That rabbit's dynamite!

After dealing in recent posts with such topics as the catastrophic loss of Arctic sea ice, the role of isolation in depression, and various scientific advances from astrophysics, archaeology, and neuroscience, I'm sure what you're all thinking is, "Yes, but what about BunnyMan?"

BunnyMan is a cryptid I'd never heard of, that apparently haunts the town of Clifton, Virginia, in Fairfax County.  And according to an article over at Mysterious Universe, we're not talking some gentle, fuzzy little Peter Cottontail, here.  BunnyMan is more like the scary evil rabbit from Donnie Darko.

Author Brent Swancer, who is also the person who a while back warned us about giant Sky Jellyfish attacking Japan, tells us that sightings of BunnyMan have been going on for over a hundred years.  The whole thing started with the escape in 1904 of two inmates from an insane asylum, Douglas Grifon and Marcus Wallster, in the woods near Clifton.  Wallster was eventually found, hanging from a bridge railing, with a note saying, "You'll never catch me, no matter how hard you try.  Signed, The BunnyMan."  Grifon was never found.  And thus began a century's worth of mysterious deaths and sightings of guys in bunny suits.

You may be laughing by now.  I know I was.  Swancer, however, seems to be entirely serious, and describes numerous encounters with the long-eared lunatic.  And he tells us that this thing is the most foul-tempered rrrrrodent... -- well, let's hear an example or two in his own words:

Two of the most intriguing and bizarre accounts of the Bunny Man surfaced in 1970.  The first incident occurred on October 19, 1970, when an Air Force Academy cadet by the name of Bob Bennett was allegedly with his fiancée and parked his car on Guinea Road in Burke, Virginia, so that the couple could talk.  It was at this time that they noticed a white figure moving outside of the vehicle.  Moments later, the front window was smashed into a cascade of glass, and an ominous voice warned “You’re on private property and I have your tag number.”  The horrified couple sped away and as they screamed down the road they noticed a small hatchet on the floor of the car.  When questioned later by the police, Bennett would insist that the attacker had been decked out in a full bunny suit, and he told his superiors at the Air Force base the same thing.  As ridiculous as the story sounded, Bennett would continue to insist it was true long after the incident.

Then, later that same year, BunnyMan had another run-in over people trespassing in his private Carrot Patch:

Just two weeks after the Bennett incident, the Bunny Man struck again.  Paul Phillips, a private security guard for a construction company, reported that he had seen a man-sized rabbit in front of a house under construction.  When approached by Phillips, the rabbit was reported to have said “All you people trespass around here.  If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to bust you on the head,” after which it started to furiously hack away at the unoccupied house with an axe.  Allegedly, when the startled Phillips went back to his car to get a firearm, the “bunny” swiftly escaped into the woods and disappeared.

Swancer's article is chock-full of other stories about people meeting this buck-toothed bad guy in northeastern Virginia.  In fact, the Colchester Overpass, the site of numerous suicides by hanging, has also been the site of so many appearances that it's supposedly called "BunnyMan Bridge" by locals who don't mind losing any credibility they might have had.

What strikes me about all of this is the proximity of Clifton, Virginia to the CIA Headquarters in Langley.  The two are only separated by twenty miles, as the rabbit hops, which I'm sure can't be a coincidence.  After all, I've watched historical documentaries in which Fox Mulder and Dana Scully found out about all sorts of horrible things the government was involved in, including alien hybridization experiments.  So the next step, evil-wise, would be hybridizing humans with various animals, some of which would inevitably escape and terrorize the countryside.  Just be glad it was BunnyMan.  It could have been WeaselMan, PigeonMan, or, god forbid, HornetMan.

I've been at this blog for ten years, and by this time, I thought I'd run into every cryptid in the book; but I have to admit, before yesterday I'd never heard of this guy.  So thanks to Brent Swancer for another example of hard-hitting journalism, uncovering the depredations of a vicious rabbit only a stone's throw from our nation's capital.  I feel safer now.  As Elmer Fudd teaches us, forewarned is forearmed.

Swancer ends his article on a cautionary note:

Who, or what, is the Bunny Man?  Is this a case of a ghost, an unsolved crime, a psycho on the loose, some mystery animal, or merely the delusional human psyche working upon its inner fears to create a phantom construct in the real world in the form of scary stories and myth?  The story of a man-sized bunny running around terrorizing, even murdering, people seems to cross over the line from mystery into preposterousness, but many urban legends doubtlessly have their origins in some grain of truth, so who really knows?  For the case of the Bunny Man, no matter how ludicrous it may sound, it might be a good idea to stay away from the Colchester Overpass at night, just in case.

Of course, he misses one possibility, which is "people impersonating a figure from a local legend to stir up trouble," which I think is the most likely solution.  Given the propensity of pranksters to keep such stories going -- consider the copycat phenomenon in the case of crop circles -- it's no wonder that once BunnyMan started being a thing around Clifton, he continued to be seen over and over again.

Any notoriety is better than obscurity, I suppose.

So that's our hare-raising tale for today.  If you're ever down in Fairfax County, keep your eyes open, especially at night.  You might want to bring some carrots along as a peace offering.  I hear BunnyMan has quite a temper.

**********************************

Author Mary Roach has a knack for picking intriguing topics.  She's written books on death (Stiff), the afterlife (Spook), sex (Bonk), and war (Grunt), each one brimming with well-researched facts, interviews with experts, and her signature sparkling humor.

