Have you ever heard of animals being able to sense a disaster before it occurs? This phenomenon has been talked about for thousands of years, but a recent viral video has people wondering if it’s true. The footage captures a flock of birds acting erratically and rapidly landing in the branches of trees allegedly moments before the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed over 7,800 people across Turkey and Syria.
This phenomenon of animals being able to sense danger before humans is not new. In 373 BC, a destructive earthquake in Greece was reportedly preceded by rats, weasels, snakes, and centipedes migrating to safety several days before it occurred. A study published in the journal Ethology in 2020 found that electronically tagged cows, dogs, and sheep on an Italian farm were “superactive” before seven of eight major earthquakes that occurred nearby, moving continuously for more than 45 minutes.
This evidence has led some to believe that animals are able to detect the shockwaves that come before the more powerful waves that cause the earthquake’s damage. The U.S. Geological Survey describes how these less powerful primary “P” waves are produced by the earthquake first, traveling rapidly away from the quake site, followed later by the more powerful secondary “S” waves. It is thought that the P waves may be what animals are sensing.
However, other research into this topic has found the evidence to be inconclusive. A review of 700 recorded claims of abnormal animal behavior just prior to earthquakes published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America in 2018 noted that a lot of the evidence was too anecdotal to be entirely reliable. Additionally, birds usually take flight during earthquakes rather than landing en masse.
Newsweek was unable to verify the time and date of the video posted to reddit, nor that it captured the activity of birds just before the earthquake struck in Turkey or Syria, or that it was even filmed in the same area affected by the natural disaster. We therefore rate this claim as unverified.
Animals have long been said to have an innate ability to sense danger before humans can. While some evidence suggests that animals can detect the shockwaves of an earthquake before it occurs, the recent viral video of birds acting erratically and rapidly landing in the branches of trees just before the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed over 7,800 people across Turkey and Syria has yet to be verified. While we may never know the truth behind this phenomenon, it’s clear that animals can sense something that humans can’t, and that’s something worth exploring further.
Source: www.newsweek.com