Skeptophilia (skep-to-fil-i-a) (n.) - the love of logical thought, skepticism, and thinking critically. Being an exploration of the applications of skeptical thinking to the world at large, with periodic excursions into linguistics, music, politics, cryptozoology, and why people keep seeing the face of Jesus on grilled cheese sandwiches.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Voodoo, dragonflies, Planet X, and sex with evil spirits

New from the Be Careful What You Wish For Department, in yesterday's post I asked my loyal readers to send me links to stories of woo-wooism worldwide, and within a couple of hours I received four stories which, although I appreciated the gesture, left me wondering how much weirder people can get.

First, we have a story from Telford, Shropshire, England, about a teacher who used some very unorthodox methods to get her students to behave.

Roslyn Holloway, now an ex-employee of the Lord Silkin Trust Secondary School, was a teacher of special education for kids aged 13, and her tenure at the school was marked by abusive behavior (she smacked one misbehaving kid with the heel of her hand, and pulled another by the hair so hard that a hunk of it came out), racial epithets, and general verbal harassment.  However, what makes this story merit a mention in Skeptophilia is what finally got her fired.  (As if all of the above weren't enough.)

During a social studies lesson, she took a doll out of a bag, and wrapped a student's hair around the doll's leg, and threatened to drop the doll to "make his leg hurt."  Then, she said that she was planning on dropping the doll into a bucket of water if the student didn't stop talking in class, and if she did, he would "be found, mysteriously drowned."

What I find most disturbing about this whole incident is that this nutjob was allowed to teach for eight years before the voodoo incident finally got her canned.

Holloway upped stakes after her dismissal, and moved to the Shetland Islands, where, it is to be hoped, she will never be allowed around children again.  Or anyone else, for that matter.


On a lighter note, we have a report from London regarding a dragonfly that is actually a remote-controlled drone operated by an alien parasite.

The report, made by a man who identifies himself only as SpaceCowboy1954, appeared in a YouTube video (which you can watch here).  The video, which is approximately as interesting as watching your fenders rust, features eight minutes of footage of what appears to be an ordinary dragonfly zooming around, accompanied by an annoying, monotonous syntho-pop soundtrack evidently performed by a musician who has not yet mastered the concept of "changing chords."  For those of you who would like to cut to the chase, the punch line of the whole thing comes at 6:02, at which point the dragonfly's head appears to split, allowing an "alien head to peek out, just like a Transformer."

After watching the video, wasting eight valuable minutes of my life that I'll never see again, I've come to the conclusion that the guy has been engaged in some creative video editing, as the shots with the "alien" are far blurrier than most of the shots of the plain old dragonfly.  Be that as it may, you should definitely be on the lookout for alien insects next time you're outside, because who knows what they may be up to?  This one was certainly involved in some very sinister circling of the park bench, and we all know what that means.  Next step, world domination.


Speaking of world domination, no roundup of recent weird news would be complete without an update on what Nibiru is doing.

Nibiru, of course, is the mysterious tenth planet, that either is in a highly elliptical orbit extending beyond Pluto, and only visits the inner solar system every few thousand years, or else is in a stable circular orbit exactly on the opposite side of the sun from the Earth, either of which would explain why we never see any sign of it.  This recent Nibiru news takes the second view, and claims that further, (1) it was somehow known to the Hopi, who called it the "Blue Katchina," (2) has no atmosphere or water, but still (3) is the home of the alien race called Annunaki, who (3) were the gods mentioned in the Old Testament, and who were (4) mining gold there until things got screwed up by the fact that (5) Planet X is approaching, which may or may not be the Comet Elenin, and Planet X has (6) pushed Venus further from the sun, which will (7) cause the Earth's magnetic pole to flip, resulting in (8) seriously bad stuff that will of course peak on December 21, 2012.

I wish I was making all this up.  So that I can at least maintain some credibility with my readers, here's a link to the webpage that gives all the details on the upcoming catastrophe.

There's more, of course, but my brain cells were screaming for mercy as it was, so I'll leave you to look at the article on your own if you're interested.  And if major sectors of your brain die in agony from reading this stuff, don't say I didn't warn you.


Last, we have a story from Malaysia, where a man called police claiming that he wife was having sex every night with an "evil spirit."

The unnamed man, in his 20s, described to police that his wife would go to bed in the normal fashion, and then wake him up in the middle of the night moaning.  A "professional medium" hired by the man told him that an evil spirit was coming to her at night and proceeding to have its way with her, and if he didn't take action, she could end up conceiving a "spirit child."

The police "listened patiently" to the man's story, but finally told him that they were not able to arrest the "invisible man," because he was, well, invisible, which would make him kind of difficult to handcuff.

If I'd been the policeman on duty, I'd have told the guy, "Look, buddy, like I don't have enough to worry about, with robotic alien-controlled dragonflies, teachers threatening students with voodoo curses, and the fact that the world's going to end soon."  But I doubt that'd have worked, anyhow, given that most guys are pretty picky about their significant others not cheating on them, even if the significant others are cheating with someone who doesn't, technically, exist.


So, folks, keep those cards and letters coming.  We here at Worldwide Wacko Watch just love the attention, and even if it means facing the fact that a significant percentage of humans are total loons, we're willing to deal with our pessimism about humanity in general to bring these stories to your doorstep.

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