Note: A few days ago, I was staying near Yosemite National Park when the ground began to move. There were twin earthquakes of 5.7 magnitude (four minutes apart) and then a third one about an hour later. I had fallen asleep, but woke up a few minutes before the first quake. Something didn’t feel right in that hotel room, but I couldn’t explain what it was. Maybe it had something to do with the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale I had consumed. So as I laid in bed and jumped up with each shaker (I definitely did not predict the second and third earthquakes!), the outlines of a strange little story began to form in my mind. My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim. The rest is fiction.

The Earthquake Oracle Has a Tough Life (Fictional)

LOS ANGELES, DECEMBER 31, 2026 – Doc Raymond is living it up at the Hotel California. From his mansion in the Hollywood Hills, he wakes up to one of Southern California’s finest views. When the weather is warm enough, which is most days, he goes for a swim in his infinity pool. Gorgeous women make regular appearances. His meals are catered by a gourmet chef.

When he gets bored, his luxury self-driving car takes him to the beach to surf or to a bar to have a drink. He even has an old Corvette that he still drives himself sometimes. When he chooses to travel the state, he does so for free. He drinks 6-10 bottles of premium beer every day of the year. And he smokes a joint before bed every night. It could be heaven or it could be hell.

Youtube.com by Williams & Williams, via the Daily Mail (UK).

All of this – mansion with mirrors on the ceiling, chef, high-end car, food, drinks, and pot - is paid for by the State of California. Doc Raymond is a boondoggle for the taxpayers. Yet he has saved the State more than $1 billion in the last ten years.

Haddock Raymond, Jr., better known as “Doc” may well be the most interesting man in California, if not the world. Ten years ago today, he came to the attention of public officials for the first time. Since then, the government and insurance companies have paid close attention to Doc Raymond, though the public largely forgot about him after his 15 minutes of fame.

Public Domain from Pixabay.

Just after midnight on December 28, 2016, while visiting family near Lee Vining, California, Doc Raymond posted an unforgettable message on Twitter. His tweet was simple, containing just three words: “I feel it.” Within minutes, he sent out a second tweet: “Not done yet.”

Approximately one hour after those tweets, he posted a comment on the United States Geological Survey’s earthquake forum website. He posted, “I predicted the first two earthquakes. Be ready for one more.”

That evening, two twin earthquakes hit in the vicinity of Hawthorne, Nevada, striking along the fault line that runs up the California-Nevada state line from Yosemite to Lake Tahoe. The first quake registered 5.7 on the Richter scale and it was followed just four minutes later by a second 5.7 shaker. Almost one hour after these twin quakes, there was a 5.5 temblor also.

Three moderate earthquakes had struck in one night in this sparsely populated region. And Doc Raymond had heard the mission bell ring; he correctly predicted all three of the quakes, minutes in advance. Each time, he made his prediction about three minutes and fifty seconds before the earth shook. He was half drunk that night.

There are groups of people who claim to be sensitive to the movements of the earth. Some of them feel migraine headaches that they correlate with pressure changes and earth movements. For a few of them, planetary and lunar alignments figure in. Maybe voices down the corridor play a role also. They claim that they can sense the periods when there is an increased risk of an earthquake, though scientists have not been able to prove these connections.

Animals are considered by some to be good predictors of earthquakes and tsunamis. In the days before a large quake, the number of ‘lost pet’ ads in that area seems to increase. During recent large tsunami events, few animals fell victim. In fact, there were reports that many animals exhibited strange behaviors beforehand: dogs refused to go outside, birds fled the beach areas, and some wild animals were seen running for higher ground.

For millennia, people have found this to be true with animals. Apparently, they can sense something before the earthquakes and tsunamis that humans cannot feel. They are more sensitive to the earth’s vibrations.

But despite scientists’ best efforts, they have not been able to pinpoint which signals cause animals to take this warning. Earthquake prediction science remains in its infancy.

Seismogram. Creative Commons via Wikimedia, by Crickett.

Doc Raymond has no idea how it works either. He does not get a headache, but he can sense earthquakes before they happen. He just gets a feeling that “something is not right” and a few minutes later, the ground rumbles. Despite being tested thoroughly, modern medicine cannot explain his talent either.

