And now, stay tuned for the mystery program that is unique among all mystery programs. Because even when you know who is guilty, you always receive a startling surprise at the final curtain.  I'm the Whistler, and I know many things for I walk by night. I know many strange tales hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak. And now for the signal oil company, the Whistler's strange story, Homecoming, speeds up a dark country road barely ahead of the gathering storm. At the crest of the hill, the driver swings wildly in to stop before a rambling farmhouse. Quickly, he's out, stumbling up the steps and across the creaking porch. Once inside, John Aaron scurries breathlessly to each door and window, slamming and locking. But it's not the storm that holds terror for you, is it, John? No, you're sure that a far greater danger lies in the few brief hours ahead. It wasn't always like this, was it, John? The once proud farm and its family that fell gradually into decay, till only you and your younger stepbrother, Robert, remain. Robert was the stronger, wild and unruly, but not you, John. No, you've always been known as a stern, righteous man. But now only one thing is important, is it? You're certain that Robert is coming home.  You'd watch as the sheriff and his deputies came. This is not the one we want, sir. What's the meaning of this? Exactly call this a social visit. Well, I gathered as much. What do you want? No need for talk. Come on, we'll start with the house. Okay, John. Nobody sets foot in my house without the right. Boys, hold on. Now there's no need of that. Then let him tell us where Robert is. I don't account for my stepbrother. He's not here. John, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I've known you and Robert since you were any high to grasshoppers. Just what are you trying to say, Sheriff? Well, folks are getting mighty upset about Jed Peters. He hasn't been seen since he came here to your place three days ago. He had plenty of money with him, too. Jed was going to buy this form. He never did trust banks. I wasn't planning to sell. It was Robert's idea. Well, Jed's horse showed up at home without him. That's all we know. Well, I know nothing of Jed Peters. Now why did you come here, Sheriff? Well, I just thought you might help, John. You don't mind if we sort of look around? For Jed Peters? On my part? No, no, no. There's no offense to you. It's a job to be done. Of course, we've got a warrant. Oh, I see. You didn't need one. I'm not one to stand in the way of the law. Of course you are, John. After all, you're the last one we'd suspect of anything. So you'd followed the Sheriff and the others, hadn't you, John? Seemingly bewildered as they searched the house, the loft, the outbuilding. You'd kept your silence until finally down the hill buried in a shallow grave in a grove of willows. They had found the shattered body of Jed Peters. You appeared quite shocked, didn't you, John? Hardly knew what to say. Don't surprise us, none, Sheriff. We knew what we'd find. All right, all right, boys. I'll leave John Aaron to me alone. Suit yourself, but if you don't get it out of him... Sheriff, you... They don't think I had anything to do with it. You know better than that, John. Nobody's accusing you. Well, I just can't understand it. Now, uh, I know how you feel. But if there's anything you can tell me now, uh... about Robert... Oh, hold on, Sheriff. Not Robert. Where is he, John? Well, I don't know. He just disappeared three days ago. Left without saying a word. Same day Jed and his money disappeared? Oh, Sheriff. Robert wouldn't steal or kill? Plenty of folks saw Robert and Jed quarrel in the village. Robert made plenty of threats. Robert never could hold his tongue. But you can't be sure. No. No. But it looks like Robert's in trouble. A heap of trouble. Yes, John. You carried it off very well, didn't you? For only you know the real truth. That you killed Jed Peters. Killed him in desperation for his money. Still hidden safely inside the house. Where you haven't dared touch it since. It was so fortunate. Robert's going away when he did. It seemed in his mission of his guilt. And after they found him in the city, you had plenty of time to lay your plan. You made a point to be at the Sheriff's office when he brought Robert back. All right. In here, Robert. John. Hello, Robert. Is it all you've got to say? Wouldn't we set this thing straight? What can I say? Just tell him their mistake. That's all you have to do. Robert denies everything, John. Can't disrespect it, he wouldn't. Why shouldn't I deny it? I don't know what anybody's talking about. Then tell us, Robert, why you went away so quickly without letting anybody know. John can tell you. He knew I was going. I went off to get a decent job. Uh-huh. Right at the time Jed was killed. After you threatened it. I threatened Jed? Sure I did. The old migrant had John and me where he wanted us. He knew we needed the money. Yeah, so we didn't need it that bad, Robert. Oh, stop it, John. You knew I was going? You were licked even if you wouldn't admit it. I was sick and tired of living with nothing but failure and decay. I couldn't face it anymore, that's all. Well, aren't you told me that before? Because it's true. Why don't you tell him, John? Why don't you tell him the truth? I can't defend murder, Robert. Even though we grew up together. Why do you... Tell him the truth before I beat it out of you, Robert! Stop! John, now! Get back there, Robert. Get back there. You won't get a chance to do that again. John, you all right, John? Well... Well, what happens to me doesn't matter. Don't hold this against Robert, Sheriff. He already has enough to answer for.  Through the days that followed, you'd walk with head bowed, bearing alone the humiliation.  Robert sat tight-lipped, not once taking his cold eyes off you as the evidence piled up against him. Then, when you were called to the stand... Mr. Aaron, I know this is difficult for you, but try and remember when you first realized that Robert was gone. Well, I've sworn to tell the truth. There's nothing else I can do now. You mean there's something more? Yes, much more. I'm ready now to tell everything. Please, please, please, please go on. Well, I'd been away all that day when I drove in the gate that evening. I heard a shot. From where? From back at the house. I ran around the house fast I could and saw Robert standing there with a shotgun in his hand. Jed Peters was on the ground. In spite of the fact that you know you'll be held to account for protecting a murderer, you still swear that this is true. I do. I felt I had to protect him and the family name. What did you do then? I helped him bury Jed. And then I begged Robert to go away as far as he could. Did he tell you about the money? I don't know about any money. I'd tell if I did. I've lied enough. I feel I was partly the blame. If only I'd been kinder to Robert in our trouble. A little more understanding. Robert Aaron, did you or did you not shoot and kill Jed Peters? I did not. But you've heard what my righteous stepbrothers said. You believe him. But there's nothing more for me to say. I'm asking you now. You realize this is your last chance? I've got nothing more to say. And so the trial was quickly over. And after that the inevitable verdict. Robert was found guilty. Sentenced to from ten years to life. All as you planned it, John. And as the sheriff led Robert from the courtroom. Come along, Robert. You're not telling my grieving stepbrother goodbye, Sheriff? Well, all right if he wants it. Only for a minute, though. Well, John, goodbye, Robert. It's too bad it had to be this way. Don't worry yourself too much. I'll come back someday, John. And when I do, you can count on one thing. There'll be another trial for murder. It's only human nature, isn't it? To want to stop and find out what's attracting them? Well, by the same token, I should think that most everyone with a car would want to find out what it is that has attracted so many motorists to signal gasoline. In the beginning, you know, signal gas was sold by only a small group of stations in Southern California. Today, however, you'll find signal dealers in seven Pacific Coast states from Canada to Mexico. Such growth must mean that more and more motorists are finding they prefer signal gasoline. And what is it they prefer about signals? Well, for one thing, mileage that has made signal famous as the go farther gasoline. And for another thing, performance. The pleasure-packed kind that goes hand in hand with good mileage. But for the complete story, you've got to let a few tankfuls of signal speak for itself. I promise you, the performance of your own car will tell you much better than any words of mine. Why, more and more drivers are switching to signals. The famous go farther gasoline. Hard to realize that it all happened only three years ago, isn't it, John? Robert convicted of murder. Your own testimony had sealed the verdict. And only Robert himself suspicion that it was actually you who had killed Jed Peters. And after three years, you're still unable to forget that last day in the courtroom. Robert's threat of vengeance. And your conversation later with the sheriff. You'll be wanting me now, sheriff. Wanting you, John? Well, I'm a criminal. As much as Robert, I shielded him, knowing his guilt. Well, I... I kind of think it's Robert you'd better be concerned about. Every man has a cross. Well, Robert's mind. Yes, I know how you feel. It seems like just yesterday I used to visit your old place when we were kids. A lot of fun together as boys. We'd best forget it. But, John, what I'm trying to say is... Yes, sheriff? I don't like the way Robert looked at you when you testified against him. There was hate in these eyes, John. Don't write hate. Oh, you'll have plenty of time to think things over. And realize that what I did was right and honorable. Well, I hope so. But Robert was never one to forget a grudge. You're no match for him, John. Well, I'll be going now. Well, is there anything I can do? No. I just want to be left alone from now on. There had been charges brought against you, but quickly dropped. And through the past three years, you had withdrawn more and more, living with your guilt, not once visiting Robert at the penitentiary, only a few hours away.  