Something surprising happened about an hour ago: at 2:15 pm, the USGS reported that a major 6.8 Magnitude earthquake had taken place in Russian territory, 16 kilometers WNW of Klintsy, in a location that is close to the Russian border with both Belarus and Ukraine.

Reuters was quick to report the earthquake:

MAGNITUDE 6.8 EARTHQUAKE STRIKES WESTERN RUSSIA, NEAR BELARUS BORDER-USGS

This is where the USGS noted the major earthquake took place:

And the notification of the quake in question:

What is curious is that some 20 minutes later, the USGS decided that no quake had actually taken place. In fact not only was the earthquake promptly scrubbed from the USGS website...

... but the link we had sent out as notification of the earthquake:

6.8M Earthquake strikes 16km WNW of Klintsy, Russia http://t.co/XgFyB2Vh3F — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 13, 2015

is now a dead end (link here).

What happened? Was this merely the latest fat finger "glitch", one that may or may not have shaken the ground, or was it simply seasonally-adjusted away, like all those Texas job losses? Here is the official explanation:

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said on Friday there was no earthquake in western Russia after earlier reporting on its website a magnitude 6.8 near the border with Belarus. USGS Geophysicist Paul Caruso said the agency's sensors mislocated an earthquake that was taking place elsewhere. The Russia earthquake appeared on the USGS website while a series of strong temblors were taking place in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, some 700 miles (1,100 km) south of Greenland

So just like a NBC news anchor can "misremember" critical events over a period of many years, so the USGS can now "mislocate" an entire earthquake?

And while the quake or whetver the "mislocated" event may or may not have taken place, we now eagerly await for the BLS and BEA to "misfabricate" US economic data next as the deluge of bad economic news in the coming months courtesy of the shale bust finally reveals the real state of the US economy, forcing the various US economic departments to misadjust the latest recovery euphoria, and miscrush any hopes of a summer rate hike by the Fed.