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!]

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.

Haremageddon

A couple of days ago there was a story out of North Dakota that's been making the rounds of the "Weird News" departments of various news agencies.  It's about a housing development in Fargo that has been "swarmed" by "dozens of dog-sized jackrabbits." 

Fargo resident Kayla Straabe told and ABC News reporter, "Every day, I feel like the crazy rabbit lady chasing them out of the yard where they're having a heyday.  There's at least 40 to 50 everyday, and they're in our yards and by a children's park."

The city pest control department claims not to be able to do anything about them, "because they're wild animals."  This strikes me as pretty peculiar.  Aren't all pests wild animals?  I mean, it's not like people are usually bothered by infestations of hamsters, or anything.

Be that as it may, the pest control department wouldn't do anything, but suggested that Straabe and others poison the jackrabbits, which she doesn't want to do.  So at the moment, the jackrabbits are still swarming in Fargo.

Which is an unremarkable enough story, until you look at the comments section.

Yes, yes, I know, sane people should never look at the comments section.  But I was curious as to what people thought about the cause, and what steps they thought should be taken, for this "flock of jackrabbits," a phrase which made me picture flying bunnies.  (I looked it up, and the correct collective noun for jackrabbits is a "husk," which to me sounds even weirder.  I suggest calling them a "lope of jackrabbits," which is much more euphonious.)

Some of the comments were reasonable enough.  A bunch of them suggested turning the jackrabbits into stew.  A couple recommended, given that it's Fargo we're talking about, running the jackrabbits through a wood-chipper.  But then things got weird, because people started weighing in on where the jackrabbits had come from in the first place, and it went downhill thereafter.

Here are a few samples.  Spelling and grammar have been left unaltered so you can get the full effect.

The government doesn't want you to see what's really happening with animals going on the rampage and flocks of birds dying and the news writes articles like it's completely normal?  Wake up.  This is only the first signs. 

Its a mutation.  Rabbits this huge, its not normal.  We spray pesticides all over the place and now we're reaping what we sow. 

Rabbits is one thing, what if this had been wolves? 

They can carry rabbies and they let them near a playground?  Bring them to Washington DC and let them go there.  You'll see how fast they disappear, and you won't hear the liberal lame stream media crying about the poor bunnies. 

Before the anti gun crazies got in charge, we would have known what to do about them before it became a problem. 

Giant rabbits, another sign of the unnatural things this government is doing.  Genetic engineering experiments gone wrong, and no one wants to blow the whistle, instead this will become more common until one day it becomes too late to do anything about it and people start dying.

Okay, will you people please just calm the fuck down?

These aren't vicious giant mutant bunnies, they're regular old jackrabbits.  According to the Wikipedia page on jackrabbits, this species normally gets to be two feet long and up to six pounds, which is (as the article said) the "size of a small dog."  No mutations, genetic engineering, or other "unnatural things" necessary.

And the bunnies haven't "gone on the rampage," they don't seem to be carrying "rabbies," and allowing people to run around shooting rabbits near a playground would create a whole different set of problems, you know?

So fer cryin' in the sink, let's take a deep breath, and relax.  This is not the Killer Rabbit of Caer Bannog we're talking about here.

Chances are, the jackrabbits have been driven into residential areas because it's winter and the foraging out in the wild is pretty slim, so they're going for decorative plantings in people's yards, which are more accessible through the snow.  The same thing happens in our area, but with white-tailed deer.  The deer, however, are kind of a nuisance year-round.  In some areas they make it impossible to have a garden unless you surround it by six-foot-high fence topped by razor-wire, and the number of car-deer collisions in upstate New York is astronomical.

On the other hand... maybe the deer are part of this whole evil scheme.  Mutated genetically engineered deer, released by Monsanto, so that we can't grow our own vegetables, and will be forced to purchase genetically-modified crops from grocery stores.  Probably the auto-repair industry is in on it, too, making sure the deer are bred to be attracted to car headlights.

And... and... it all started with Disney.  Remember Bambi?  Making us feel sorry for the poor little deer whose mother was killed by hunters.  And guess who Bambi's best friend was?

Thumper.  *cue scary music*

I guess that's enough evidence isn't it?  I believe we now have what the lawyers would call a "hare-tight case."