Until word came only an hour ago that Robert had escaped in a prison break this morning. Yes, Robert is free to make good his threat. And now there's nothing to do but wait in your dark house. Listen to the rising storm, and the bump will be oak-limb on the roof. You start at the jangle of the phone that echoes through the high room. You tell yourself not to answer. It could be Robert making sure you're home. You breathe with relief when it stops. Again you check each door and window. Then you sit in a chair facing the door, trying to stem the flood of memories and voices that return like a nightmare. Why don't you tell him, John? Why don't you tell him the truth? For sure these past three years have only added to his heat.  And now that he's escaped in a prison break, you decide to wait for him.  All in that self-defense. End your fear and worry once and for all. But as time goes on, you begin to wonder, don't you, John? You wonder if Robert might not be nearby.  Resume the endless waiting.  Feel a surge of hope that Robert may have decided to postpone his vengeance.  Somewhere else. Again the phone. This time it doesn't stop. Hello? Hello? Who is it? Pick up. Who's calling? Charlie. Oh, yes, Charlie, of course. How are you? Oh, Talibam. They come and go. What do you want? We're making out. I'm making out, Charlie. I was just saying... Well, of course I'm alone. Any reason for you to think different? Well, no, not exactly. Oh, everybody's heard. There's nothing I can do about it. Well, Robert's just a step-brother. I'm not one to harbor a criminal. Who saw him? Is that why you called, Charlie? Goodbye, Charlie. He doesn't surprise you, does he?   You outwitted him three years ago. You're sure you can do it again.  Waiting. Waiting. The grandfather clock in the hallway strikes off another hour. And still you wait. And then a voice, John, or was it... You wonder if it was just the wind. You scrain to hear, there's nothing more. Then you start as you hear the shutters rattling in the wind.  Set a trap for Robert. You walk to the kitchen. Take your other rifle from its place on the wall. Anchor it securely to a chair so that it points directly toward the back door. You tie a string to the doorknob. The other end to the rifle trigger. Loop the string over the back of the chair so that when Robert opens the back door, the rifle will be discharged. You leave the kitchen and return to the front of the house, where once again you sit, rifle in hand, watching that front door. But as the minutes drag by, a feeling of fear begins to overcome you. You wish you hadn't hung up on Charlie Briscoe when you did, but you'd suggest that he drive over, help out in case Robert arrives and attempts to carry out his threat to kill you. You decide to phone him again. Operator, I want you to get me Charlie Briscoe, one, three, six, quick as you can. Operator, hurry, will you? I've got to get to him. I'm sure he's home. I just talked to him. Ring him again, people. Maybe you're ringing the wrong number. Yes, here, Robert. Just get him. Hello? Is Robert's way to cut the lines and make his return safe and sure?  The sound of the branches of the oak tree just outside the house brings another memory, doesn't it, Charlie? How as boys, you and Robert had often scaled a tree, climbed across the roof to an unsealed hatch leading into the attic. You rush up the winding stairs, open the door to the now empty attic.  You hear the sound of someone moving on the roof. The steps come closer. The head appears, then the shoulders. You aim quickly. That's Robert. You should have known if I killed once, I can kill again. You rush back downstairs, open the front door and hurry to the figure huddled on the ground. Determined to end the threat of Robert for all time. I'm sorry, Robert. Sorry it has to be this way. Oh, no, John. I'm not Robert. Sheriff, it's you. Yes. I didn't see any light. I thought something was wrong. I thought you were Robert.  All right, Sheriff. Your aim wasn't too good. I'll get you to your car. I'll find help. Easy now. The phone's gone out here, I'll get you over to Charlie Prisco's place. Your phone dock will soon come there. He'll take care of you. I shouldn't have fired so quick, but Robert isn't one to wait. It was him or me, Sheriff. Don't worry about it. I've got a hunch they'll get Robert before he gets here. To compare battery costs is to ask what does it cost per month? In other words, the price of the battery divided by the number of months for which the battery is guaranteed. Compared in that way, today's lowest cost batteries is the new signal deluxe battery, which is guaranteed a full 30 months on a service basis. And the cost comes down even lower when you consider the generous trade-in allowance signal dealers are now giving for old batteries and the liberal credit terms which are available. Most important, however, is the fact that these 30-month guaranteed signal deluxe batteries naturally have to be built better in order to last so long. In fact, new signal deluxe batteries can deliver up to 35% more power for quicker starting and more dependable performance, all during their long, long life. So you see, when you're enjoying lowest cost, you're also enjoying a full two-and-one-half years of today's finest, most trouble-free battery service with a signal deluxe battery, the battery you get at signal service stations. It's going all right, isn't it, John?  His capture a matter of minutes.  Wait only long enough to make sure the doctor is on his way to take care of the sheriff and then quickly excuse yourself. You decide the best thing for you to do is take what's left of the money you took when you killed Jed Peters three years ago. Leave town.  You drive home quickly, but this time you play it safe. Just in case Robert wasn't captured. You park down the road, run through the darkness toward the house. No! John!  I gave him the slip, John. I had to see you. You know, I stumble at you and say, don't kill me, Robert, while I'm helpless this way. I know, but I've changed my mind. I've had time to think. All I want is for you to tell him the truth that you committed the crime I've spent three years in prison. No, no, no, no, no, no. No one will ever know that I killed Jed and took the money, but you listen to me, Robert. The money's hidden under the stairs. You can have it all. Go someplace where they'll never find you. No, John, but I'll get you into the house. We'll talk a little more. But I don't think I can walk. No, no, no, no, no, Robert. No. Who fired the gun? Well, I guess I did by accident. I opened the door and it seems my step-brother had the rifle set to kill me. But I was carrying him and the shot got him instead. That's what happened, all right. You can see the string tied to the... I think you'd come here, Robert. That's why we came here. Glad we did. We found out a lot. You heard what John said? Everything. His whole confession. We're here each Sunday night at this same time. Meantime, Signal Oil Company and the friendly independent dealers who helped you go farther with Signal Gasoline hope you'll remember. Regardless of what Gasoline you use, you'll enjoy more miles of happy driving if you drive at sensible speeds, obey traffic regulations, and avoid taking chances.  Possibly your own. Featured in tonight's story where Bill Foreman is a whistler, an air trued to Marston, Bill Boucher, Pat McGeehan, Herbert Litten, and Britt Wood. The whistler was produced and directed by George W. Allen, with story by Gomer Cool, music by Wilbur Hatch, and was transmitted overseas by the Armed Forces Radio Service. The whistler was entirely fictional and all characters portrayed on the whistler are also fictional. Any similarity of names or resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Remember to tune in at this same time on Sunday when the Signal Oil Company will bring you another strange story by the whistler. Marvin Miller speaking for the Signal Oil Company. Stay tuned now for our Miss Brooks starring Eve Arden, which follows immediately over most of these stations. This is the CBS Radio Network.


