THE VAN METHOD - CONTRADICTORY AND MISLEADING RESULTS SINCE 1981

We reexamine the VAN-telegrams available to us, in terms of the seismo logical data observed in the candidate region before and after the rel evant telegram. For the time period 1981 - 1985, the correlations are random. Earthquakes of any magnitude, from an extremely low threshold (i.e., M = 2.5) at very short distances (i.e., a few kilometers), to l arge magnitudes (i.e., M = 7.0) at very large distances (i.e., 500 km) , or even teleseismic events (i.e., the Iran earthquake of 1981, at a distance of about 2000 km) were correlated by VAN with ''apparent'' SE S, on the basis of the occurrence of an earthquake, anywhere, (from It aly to Aegean Sea, and from Albania to Crete island) and usually based on telegrams exchanged between the VAN-researchers. From 1986 onwards . the VAN-telegrams were restricted mostly to the area of Western Gree ce, which has the highest seismicity in Europe. By analyzing all of th e VAN-telegrams available to us, we conclude that in no case was a mai nshock predicted. Whenever the reported VAN-correlation seems to be sa tisfactory, the correlated event was either an aftershock or the corre lation was not unique, meaning that any of several earthquakes in the same focal region could be arbitrarily correlated with the telegram.