In this week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in Space, Roach takes us away from the sleek, idealized world of Star Trek and Star Wars, and looks at what it would really be like to take a long voyage from our own planet.  Along the way she looks at the psychological effects of being in a small spacecraft with a few other people for months or years, not to mention such practical concerns as zero-g toilets, how to keep your muscles from atrophying, and whether it would actually be fun to engage in weightless sex.

Roach's books are all wonderful, and Packing for Mars is no exception.  If, like me, you've always had a secret desire to be an astronaut, this book will give you an idea of what you'd be in for on a long interplanetary voyage.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Cryptopornography

I got an email from a friend and long-time loyal reader of Skeptophilia last week, to the effect that I'd picked a hell of a time to take a vacation.  Along with the note, there was a link to a story about how Bigfoot erotica was projected to play a decisive role in a congressional race in Virginia.

Poor timing indeed.  If you didn't hear about this, the concise version is that Democrat Leslie Cockburn took a shot at Republican Denver Riggleman on (what else?) Twitter, to wit: "My opponent Denver Riggleman, running mate of Corey Stewart, was caught on camera campaigning with a white supremacist.  Now he has been exposed as a devotee of Bigfoot erotica.  This is not what we need on Capitol Hill."

The claim is debatable.  Riggleman did co-author books called Bigfoot Exterminators Inc.: The Partially Cautionary, Mostly True Tale of Monster Hunt 2006 and The Mating Habits of Bigfoot and Why Women Want Him.  The latter certainly sounds a little suspect, but Riggleman said it was intended for the humor value only.

"I didn’t know there was Bigfoot erotica, even with all my Bigfoot studies," Riggleman said.  "I thought this was such a joke that nobody would ever be dumb enough to think that this was real, but I guess her campaign did."

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Gnashes30, Pikes peak highway big foot, CC BY-SA 3.0]

The relevance to the race is also dubious; even if Riggleman is turned on by Bigfoot (or writes stories for people who are), it really has no impact on his ability to craft law.  My own contention is that the vast majority of us have odd proclivities in the sex department that we'd much prefer the public didn't find out about, and despite that, most of us are pretty nice, responsible people.

So why Cockburn is harping on this, and not on the fact that Riggleman allegedly has ties to white supremacists, I have no idea.  That is important.  Any shaggy shagging is inconsequential by comparison.

This is all background, however, because yesterday my friend emailed me with a second link and the message, "It's not too late!!!"  The gist of this story, which hit the Los Angeles Times a couple of days ago, is that the sniping between Riggleman and Cockburn has led to a spike of sales of Bigfoot erotica on Amazon.

I'm not making this up.  According to the story on the phenomenon:

The interest in Bigfoot erotica has boosted the genre on Amazon.  Carrie High's "Bigfoot Knocked Me Up: The Complete 10 Book Set" — one of the very few erotic Sasquatch books with a title that can be printed here — was ranked No. 175 in the horror erotica subcategory early Tuesday, soon climbing to No. 83 in erotica/science fiction, No. 86 in erotica/interracial and No. 51 in the Kindle store subcategory of erotica/transgender.

Okay, I'm not going to judge; cf. my previous comment about everyone having kinks.  But the fact that there are enough people who have Bigfoot erotica kinks that it affects Amazon rankings is a little surprising.  I mean, did people hear about the Riggleman/Cockburn kerfuffle and said, "Hey, I didn't know anyone else got hot for Sasquatch!  Lemme check into that Bigfoot porn stuff!"  Or are people just curious?

No way to tell, I guess.  I was assured by an author friend, however, that cryptid porn is a big thing, and that there's even a book with the title Wet for Nessie.

And no, I didn't make that up, either.

What does worry me, however, is the effect the research for this post is having on my Google search history.  It's already bad enough; being a writer of paranormal fiction (including a line of murder mysteries), I've probably already got a file three inches thick with the FBI.  (Recent searches: "How long after a body is buried can you tell if the person was poisoned by an opiate?" and "If someone is shot with a compound bow, would the arrow embed or go right through their body?")  So now the FBI will have a whole new angle to investigate, namely, if my fixation on cryptozoology has a decidedly more (shall we say) intimate motivation.

About which, allow me to assure you, it does not.  Eight-foot-tall hairy proto-hominids are not my thing.

Nor is the Loch Ness Monster.  Just to clear that up as well.  Although in the interest of honesty, one of my books does have a scene with a guy having sex with a Japanese fox spirit, resulting in unfortunate consequences for all concerned.  But I didn't write it because it turned me on, it's because it was critical to the plot.

Really it was.

Anyhow, that'll teach me to take two weeks off.  I'm just glad that the story progressed in such a fashion that I could write about it without being hopelessly behind the times.  And now, I'm heading off to do some writing.  Today's search: "How low does a person's blood pressure have to drop before they lose consciousness?"  Hope the FBI agent assigned to me isn't disappointed at the fact that this one is only about killing people, not about kinky sex.

************************************

This week's book recommendation is especially for people who are fond of historical whodunnits; The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson.  It chronicles the attempts by Dr. John Snow to find the cause of, and stop, the horrifying cholera epidemic in London in 1854.

London of the mid-nineteenth century was an awful place.  It was filled with crashing poverty, and the lack of any kind of sanitation made it reeking, filthy, and disease-ridden.  Then, in the summer of 1854, people in the Broad Street area started coming down with the horrible intestinal disease cholera (if you don't know what cholera does to you, think of a bout of stomach flu bad enough to dehydrate you to death in 24 hours).  And one man thought he knew what was causing it -- and how to put an end to it.

How he did this is nothing short of fascinating, and the way he worked through to a solution a triumph of logic and rationality.  It's a brilliant read for anyone interested in history, medicine, or epidemiology -- or who just want to learn a little bit more about how people lived back in the day.

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

*ding* You've got mail!

There's a quote from Winston Churchill that goes, "You have enemies?  Good.  That means you've stood up for something, some time in your life."

By that standard, I'd have gotten some serious props from Mr. Churchill for yesterday's post, which generated quite the deluge of hate mail.  I don't know where my link got posted, nor by whom, but evidently it was in a place where there are a significant proportion of people who took umbrage at my identification of Donald Trump as a liar, a racist, and a misogynist.

The responses varied from the banal to the highly creative.  Several of them invited me to do things that even thirty years ago I didn't have the flexibility to accomplish.  But I thought it'd be fun to respond to a few of them, even though all I'll probably do is generate more hate mail.

Oh, well.  I'm all about throwing caution to the wind.

[image courtesy of photographer Jessica Flavin and the Wikimedia Commons]

Here's one that I thought was kind of interesting:

You really don't get it, do you?  From your picture you're as white as I am, and you're gonna stand there and tell me that you have no problem being overrun by people who have different customs and don't speak English?  Let's see how you feel when your kid's teacher requires them to learn Arabic.

Well, my kids are 26 and 29, so unless they decide to enroll in college, they're unlikely to face this particular issue.  But ignoring that for a moment -- I would have been elated if my kids had had the opportunity to learn Arabic in school.  They each took three years of French, but to say they weren't enthusiastic about it is something of an understatement.  I would welcome any opportunity my kids, or kids in general, had to learn about other cultures.  In fact, I think a lot of the hatred and ugliness we're seeing right now is largely generated by the fact that the people who are the most racist don't know even a single person who is of a different race.

Once you get to know someone, realize that they have the same dreams, needs, and desires as you do, it becomes a hell of a lot harder to hate them.

Then there was this one:

Fuck you, you left wing libtard.  We finally have a president who speaks his mind, and you can't handle it.  Well, sorry, jerkoff, but this is America, and we're taking it back whether you like it or not.

"Taking it back?"  From whom?  Or do you mean taking it back in time?  Because that's a hell of a lot more accurate.  To the 30s, when racism and sexism was institutionalized, when there were still lynchings of African Americans, when being Jewish or Italian or Hispanic or Chinese meant that you were automatically disqualified from most high-paying jobs, and when you didn't even mention it if you were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

I can only hope we aren't going back there, and as a nation that we've learned the lesson that you don't gain more rights for yourself by denying others theirs, but in the last few days I've begun to wonder.

I also got an email sending me a link to a news article about the Justice Department demanding names of 1.3 million people who visited an anti-Trump website.  It was accompanied by the following cheery message:

Watch your back.  We know who you are.  There's a list of treasonous assholes like yourself, and you better be careful, because this shit is not going to be tolerated any more.

I have two things to say about this one:

1. The "we know who you are" thing cuts both ways, to judge by the number of white supremacists and neo-Nazis who were at the Charlottesville protest, who were identified from photographs, and who are now losing their jobs, facing censure from families and friends, and having their websites shut down.  Apparently a good many of them are boo-hooing the backlash, but don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
2. For the record, I've never tried to hide.  Not my political beliefs, nor my religious ones, nor much of anything else.  So if you want to put my name on your list, knock yourself out.  Write it in capital letters and underline it three times.  Bring it on.

Last, we have this one:

You alt-left pussies make me want to puke.  I bet if you were in any real danger, you'd run home to mama.  You're pretty tough when you're sitting there on your computer, aren't you, big man?

To be honest, I don't think I'm all that tough.  I'm a wuss about pain, frankly.  But I am willing to take significant risks to stand up for what I believe in, to follow Roy T. Bennett's exhortation to "Stop doing what is easy.  Start doing what is right."

And it's interesting that I'm already a member of the "alt-left," a group that President Trump invented two days ago.  I suppose I should be honored, really.  I was expecting it to take at least a few weeks just to have my application processed.  I hope this means that my official alt-left badge, commemorative t-shirt, and decoder ring will be in my mailbox soon!

Anyhow, that's a sampler of what was in yesterday's mailbag.  For damn near all of them, I pretty much just read the first line or two and deleted them, because there's only so many times you can read "go fuck yourself."

So I guess I struck a nerve, which is to me a good thing.  At least it means people are reading what I write, and (on some level) thinking about what I'm saying.  And with this crowd, any inroads I can make in the "reconsider your beliefs" department is movement in the right direction.

A line in the sand

Richard Dawkins wrote, "I think it's important to realize that when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them.  It is possible for one side to be simply wrong."

After yesterday's unhinged press conference, this is the situation we are in with respect to Donald Trump and his supporters.

The subject of his speech was the violence between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a young woman was killed when an angry young man with neo-Nazi leanings drove his car into the crowd.  The violence, Trump said, was the fault of both sides:

What about the 'alt-left' that came charging at, as you say, the 'alt-right,' do they have any semblance of guilt?  What about the fact they came charging with clubs in hands, swinging clubs, do they have any problem?  I think they do...  You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. nobody wants to say it, but I will say it right now.

The "club in hands" reference is to a photograph of an Antifa member allegedly striking a police officer with a club -- a photograph that has since been shown to be digitally altered.

That is, a fake.

What is grimly ironic about this is that Trump defended the two-day delay in condemning the white supremacists and neo-Nazis by saying that he wasn't sure of his facts:

I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct, not make a quick statement... What I said was a fine statement.  I don't want to go quickly and just make a statement for the sake of making a political statement.

Besides the fact that even after the delay, he still got the facts wrong, it bears mention that it took him only an hour to respond when Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier resigned in protest from the President's Manufacturing Council.  Trump's ego was stung by the resignation -- something which evidently moves him more than seeing people marching in Nazi regalia does.  "Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council," Trump sneered via Twitter (of course),  "he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

But apparently it takes way more time to decide whether to condemn white supremacists who had not only killed a young woman for protesting, but who had said, on a website affiliated with their cause, "Despite feigned outrage by the media, most people are glad [Heather Heyer] is dead, as she is the definition of uselessness.  A 32-year-old woman without children is a burden on society and has no value."

This is the ideology that our president thinks is so morally ambiguous that it took him 48 hours to decide whether it was worth condemning, and then afterwards claimed was actually no worse than the beliefs of the anti-Nazi protesters.

Most media were quick to condemn Trump's speech, but as soon as it hit the news, the apologists started in with equal speed.  Within a half-hour of the story breaking, I saw the following comments posted:

• All he's saying is that white people shouldn't be ashamed of being white.
• I'd take the people in the march before I would the leftist whiners who are trying to tear America down.
• The people in the march aren't responsible for what one crazy man in a car did.
• For crying out loud, shut up and give the President a chance!

This last one is, of all of them, the one that galled me the most.  You know what?  Trump has had seven months of chances.  He has shown himself to be a dishonest, racist, misogynistic prick over and over.  The most surprising thing, in fact, is how unsurprising this last speech was.  It was totally in keeping with his prior words and actions.  All he did here is clarify his own ideology in such a way that there is no doubt any more where his loyalties lie.

So the chances are over, not only for Trump but for his followers.  It's no longer conservative versus liberal, Democrat versus Republican.  This is about deciding whether you side with a man who has allied himself with people who wear swastikas on armbands and chant, "The Jew will never replace us!"  There is no moral ambiguity here.  If you don't repudiate him, now, you are complicit in his actions and those of his followers.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I try my hardest to listen to the people I disagree with, but at some point, there is no compromise, no way to find common ground.  After that, there is no choice but to commit to every effort necessary to stop people who are violent, amoral, and so convinced they are in the right that there is no possibility of discussion.

You might be saying, "Well, aren't you equally convinced that you're right?"  Perhaps.  But I'm not the one calling for violence against people of different races, religions, or sexual orientations.

This is the point where moral people have to stand up and take a hard look at what is happening here, and realize that neutrality is no longer an option.  We are fast approaching something very like the Weimar Republic of the 1930s -- waiting only for our own Reichstag Fire to plunge the nation into darkness and bloodshed.

So if you're a Trump supporter, I'm sorry if you were misled by his rhetoric.  I understand that it's easy to get swept away by the theatrics of politics, to vote for someone who turned out to be something other than you wanted.  But we've crossed a line, here.  If you still support him, if you are one of the ones crying out "give him a chance," then you and others like you are fully responsible for the horrifying place we seem to be headed.

Keep on truckin'

Remember last summer, when the "Jade Helm" training exercise in Texas got a whole bunch of conspiracy theorists stirred up about how the military (acting under Obama's orders, of course) was about to take out the governor of Texas and institute martial law, complete with guillotining of innocent civilians?

And most importantly, how none of that happened?

Well, here we go again.

A couple of days ago, a guy named Jeff Stern was on a highway near Lexington, Virginia, and noted the presence of several military vehicles labeled "UN" on the road with him.  He took pictures, and posted them to his Facebook page along with the caption, "Can't begin to tell you how many of these I passed today on 81 near Lexington VA.  Interesting times ahead!"

And with that, we're off to the races.

[image from a Facebook screen grab]

Posts began popping up all over with many and varied hypotheses about what was going on with the trucks.  One claimed that these were trucks containing troops intended as peacekeepers during the Republican and Democratic Conventions, scheduled for later this month; another that it was the first sign of martial law being declared; a third said that they were heading south to put down an upcoming armed insurrection that was going to declare Texas to be an independent country; a fourth, predictably, that President Obama is up to something, probably in cahoots with his Muslim buddies; and the fifth and most popular one, that this was the precursor to an invasion by a coalition from the United Nations that was so completely sneaky and top secret that they rode around on an interstate highway in trucks labeled "UN."  

So naturally, every conspiracy theory site in the entire world was buzzing with what this could all be about.  And if you ever want to truly despair of the future of the human race, go to a conspiracy theory site and read the comments.  Because remember the fundamental rule of the internet: the comments section is always weirder, stupider, and crazier than the article to which they're appended.  Here, that sets the bar pretty high.  Take, for example, the following comment on the site Hidden Americans:

Nothing should surprise you as the Obama administration has almost revoked our constitution with the help of congress and the supreme courts [sic] insane decisions.  We can't be surprised at anything that is going down.  We are not going to be surprised if somehow this election is cancelled and Obama declares marshall [sic] law.

