Animals used sixth sense to escape tsunami

There has been a lot of mention lately on the various news outlet how there seemed to be no dead animals from the Asian Tsunami. I think that human beings have this sixth sense as well and it's as natural as breathing or sleeping. We have got out of touch with it because of our fast frantic life and because people believe that it's supernatural ability rather than something each of us has access to.

According to Wired News animals seem to have a sixth sense for impending disasters.

Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a sixth sense for disasters, experts said Thursday.

Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.

"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," said H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening."

The waves washed floodwaters up to two miles inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards.

According to the National Geographic:

Before giant waves slammed into Sri Lanka and India coastlines ten days ago, wild and domestic animals seemed to know what was about to happen and fled to safety.

According to eyewitness accounts, the following events happened:
• Elephants screamed and ran for higher ground.
• Dogs refused to go outdoors.
• Flamingos abandoned their low-lying breeding areas.
• Zoo animals rushed into their shelters and could not be enticed to come back out.

Corea, a Sri Lankan who emigrated to the United States 20 years ago, said two of his friends noticed unusual animal behavior before the tsunami.

One friend, in the southern Sri Lankan town of Dickwella, recalls bats frantically flying away just before the tsunami struck. Another friend, who lives on the coast near Galle, said his two dogs would not go for their daily run on the beach.

"They are usually excited to go on this outing," Corea said. But on this day they refused to go and most probably saved his life.

In Japan, one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, where devastation has taken countless lives and caused enormous damage to property, researchers have long studied animals in hopes of discovering what they hear or feel before the earth shakes. They hope that animals may be used as a prediction tool.

As humans we have our attention on money and materialism, careers and our daily problems. We forget that each of us has a one-on-one direct connection with spirit. Instead of learning to listen and dance in harmony with the rhythm of life we prefer to give up control of our lives to "experts". Animals get it because they are naturally in tune with this sixth sense and they have come to depend upon it for their survival.

Check out this article on an ancient Stone Age tribe that used their sixth sense to escape the tsunami.

According to the Chicago Tribune | Primitive tribes fled beaches long before tsunami struck:

PORT BLAIR, India -- Two days after a tsunami thrashed the island where his ancestors have lived for tens of thousands of years, a lone tribesman stood naked on the beach and looked up at a hovering coast guard helicopter.

He then took out his bow and shot an arrow toward the rescue chopper.

It was a signal the Sentinelese have sent out to the world for millennia: They want to be left alone. Isolated from the rest of the world, the tribesmen have learned nature's sights, sounds and smells in order to survive.

Government officials and anthropologists believe that ancient knowledge of the movement of wind, sea and birds may have saved the five indigenous tribes on the Indian archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar Islands from the tsunami that hit the Asian coastline Dec. 26.

"They can smell the wind. They can gauge the depth of the sea with the sound of their oars. They have a sixth sense which we don't possess," said Ashish Roy, a local environmentalist and lawyer who has called on the courts to protect the tribes by preventing their contact with the outside world.

The tribes live the most ancient, nomadic lifestyle known to man, frozen in their Paleolithic past. Many produce fire by rubbing stones, fish and hunt with bow and arrow and live in leaf and straw huts. And they don't take kindly to intrusions.

Anil Thapliyal, a commander in the Indian coast guard, said he spotted the lone tribesman on North Sentinel Island, a 23-square-mile key, on Dec. 28.

"There was a naked Sentinelese man," Thapliyal said. "He came out and shot an arrow at the helicopter."

According to varying estimates, there are only about 400 to 1,000 members alive today from the Great Andamanese, Onges, Jarawas, Sentinelese and Shompens. Some anthropological DNA studies indicate the generations may go back 70,000 years. They originated in Africa and migrated to India through Indonesia, anthropologists say.

It appears that many tribesman fled the shores well before the waves hit the coast, where they would typically be fishing this time of year.

Marion over at Blue Moos also had a very interesting article about sea gypsies who escaped the tsunami using their sense of connection to nature. Check it out here.

So how can we get more in touch with our sixth sense?

• Prayer and meditation: All religions and spiritual teachings have prayers and meditations that can help us get more in touch with our core as a spiritual being. One word you might like to try singing is HU (pronounced HUGH), an ancient name for God that opens the heart. Try singing it over and over for about 10 minutes.
• Spending time in nature: Hiking, canoeing, painting. (This is why I love going on my painting journeys. Being out in nature, away from my cell phone and computer, helps to get in touch with the deeper levels of my being and to listen to my connection to the world.
• Listening to beautiful music: Check out the Mozart effect to see more information on how music has the power to transform consciousness and reduce depression and anxiety.
• Spend more time with your pets: Pets give an enormous amount of love. By spending time with them some of their intuitive abilities can rub off on us. Angel Animals has some great stories of animals and their friendships with humans as well as more stories of animal's sixth sense.