Ecuador 7.8 Earthquake Predicted by Scientists & Mystics? – E4A Team Rocked by Seismic Waves & Stunned by Rare Earthquake Lights

Many of you will perhaps already know that I am a researcher based in Ecuador, as such of course I was directly affected by the huge earthquake that struck on Saturday. Here in Central Ecuador we felt very strong motion, I would guess it was equivalent to around a 4.0+ earthquake hitting us directly. For around one entire minute we were shaken back and forth in a sickening motion, as though upon the prow of a small fishing boat being rocked from side-to-side by the motion of the sea. Very unsettling.

At that moment of course I had no idea the full spectrum of what had just happened. A few hours’ drive to our West, our old home of Bahia de Caraquez, as well as many of the other coastal towns, had just been hammered by a massive 7.8 earthquake. The images we have seen so far show that towns we once knew are now essentially little more than piles of rubble. Nobody knows the true death toll but when you see the images you know that by the end of next week it will be much higher than it is as given today.

Before saying a word more, I want to extend my heartfelt prayers to all those going through the direct suffering that has been inflicted, to all those that have lost family and friends and also those that lost their homes or businesses. We also want to make you aware that we have started a donation campaign to assist relief organisations carrying out aid work in Bahia de Caraqez, this coastal town where we used to live has been hit by about 6 strong earthquakes directly, they were also caught in the primary effects of the largest earth movement yesterday. We are being sent images that make you weep. Please donate if you can!

Now let’s backtrack a little. On Thursday I was looking for articles about science subjects for

my day job, and happened to stumble on a news item from the UK-based news site Express.co.uk about Earthquakes, specifically it recounted a prediction by Roger Bilham, a seismologist of University of Colorado, that recent high levels of seismic activity suggested potential for up to 4 earthquakes at around 8.0 on the Richter scale. The article also gave mention to another set of predictions given by a researcher in the Netherlands, Frank Hoogerbeets, who had been using planetary alignments to predict upcoming earthquakes, with several successful instances as well as notable failings, Frank predicted a major quake (larger than recent Japan earthquakes) would strike by the end of the week.

I posted the article to my Facebook wall (as it was not suitable for my employer’s needs)

and gave little more thought to it. Earthquake prediction is a tricky thing, it is possible to get some hits through understood scientific means, also through controversial means such as monitoring alignments or using psychic senses. I know this because we have done it ourselves and during 2012 we got a number of hits, I also used to monitor the work of Patrick Geryl, a Belgian researcher who used a combination of sunspot activity and planetary alignments to make earthquake predictions, again with hits and misses.

What I could never imagine was that the very next day that one of the predicted big quakes would hit the country I was living in, that I would experience the effects directly myself and that a town I had recently lived in would be partially destroyed. From what I understand today the town of Pedernales, not far from where I used to live, now no longer exists…

This all makes one rather concerned, as the predictions were for further major earthquakes around the Pacific rim, in the very volatile area known as the ‘ring of fire’. You can read more about that region in an article posted by our friends over at messagetoeagle.com, incidentally their article was uploaded the day before the earthquake which they have told us left them rather weirded out in the same way I had been with my own described experience.  Should nations bordering the Pacific be bracing themselves for more quakes at 7.0+? Perhaps…

There is one more thing I really wanted to share. There has been a lot of talk about strange lights in the sky during the duration of the earthquake, indeed images and videos have appeared on social media. A number of the videos and images have already been proven as fakes, or at least not directly related to the Ecuador earthquake. Well we can tell you definitively that there were strange lights in the sky. From here in our home we were shocked to see, first hand, a strange green-blue glowing cloud-like structure over the hills to our west. Sadly, my camera was not charged. Thankfully a friend of ours was able to get up on his roof and take photos and video of this strange phenomenon, it resembled the well-known Aurora Borealis. You do not see Aurora Borealis at the equator, only near to the poles. This phenomenon is very rare, known to science as ‘earthquake lights’, but nobody knows the definitive cause or what it may mean. Are these an ominous warning of more trouble to come?

In the series of videos below you can see more detail of this strange light show, the glow spread for a considerable distance across the horizon, unfortunately as a hill was in the way we could not see them in entirety nor be sure of the distance from us. We can say for sure the glow was coming from our west, which is exactly in the direction of the earthquake’s epicentre. We have also been told that over Quito tonight (Sunday night) the sky is making a continuous low rumbling noise. What the heck are these, and what the hell do they mean?

[Please remember to donate to relief campaigns if you are able to.]