Gloomy Forecast

Ever since the great earthquake of 1906, scientists have been predicting that the city of San Francisco, perched precariously over the San Andreas fault, would some day be hit by another devastating tremor. Reuben Greenspan, 69, was not nearly so vague as that. Operating on a long-standing theory that certain relative positions of the sun and moon can exert catalytic--and predictable--pressures on the earth's surface, Greenspan announced in 1971 that an earthquake would strike the city on Jan. 4, 1973 at 9:20 a.m. Last week Greenspan delphically hedged on his prediction, saying he wanted to verify the data and didn't mean to upset anyone, but the idea remained quite unsettling.

Greenspan first won worldwide attention during the Depression (TIME, July 22, 1935) when he accurately forecast earthquakes in Chile, Peru, Japan and India, as well as a savage volcanic eruption in Krakatoa. He was more or less dismissed by the scientific community as a lucky crackpot. But he resurfaced within the past couple of years in Laguna Beach, and astounded Californians by predicting the time and date (Feb. 9, 1971 at 6 a.m.) of the San Fernando earthquake that killed 64 people and wrought more than $500 million worth of damage. Greenspan has missed the mark before; he has thrice predicted San Francisco earthquakes. Still, between the eerie San Fernando prognostication and the grisly events in Managua, Nicaragua, Bay Area dwellers entered the New Year preoccupied by some sobering thoughts.

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