What's going on everyone Sam here with latent sports cards? We are ripping 22 tops triple threads in chrome black baseball five box mixer number two Random team starters looking at your random results Yeah, Chris or yes, we The brewers are pretty decent at least in triple threads. They're definitely decent You got McCutcheon's got stuff like the ounce and the monitors yellow chess stuff So there's a good amount of brewers couple rookies as well. So brewers are decent As always you can find these on the website on the results tab as well as a link in chat. Good luck everybody Let's go ahead and do it Start with top shown black One second. Yeah, so we'll start with top shown black and then we'll finish with Sheffield and TTT um, I Don't know if I don't think so not that I know of six I know buckston's in there as a vet Torrey hunter might be as a twin You got a gold coming up gold auto. That's always nice Manu Machado base Boba chef base and Ronzi Contreras. That's gonna be numbered at 51 out of 150 Nice one there for the pirates congrats Steve are with the pirates All right, we've got nice Joe Carter 21 out of 50 on the gold speckle. There you go, Toronto One of the most memorable home runs in World Series history if not the most memorable home run It's got Toronto Blue jays Jonathan G. There you go, Jonathan nice one that Stop code. Yeah, 93 exactly Mike. Yeah, that was awesome, dude Just watching the highlights that's kind of crazy actually old again. I think or a yellow. I don't know if there's a yellow in here Bobby Whit rookie For the Royals Nicoladolo rookie and another gold. That's gonna be Christian pachet Nice one there for Oakland Jeremy S on the combo spot 46 out of 50 Congrats, Jeremy We've got Mark McGuire 30 out of 50 that ace combo spot doing very well Jeremy S congrats, buddy One of the bash brothers So two golds two boxes two gold autos not that of two very solid players very solid. That's not that Best card I've ever pulled probably a Jackson Meryl super fracter at a bowman chrome, but the best card ever at Leighton's the Luca Donchich Rookie national treasures Logan man orange. Wow two golds in an orange auto not bad Take that for sure One yep as rookie spent a Torkelson rookie variation and green Bobby wits It's gonna be number 39 out of 99. There you go KC Howard. Oh with the Royals nice Bobby Bobby wits and orange is Barry Larkin 24 out of 25 for the Reds. Here we go sincey Nice one there. That's cool, man. Howard Howard. Oh Not bad Bobby went and then an orange orange Barry Larkin Howard got both of those Howard had the Reds and the Royals in this that's pretty awesome So that's basically a personal for you there hour. Congrats, buddy Again over on tiktok link is in the bio. We have print plenty of group rake spots for tonight Some baseball some basketball and some football all still left Yeah, right all rucks with a numbered wet and a variation Torque exactly Stop Chad Chad Chad tea in the house. What's going on, buddy? Oh, yeah, I got Mike in here got SG was basically the king of this product of uh, what was I gonna say of? I'll show a black I would say Yeah All right start on the back here. We got Manuel Chateau 75 of 75 unloading.  So are we That was unbelievable Andrew. So Andrew bought a personal of this on Sunday and here I'll show you guys the next card and then I'll go into that story CJ Abrams the 299 for the Nationals One box personal for Andrew H ready Xander Bogart's one-on-one patch then that he's out. He told us he's diehard Philly's man Okay, the next one booklet triple all-star patch Zack Wheeler Philly's pitcher. No way. Yeah, Philly's like probably second-best pitcher outside and It was like the full. I don't know if you saw the picture of it It's like that it's a trifold booklet and it's got the giant all-star patch and then two other all-star patches on the side One of one. Yeah, unbelievable who one-to-ones in one box dude. It's crazy Mookie Boba chef Don Mattingly Nice one here. We got Justin Verlander pitching superstar 13 out of 36 for each town Space City Houston's later rich Oh, yeah, James D with the ashes We got him at 400 a box 400 a box on the website late in sports cards calm go to personals and go to baseball 52 out of 99 Jose Berrios for the blue jays It's wrong. I'm actually doing fairly well as well. That's their second auto of the break to go with the Joe Carter We've got Roy Campanella 42 out of 259 for the Dodgers yeah Dodgers And purple Bryce Harper 299 Philly's Nice one that base base base cool one here going to the Cubs It's gonna be Andre Dawson the hawk Five free passes 12 out of 18 bat Jersey bat all game used on that one as well. There you go, Chicago Cubs Swaggy G there you go Swaggy nice Andre Dawson and JT Real Mutile 15 out of 48 going to the Phillies Philly's Reggie appreciate Pa, thank you, man. We haven't seen like a knob or a barrel We haven't seen any of the Those one of ones I think we're gonna pull one of this today. I do Feel it in my heart get after it. We've got a Xander Bogarts to 25 for the Red Sox and Paul Gulchman to 259 We have a baseball channel where Matt actually does like throwback Thursday breaks. So he does like 80 82 tops does like box breaks of those So yeah, we do do some vintage Say a Suzuki rookie Mike Schmidt Nice triple here is gonna be for the Tigers Javi Baez Miguel Cabrera Spencer Torkelson 30 out of 36 Game used on all of those congrats D town Anthony P And Anthony P sweeping the hits getting a kilo Badoo 75 out of 99 on the Jersey or bat auto. I should say Game it used a bat congrats again Detroit Keyleth Badoo got Andrew McCutcheon to 299 for the brew crew and Shane Boz to 150 on the rookie Layton sports car. It's a late in baseball breaks late in sports cards and late in baseball breaks is the YouTube We're live over on YouTube and Twitch as well God base Shane Boz rookie and base Gulchman Got going to the Dodgers Alexander P. We've got a Max Muncie 4 out of 18 worth the weight something masters Masters worth the weight nice one there for the Dodgers Max Muncie on the orange and to finish it off. We've got rookie Jersey Wander Franco 29 out of 48 going to Tampa There you go Tampa finishing out the break with a wonder wonder hit Tampa is Thomas V. There we go Thomas That's one there Thomas V I'll do for the break guys do a quick recap here for you Sorry about that six Gonna do a quick recap here guys, and then we'll get into the next break We've got a wonder Franco for the race. That's gonna be a Tigers triple bias Cabrera Torkelson JT Real Muto Jersey for the Phillies Justin Verlander Jersey for the strews It's a green Bobby wit to 99. That's 39 out of 99 for the Royals Keele Badoop for the Tigers Max Muncie for the Dodgers Jose Berrios going to the Blue Jays and Andre Dawson going to the Cubs We had a very good three boxes of top scroll black as well We had a gold Mark McGuire 30 out of 50 a gold speckler with gold minidiamonds 21 out of 50 Joe Carter for the Blue Jays and a orange Barry Larkin 24 out of 25 Three really solid retired vets right there for autos two golds and an orange. I'm doing for the break guys Thanks again for the fill next up top scroll black


