Ken Ring's Earthquake predictions for 2025
Hamish Dickson - 22nd December 2025
In this article, I explore Ken Ring’s (AKA The Moon Man) predictions he posted on his Facebook page from January 8th 2025, concerning dates of Earthquakes and where in the world these earthquakes were to occur. For those who don’t know, Ken Ring is a writer from Auckland who claims weather and earthquakes are influenced by the moon cycle. He publishes almanacs each year for New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and, more recently, Japan and Italy, in which he provides weather predictions for the entire year. Ken’s almanacs appear to take into account the position over the earth of the degree of perigee, or point closest to a part of the earth and the moon. So if the perigee is over say the North Island of New Zealand, that area will experience weather changes and increased earthquake activity. The degree or amount of perigee dictates the intensity of the weather or earthquake for that region. This article will focus mainly on earthquakes where weather predictions will be used to illustrate points. However, the reader can be assured, his predictions of both are as useful as each other.
Ken first came to many peoples notice in 2010 when he claimed to have predicted the Christchurch Earthquake on the 4th of September, and the more deadly one on the 22nd of February 2011. The September earthquake was allegedly predicted or announced by Ken on the 3rd of September, during a live broadcast on an Auckland radio station while interviewed by Marcus Lush. Ken’s vague prediction reads as follows:
“you’ll be reading about floods and winds and earthquakes and snow over the next week or so, particularly the South Island ..and this time next week things will start to ease off and we’ll get the aftermath.”
From the Silly Beliefs website.
Ken never published the vague claim in his almanac, which he has often said I should buy when I’ve asked him just how his system works. You would think he would have included the September 4th prediction in his almanac, yet he saved this rather interesting and useful nugget and gave it away free to a few late-night listeners in Auckland. Note also that Ken left earthquakes until last on his list, next to snow, as if it was an afterthought. Given the number of earthquakes we have in New Zealand, there’s no surprise Ken was going to get a hit.
The “this time next week things will start to ease off” might have caused Ken to revise his claim to have predicted February 4th, but no. He also claimed to have predicted the more devastating February 11th earthquake, which claimed 185 lives. Given there were just over 4,000 earthquakes between these two dates, and Ken never mentions the magnitude of an earthquake, again there’s no surprise he was going to get a hit.
So, let’s look at Ken’s prediction for the upcoming major quake.
“I do expect tremors but how deep and what magnitude could be anyone’s guess… But I don’t think we should live our lives in fear - we have to accept sometime that earthquake damage has always been a reality living in NZ and Christchurch got its turn recently. No doubt somewhere else will cop it next time. Yet we can observe in hindsight that the Napier earthquake didn’t come back to buzz Napier, nor have the Murchison and the Edgecumbe shakes returned to the same place. In fact we can confidently say quite the opposite, like the measles once you have had it you probably won’t get it again in your lifetime. So on the basis of historical probability, next March Christchurch might well be one of the safest places.”
According to Silly Beliefs, Ken later adds on October the 13th of 2010:
“I would still not consider that another massive earthquake is certain, in fact I think it’s more likely not to be the case in Christchurch. I can only repeat that other well-known earthquakes in NZ’s history have not, as a rule, revisited the same site.
For another disastrous event, Christchurch may or may not be in the firing line again; it could be Wellington or anywhere, and it may not even happen.”
And after over 4,000 earthquakes centred on the Christchurch region, Ken goes out on a limb and tweets on 14th February 2011:
“Potential earthquake time for the planet between 15th–25th, especially 18th for Christchurch, +/- about 3 days.”
A deadly 6.3 aftershock hit Christchurch on the 22nd. Ken got a lot of media coverage at this time, including an interview with John Cambell on a popular TV3 primetime current affairs programme.
Many people started to take Ken seriously after this lucky shot. A year earlier he’d never mentioned February 22nd, but he had mentioned the 20th of March 2011 instead. Many people left Christchurch in fear. Members of New Zealand Skeptics, along with local cabinet minister Nick Smith (who holds a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering) all headed to a café near the epicentre of the February quake in defiance. Unsurprisingly, not much happened on the 20th of March except a 5.1 tremor, which was mild by comparison. Many commentators, including Nick Smith, said Ken’s predictions were scaremongering an already traumatised population.
