Stories

When a person is in a life or death situation, he/she often experiences a guardian angel or a vision they cannot explain or recognize who guides him/her to safety. It is called "the third man." The famous explorer Shackleton experienced this vision when he attempted to rescue his stranded men in the Arctic; a woman with no sailing experience whatsoever successfully sailed her boyfriend's boat to port even though he had drowned very early in the voyage in a terrible storm driven by a hurricane; a scuba diver was guided to the surface with two minutes of oxygen to spare by her dead husband; a highly experienced yachtsman who was attempting to sail around the world solo was caught in a deadly storm around Cape Horn but survived when guided by an apparition.

The third man experience has been replicated in a laboratory setting with robots but subjects could not bear the experience and usually stopped the experiment. In real life or death situation, people are not frightened by this apparition, they are strengthened.

San Francisco's highly expensive real estate, three blocks from the waterfront, sits on created land from the gold rush era when ships and boats were deliberately sunk and dirt fill was added in between. This makes the terrain highly unstable for many buildings.

Some are anchored to the bedrock and are safe but others are anchored eighty feet deep into sand. One such building, the Millennium Tower, built in 2009 has sunk 16 inches already and is leaning two inches.

If a powerful earthquake hits, the soil can liquefy, acting like water, destroying everything in the process.

A classical example of liquefaction is Port Royal which was completely destroyed following an earthquake. Port Royal was the exclusive city of pirates.

Scientists say that San Francisco is due for a major earthquake in the next 30 years.