If Elohah is singular for God, and it's used for God at times, why wasn't it used in Genesis 1? And what is the significance then for using a plural noun with a singular verb? Well, from the way the question is worded, I assume that the questioner is referring to the Hebrew word Elohah. It's not pronounced Elohah, it's Eloah. And that is used for God at times in the Hebrew Bible. But it's also in the back of my mind that he might be getting the pronunciation from just taking off im at the end, Elohim plural, and then pronouncing what's left as Elohah, but regardless the answer is basically the same. The short answer is that's just the way they did it. And that isn't sort of a cop out or a contrivance. Let me read you just a paragraph from DDD, the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible about this, and then I'll talk about it a little bit. DDD has this, the Hebrew word Eloah, again, if I'll just pause here and say, if you know Hebrew or transliteration, this is alif, lamed, hay. Okay, the Hebrew word Eloah is derived from a base ilah, alif, lamed, hay. Perhaps a secondary form of the common Semitic word il or el, God, cognate terms are known from Ugaritic, Aramaic, and Arabic or Arabian. The relationship between the common noun and the divine name is complicated, and it varies considerably from one language to another. In Aramaic and in epigraphic Arabian dialects, it is primarily a common noun. While in Ugaritic, Hebrew, and Arabic, alah is the Arabic example, alif, lamed, hay. Okay, which means the God. Okay, al-aliha, just a little rabbit trail here. The definite article in Arabic, al-aliha, is the God, and that's where alah comes from, because they're militantly monotheistic, so that's how they refer to the deity. But anyway, in Ugaritic, Hebrew, and Arabic, the usage as a divine name is clearly attested. There can be no doubt that the more common biblical and Jewish designation of God as Elohim represents an expansion of Eloah, in other words, a longer spelling, pluralize it, though there is debate both as to the meaning of Eloah and as to the origin of the expanded form Elohim. Now, that's the end of the quote. Basically, what that's saying is, hey, that's just the way it is. We know where it comes from. We don't really know why any given language did it that way. In other words, why you had alif, lamed, hay, expanded into eam. Well, it's obviously a plural form, but why that expansion came to be just as good of a reference for the singular God of Israel, just like Eloah. Nobody really knows why. Now, the interesting thing here, and this is a very old PDF on my old website. If you went up to trying to think here, where else you might find this, I mean, I can append it to the Q&A here if people are interested. Probably, you could probably go up to mysitchiniswrong.com website, where I am debunking the ancient alien ideas of Zechariah's Sitchin, underneath the, or on the page that deals with Elohim. What you have in other languages is sometimes you have the plural for gods used of a single human being, the king. Best example here is pharaoh in the Amarna texts. The El Amarna texts are a correspondence, the Amarna tablets between Egypt and people in Palestine, because Palestine is under the overlordship of Egypt at the time, and the language they use to converse is Akkadian. That was the international language of correspondence.  It's pharaoh. Pharaoh is referred to as Ilanu in the Amarna texts a number of times, and Ilanu is the Akkadian plural for El, gods. That's just the way they did. Why do they do that? Nobody really knows why they did that. Now, probably, I think it's a useful illustration that the answer may be as simple as this is a device we are using to convey honor. In other words, it's an honorific, what philologists call an honorific feature of a language. Why else would you refer to pharaoh as a plural, as a deity, as opposed to a single divine being? Well, you want to make sure that he knows, that you know or you think he's just awesome. And so, you sort of up the ante rhetorically by using the plural. Well, again, that happens. Ilanu of pharaoh is a very good example, very well-known example to people in Semitic languages. And so, you know, some say, well, that's probably what's going on with Elohim. But the honest answer is nobody really knows for sure why this is done.  Why do we use capital letters mixed with lower case letters? Why do we do that? The answer is because we do. Somebody somewhere at some time decided on that convention and it stuck. So that's what we do. Why did Greek scribes move away from unseal spelling? That's all capitals, to use menuscules. Well, there may have been some pragmatic reason. Maybe menuscules are faster since it's kind of a cursive. Okay. But somebody had to decide to just do that. And then the old way just went away. And this is what happens with languages. People decide to do things for a particular reason that may not be discoverable to us with any certainty at all. Now, we can look at it and scholars look at this one. They know where it comes from. They know what happened. But we don't really know what went off in somebody's head to start that process. Now, Elohim, let's go back to the question about Genesis 1. Elohim would not have been confusing to any Israelite able to read Hebrew. So proposing another form would make it better or make it simpler or make it more comprehensible. It's just not true. It's not coherent because it would not have been complicated or fuzzy or unusual for an Israelite. It's only not clear to modern people because we're moderns. Again, they're very used to the convention. There's no ambiguity about the term. There's no ambiguity about the grammar.  Everybody knows what that means. So there's no point to talking about, well, it would have been clearer if it would have been Eloah. No, it wouldn't have. It was just as clear with Elohim. Again, clear to them, but not clear to us.


