparently had been left out of the loop. He immediately ordered to put thousands of extra police officers on patrol in the subways. Once they discovered that the cat was out of the bag, the officials at the Department of Homeland Security downplayed the threat, and called it a hoax.

More recently, on the day of the London bombings, Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netannyahu, who was in Scotland attending a G8 meeting and was on his way to a London hotel to speak in a conference, was instructed by British authorities to stay put and not going anywhere. A few minutes later an explosion destroyed the Liverpool Street subway station, close to the hotel, killing many Londoners.

Also, it is interesting to note that the day the Alfred B. Murrah building was destroyed in Oklahoma City, no ATF of FBI field agents, normally working in the building offices, were hurt, because they had called in sick that day. In the same fashion, despite the fact that the largest CIA office in Manhattan was located in one of the World Trade Center buildings, no CIA field agent was reported killed on September 11. Also, even though the WTC was located very close to Wall Street, no senior banker was hurt in the WTC disaster. Moreover, in the cases of the Murrah building, the WTC attack, and the London bombings, there had been simulation exercises previous to the “terrorist” attacks.

Last, but not least, there are some types of two-legged animals who, year after year, have been predicting unnatural phenomena with an extraordinary accuracy. I am talking about members the Council on Foreign Relations.

Just a couple of years after the end of WWII, CFR member George Kennan predicted the beginning of a Cold War with the Soviet Union and, Bingo!, a few moths later the Cold War had begun.

In 1974 Henry Kissinger wrote, National Security Study Memorandum 200, a classified study about the need to stop Africans from consuming the natural resources of their countries. As if on clue, next year good Comandante Fidel sent his troops to “liberate” Africa from Yankee imperialism.

A few months after the Castroite troops gained control of Angola, the country became one of the main commercial partners of the U.S. in Africa. The Chase Manhattan Bank, the Bankers Trust, the Citibank, and the Morgan Guaranty, gave large loans to Angola. General Motors, General Tire, Caterpillar, Boeing, IBM, NCR, Pfizer, Xerox, and other American companies bloomed in Angola. 95 percent of Angola’s oil was exported to the West. Half of the production of the Gulf Oil in Angola ended up in American refineries.

In 1993 CFR member Samuel P. Huntington predicted the coming clash of civilizations, and we are currently in the midst of it. Just a few days ago, in a CFR-sponsored online debate, CFR members Michael Levi and Graham T. Allison discussed the possibility of the detonation of a nuclear device in a major American city. Having in mind the CFR’s uncanny ability for predicting unnatural disasters, I’d bet that, sooner than later, this one will become a reality.

Consequently, I am proposing the creation of a special hotline or Web site where people could call or e-mail to report any strange behavior by senior members of our government, Congress, Supreme Court judges, CIA, FBI, FEMA, Office of Homeland Security senior officials, Pentagon generals and senior CFR members.

The information would be checked to make sure the observations were not caused by other circumstances commonly known to affect the behavior of these particular type of two-legged animals, such as lying, stealing, disinforming or prevaricating. And to avoid issuing false warnings, the data would be used in conjunction with other monitoring activities such as observations of the World Economic Forum or Bilderberger Group meetings, bipartisan Congress commission hearings, Bohemian Grove gatherings, Skull & Bones reunions, United Nations sessions, and other places where this type of two-legged animals usually gather together to secretly conspire about how to change the world for their own benefit.

A computer program would then analyze the incoming messages to determine where they have originated. A sudden surge of calls or e-mails from a particular area disclosing that the two-legged animals under observation had stampeded to secure undisclosed underground locations, like Mount Weather in Virginia, Raven Rock in Maryland, or the Rockefellers’ underground bunkers inside Iron Mountain in upstate New York, might indicate that an unnatural disaster is imminent. Danger signals would be posted in the Web site, and interested citizens would be notified via phone and e-mail.

Among the danger signals to watch I suggest: