The Mothman cometh

In breaking news about creatures that almost certainly don't exist, today we have: Mothman Visits Chicago.

If you've heard of Mothman, it's probably because of the 2002 movie The Mothman Prophecies starring Richard Gere, which had nothing to do with prophecies but did feature a large, dark creature whose only apparent similarity to a moth was having wings.  To me, it looks more like a cross between a spider monkey and a peregrine falcon, with the added feature of having glowing red eyes.

Here's an artist's conception of the Mothman:

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Tim Bertelink, Mothman Artist's Impression, CC BY-SA 4.0]

I'm a little mystified by the guy waving cheerily in the inset on the top right.  He looks perfectly at ease.  "Hey, y'all," he seems to be saying.  "I'm completely unconcerned by the fact that I'm standing next to a scarlet-eyed demon from the Ninth Circle of Hell."

Which brings up another point I've never understood -- the thing about glowing eyes, scarlet or otherwise.  Reflective eyes, yes; many animals, especially nocturnal ones, have something called the tapetum lucidum behind the retina, which reflects back any light that makes it past the retinal receptors, giving them a second chance to catch it.  This is why, for example, the eyes of deer glow in car headlights.  (Our eyes in a camera look red not because of a tapetum, nor because of being evil hell-beasts, but because a flash photograph in dim light bounces light through our dilated pupils and illuminates the blood vessels in the retina.)

But glowing eyes?  Where's the light coming from?  Is there a little man with a flashlight inside the Mothman's eyes, shining the beam out through the pupil?  In the usual course of things, light goes into the eye, not out of it.

But I digress.

Anyhow, the movie was based on the almost entirely unreadable book of the same name by John Keel, which wanders around aimlessly talking about aliens and UFOs and Men in Black and so on, for two hundred pages or so.  The part that is actually about the Mothman is regrettably brief, but I guess if that's all he'd published, it would have been called The Mothman Short Story.  The gist of it is that near the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1966 and 1967, a number of people saw something big with wings at night, and the whole thing generated a lot of hysteria, especially after the Silver Bridge, which crosses the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, collapsed on December 15, 1967.  Forty-eight people died, and the cause was later found to be a corroded I-beam, which as far as I can see has absolutely nothing to do with a giant winged creature with red eyes.

The reason this all comes up is because of a friend and long-time loyal reader of Skeptophilia, who sent me a link two days ago about how people are now seeing Mothman in Chicago.  There have been no fewer than fifty-five sightings in the past year, and eyewitnesses describe it as a "large, black, bat-like being with glowing red eyes" and "something like a Gothic gargoyle."  More disturbing, some people haven't just seen it from a distance.  Apparently it has more than once dropped onto the hoods of cars, or peered into people's windows at night.

The phenomenon has come to the attention of cryptozoologist Lon Strickler, who runs the wonderful website Phantoms and Monsters.  Strickler seems to be pretty excited by the whole thing.  "This group of sightings is historical in cryptozoology terms," he said, in an interview in Vice (linked in the first paragraph).  "For one, it's happening in an urban area for the most part and that there are so many sightings in one period."

However, Strickler says we shouldn't panic.  "These beings are less aggressive than the one in Point Pleasant, for the most part," he said.  "I believe overall there was only one being in the Point Pleasant-area that was seen during that period, while there appear to be at least three here in Chicago...  I think they're flesh and blood beings that aren’t of this world."

Which, now that I come to think of it, really isn't all that comforting.

What this once again brings home is that frustration I have with the fact that these things never happen to me.  You'd think I'd have the ideal spot -- a large, rambling house on a wooded lot with a creek, out in the middle of nowhere.  Okay, I have two dogs, which might be discouraging to monsters who are considering showing up, but allow me to reassure any Beings That Aren't Of This World who might be reading Skeptophilia that as guard dogs, these two rank only slightly above stuffed toys in terms of viciousness.  If a Mothman showed up at my window, baleful red eyes glowing in my direction, I can almost guarantee that Lena would sleep right through it.  As for Guinness, if Mothman brought along a pocketful of dog treats, or better yet, a tennis ball, Guinness would be his friend for life.

So you'd think I'd be a sitting duck.  But never, not once, have I ever seen a UFO, alien, Bigfoot, poltergeist, ghost, demon, Mothman, or Sheepsquatch.

I bet you were expecting me to say "I made the last one up."  But no, there is a Sheepsquatch, or at least some people in Virginia claim there is, although looking at the artist's rendering from eyewitness accounts, I can't think of anything it looks less like than a sheep.

