A magnitude 7.2 earthquake bolted past Rosario García González’s house in Baja California on a spring afternoon in 2010. González, an elder of the indigenous Cucapah community, later recounted the remarkable sight to scientists: As the quake cracked open the surface, it kicked up a cloud of dust, like a car racing across the shrubby landscape

But the car, it seemed, was going the wrong way.

Earthquakes usually crack the surface traveling in a single direction, like the tip of a tear through a piece of paper. But according to González, the dust cloud from the progressing quake was rushing back to where the temblor originated—the exact opposite direction scientists expected.

This eye-witness account of a backward-racing quake thrilled scientists. Orlando