Raymond’s success in predicting the three earthquakes in 2016 led to his first brush with Tiffany-twisted fame, culminating in appearances on several late night talk shows and a coveted AMA on the Steemit website. Being able to warn of an earthquake 3-4 minutes before it happens is golden. That is enough time for people to seek cover, for transit agencies to halt service, and for companies and utilities to shut down vulnerable systems.

Then came Raymond’s failure. In June 2017, he was at UCLA Medical center being tested when a 5.1 earthquake struck in nearby Palmdale. It was close enough that the earth shook measurably at UCLA. Yet Raymond was as surprised as everyone else. He hadn’t sensed anything beforehand.

The doctors lost interest. So did the public. Either Raymond was a phony or he was a one-hit wonder. In any case, he’d failed and lost his mojo. So he went back to his day job, which was selling airtime on local radio stations in the Los Angeles area.

Fortunately for Doc Raymond and the population of the Los Angeles area, fate intervened again. The moderate Palmdale quake proved to be a precursor to the much larger 6.9 Redlands earthquake on July 11, 2017. The Redlands quake shook up a nationally-televised sporting event, the baseball All Star Game, which was being held at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

Meme generated from The Matrix film, Warner Brothers.

And in a city that loves its stars, a new one was created that day. One of Doc Raymond’s clients was a big sponsor of the All Star Game. Raymond had been invited to sit with him in his luxury box suite. Shortly before the game began, Raymond drank a couple of beers and went for a walk around the stadium. And he was heading back to the box when he saw a TV reporter interviewing someone in the seats nearby.

The interview turned out to be on live TV. And just as he walked by, Doc Raymond felt his funny feeling that “something was not right”. Without pausing, he rushed in and photobombed the interview. Speaking into the microphone, he told a national TV audience that a major earthquake was coming to LA.

Some producer must have recognized him. He should have been cut off, but instead his warning was transmitted on TV, lighting up the Internet with chatter. Two minutes later, the stadium announcer broadcasted a message on the ballpark’s public address system. 56,000 people in the stadium were warned there was a chance of an earthquake and they were reminded to stay calm, drop, cover and hold on.

LA Daily News (photo is actually from 1994 Northridge quake).

Just seconds later, the stadium shook violently. Across the Los Angeles and San Bernadino areas, there was significant damage from the major earthquake. Yet many people took cover and not a single life was lost, thanks to Doc Raymond’s warning.

Raymond was famous again, a big time celebrity. He still had his mojo after all and his secret was that he needed to be buzzed (half drunk) to sense anything. Each time he’d had a beer buzz, he’d predicted the quakes correctly. To prove this point, he correctly predicted an aftershock of the Redlands quake, cementing his status as a very useful freak of nature.

For a time, everything he touched turned to gold. A regional beer company hired Raymond to do TV and online ads; its sales went through the roof. Insurance companies and several West Coast cities lined up to bid for his services as an oracle of earth movements. The government of Japan flew in its country’s leadeers to entice Raymond to move across the Pacific. The CEO of a large Seattle-based company tried to move him to the Pacific Northwest, home of the dangerous Cascadia fault. And as a successful salesperson who made his living selling air, Doc Raymond held out for the best deal.

He finally got it when the California state legislature acceded to the governor’s demands and passed a special bill appropriating money for the state to hire Doc Raymond. From that moment on, he became a prisoner here.

The deal was simple and it set him up for life. Raymond’s luxury lifestyle and moderate drinking bills would be paid for entirely by the state government if he would remain at all times within California. If he left the state, he would lose significant money each day he was gone. He could live in either the San Francisco or Los Angeles areas, since both were large population centers near major earthquake faults. And the state set up a special panic button for Doc Raymond to push whenever he felt that “something was not right”. His button communicated directly with state and local emergency response networks.

He has a very nice beer cellar but no pink champagne in sight. Public domain via Pixabay.

In the last 10 years, Doc Raymond has pushed the magic button three times, plus once by accident (or when he was overdrinking). His quake warnings have predicted several moderate earthquakes. All told, he’s saved the state more than $1 billion and also saved several human lives.

So the Earthquake Oracle continues to live in luxury at taxpayer expense. He can travel for free anywhere within California, where he can check out but never leave. Living it up, he has a chef, a pool, a nice car, and all the beer and marijuana he can consume. He drinks and smokes pot at a constant level, maintaining just the right state of mind so he can hear those voices calling from far away.

It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Note: This story is fictional. See my real note at the beginning. And did I manage to get a certain song stuck in your head? Some dance to remember and some dance to forget...