So, this is the history of Ken’s ill deserved at best moment of fame.
Now let’s see if Ken has improved his predicting power, or if he still makes broad claims that can include any event as a hit, while missing some of the more significant events.
Date
Countries
Hit or Miss
January 7
India, Nepal, Central America
Hit
Feb 2
Cook Islands, Chad (Middle East)
Miss
Mar 1
Columbia, Hargeysa
Miss
Mar 30
Vietnam, Bahamas, Gulf of Mexico
Miss
Apr 27
Puerto Rico, Surabaya
Miss
May 26
Manila, Brazil
Miss
June 23
India, Paraquay
Miss
July 20
Gulf of Mexico, India
Miss
August 14
Papua New Guinea, Guyana
Miss
September 10
Guatemala, Tanzania
Miss
October 8
Vanuatu, Mauritania
Miss
November 5
Africa, S Pacific
Miss
December 4
Hawaii, N Africa
Miss
As can be seen from the above table, Ken has not improved. The one hit is “India, Nepal and Central America”, and that’s a massive land mass. He misses with every other prediction. The whole continent of Africa, and half the Pacific Ocean - all misses. It’s as if his method is way off, and earthquakes have no correlation with how close the moon is to earth at any given time.
But it gets worse. Significant earthquakes (over magnitude 6) happen almost every day at least somewhere in the world. This is the earthquake tracker for our bundle of seismic activity we call home. It’s not so much a case of what Ken gets right, it’s what he misses. As mentioned earlier, Ken uses the same method to predict earthquakes as he does the weather. I have had several online conversations with Ken over the years. In October 2024, the Dunedin region was hit with a once in a hundred year flood. Days earlier, the Met Service alerted the public, and local councils had workers out clearing drains while farmers moved stock to higher ground. In 24 hours, there was 180mm of rainfall. According to Ken’s almanac, it was meant to be 25mm for the entire week.
Above was the map Ken sent me from his almanac, after I asked why he missed a significant event like a major flood - a flood which ended up costing $33 million. By the way, Ken later called his weather predictions “opinions”. When asked why his opinions missed by almost an order of magnitude (180mm vs 25mm) he responded:
“Amounts of rain are dependent on evaporation beforehand, there SUN. My study is with the moon, amounts will vary. No one can guess amounts. That’s where opinion come in. If it rains there is potential for the house next door to receive double or half what you receive,. 25mm of rain is a lot. For instance, 6mm is considered a rainy day”
Ken knows when he is cornered, but still persists.
A more in depth transcript of this conversation can be seen here.
In my conversations with Ken, he has responded to my questions regarding what he considers to be a significant earthquake. Ken responded with:
I’ve posted this in its entirety, just in case anyone thought I made it up. Yes, Ken apparently doesn’t know what earthquake drums are, and he likes to minimise his miss on the 20th of March 2011.
Another thing I have noticed in the last year is Ken telling his followers that tsunamis can’t happen in New Zealand. Later in the same post that Ken gives his “opinion” on earthquake predictions for 2025, he manages to shoehorn this harmful rhetoric.
“Ignore the warnings from the geologists, that we should be on high alert all the time, while they pick up the research money for their nonsense scaremongering. The Alpine Fault is not in danger of collapsing, nor is the Hikurangi Trench just waiting to spring into action.
Remember too, that tsunamis are unknown in this country because over 90% of the land area is already submerged.”
When other posters, including myself, provided links to significant tsunamis on mainland NZ and the Chatham Islands, Ken responded by saying these were either too long ago or not on the mainland of NZ.
In summary, Ken looks at the moon’s path as it travels closest to the earth and calls his predictions a hit when one of the thousands of earthquakes around the world just happen to be beneath that path, and he ignores everything else. It’s sampling bias, like a drunk looking for a lost coin near a lamp post, because that’s where the light is better. Below is a summary of the most significant earthquakes for 2025, based on deaths, from a Wikipedia list. Ken didn’t manage to predict any of them. Ken Ring metaphorically couldn’t hit a barn door with a spade.