I thought Marshall Law had something to do with rebuilding Western Europe after World War II.  But I could be remembering wrong.

Fortunately, while the conspiracy theorists were busy having multiple orgasms over the latest Black Ops, a few people with some degree of common sense did some digging and found out what was really happening.  And it turned out to be... boring.  The actual story was broken in The Blaze, because the only thing that would make this whole thing more ridiculous is having a news site run by Glenn Beck be the voice of reason and common sense:

The U.N., an international organization that does not have authorities in the United States, was simply having their trucks manufactured in Virginia at Alpine Armoring, Inc, an international supplier and manufacturer of armored vehicles. 

A representative from Alpine confirmed to The Blaze that the vehicles were, in fact, purchased by the U.N. and were being delivered to a nearby port for use outside the United States. 

When the photos first made headlines, one person who commented on a post by Facebook user Jeff Stern, who shared the images, said, “These are manufactured in Danville. Thats why you saw them in VA. They were being delivered.”

Which, of course, had exactly zero effect on the conspiracy theorists, who immediately began to leap all over the story in The Blaze, claiming that it was TOO martial law, dammit.  Here are just a few of the comments I read before my prefrontal cortex cried "uncle:"

• ANY UN vehicle in the US is illegal AND a legitimate TARGET.  NO UN “resolution” SUPER-CEDES the US Constitution….
• Lock and Load, this is why the 2nd amendment exist
• the ones for our neighborhoods are unmarked.
• Sure, they were just manufactured in the U.S. and are being sent overseas.  Yeah, that’s the ticket and if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor and Benghazi was caused by some stupid video that a Jew produced.  When the anti-Christ takes over America, it will be like taking candy from a baby.

And then, there's my favorite one:

• Like they would tell you they are prepositioning equipment to seize control. lol They don’t even need to preposition just put in a large order and then drop the troops in them and take over.

I wonder how you "preposition equipment?"  "Of the tank, by the tank, for the tank...?"

So yeah.  I have to keep telling myself that the people who post these things are the loud, insane minority.  Because if I start focusing too hard on the fact that these people vote, I end up curled up in a fetal position under my desk for the rest of the day.

In any case, there you have it; this summer's answer to "Jade Helm."  Which will result in nothing, just as Jade Helm did -- no martial law, no executions, no overthrowing of state governments, no troops storming in and taking over small-town America.  In fact, the only thing Jade Helm seemed to accomplish was giving Alex Jones something to rant about for six months, which is probably what will happen again here.  But because the conspiracy theorists never seem to remember that they have a batting average that is so close to zero as to make no difference, the next time some odd-looking vehicle is spotted in Minnesota or somewhere, we'll start all over again from the beginning.

Because conspiracy theories are the gifts that keep on giving.

That rabbit's dynamite!

After dealing in recent posts with such topics as standardized testing, controversies over legislation allowing the teaching of creationism in public school science classes, and the consequences of civil disobedience, I'm sure what you're all thinking is, "Yes, but what about BunnyMan?"

BunnyMan is a cryptid I'd never heard of, that apparently haunts the town of Clifton, Virginia, in Fairfax County.  And according to an article over at Mysterious Universe, we're not talking some gentle, fuzzy little Peter Cottontail, here.  BunnyMan is more like the scary evil rabbit from Donnie Darko.

Author Brent Swancer, who is also the person who four years ago warned us about giant Sky Jellyfish attacking Japan, tells us that sightings of BunnyMan have been going on for over a hundred years.  The whole thing started with the escape in 1904 of two inmates from an insane asylum, Douglas Grifon and Marcus Wallster, in the woods near Clifton.  Wallster was eventually found, hanging from a bridge railing, with a note saying, "You'll never catch me, no matter how hard you try.  Signed, The BunnyMan."  Grifon was never found.  And thus began a century's worth of mysterious deaths and sightings of guys in bunny suits.

You may be laughing by now.  I know I was.  Swancer, however, is entirely serious, and describes numerous encounters with the long-eared lunatic.  And he tells us that this thing is the most foul-tempered rrrrrodent... -- well, let's hear an example or two in his own words:

Two of the most intriguing and bizarre accounts of the Bunny Man surfaced in 1970.  The first incident occurred on October 19, 1970, when an Air Force Academy cadet by the name of Bob Bennett was allegedly with his fiancée and parked his car on Guinea Road in Burke, Virginia, so that the couple could talk.  It was at this time that they noticed a white figure moving outside of the vehicle.  Moments later, the front window was smashed into a cascade of glass, and an ominous voice warned “You’re on private property and I have your tag number.”  The horrified couple sped away and as they screamed down the road they noticed a small hatchet on the floor of the car.  When questioned later by the police, Bennett would insist that the attacker had been decked out in a full bunny suit, and he told his superiors at the Air Force base the same thing.  As ridiculous as the story sounded, Bennett would continue to insist it was true long after the incident.

