Listen to stupid people you Science!

For centuries people have observed strange phenomena before large earthquakes, such as light emanating from ridges and mountaintops. These reports were once dismissed by many scientists, in part because they are often entangled in unscientific theories. For example, some who reported the lights thought they were produced by UFOs.

But the lights are not (necessarily) hallucinations nor created by E.T. “Earthquake lights are a real phenomenon–they’re not UFOs,” researcher Robert Thériault, a geologist at Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources, told Nature. “They can be scientifically explained.”

In study published in the January/February issue of the journal Seismological Research Letters, Thériault and colleagues pulled together reliable sightings of these lights since 1600, and found some strange similarities. A total of 63 out of the 65 sightings occurred along nearly vertical faults. The researchers suggest that along these faults, the stress of rocks grinding against each other produces electrical charges, which can travel upward and interact with the atmosphere to create light. (1)

Science is often found to discard claims from “stupid citizens” on the basis that these claims are made by “non experts”. Censoring things based on what you ALREADY know is simply UNscientific. Listening to what you do not understand and accept is the way to go forward. Science should get down from its throne and start listening to simple people telling stupid things.

There are treasures hidden in the garbage…