Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 02/03/2023
After the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, “conspiratory” claims about intentionally caused artificial earthquakes are being shared on social networks.
On February 9, 2023, the “conspiratory” Facebook profile of Marko Kraljević Znate Koji posted a video featuring a description with a claim that “man artificially causes earthquakes” and that “Nikola Tesla had a machine for causing earthquakes”:
Another video of how a man ARTIFICIALLY causes an EARTHQUAKE…..‼️
Do Satanists have the technology…❓❓
Possibly…
As I wrote, Nikola Tesla had a machine for causing earthquakes 130 years ago…..
In the video published in German, equipped with a translation to our language, it is stated that NASA researchers studied more than 100 earthquakes and concluded that all of them were preceded by disturbances in the ionosphere. The video also features a certain Dr. Agnew, who speaks in English and claims that in the 1980s he accidentally caused an earthquake when working for an energy company, he searched for oil and gas in the ground with the help of extremely low frequency (ELF) waves. He tried to support his claims with an “experiment” in which he used a rock on an incline and a loudspeaker. He claims that ELF waves were emitted through a speaker that causes vibrations strong enough to move the rock. At the end of the video, it is claimed that HAARP can cause earthquakes, because it emits ELF waves in the ionosphere, and they are reflected and flow through the ground and oceans, which ultimately leads to earthquakes.
The same video, featuring the same description, was published on February 9 on the page Budjenje naroda – Treci, and was originally published on The Coon’s profile on the Odysee platform on February 7, 2023.
What are earthquakes and can humans cause them?
An earthquake is an intense shaking of the Earth’s crust, caused by movement on its surface layer. Our planet is composed of four layers: a solid crust, a hot mantle, a liquid outer core and a solid inner core. The two outer layers make up the lithosphere. The lithosphere is made up of tectonic plates, which resemble large puzzle pieces that wrap around the Earth. Tectonic plates are constantly moving, which causes stress on the Earth’s crust. When the stress becomes too great, it leads to cracks in the tectonic plates, called faults. When there are sudden movements of the Earth’s crust on a fault line, it leads to earthquakes.
Human activity can in some cases cause earthquakes, mostly weaker ones. Mining, for example, can cause earthquakes as modern mining companies dig deeper than ever into the Earth’s crust, removing numerous rocks and other materials, leading to ground instability and, potentially, earthquakes. In addition to mining, human activities that can produce earthquakes include dam building, hydraulic fracturing, and nuclear explosions.
Who is the man in the video?
The man speaking in the video is Brooks Agnew, an American engineer and author, who has been promoting “conspiratory” claims for years. The original recording of his guest appearance, which was shown in the video in our speaking area, has been removed from YouTube. Nevertheless, clips from it are still circulating on the Internet, dubbed into different languages, and similar claims, along with similar experiments, were made by Agnew on other occasions.
Contrary to his claims, electromagnetic radiation cannot cause earthquakes. The experiment with the rock and the speaker, based on which he proves his claim, is not an adequate representation of what happens in nature.
As scientists, David Malsapina from the University of Boulder in Colorado and Toshi Nishmura from the University of Boston confirmed for Reuters, radio waves penetrate the Earth less than 1 cm, while earthquakes occur much deeper. Although it is true that artificially created radio waves can cause disturbances in the upper atmosphere, these disturbances are comparable to the disturbances caused by the Sun. They emphasized that there is no evidence that artificial waves can cause much stronger disturbances and affect non-seismic activity, that is, it seems impossible that radio waves can affect distant seismic conditions.
And in the fact-checking article of the web portal Rappler, published on February 11, 2023, it is stated that there are no scientific studies whose results have shown that radio waves of any frequency can have strong enough vibrations to cause an earthquake.
What did NASA scientists conclude?
Although electromagnetic variations cannot cause earthquakes, scientists have been studying the electromagnetic variations created by movements of the Earth’s crust for decades in the hope of discovering a way to predict earthquakes. Friedemann Freund, a scientist from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, claimed in 2001 that there are signals that occur deep in the Earth, which could perhaps warn of the arrival of some large earthquakes a few days before they happen. Freund investigated how rocks on the Earth’s crust react to stress:
“If the stress level is high, electronic charges appear that turn the insulating rock into a semiconductor”, he said.