Then, later that same year, BunnyMan had another run-in over people trespassing in his private Carrot Patch:

Just two weeks after the Bennett incident, the Bunny Man struck again.  Paul Phillips, a private security guard for a construction company, reported that he had seen a man-sized rabbit in front of a house under construction.  When approached by Phillips, the rabbit was reported to have said “All you people trespass around here. If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to bust you on the head,” after which it started to furiously hack away at the unoccupied house with an axe.  Allegedly, when the startled Phillips went back to his car to get a firearm, the “bunny” swiftly escaped into the woods and disappeared.

Swancer's article is chock-full of other stories about people meeting this buck-toothed bad guy in northeastern Virginia.  In fact, the Colchester Overpass, the site of numerous suicides by hanging, has also been the site of so many appearances that it's supposedly called "BunnyMan Bridge" by locals who don't mind losing any credibility they might have had.

What strikes me about all of this is the proximity of Clifton, Virginia to the CIA Headquarters in Langley.  The two are only separated by twenty miles, as the rabbit hops, which I'm sure can't be a coincidence.  After all, I've watched historical documentaries in which Fox Mulder and Dana Scully found out about all sorts of horrible things the government was involved in, including alien hybridization experiments.  So the next step, evil-wise, would be hybridizing humans with various animals, some of which would inevitably escape and terrorize the countryside.  Just be glad it was BunnyMan.  It could have been WeaselMan, PigeonMan, or, god forbid, HornetMan.

I've been at this blog for five years, and by this time, I thought I'd run into every cryptid in the book; but I have to admit, before yesterday I'd never heard of this guy.  So thanks to Brent Swancer for another example of hard-hitting journalism, uncovering the depredations of a vicious rabbit only a stone's throw from our nation's capital.  I feel safer now.  As Elmer Fudd teaches us, forewarned is forearmed.

Swancer ends his article on a cautionary note:

Who, or what, is the Bunny Man?  Is this a case of a ghost, an unsolved crime, a psycho on the loose, some mystery animal, or merely the delusional human psyche working upon its inner fears to create a phantom construct in the real world in the form of scary stories and myth?  The story of a man-sized bunny running around terrorizing, even murdering, people seems to cross over the line from mystery into preposterousness, but many urban legends doubtlessly have their origins in some grain of truth, so who really knows?  For the case of the Bunny Man, no matter how ludicrous it may sound, it might be a good idea to stay away from the Colchester Overpass at night, just in case.

Of course, he misses one possibility, which is "people impersonating a figure from a local legend to stir up trouble," which I think is the most likely solution.  Given the propensity of pranksters to keep such stories going -- consider the copycat phenomenon in the case of crop circles -- it's no wonder that once BunnyMan started being a thing around Clifton, he continued to be seen over and over again.

Any notoriety is better than obscurity, I suppose.

So that's our hare-raising tale for today.  If you're ever down in Fairfax County, keep your eyes open, especially at night.  You might want to bring some carrots along as a peace offering.  I hear BunnyMan has quite a temper.

Billboard of shame

It is a puzzle to me why some people seem so concerned about what other people are doing in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

My general attitude is that if it's between consenting adults, have fun.  I don't need to have an opinion about it.  Hell, I don't even need to know about it.  It is, to put it bluntly, none of my damn business.

Which brings us to PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays).

Yes, I know that the acronym shouldn't be PFOX, it should be PAFOEGAG.  But I have to admit that "PFOX" is easier to remember.

According to PFOX's homepage, here's what they're about:

PFOX is a national non-profit organization committed to helping ex-gays and parents and friends of gays who want help, hope and community. PFOX exists to educate, support, and advocate for individuals and parents on the issue of same-sex attraction, and increase others’ understanding and acceptance of the ex-gay community.

Of course, my opinion is that you can be an ex-gay person about as easily as you can be an ex-blue-eyed person.  But PFOX begs to differ:

Each year thousands of men and women with unwanted same-sex attractions make the personal decision to leave behind their former gay identity. And through gender affirming programs, including counseling, support groups, faith based ministries, and other non-judgmental environments, they are largely successful. Their decision is one only they can make.

Calling "pray away the gay" programs "non-judgmental" might be a contender for the Chutzpah Hall of Fame, given that at least once a week we hear about another pastor of a "faith-based ministry" who is calling for gays to be killed, as per the bible.  (Here's one of the recent ones.)

So anyway.  PFOX is pretty clearly an anti-LGBT organization, despite the appearance of the word "friends" in their name.  And this became clearer with the appearance along I-95 near Richmond, Virginia of the following billboard:

There are two things that make this billboard simultaneously appalling and hilarious:

1. The model for both the left-hand and the right-hand photograph is the same person, Kyle Roux of South Africa.  I.e., these aren't twins, it's one guy.
2. Kyle Roux is an out, and proud, gay man who had no idea that his face was being used (twice) on an anti-gay billboard.

"It just seems like there no place in today’s world for an organization that is promoting this as being some kind of deviant or distasteful lifestyle," Roux told reporters when he found out about the billboard.  "Because I’ve lived my life openly gay and happy for my entire life."

On a more serious note, there aren't just two lies on the billboard, there are three.  The third lie is that twin studies support homosexuality as a choice.  Way back in 1993, Whitam et al. published a study that showed that the concordance between homosexuality in monozygotic (identical) twins was 65% -- far higher than you'd expect by chance.  The authors are unequivocal in their conclusion, although they are clear on the point that the mechanism is not known.  They state in their final paragraph, "We are left then with the conclusion that biological factors are strongly operating in the determination of sexual orientation with the precise nature of these factors yet to be understood."

