Good news: Planetary alignment won't cause Calif. quake Thursday

Doyle Rice | USA TODAY

Maybe it's the release of the new movie San Andreas, but somehow we've got earthquakes on the brain these days.

Apparently, a bit of hysteria has emerged out of the ether this week, claiming that a massive, magnitude-9.8 earthquake will devastate California on Thursday because of — wait for it — a so-called "planetary alignment."

Um, OK. You can check out the video about the Global Coastal Event here if you want.

Phil Plait over at Slate's Bad Astronomy blog does a better job than I ever could to debunk the craziness.

"Let me be clear: No, it won't," he writes. "It can't. Worse, there's not even really an alignment on that date, at least not with the Earth. It's all baloney."

He goes on to explain that there's no way an alignment of the planets could cause an earthquake on Earth since they're way too far away to have any gravitational influence on our world.

Additionally, the purveyor of this balderdash also quotes famed prognosticator Nostradamus, which is "always suspect," meteorologist Scott Sutherland of the Weather Network notes.

"Taking anything Nostradamus wrote down as any herald of the future is not recommended," Sutherland says.

Anyway, what's looks to be truly scary is the new earthquake movie San Andreas, which is indeed set in California and somehow features a magnitude-9.6.

"The cringe-worthy dialogue and unmoving earnestness are the biggest disasters in this mostly forgettable action flick," writes USA TODAY film critic Brian Truitt.

What would Nostradamus say?