So Roland is going to wrap this up for us and pull it together and I think his comment to me was that he's more than happy to sort of have this become a discussion as he goes through the slides that he has ready to go so people should feel free to to engage at any point and then we'll obviously continue the discussion once Roland's got to the end of these slides. So, right, Roland. So, thank you for having me and thanks for sticking around. So, the task was synthesis and concluding remarks and I did add discussion to that here so as I go along, please do chime in. I was supposed to talk for about half the time allotted to this to this last session. So, I picked two quotes that actually come from the agenda from the introductory comments. A is societal implication of understanding the range of precursory signals is large and many questions remain that was quite apparent today and then there's that big question are there certain characteristics of precursors that make them more or less likely to assault in a large earthquake or eruption we covered both topics and that obviously I think at the end of this meeting here is still an unresolved question but that's what we should talk about. Now only Emily discussed briefly volcanic systems and clearly our discussions have also focused mostly in earthquake. I did include one slide on that topic eruption precursors and as Emily mentioned due to the kind of physical processes that we understand belong to the process leading up to eruptions magma transport conduit formation and associated seismicity deformation degassing makes that a much more tractable system and in many places where seismic monitoring exists seismic unrest has been observed before eruptions so Iceland is an example where the monitoring is high quality it's the kind of volcanic system that lends itself to that there they quite routinely are able to pick up precursory signals and also issue warnings and alerts that sometimes are as clear as we think there's going to be eruption in this many hours or days. The other systems volcanic systems that seem much less easily understood in that context open conduit volcanoes where there's less deformation of seismicity being produced by magmatic transport making its way to the surface. Most illicit volcanoes are difficult because they have very viscous magmas and tend to be erupting in a more sudden sequence of events and restless caldera's keep moving up and down for decades without end and it's unclear when we should be more more concerned and Emily talked about that some more. So that's it for volcanoes and eruptions unless you have thoughts questions comments Richard. My understanding of the Iceland case is that the places that they do a pretty good job is where there's a they have a volcano that they've seen erupt before they basically have a sense of where the magma chamber is and so there's some sort of combination of knowing where the magma chamber is and having seen a previous eruption and literally timing from when there's a swarm of activity at depth and then the time it takes for that magma to get up. So is that right or is it the most time in these persoatic systems? If they're low so for many of the volcanoes there is a track record and they have eruptions every accident. Simi you might know more about those. Three times is this like we captured the eruption in the Galapagos we knew what had happened the previous three times and when out it happened almost within about a month when we expected so we're a lot better when we have multiple events in the basaltic systems the the others are harder. That's a really good point right I mean here I'm only talking about just erupting but you're right the volcano hazard is manifold you have volcanoes you have earthquakes that relate to the disruption of airspace and all of those require their own type of monitoring system and response so so that's a very good point that it's much more complex when it comes to building and slowly the message is very similar to the earthquake one the key is to have a well monitored and more in-sensor monitored system so that you capture the deformation because sometimes the formation signals have been helped much this incident and vice versa and sometimes all you see is de-gassing with very little positive physical signals. I think you do need a comprehensive monitoring of as many volcanoes as possible in some cases because we have many many volcanoes. Remote sensing techniques, thermal deformation and so imagery, seeing plumes can also play a really important role because we can build networks on every volcano that we believe to be active. Alright moving on so there we go so these are kind of my talking points when it comes to earthquakes and I'll sort of more slowly go through this so we talked a lot about the kind of new observational tools, techniques, measurement systems on the seafloor on land that come into play and with the help of those we have seen many precursors. There's no doubt that earthquakes are preceded by foreshocks sometimes by measurable deformation but those recursive processes seem to involve a wide range of processes over a huge spatial range of spatial and temporal scales and involving maybe sometimes preparation processes that every earthquake thinks it needs to go through to become a seismic event but also simple triggering relationships that are independent that means there's no predictive power in detecting those precursors and there are many observations of seismicity or deformation events that fail to precede anything but they're not they don't know to be precursors meaning we can't just see them and say our that's going to be in those days and so therefore I do think as Emily with a big red note implied the the prospects for prediction are pretty poor so far and so instead we need to focus on probabilities and that obviously was the main theme in this last session and I think there's a lot of motivation for more research based on public scientific curiosity better understanding how faults work and the whole process but also slightly understanding them in the context of hazard so we had a lot of talks that did talk about various techniques some of them have been allowed now for some a number of decades and she honestly we have satellite remote sensing more recently we've learned that even satellite gravity measurements might be able to capture what could be precursory dynamic signal deep in the earth we've talked about seismological technologies and methods including the optical fibers but also Emily talked a fair bit about new measurement what we do with our seismic data screens using finding low frequency earthquakes repeating earthquakes tremors earthquake swarms using template matching to get an order of magnitude larger numbers of earthquakes with the same data that we we have before doing time-dependent ambient noise imaging of systems using machine learning to try to see if there's information in there that we don't recognize by just thinking about them the way we do so far and then clearly a big theme of this meeting was the need for and the steps we're taking towards c-claw monitoring both seismic and geodetic and and I like the quote from Spar no sensor is adequate for all signals so this clearly will require a combination of different methods pressure centers to be as the crispy whole tilt meters ideally interrogated in a real-time sense using cables or other methods so thoughts recommendations discussion of just observational techniques that really have been able to a lot of what we might call it all right so yep we're thinking ahead where should we be putting our money in terms of the future of in types of instrumentation I mean is it seafloor you know is it iroptics online like what what's the recommendation if you think about it that way both scientifically and societally right subjections on the biggest breaks to do stupid as fault-related has a tsunami shaking and so the lack of knowledge from closer to the earthquake source and the source of possible precursors or what we know to be because this makes that I think the biggest frontier it's very clear that you know if we can take the data we have already in hand right so much more valuable by using some of these template matching etc machine learning techniques that's kind of easy and less expensive so in that sense that's the bang for the buck is high but I think that the frontier is under the oceans the oceans covers 70% of the earth and most of the plate boundaries both transform spreading and just to amplify that I don't think you said it you would talk but also that's where all of these interesting new observations are being made as well so it's not just that we have the technology capability to go and do this now we're actually starting to see I mean that's what the whole beginning of this morning right subjections are also of the ocean transform thought tend to be culturally coupled and make the earthquakes but they also have more slow-slipped tremor etc phenomena there are more fluids involved so that makes them in that sense more interesting along those lines of funding the need for more continuous observations so just you know not just running to the time of the scene but before during and after as well as the portfolio the range of observations that have to be done especially as you noted in volcanic systems simultaneously I think we'll make important more collaboration between agencies in the future these are not really campaigns like we're used to funding I suppose from individual agents so it's just interesting thought in terms of the future of how all this equipment will be purchased deployed and maintained and and remain in that place for very long time I think you know the most synergies there are right away so it's from optical fibers to utilization of these offshore networks it's combined USGS NSF NASA like every every agency that contributes to this committee is involved in all of this I think in this room that we should also tackle is the fact that it's not necessarily easy to get like long-term funding for long-term instrumentation in remote areas so so probably in Cascadia in the US or in Japan or in New Zealand are very good observation instruments but in lots of places if there are data they are not necessarily available and they are not open which is something that probably collectively we should work on and also trying to find fielding schemes that allow installing networks that's why I think in the US it has to be more than NSF right we're learning that now with PPO for example yeah I bet I would my comment would be this is what Alan and I have been speaking about earlier is you just said in the US that we're talking about these international collaborations that are required the constant and also the reward to all of us is facilitating international