Which raises the question of why someone would lie outright about the science, not to mention the identity and sexual orientation of a model on their promotional materials.  The answer, of course, is that they have to lie, because scientific research has increasingly supported the conclusion that sexual orientation isn't a choice.  But this runs counter to their basic argument, which is that anything other than straight-up vanilla sexual intercourse within the confines of marriage is a sin.  So it's either change your message -- pretty unlikely -- or lie about the evidence.

So PFOX, or PAFOEGAG, or whatever, have been left pretty red-faced over the whole thing.  Not that it's going to alter their approach.  Which is kind of a shame, because while people are born with their sexual orientation already wired in, no one is born an asshole.  Being gay isn't a choice; harassing gays is.

Satan, politics, and yoga

As I've mentioned before, I tend to avoid purely political topics, both in Skeptophilia and also in face-to-face discussion.  I simply don't know enough about most politically-based issues to comment intelligently, and if there's one thing the world needs less of, it's people bloviating on topics about which they are essentially ignorant.

Still, there are a couple of things that strike me as interesting about political races in general.  The first is that a lot of elected officials are evidently elected on the basis of being Average People -- the folksy, I'm-one-of-you-guys approach is wildly successful, creating an environment where "Vote for Joe Smith!  He's just as dumb as you are!" becomes a viable campaign slogan.

The second is how many people are one-issue voters.  As long as the candidate agrees with you on that issue (common ones are abortion, gay marriage, tax reduction, and immigration policy) (s)he can have wildly bizarre opinions on other topics and still get elected.  In fact, as long as the candidate has the right line with respect to the one issue, (s)he can be crazy as a bedbug and no one seems to notice.

Which brings us to E. W. Jackson, who is a candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia.

Jackson is a minister-turned-politician who is the pastor of Exodus Faith Ministries, an evangelical Christian sect.  He's also a published author, with a book called Ten Commandments to an Extraordinary Life: Making Your Dreams Come True that was excerpted in an article for the National Review Online by Betsy Woodruff called "From the Pulpit to the Ticket."  And these excerpts, along with direct quotes from a political rally/prayer meetin' that Woodruff attended, make Reverend Jackson sound like he might be, not to put too fine a point on it, batshit crazy.

He clearly thinks that his political success is one of god's most pressing priorities.  At the rally, he got a little agitated when he considered the possibility of losing the election:

One of the questions they’re asking now is, are they going to be able to shut E. W. Jackson?  And the answer is no, because there’s a fire in my bones!  Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ love and righteousness!  You try to build this nation on anything or any other foundation, and it will fall!  Glory to God!

Predictably, his stance is "pro-life" and against gay marriage -- hardly unusual for a conservative Republican.  What sets him apart is his attitude toward his intended constituency.  Here's a quote from his book:

[M]ost people are dead spirits. As such they have the nature of Satan who does not want to have anything to do with God or anyone related to Him. Of course they are not aware that they are imbued with the nature of Satan. They would be mortified by the idea of becoming Satanists or devil worshippers. Satan benefits far more from people who do not know they serve him than from those who knowingly bow to him. Your spirit was made for attachment. It is either attached to God or to Satan, but it is not neutral, no matter how much people think themselves to be.

And, in Jackson's mind, it's easy to get "attached to Satan."  Even doing yoga is enough:

When one hears the word meditation, it conjures an image of Maharishi Yoga talking about finding a mantra and striving for nirvana. . . . The purpose of such meditation is to empty oneself. . . . [Satan] is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it. That is why people serve Satan without ever knowing it or deciding to, but no one can be a child of God without making a decision to surrender to him. Beware of systems of spirituality which tell you to empty yourself. You will end up filled with something you probably do not want.

Yes, people, Jackson believes that Satan latches onto people while they're doing yoga.  Here I just thought that yoga was good for making you less stressed and more flexible, but apparently I was wrong -- Satan just waits till you go into the Lotus Position and then leaps on you while your legs are all tangled up.

What's worse, apparently the people at his church just kind of sit there and nod when he says this stuff, a reaction I find frankly baffling.  I mean, if I told my students that they shouldn't eat pineapple,  because pineapple is the Devil's Fruit (you can tell because it's spiky), and that they'll become possessed by Satan if they eat it, I would quite rightly be escorted off the premises after being given a horse tranquilizer.  But Jackson, evidently, can babble this kind of nonsense, and no one objects.

You have to wonder how the interests of Virginia will be best served by having a lieutenant governor who thinks that most of the people in his state are dead souls who have the nature of Satan, and who seems, frankly, to be a raving loon.

If I owned a yoga studio in Virginia, I'd be thinking of other options right now.  Maybe switching over to PraiseMoves, which bills itself as "the Christian alternative to yoga."  The founders of PraiseMoves would agree wholeheartedly with Reverend Jackson:

Yoga is always destined to fail miserably in its fundamental purpose. Yoga practices can be very harmful as well. Physically, spiritually and emotionally harmful. Yoga was always meant to be imparted by a teacher that stayed with the student for long periods of time. Constantly monitoring, constantly instructing, constantly observing the student. The Indian gurus that teach yoga are always in a disciple/devotee relationship with their students. This is because yoga can be a very dangerous practice...  The exact opposite happens in a typical PraiseMoves class. At the end of class, the participants feel connected with fellow Believers. They have had a real encounter with the God of the Bible, through His Word, and His Holy Spirit.