Semiconductors are materials that have a level of electrical conductivity between metals and insulators and are used to make transistors.
“These charges are not easy to determine. They move at an impressive speed, as much as 300 meters (1,000 feet) per second”, he said.
By measuring the semiconductor properties of rocks, Freund was able to show that the charges are positive.
“Usually, these charges are at rest”, he said. “But when rocks are compressed, the charges wake up and spill out of the volume of the rock in which they were formed”.
When charges flow, they form an electric current. When there is an electric current, there is also a magnetic field. If the current varies with time, electromagnetic waves will be emitted.
“The frequency of these electromagnetic waves is likely to be very low, much lower than radio waves, but basically of the same nature”, Freund said. “Scientists can register them on the Earth’s surface using appropriate antennas or by measuring the magnetic field pulses that go with them”, he added.
“What happens when the charges reach the Earth’s surface? They will change the ground”, Freund pointed out. “They should cause the Earth’s surface to become positively charged over a region that can measure tens or even hundreds of kilometres. The Earth’s ionosphere will certainly react”, he said.
So, scientists have concluded that if the Earth’s surface becomes positively charged, small changes occur in the ionosphere, the layer of the Earth’s atmosphere at an altitude of 60 to 400 km. These changes affect the transmission of radio waves, which was observed just before a couple of earthquakes in the 1960s. It was thought that changes in the ionosphere could be observed with the help of satellites. Freund said in 2001 that it was still too early to expect that earthquakes would soon be able to be predicted beyond statistical probability, but he expressed hope that scientists would one day learn to read signals from the Earth. Therefore, changes in the ionosphere are a consequence, not a cause, of seismic activity.
We were unable to find data which could confirm that as part of this, or any other NASA research, scientists studied 100 earthquakes or found that each earthquake was preceded by a disturbance in the ionosphere.
Even though scientists have been researching various potential signs of earthquakes for decades before they happen, they still cannot accurately predict when and where an earthquake will occur and how strong it will be.
Did Nikola Tesla invent “the machine for causing earthquakes”?
Nikola Tesla was an inventor, best known for his contribution to the invention of alternating current. During his lifetime, he was considered a genius and eccentric. However, various conspiracy theories about Tesla and his inventions often circulate on the Internet. In the analysis that you can read here, we addressed the incorrect claim that Tesla invented “death rays”.
The claim that a famous scientist invented “the earthquake machine” is exaggerated, to say the least. In 1896, Tesla began working on oscillations used to transmit energy with the idea of making a steam-powered oscillator capable of generating different frequencies. Should the frequency match the resonant frequency, the receiving device should transform the mechanical oscillations back into electrical energy. The device was ready in 1897, and in 1898 he allegedly managed to use it to cause his laboratory to shake, causing his neighbours to think an earthquake was happening and called the police. Tesla believed that his device, if strong enough, could match the Earth’s frequency and cause earthquakes. Later, he came up with the idea that similar technology could be used to prevent earthquakes. However, his idea never went beyond the prototype, because the device was simply not strong enough to send energy very far.
Therefore, Tesla actually invented a high-frequency oscillator, not “the earthquake machine” that can cause tectonic plates to move.
Claims that HAARP can cause earthquakes, based on all previous unsubstantiated claims, have already been the subject of several analyses written by Raskrinkavanje, which you can read below:
https://raskrinkavanje.ba/analiza/haarp-nije-uzrokovao-zemljotrese-u-turskoj-i-siriji
Based on the facts, we rate the claim that humans can cause earthquakes by emitting electromagnetic waves, originally published on The Coon profile, as fake news.
We give the same assessment to the claim that HAARP can cause earthquakes.
We evaluate all transmissions of these claims as the distribution of fake news.
We rate the claim that Nikola Tesla invented “the machine for causing earthquakes” as disinformation.
We consider the claim that NASA studied 100 earthquakes and found that each of them was preceded by a disturbance in the ionosphere to be a manipulation of the facts.