collaborations for multi-disciplinary research just seems so really important the more you can demonstrate multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional interests more likely there might be a chance to get that I just want to make one comment that I actually have to be rude and you know Emily this morning laid out these two sort of in member hypotheses for four shocks that we've been talking about for decades and you know that the general mood observations on land for precursors has not been terribly optimistic pessimistic and we have these sort of intriguing observations from Japan and Chile the question is there's just something fundamentally different about subtraction zones and I think I don't know the answer I don't think anybody knows the answer to that but we also have a situation now where I think we've gotten to a state where people see earthquakes that seem to evolve in space-time in a way that people point to them and say slow slip event without a deformation signal and I'm not convinced that that's the only way you can get the space-time evolution of earthquakes that there could be cascades of just triggering of events that happen to evolve in a space-time pattern just the same way that I'm not convinced with every time the space-time pattern seems to fit square root of time that it means it's fluid diffusion you know maybe it does but not always which is pretty confident that so if we could answer one question you know in the next decade or so or two questions that would be is there something fundamentally different about subduction zones and are these probably earthquake sequences really indicating a seismic slip we could do that I think that would push us a lot farther yeah I totally agree I mean it's really clear I'm afraid from the examples for either the cascade model where people look very carefully at patterns of foreshadowing in space and time continental earthquake, lander sector mine, El Mayo, Cucabal, Cormomodo, Ismael there there's relatively little indication of pre-slip or slow slip progression that leads up to the earthquake whereas the examples where we see that to hopefully kick it and with the others with two dead exit masks included even the friction is there so certainly in terms of it being more likely that seems to be the case 1966 prop field that creeped the day before so that's that's one of the reasons why so many periodic instruments went as well and that turned out wrong in 2004 so yeah that's a good point I won't see you fall. Okay so did you understand anything? Yeah so in any case right with all these observational capabilities we have an increasing number of interesting precursors big-scale gravity, moderate sized flip episodes from geodesy, repeating earthquakes, sea flow, geodesy pressure sensors etc indicating pre-slip before to Hoku, the long-term acceleration that Paul described to us, foreshocks it seems like more and more it seems like most earthquakes have foreshocks and they may just be exactly as H explained just what we should expect based on how we understand interaction of seismic events so one has to look at these in the context of are these foreshock sequences more special to make them have any information about the size of the impending earthquakes but with this new catalogue that Zach Rust produced they now see that almost all 75 percent of magnitude-form larger earthquakes have foreshocks so that's really pretty exciting and we see a lot of indications of slow slip above and beyond foreshocks from geodesy where we have it but also seismic indicators of slow slip that we think of pretty diagnostic, tremolo-frequency earthquakes, repeating earthquakes, some of swarm-like seismic incidents. So there are precursors that's exciting. The challenge is that the processes involved in these precursors seismic events versus slow slip may be also fluid flow, may be also even geodynamic accelerated strain rates in the mantle as would be implied by this observation. Span a huge range in time foreshocks can happen seconds before an earthquake, definition, accelerations can take decades and in space meter-scale preslip versus hundreds of kilometers scale slip episodes like we saw in New Zealand recently and so that suggests there's there's not a very simple way of thinking about the precursor as being due to a single process that all earthquakes have to go through. Before I move on thoughts on that would you agree with that assessment that there's no coherent theme something we would say well we've seen it but for enough earthquakes I think every earthquake has this particular process. We saw for each of us parameters they often come out very close to critical and be correct for work in aftershocks so foreshocks the ones you just don't know back because they're too far away or before your catalog or too small. I guess you explained right foreshocks tell us something about earthquake probability but they don't tell us something about we're gonna have a big earthquake. Yeah so even though it could be a hundred percent in that number that doesn't make the prediction. I just want to so people have a bunch of people online I just want to make sure they're able to let us know if they want to make a comment or question. They can raise their hand and I can unmute them. Okay so for people who are online if you raise your hand electronically that's how you can get back to them. Sorry. So with related processes I quickly showed that slide right so the end-member models what we're really hoping to find is a process that could be pre-slip, it could be precursory dilatancy or combination thereof where we have a physical process that grows, evolves into an earthquake. This is a slide from Brett McClaskey from a presentation he just gave at SSA and he was making the distinction because he makes earthquakes now on his three- million machine in Cornell and he's able to create these as kind of a critical scale of slip patch below which falls like to slip slowly and then as they grow beyond that they grow. So if that L sub C has a natural meaning that the scale of that would determine the size of the pre-slip and how it relates to the subsequent earthquake. And so when we see slow slip before big earthquakes that's exciting because it could be that nucleation phase that relates to this recent process. On the other hand for many events where people have looked very carefully at the foreshort sequences and how they've often faced in time they conclude that those evolve as a cascade of events trickling each other without any coherent slip process driving them, making them essentially just interacting presumably forming interest like statistical characteristics. Now this I added sort of this trigger model. We know we have slow slip of phase sizes, durations and shapes and sometimes they're followed by a slip and then we call them slip or precursors. And so in this case the size location timing of that precursor is only related to the eventual earthquake in the sense of possibly having triggered it. A bigger precursor doesn't make a bigger earthquake, the duration of it wouldn't necessarily come into play. You would have to model it, the physics, the statistical characteristics to understand. And I think many of the precursors we've seen that really don't seem to be something right around the hypocenters growing into the next earthquakes such as that that's at least as common as a nucleation phase that we're trying to put our fingers on. So the on-shear is a slow slip so it's kind of similar to the in that last slide but its size and location is not necessarily related to it and there are also other foreshocks doing so it's a cascading sequence of seismic and as seismic events not a nucleation phase. Just a comment. So you were mentioning that probably subduction zones are quite different from intracranational platforms and I definitely agree with this. And when you look at precursory deformation or seismicity before subduction earthquake what is really clear is that the area that is activated before the earthquake is large. Right, so if you think for example right the foreshock sequence really kind of wraps up. I was actually thinking about it a little bit. Yeah and so when you were showing the premise slide from the prism tree they would be like extremely large, involved in a very large area and then concentrate. And this is true also with the hooku depending on where you think that this long term slow slip is associated with the preparation but also when you when you look at the foreshock sequence it is not a very large area including so in the case of the hooku right that that pre-slip did occur near the hypersandricks. I worked on the Karatsky replica of the Gamehunter Chetka.  But it was clearly at least 50 kilometers away from Chetka. So I think that was a starting triggering relationship probably but it was not a pre-slip. So pre-cursor candidates those are the events seismic events, slow slip events that could become a pre-cursor. But I think the message we've learned they just as often don't. Right, so the pre-tohoku pre-cursor that was captured both theoretically by pressure sensors and from seismicity. That was a very similar than the 6.8 equivalent marble equivalent made that wasn't followed by the tohoku. And there may have been more of those we don't know. We know from Nankai, from Cascadia, pretty much whatever we look now, we see slow slip events, short-term slow slip events, little tremor sequences, long-term multi-year, multi-month, multi-day slow slip events that happen all the time. And pretty much all the great majority, 90% of those are not followed by earthquakes. So they're pre-cursor candidates that failed to proceed anything. Which means the ability to say, oh, we need to, you know, there's going to be a big earthquake in the sense of prediction that seems difficult. Because then we need to be able to distinguish the kind of pre-cursor candidates from the real pre-cursors, even though we say so many that are indistinguishable really within our current capabilities. So here I use good news because prospects for prediction are poor. And prediction really in sort of the rigorous sense of you calling the place, time, magnitude, and a very narrow window of ranges. And given the diversity of processes, scales, etc., we really haven't seen anything yet that would make us feel like that's just around the corner. We just need to invest another few billion dollars in civology. Obviously, we can promise people that. So that's probably not the direction we want to go. But I'd be interested in hearing more of the mystery of the use of that going once. So I have a question. So we've been discussing all these pre-cursors, say SMIC and Geodetic. Are all the other pre-cursors of other times completely now swept away? And when you say others, do you mean