So that clears that up.

Anyhow, despite my being generally apolitical, I can't help but hope that Reverend Jackson loses this fall.  I haven't yet gotten over my elation that Michele Bachmann isn't seeking reelection -- I was hoping that there'd be one less wacko in an elected position this November.  But if Reverend Jackson wins, it'll come out a wash, which seems to be a pretty common occurrence.  Maybe there's a Law of Conservation of Elected Wingnuts, or something.

Psychics vs. psychologists

There's an interesting case being considered this week in Chesterfield County, Virginia.  [Source]

The county zoning laws require "fortunetellers" to practice their craft in a part of the county that is not, perhaps, very inviting -- an area that, in the words of the article in the Washington Post, is "populated by trailer parks, towing lots, lumber yards and utility service buildings."  A woman named Patricia Moore-King, who operates under the name "Psychic Sophie," challenged this law, and wanted to rent space in a building containing the offices of psychologists, licensed therapists, and so on.  The owners of the building refused, and Moore-King sued the owners and the county zoning board.  When the lawsuit went to court, US District Judge John Gibney sided with the defendants, saying that the laws were reasonable, and furthermore, that Moore-King's "practices are deceptive."

Moore-King, for her part, is challenging Gibney's decision in a federal appeals court.

So I took a look at Moore-King's website, to see what she's about.  First thing I noticed was that she calls herself "Legitimate-Accurate-Direct-Honest."  Second was that she charges $100/hour.  As far as her qualifications go:

My many years of study, application and/or teaching of metaphysical subjects, spirituality, and modalities include: Astrology, tarot cards, numerology, development of psychic abilities, psychometry, Reiki, natural healing, clairvoyance, telepathy, crystals, clairaudience, positive, spiritual healing energy and prayer, meditation, runes, chakras, clairsentience, auras, paranormal phenomena, parapsychology, metaphysics in general, dream interpretation, new age / Hermetic philosophy, palmistry, color, and Kabala / Kabbalah.

From her FAQ page, regarding how we should think about it if she gets an answer wrong in a reading:

Similarly, if your psychic provides an answer that seems out of perspective or unrelated to your question, it could, in fact, still be the answer! For example, if you were to say, “I want a relationship now”, you would expect your psychic to say who, what, where, etc in their response, but, what if your psychic’s intuition prompts him / her to ask, “Did you start a new job recently?” On the surface, this response is out of perspective, unrelated, and to your frustration, not directly answering your question, but what if this relationship you seek is found at your new job?

What she does when confronted by skeptics:

Since the... host pays for my psychic / tarot card readings, skeptics will try it as a lark. Usually these new encounters go very well; however, I remember one such man, whose initial behavior was quite belligerent and insulting at his approach. Almost taunting me, he made it very clear that he thought what I do is a joke and his sitting before me was for his amusement only.

When I told him that he was cheating on his wife and stealing from his business partner; his chin dropped to the floor as he looked nervously to the next table where his wife sat, fearful that she had overheard.

Well.  I think we've seen enough, haven't we?

To reiterate something I've said in this blog many times: I would not presume to say that psychic phenomena of various sorts are impossible.  However, after reading about, and seeing video recordings of, many (possibly hundreds) of alleged psychic phenomena, I have never seen a single one that was even moderately convincing.  Not only has every one fallen short of the evidence that most scientists would consider adequate, the amount of equivocation and rationalization that many psychics use leaves me with no other choice but to dismiss the claims as nonsense.  So, when Psychic Sophie gets it wrong, she actually got it right, it's just that you don't recognize it yet!  And if I come to her with a skeptical attitude, she'll announce publicly that I'm cheating on my wife!  (For heaven's sake, if she did that to me, I think my chin would drop to the floor, too, but not because what she's saying is true.)

A more interesting, and subtle question, has to to with the original problem -- should psychics be allowed to practice next door to psychologists?  It's not as easy to tease the two apart as you'd think.  Psychologists and psychiatrists are, for the most part, using scientifically supported modalities for helping their patients deal with mental/emotional issues; but I've seen more than one licensed psychologist or therapist slide over toward the middle of the spectrum -- for example, a therapist I took my son to when he was ten to help him deal with the frustration he was experiencing because of my divorce apparently also did, in addition to conventional therapy, "past-life regressions."  (Needless to say, I did not avail myself of this facet of her practice.)  Others I've seen combine reasonably reliable techniques (cognitive/behavioral therapy, psychodynamic therapy, interpersonal therapy) with chakra realignment, auras, crystals, astrology, and so on.  It's not just an either/or, unfortunately.

Judge Gibney was right, in my opinion, to relegate Psychic Sophie and others like her to a space well away from the offices of legitimate, licensed psychologists.  But applying that decision (should it stand in appeals court) might not, in practice, be so easy to do.  Woo-woo thinking is insidious, and slips in all too easily if we let it.  (Consider all of the homeopathic "remedies" on the shelves in reputable pharmacies, right next to the vitamin supplements and cold medicines.)  As usual, the best thing to do is to encourage critical thinking, and (especially) teach it in schools.  Armed with the tools of rationality, any potential clients of Psychic Sophie and her ilk will find better ways to solve their problems -- and she'll be out of a job.  No lawsuit necessary.