Sorry, Phillies Fans: No Earthquake from Harper/Bohm Home Runs Tuesday Night

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Philadelphia Phillies Bryce Harper
Image via Jose F. Moreno, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Phillies Bryce Harper

Bad enough that Game 4 of the World Series went to Houston. But now, what was presented as an awe-inspiring show if Phillies fandom has also fallen short.

The Game 3 World Series home runs by Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm Tuesday night certainly registered with fans. Unfortunately, they did not register as an earth-shattering event, as first claimed in a Nov. 1 Twitter post:

“Harper and Bohm home runs are literally registering on the Penn State University Brandywine seismograph station. The city is physically shaking,” wrote @JeanLucPicard84.

The Twitter post included an image reportedly showing spikes on the graph highlighting seismographic activity from the stadium reactions to each homerun.

Dr. Laura Guertin, Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences at Penn State Brandywine (the closest seismometer to Citizens Bank Park) started getting calls almost immediately.

“We’re getting a lot of inquiries on campus today about this — and I know we all wish that the stadium crowd had enough energy to generate a seismic event!” she responded in a statement.

But it didn’t happen.

Seismographs do sometimes show small spikes, something known as “human noise” generated by large trucks and construction.

The Penn State Brandywine professor checked with a geoscience colleague “…and we are in agreement that with the stadium 20 miles away from my campus and the timing of these quick spikes in our seismometer record at Penn State Brandywine, this was not caused by our amazing Phillies fans,” she stated.

The Twitter claim was also disputed by CBS meteorologist Tammie Souza who said in her own Tweet that the seismograph image shown actually appeared to be from a San Francisco quake recorded on Oct. 25.

Read more about this fake earthquake news at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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Here’s Fox 29’s story about the seismograph story and the Phillies.

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