fluid, slow? Any other physical observations? So I deliberately did not get into attempts to talk about pre-cursors from ionospheric disturbances, some other electromagnetic fields. Rain on emissions, that could be, I wait and see. A lot of them don't have physical foundations. So I tried to steer away from that a little bit, but we couldn't talk about that. I mean, people have launched satellites, which are new satellites, just recently, the Demeter satellite from your other friends, that were explicitly meant to use ionospheric variations as a pre-cursory process you can study and I don't think there's anything to that yet. Paulin? On those lines, the HECI pre-cursor is one of these, since I TEC pre-cursor, it's very HECI, H-E-K-I. Yes, yes. It's very interesting. They claim to see it before all magnitude 8 earthquakes. It happens fairly often, so it would be a lot of cause and effect. So he has, by now, written about six, seven papers and I let them off. So we're actually working on a paper trying to, you know, there are already several papers reporting what he's done. I think, even though he says he found ways to get around that, he's still looking at the data in a way that includes the cosides, the fitting. So he finds roughly one hour long pre-cursor from the analysis of ionospheric delay changes or electron content changes in the atmosphere that he offers of the cursor. You're not meant to depend on, I still don't believe it, but that's just my opinion. Is there a question for somebody online? Yes, this is Emily Brodsky, back here in Santa Cruz. So, and I apologize if my question is off base because I missed a chunk of the day. But going back slightly, Roland, you said, is anybody a little bit more optimistic? Yeah, yeah, I know you left me an opening. And I think, you know, when I first started doing volcanoes, what the old volcano observatory people would say is when the deformation of the seismicity go together, that's when you get worried. And I think we're kind of in the same place on the earthquake problem that, you know, now it's a tiny bit of evidence. I don't want to get overexcited about it. But, you know, the type of observation that's before Kike or Tohoku, where you have a very large scale slip with a very large scale foreshock sequence, as Anne was pointing out, it's enormous. I don't think we've seen that with the slip of company get not followed by a large earthquake. Now it may simply be we haven't seen it because we haven't had the instruments to see the slip, you know, so, you know, caution, certainly. But I don't, is there a negative result there yet? So I mentioned, I don't know if you heard that before, Tohoku, there was a similar sized slow slip episode in 2008. Oh, well, yes. It could play the precious senses. That's true. That is certainly true. That's, of course, how they knew about the one in 2011. It's really maligned on that 2008. But did it have the seismicity with it in the same way? Not the same way, right? OK, so you get the slow slip. It's when they kind of come together that we seem to be seeing something more interesting. Yeah. So we'll have to watch more examples to see. It's a fair point. I totally agree with you that the more, you know, observations we make of something in modelism. And even when we talk about ETSs in Cascadia, people have developed models and have suggested that things will change when either the recurrence interval or the size of the ETS suddenly explodes in a way that we've never seen before. And that's a fair thing to then take as an indication now things are going in a different direction than they have in the last several hundred times since 1700. No, I ask a question, too. Yeah, Christmas. That's not. Go ahead, Matt. I could probably be asleep, but I guess my question or comment is really just following on what Emily was saying. And also something that Laura said, and I mean, I understand the skepticism about using any kind of prediction term, but I guess my question is really, we know enough now from these examples in Japan and Chile to really to get a little nervous and to have governmental agent responding and asking questions about probabilities. And I guess my question is, you know, there's still a lot of research to be done. There's a lot of false positives and so forth. But what do we need to know to be able to give better answers to society about what the probabilities really might be based on what we've learned from these recent events? With, of course, I don't know if anyone's mentioned the word alakala with that, you know, sort of, Paul of responsibility put upon scientists that is sometimes not correct, but or is sort of unrealistic expectations, but it's the world that we live in. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that came up in the discussion with Laura and also Morgan that when it comes to how we, you know, put information out that takes into consideration the occurrence of precursor candidates in terms of probabilities. And I'll get to that in a couple of slides, right? Laura said we need some kind of OEF that includes the consideration of these precursor candidates in a way that we can use. And, you know, alakala is really what got a lot of this started, right? So I'm only saying that short-term prediction in the sense of saying there is going to be an earthquake of this size in this place that I don't think we will get to easily and wouldn't want to when it comes to the societal aspect. You know, I definitely agree. I mean, I guess I think we all agree on that. And I think there is question of is what is the new space that's been opened up after Tehoku that have we fully prepared with society the answers that they're demanding? Or what more do we need to do to be able to make them? I think it would be very timely, and maybe people have done that, to revisit Tehoku. Everything that was observed and done and think about what could we have, should we have done or what should have been done, obviously there, but in that context, right? As to what kind of communications could have been issued that would incorporate everything we know now. I think that would be very useful. No, no, no. I just wanted to build off Emily's comment. She was talking about how the 2011 precursor to the Tehoku event had more seismicity than the 2008 social event. And I just wanted to put this point out that, and this came up in large talk too, that parts of New Zealand and like Hoso in Japan and probably other locations, there are social events that are known to be associated with increased seismicity rates that do not end trigger precursor rates. So that's not by itself. Right, so maybe the way to put it, the precursor candidates, little guys, and precursor candidates, big guys with seismicity, we've never seen them before. Yeah, so like if we know that an area produces seismic increases in social events, regularly, then it's less scary to see them. All right, so precursor candidates, including foreshocks, even the ones that just behave the way it does for an action model, predicts do increase probabilities. And so an earthquake forecast, right, tries to take that into consideration. Earthquake probabilities change, and Morgan showed that very nicely how as you keep track of seismicity rate in a given area, such as Bombay Beach, your probability of large events also will be extremely time dependent and very often by orders of magnitude. And so supervents and these other precursor candidates also come into play. Currently, OEF, OEF, operational aftershock forecasting, only consider seismicity, right? So OEF is only initiated when, and that's the currently active system when there's an earthquake, above a certain magnitude, then you do the calculations using the different kind of models and approaches that Morgan described. And you calculate what is the time dependent seismicity rate and probability as a function of time. But we're not doing that yet with slow, split events. So as Morgan pointed out, and this is from email she sent me before, changing seismicity, have predictive information about earthquake rate and predictive power about the chance of a large earthquake. However, foreshocks are not predictive of earthquake science.  And then Laura, this is that Crowdy put in from her presentation, we need to develop OEF models that incorporate slow supervents and not just make ad hoc decisions. And they learned that lesson in real time in New Zealand when they had this immense slow, split events, slow, split events near a critically stressed section of the subduction zone. And they were told by their government, we need something more from you. We need numbers. And you remember the whole way they tried to do that. And I think it's actually in a very admirable fashion. So an operational earthquake forecasting approach that would incorporate these kind of precursor candidates is clearly challenging. It's challenging enough to do this with seismicity, even the most sophisticated use of ETAs kind of OEF models. They're not that easy to do them if you throw in static stress changes, physical ideas about how slow, split relates to the occurrence of earthquakes makes that even more difficult. But I think the experience of New Zealand suggests it's something that it should be considered, especially in subduction zones, where we know these slow, split events cover a big part of the split behavior of the system. It's not that we have mostly just earthquakes and slow, split events are an exotic animal. We shouldn't worry about too much. But they're really a big part of how these systems seem to work in many of the world's subduction zones. OK, so Richard also asked me to mention NIPEC. So I'm currently chairing NIPEC. So NIPEC is a USGS committee. It's a council just to advise the director when it comes to A, people's attempts to predict earthquakes and providing some input for the director with regards to what those mean, but also talking about design. So this committee here discussing precursors, suggests that's an important topic, and that is one of the things we've been tasked to do. And so the kind of discussions and reports we've issued have been about operational earthquake forecasting, providing advice on how that might be best implemented in a way that builds that up in a useful way, addressing some of the societal concerns. The whole question of, well, if people do predictions, how should they be done in a way that allows for quantitative analysis that were common some years ago about CSAP, the Collaboratory Study of Earthquake Predictability, which essentially is a place where people can send their predictions in a form and format that is evaluatable that can be quantitatively assessed. And that's obviously an important aspect. So I just included that to follow Richard's advice due to mention that. But there's probably, you know, there would be interesting discussion between whatever comes out of this and what NUPEC does. And so this is my talking point list again. So I'll open it up for other comments, questions, discussions that you guys might have. Thanks. We are running a little over time, but I think we can take a few more minutes if people have other questions, comments, or things that they want to put on the table as takeaways from today's discussions. Yeah, Mike. We're only just a general question to you. You're not optimistic about prediction in that strict sense, but are you optimistic about the prospects for some of this knowledge, making it into sort of public decision making and risk mitigation and so forth? Given our current state of knowledge, can we do you think we can move in that direction without it? Yeah, I have sort of strict minds. Part of me says we need to do it. We need to offer it based on the demand, like what Laura described, based on experiences like in Italy, how that truly gets translated in a meaningful way into decisions by governments. And mitigating of risk exposure, that's a much more difficult problem. But I think to do our best of expressing what we know about the change in probabilities to the best of expert knowledge, that's part of our responsibility, it seems. But I'm much less certain about how useful that is in terms of reducing losses, et cetera. That's beyond my insight. Roland, can I just ask, how do you imagine that happening? In terms of how it would be part of an OEF system?  