EVALUATION AND INTERPRETATION OF 13 OFFICIAL VAN TELEGRAMS FOR THE PERIOD SEPTEMBER 10, 1986 TO APRIL 28, 1988

All the thirteen official earthquake prediction telegrams sent by VAN-researchers during September 10th, 1985, to April 28th, 1988 based on seismic electric signals (SES) observations were examined against seismic data. The first four telegrams, pertaining to the M(s) = 6.0 Kalamata earthquake and its aftershocks, were all failures. Of the remaining nine telegrams, five were complete failures, because there was no earthquakes with M greater-than-or-equal-to 4 in the candidate areas within 11 d after the telegram. Even when some events occured after the telegram, correlation with prediction was either non-unique or the error in magnitude was too large. In seven cases, earthquakes with a magnitude comparable to that of predicted events took place in the candidate areas, just before the related telegrams without any SES, contrary to VAN's assertion of one to one correspondence between SES and earthquakes.