Did you feel the tremor Monday night? Several residents of Bethany, Pa. reported feeling a possible quake at 7 p.m., about two and a half hours before a 3.0 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Morris County, NJ. If you experienced any tremor, please contact Managing Editor Peter Becker at (570)253-3055 or e-mail him at pbecker@wayneindependent.com. Please include the time it was felt, where you were, and any other details.

Margaret Freeman, mayor of Bethany, Pa., related what she experienced in her column, which is ironically entitled, "Bethany on the Move." Her column, which she submitted Thursday, appears here:

Bethany On the Move
From the Mayor's Corner

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Bethany is definitely on the Move! There's a whole lot of "moving and shaking" going on. Monday evening at approximately 7:00 p.m. the earth shook. At least it was on Bethany Hill, Old Wayne Street, Sugar Street, Spruce Street and on Wayne Street across from the library.
Coincidentally, at that time, a large boom and a burst of light transpired on Sugar Street. It was enough to make people come out of their homes on Sugar Streetrush to the window, "andwnat to their wondering eyes should appear", but a huge flame, a light that shot up in the sky. Neighbors on Old Wayne Street came out in the snow to check their houses to see "what fell on their roofs. Could it have been a whole tree that fell on the roof and fallen to the ground? One citizen thought the plow had driven into his home! There was a mystery in Bethany.
Even though many citizens feel there are ghosts or spirits living in their homes, this noise and the feeling of the houses moving wasa little too close for comfort! A second boom was felt, but much lighter in nature.
What could it be? One theory entertained was that perhaps the
Martians had at last landed and we would see little people, "aliens" wandering around our borough. A resident called 911 and the police responded, we think... but if no one was hurt, and there were no accidents reported , there was nothing to investigate. We couldn't ALL be crazy! There was a lot of telephoning going on and together with the moving and the shaking, we accepted the fact that we actually did experience a strange phenomenon !
On television the next morning it was reported that "last evening in Morris Township, New Jersey, many people called in with reports of their houses shaking. " I called the Emergency Management Office, in the Wayne County Courthouse, and talked to the Director, Frank Smith.
He confirmed that there actually was an earthquake reported in New Jersey, and it traveled on the fault line to Bethany! We're in the news! But why the big light? And why would someone have a bon fire in the middle of a snow storm? Why would someone be burning a brush pile at night? Certainly a fire wouldn't start an earthquake!
When interviewed, one Bethany resident told me she saw a pig running down on Sugar Street not too many days before, and she wondered if "she was crazy". Now we're seeing lights and waiting for aliens to appear. Well, the pig, the lights and the earthquake are real! And rest assured, interested readers, that the "bumps in the night" are not visitors from another planet. We still have roughly 300 citizens of Bethany.. all earth dwellers, who are alive and well and feel quite contented to live in this happy little 999 square acres borough, bumps and all!
- Mayor Margaret Freeman