The episode was scheduled to air three weeks after the previous episode , as the Major League Baseball playoffs were underway until November 11 at the latest , though the lack of a sixth and seventh game at the World Series allowed the episode to air a week earlier , on November 4 . As with other '' Fringe '' episodes , Fox released a science lesson plan in collaboration with Science Olympiad for grade school children , focusing on the science seen in " Amber 31422 " , with the intention of having " students learn about the process of fossilization and identification of species from incomplete information . " In the parallel universe , Lincoln Lee mentions that it was Cary Grant , and not Humphrey Bogart , who starred in '' The Maltese Falcon '' . After Olivia arrives late to a crime scene , Lincoln chides her for driving on the " Nixon Parkway , " a reference to former president Richard Nixon . The tank Walternate uses to submerge Olivia has been noted by some critics to closely resemble a similar device in the 1980 science fiction film '' Altered States '' , which also starred '' Fringe '' actress Blair Brown . Walternate tells Broyles he first began the amber protocol on October 17 , 1989 , which was the same day as the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in our side 's San Francisco Bay region
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
Amber 31422