I mean, I guess the question is, does there need to be some research program or even a study or something to help? And with that question, how do you move this forward? Right, so they currently write different flavors of OEF, more or less physical. Some are purely statistical, very simple. You know, Riesenberg-Jones kind of aftershock statistics, some take into consideration for geometries, stress changes. And I think to implement slope events, you need to have a physical component. I think there has to be a stress calculation included in the process, stress calculation adding to stressing on hazardous faults and taking them from there. But it's globally not easy, right? Because if you want to do that in real time, that gets pretty challenging. It might involve utilizing earthquake simulators, right, that try to incorporate the basic first order physics and interaction, the triggering aspects of the system. But I think that's a reasonable way to approach it. I have to take a comment. I think in some cases, I think the city hall example was a good one. It wasn't the probability that spurred the decision. It was the fact that the scientists said so. I think I'll make that assertion. I don't know if it's a sensible one. But I think we do have the danger of wrapping ourselves around the axle of feeling that we can't calculate an accurate enough probability when 80% or some large percent of the committee is just us agreeing as a community that something is important enough to say something and agreeing how to express that in the absence of having a number. And I think that we need to be maybe a little more brave or organized about how we provide information and that's a very broad set of categories. I think some sections are right with those examples of cases in which we can't assign a hard number that we'll agree on. But we think that something's up there. And if you take, again, the New Zealand example, if you have half a megapascal of stress increase on a critically stressed large rupture of disparity and you say nothing, that seems cause for more lawsuits. Yeah, fine. I thought it was this thing with Italy, right? They basically said, oh, don't worry, right? Have a class of one. Some did, right?  They said the opposite, which is unscientific. So I guess I'd like to make a comment. I mean, we were beginning to be pulled a little bit into a doldrums. We're not going to be able to predict earthquakes. So what are we doing? I should make a comment. Mike just started to kind of pull us out of it. Thank you, Mike. But I mean, I think that to me, as I think of myself as not being somebody who really studies earthquake processes and seeing these observations that we've heard a lot about, particularly in the first half of this morning, about processes that are obviously clearly part of the earthquake cycle, these slow slip events, these sequences of seismicity that are occurring on critically stressed patches of faults, it seems to me that there are some very exciting new observations that are telling us a lot more about that earthquake cycle. And it seems to me that there was a real opportunity for us as a community right now to point to that and say, look, we really can learn a lot about earthquakes. We are not telling you that we're going to be predicting earthquakes, but we can understand a lot more about this process, about this cycle, and this will probably help us to reduce the overall hazards associated by understanding long-term forecasting, all of the things that we do already, but just doing it that much better. I 100% agree with you. Right, I'm not saying this is not important, exciting and meaningful. I'm only saying that these precursor processes have enough non-uniqueness that the prospect of short-term prediction of time-place magnitude, that's the least likely outcome of all the great things that we can learn studying precursors. What we can do better, right, is to get to Laura's factors, right? He has a factor two from statistics, and has a factor 10. But that's my prediction, that's on the structure. Right, yeah. We can develop a more better instrument. Right? Yes. Yeah. So if I came across this sort of thing, I know some of the things I was going to hold. But this is important just for other people. I mean, one of the roles of this committee is to talk about what are the needs, and, you know, there's this question, you know, that there really are new opportunities here based on some of the observations. If we can get out there and observe them, I think that's a critical thing. And understand them in a physical model, right? Absolutely. And observe and open access, and real-time, whatever. But that's not the case for large portions of the world. And I think it's a really important one. That's a really good point, right? On the international scene, that is a school of big issues in many parts of the world. So call for open data should be part of... Well, I think in practicing New Zealand, I can tell you the station's spacing is very large and reliant on temporary arrays in many places as well. Just... It's a really broad problem. Chef. So... Could I say something? Yeah, go ahead, Emily. So the framing of this workshop included volcanoes, and maybe that's too broad an umbrella. Maybe we really should be just focusing our attention on all these new earthquake observations. But I do think there is something to be learned from the cross-fertilization that in a lot of ways these communities are moving in the opposite direction. That earthquake precursors and prediction has been a subject that people have been hesitant to even talk about, let alone say they're doing, and people will not make an earthquake prediction with actual, out-of-actual numbers, as Mike was just pointing out. Whereas volcanic predictions are done routinely based on fairly qualitative data with fairly qualitative statements about what's going to happen next. And they're trying to working hard to tighten it up, but it seems like that has certainly been societally useful. It's hard to argue that those have not been useful predictions. So maybe we've got something to learn there. Yeah, I agree. I mean, as you described, volcanic systems are different than important rays, but they're also very promising and challenging in different ways. And I like the idea of keeping those two topics together and informing each other. So obviously, I like your cartoon, and Paul was pushing us a little bit to think about that as a problem to go after. And I think one of the really interesting places this conversation ends up is sort of the quality versus quantity trade-off of what you do. And so in writing the SC4D report, Emily and I had a little devil's advocate thing where Emily took the widespread low-density approach and I took the dense but only one or two places approach in putting together boxes. And I don't necessarily know the answer to that trade-off if you can make good arguments either way, but I think the thing that really could use a lot of thought right now is as this momentum is building for significant investment in convection zones is what we're trying to pull up in the deep in the sense of, is it one really well-captured example that really lets us get the physics captured? So at least we know what it is that we're talking about. And in places where we can recognize that we're more than effective to bump into probability or is it in this statistics of getting, my feeling is that we have a lot of these examples where we have these data sets that we're pretty much into something, but not good enough to really nail it down off-sharp. And I think that trade-off between getting good number of statistics with those kind of data sets versus something like that active ejection experiment where you know everything. That's the conversation to try and steer among the seduction zone crowd is this momentum builds towards doing something. I mean, I'm a big fan of the natural laboratory approach. And there's also the question like if the problem is scale and variant and looking in great detail in one place where we think we can do so optimally would be really, really important. That doesn't mean we should not also follow Emily's suggestion, right? She showed the whole earth and saying, we can go to all these places and we should and try to capture things because they might be relatively rare, for example. But I do think that a natural laboratory component that's really important and takes advantage of the scale and variant so that we can maybe in one place see a dozen nucleation phases if they exist in a more general way could tell us a lot more than if we failed to scratch the surface, everyone. You're proposing the Parkfields now. Yeah, some people are saying we should go back to Parkfields. The next one is just around the corner. No, that's exactly right. And it was a good lesson, right? That even though people put in strain meters because we wanted to see a nucleation phase that we put them in a place where the previous two are really 5% or 34, 66 were. And then the earthquake started on the other side where there's little slow slip and we didn't see anything. So that's a good lesson. That's a good point. One more good fight. Yeah. All right, I think that's a good place for us to put. Thanks to start. Thank you, Roland, for that great introduction.