So some people have all the luck.  Maybe now that I've pointed out their omission, the Mothmen et al. will be kind enough to pay me a visit.  If so, you'll be the first to hear about it.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is a wonderful read -- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  Henrietta Lacks was the wife of a poor farmer who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951, and underwent an operation to remove the tumor.  The operation was unsuccessful, and Lacks died later that year.

Her tumor cells are still alive.

The doctor who removed the tumor realized their potential for cancer research, and patented them, calling them HeLa cells.  It is no exaggeration to say they've been used in every medical research lab in the world.  The book not only puts a face on the woman whose cells were taken and used without her permission, but considers difficult questions about patient privacy and rights -- and it makes for a fascinating, sometimes disturbing, read.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

The wrath of Herman

We have an interesting story developing in Illinois, where a church pastor has raised some eyebrows by calling down the wrath of god on a federal judge.

Herman Jackson, who is the bishop of the Ark of Safety Apostolic Faith Temple of Cicero (a suburb of Chicago), ran afoul of the law last October when he was arrested on charges of fraud, with allegations that he had been swindling state day care funds.  Jackson was already notorious for a conspicuously flashy lifestyle, with a fleet of luxury vehicles that included a Bentley, a Jaguar, and two Mercedes, and a second home in Georgia, leading non-church-members to suspect that Bishop Jackson may have other priorities than spreading the word of god.

Be that as it may, Jackson was arrested and then freed on bond, but had a directive to live in the bedroom in his church rather than returning to Georgia to be with his family.  Jackson objected to this condition, saying that he needed to drive his 15-year-old son to school, an excuse that in my opinion ranks right up there with "the dog ate my homework" in believability.

So the judge overseeing the case, Sharon Johnson Coleman, refused to let him go.  Jackson blew his stack, and said, "Because of Judge Sharon Coleman’s continual mocking of God’s ecclesiastical order and the sanctity of family and marriage, the wrath of God almighty shall soon visit her home."

One guiding principle of life in the United States is, "Threatening a federal judge is a bad idea."  Speaking with the measured tone that befits her position, she said that she "has concerns about Mr. Jackson’s ability to comply with bond conditions and to appreciate the severity and magnitude of the situation in which he finds himself."

In other words: you can take your wrath of god and stick it where the sun don't shine.

Jackson, however, didn't back down, and continues to claim that the Almighty is on his side.  "I was in prayer.  This is what God told me.  I don’t have the power.  God has the power."

You have to wonder how all of the "America is a Christian Nation" people are going to respond to this.  On the one hand, you have a federal judge, who is clearly carrying out her sworn duty in prosecuting this wingnut.  On the other hand, you have a guy who sincerely believes that he's hearing the voice of god, and that voice is fully in support of everything he does.

Because, of course, "calling down god's wrath" kind of happens all the time in the bible, and when they read these passages, most Christians seem to shrug and say, "Well, you know, god is just like that."  We have, for example, 2 Kings 23-24, where the prophet Elisha is meandering about, and some kids make fun of him:

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!”  He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

Well, that's edifying.   And lest you think that this is the sort of thing that only happened in the Old Testament, that by New Testament times god had upped his dosage of antipsychotic meds, we have the lovely tale of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11, which goes as follows:

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?  Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold?  And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing?  You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.  Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.  Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord?  Listen!  The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.  Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

I'll just bet it did.

So Bishop Jackson does have some basis for his actions.  Not that the wrath of god seems like it's all that easy to call down these days, for some reason.  In spite of the fact that the folks in the bible seemed to be able to get god to smite people left and right, for damn near anything, nowadays it doesn't happen nearly so often.  I know my dad used to regularly request that the wrath of god descend upon tailgaters and telemarketers, and I don't recall that in either case anyone dropped dead or got eaten by a bear.

Which is kind of a shame, now that I come to think of it.

So, I don't think that Judge Coleman has all that much to worry about.  But it'll be interesting to see how this plays out -- if she decides that what Bishop Jackson has said actually constitutes a threat.  If so, I'm guessing that even living in his church will cease to be an option, and he'll find himself being fitted for an orange jumpsuit post-haste.

So, that's our news from the wacky religious fringe.  I live in hope that even the devout Christians who hear about people like Bishop Jackson don't believe his fire-and-brimstone pronouncements, although there are dozens of biblical passages that then require some rather awkward explanation.   So keep your eye on the Chicago area.  Let me know if you hear about bears in the vicinity.  Other than these guys: