Grave matters

It's easy to scoff at the superstitious beliefs of the past.  I've certainly been known to do it myself.  But it bears keeping in mind that although, to more scientific minds, some of the rituals and practices seem kind of ridiculous, sometimes they had a strange underlying logic to them.

Take, for example, the strange case of JB55.  Archaeologists excavating a site near Griswold, Connecticut in 1990 found a nineteenth-century wooden coffin with brass tacks hammered into the surface that spelled out "JB55" -- according to the practice of the time, the initials of the deceased and the age at which (s)he died.  Inside were the bones of a man -- but they had been rearranged after death into a "skull-and-crossbones" orientation.

This seems like an odd thing to do, and raised the obvious question of why anyone would rearrange a dead person's remains.  There was speculation that it was part of some kind of magical ritual intended to prevent him from coming back from the dead; in the mid-1800s, the region around Griswold was known for rampant belief in vampirism.  The reason seems to have been an epidemic of tuberculosis, which (among other things) causes pale skin, swollen eyes, and coughing up blood; there are known cases where the bodies of disease victims were exhumed and either burned and reinterred, or else rearranged much as JB55's were.

The explanation in this specific case gained credence when an examination of JB55's bones showed tuberculosis lesions.  Further, an analysis of the Y DNA from the bones allowed them to identify the individual's last name as Barber -- and sure enough, there was a John Barber living in Griswold who would have been of the right age to be JB55.

It's amazing how widespread these sorts of practices are.  In 2018 a skeleton of a ten-year-old child was unearthed in Umbria, Italy.  The skeleton dated from the fifth century C.E., and she seems to have died during a terrible epidemic of malaria that hit the area during the last years of the Roman Empire.  Before burial, the child had a rock placed in her mouth -- thought to be part of a ritual to prevent her spirit from rising from the dead and spreading the disease.  In 2022, a skeleton was uncovered in Pién, Poland, dating from the seventeenth century -- it was of an adult woman, and had a sickle placed across her neck and a padlock on her left big toe.  The reason was probably similar to the aforementioned cases -- to keep her in her grave where she belonged.

The reason this comes up is a paper this week in Antiquity about another interesting burial -- this one in Sagalossos, in western Turkey.  Archaeologists found evidence of a funeral pyre dating to the second century C.E., but unlike the usual practice at the time -- in which the burned remains were taken elsewhere to be buried -- here, the pyre and the remains were simply covered up with a layer of lime and brick tiles.  Most interestingly, scattered over the surface of the tiles were dozens of bent iron nails.

Iron and iron-bearing minerals have been thought from antiquity to have magical properties; Neanderthals were using hematite to anoint the dead fifty thousand years ago.  Here, both the iron in the nails and the angles at which they were bent probably were thought to play a role in their power.

The authors write:

The placement of nails in proximity to the deceased's remains might suggest the first of these two hypotheses.  The fixing qualities of nails, however, may also have been used to pin the spirits of the restless dead (so-called revenants) to their final resting place, so that they could not return from the afterlife...  Aside from the application of nails to symbolically fix the spirit, heavy weights were also used in an attempt to immobilise the physical remains of a potential revenant.

I do have to wonder how the idea of revenants got started in the first place.  Surely all of them can't be from the symptoms of tuberculosis, like in JB55's case.  And since the number of people who have actually returned from the dead is, um, statistically insignificant, it's not like they had lots of data to work from. 

Perhaps much of it was simply fear.  Death is a big scary unknown, and most of us aren't eager to experience it; even the ultra-Christian types who are completely certain they're heading to an afterlife of eternal heavenly bliss look both ways before they cross the road.  But like many superstitions, these all seem so... specific.  How did someone become convinced that nails weren't enough, they had to be bent nails?  And that a padlock on the left big toe would keep the woman in Poland from rising from the dead, but that it wouldn't work if it had been around, say, her right thumb?

Curious stuff.  But I guess if you try something, and lo, the dead guy stays dead, you place that in the "Win" column and do it again next time. 

It's like the story of the guy in Ohio who had a friend who'd come to visit, and whenever he'd walk into the guy's house, he'd raise both hands, close his eyes, and say, "May this house be safe from tigers."

After doing this a few times, the guy said, "Dude.  Why do you say that every time?  This is Ohio.  There's not a tiger within a thousand miles of here."

And the friend gave him a knowing smile and said, "It works well, doesn't it?"

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Blood magic

Let me tell you a story.

There once was a woman named Elizabeth Báthory, who was a countess in Hungary.  Elizabeth was very beautiful, with fair skin and long, lustrous hair, and men from all over the kingdom fell in love with her.  She married Ferenc Nádasdy, a valiant military man, and they lived happily together for years -- until he died in battle.  By this time, Elizabeth was 43 years old, and still in the prime of health, but she began to worry that she was aging and losing her famous beauty.  So she came up with a brilliant solution:

She would bathe daily in the blood of virgins.

During the next decade, Elizabeth allegedly killed 650 young girls.  History doesn't record whether it worked to keep her skin looking young.  Finally, the people in the surrounding areas rose up and demanded that something be done, despite Elizabeth's power and wealth.  Having no choice, local authorities arrested Elizabeth, and had her imprisoned for the rest of her life in Csejte Castle -- although she was never brought to trial.

She was, apparently, batshit crazy.

Blood has long been thought to have magical powers of restoration and vitality; thus the vampire mythos, and the hundreds of cultures that included blood sacrifice as part of their ritual beliefs.  The scientific world has more or less shown this all to be nonsense, with the exception that keeping your blood flowing through your arteries and veins is pretty essential to your health and vitality.  But this hasn't stopped people from believing that blood has magical powers, and there are still nutjobs running around who claim they're vampires, lo unto this very day.

And this whole wacky belief system has given rise to a new "alternative medicine" fad: the "vampire facial."

In this technique, which when you hear about it will make you wonder who the hell ever thought this could be a good idea, blood is withdrawn from your arm.  It is then centrifuged to spin out the plasma and platelets from the red and white blood cells.  The plasma and platelets are then injected into your face, in order to "stimulate new collagen growth," "get rid of wrinkles," and "revitalize the skin." 

Below is a picture of noted deep thinker Kim Kardashian getting a "vampire facial:"

And if that photograph wasn't enough to dissuade you from ever doing this, allow me to add just a couple of comments about the procedure: You are (1) poking your face full of holes, and (2) injecting fluid into those holes.  Of course your skin feels fuller.  You are also causing inflammation, resulting in the production of histamines, causing swelling.  So, okay, the wrinkles may go away for a while, rather in the fashion of pumping air into a flat tire, but as soon as the injection sites heal, the inflammation subsides, and the body reabsorbs the fluid, you're going to be right back where you started -- wrinkled, or, in the case of Kim Kardashian, dumb as a bag of hammers.

Oh, and did I mention that the cost of the treatment is $1,500?

Me, I think I'll just stick with the wrinkles, thanks.

So, that's the latest from the world of alternative medicine and "beauty treatments."  Every time I see some new thing arise on this front, I always think, "What will they come up with next?"  And I'm never disappointed, because it always turns out to be more ridiculous than the last thing.  Of course, the I-don't-want-to-get-old crew has yet to try out the Elizabeth Báthory method.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's because so many of them live in Hollywood, and virgins are hard to come by.  I dunno.

Vampires in Serbia, unicorns in North Korea

Today, we have two stories in from people who evidently need to review what the definition of "mythological creature" is.

First, from Serbia, we have news that the town council in Zarozje has issued a vampire alert, and has gone as far as to suggest that all residents hang garlic on their doors.  [Source]

Apparently the vampire in question is one Sava Savanovic, who in times past lived in a mill next to the Rogacica River.  Savanovic was reputed to drink the blood of people who came to use the mill to mill their grain, a move that you would think would have been bad for business.

Be that as it may, Savanovic eventually died, possibly of blood poisoning (ba-dum-bum-ksssh), and the mill was sold to the Jagodic family.  At first, they were afraid to use the place, for fear of disturbing the dead vampire (so we might also need to refresh them on the definition of "dead"), but soon realized the tourist potential of owning a mill that had vamipiric associations.  But they were afraid to do any renovation on the building itself, not wanting accidentally to uncover anything with fangs -- and now the roof has collapsed.  And this, local townsfolk believe, has pissed off Savanovic, and he's going to exact revenge by going around and drinking some more blood.

You'd think that local government officials would tell folks to take a chill pill, but no.  Zarozje mayor Miodrag Vujetic said, "People are worried, everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else and possibly other victims is terrifying people.  We are all frightened."  He also advised using garlic, resulting in a run on garlic sales in local markets, and added, "We have also reminded them to put a Holy Cross in every room in the house."

Well, that should take care of the problem, I'd think.  I'd hope that when a few weeks have gone by and Savanovic hasn't shown, and no one in Zarozje has been exsanguinated, everyone would heave a great big sigh of relief, have a good laugh at themselves, and say, "Wow, what goobers we've been, believing in vampires and all."  But it'll probably go more like the joke about the guy who, every time he went to a friend's house, would close his eyes, raise his hands, and chant, "May this house be safe from tigers."

After this happened several times, the friend finally said, "Look, you don't have to do that.  There aren't any tigers anywhere near here.  There's probably not a tiger within a thousand-mile radius of this house."

And the guy smiled knowingly, and said, "It really works, doesn't it?"


Then, from North Korea, we have a report that some "scientists" have discovered a secret burial ground... for a unicorn.  [Source]

One of their early kings, King Dongmyeong, who was also known as King Dongmyeongseongwang because "Dongmyeong" was thought to be too easy to pronounce, was supposed to have ridden on a unicorn.  And now the Korean Central News Agency, the official media outlet for the North Korean government, has "reconfirmed" that the burial site for King Dongmyeong's unicorn exists, in the capital city of Pyongyang.

They haven't released any photographs of bones, or (better yet) a skull with a horn.  Their proof, insofar as they've been willing to discuss it, consists solely of a claim that at the burial site, they found a marker that said, "Unicorn Lair."

Well, that proves it to me.

The problem, of course, is that the KCNA is kind of famous for making bizarre pronouncements.  Remember all the hoopla about earthquakes and weeping birds and atmospheric phenomena of various sorts when Kim Jong-Il died?  So it's not like they've established much of a reputation for sorting fact from fiction.

Oh, and there's also the thing about King Dongmyeong having not been born in the usual fashion, but having been hatched from an egg.

Anyhow.  We seem to have yet another example of people believing weird stuff based on essentially no evidence, something that has become sort of a theme on this blog.  I have to admit that it'd be nice to stop running into new examples of this phenomena.  Even though it would put me out of business, just having humanity be a little more rational would be a move in the right direction.  Now, excuse me while I go saddle up Pegasus for the flight to work.

Staking a claim

Last week, it was zombies all over the news, what with guys biting each other's faces off, and cutting up  former lovers, and committing various other antisocial, body-part-related atrocities.  And I observed that once one person mentions a woo-woo explanation for something (we're having a zombie apocalypse), every possibly-related story gets cast in that light, and the whole thing sort of develops a life of its own.

Given that these conjectures have no basis in reality, it's no surprise that most of them are short-lived.  Once enough people look around them, and acknowledge that no, the people on the bus and at work are not, in fact, turning into zombies, then they're forced to conclude that the whole thing was rather a non-starter from the beginning.  (Although I will add, in the interest of fairness, that a few nutty ideas seem to be in the Undead Immortal category themselves, such as the Rebecca Black/JFK assassination thing, and the Baltic Sea UFO thing.)

But most woo-woo crazes are just that -- fads -- and as such, they have a limited life-span.  So last week, it was zombies; and this week, we have moved on to another terrifying, immortal, soulless being that doesn't exist...

... vampires.

Things got rolling this weekend, when some archaeologists working in Bulgaria found two medieval skeletons at a dig site in Sozopol, and were shocked to find that the skeletons had metal rods driven through them.  (Source)

Of course, the only reason to do this to a dead body is to make it dead again, because it had risen up from the grave, sharpened its canine teeth, and was prowling around the village looking for beautiful young women dressed in gauzy white garments to terrorize.  And the fact that people in Eastern Europe used to believe this was possible is never cast in the light of, "Wow, people sure were superstitious, back then."  The article states, "The discovery illustrates a pagan practice common in some villages up until a century ago, say historians.   People deemed bad had their hearts stabbed after death, for fear they would return to feast on humans' blood."  Unfortunately, the writers of the article didn't add, "... although this never actually happens."

I say "unfortunately," because there are people with rather tenuous grips on reality who periodically forget the definition of "fiction."  Some of these people then act on those ideas, and it seldom ends well.

Witness the unnamed man "with vampire teeth" who attacked a homeless guy in San Diego a couple of days ago.  (Source)  Police in La Jolla were called when passersby saw someone assaulting a man near a shopping center, and once they arrived, they found a 55-year-old transient bleeding from bites inflicted by a man whose canine teeth were filed to points.  The Dracula wannabee was arrested and charged with assault.  (You should go to the site and look at the attacker's photograph, which gives lie to the claim that vampires were supposed to look sultry and devastatingly sexy, and also that they seldom ever wear baseball caps.)

Now, lest you think that this is just one deluded, possibly high, individual, consider another story that just popped up -- about a Texas inmate who sued the state prison system for preventing his carrying out ritual religious beliefs related to his being a vampire.

Courtney Royal, who is serving a life sentence for aggravated assault and robbery, filed the suit (in which he refers to himself as "Vampsh Black Sheep League of Doom Gardamun Family Circle Master Vampire High Priest") claiming that he had beliefs that stem from West African and "18th century Catholicism" practices.  These beliefs are "marked by prayer to Africans reincarnated by blood."

The most entertaining part of the whole story is that Vampsh Black Sheep etc. stated that his beliefs were no different from Christianity, given that both are "unproven."  In which, I have to admit, he has a point.

In the end, Courtney/Vampsh's lawsuit was denied on the basis of its being "frivolous," which would seem to indicate that the judge thought that he wasn't serious.  Myself, I'm not so sure.  It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest thing I've ever heard people claim to believe (that award would have to go to the members of Werewolf Cathedral).  But just like with the zombies last week, I suspect that we haven't heard the last of the vampire stories.  Now that some archaeologists found a few skeletons with stakes driven through them, proving the existence of vampires to the scientific world, and we've had not just one, but two, instances of real-life vampires show up in the news, we are clearly facing an outbreak.  It's time to get all of your supplies ready, including garlic, crucifixes, and guns with silver bullets (wait, is that werewolves?  I think I'm getting my nonsense mixed up.  Crap.  I hate it when that happens).  Spot checks of your coworkers are recommended ("Excuse me, can I see your teeth?")  Keep it up until the furor dies down next Tuesday, at which point we can all start freaking out about the next craze involving a mythological creature.  I hope this one is about centaurs.  We haven't had a good centaur outbreak in a long time.

Vampires, Yoda, and a butt-pinching ghost

Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch your alert research team (made up of myself and my two highly alert dogs) are keeping an eye on three developing stories.

First, we have reports out of India that politicians have placed a $2,000 bounty on vampires.  (Source)

Government officials in Dharampuri (Tamil Nadu state) have reacted with concern to claims by villagers that vampires are stalking the streets, and not with the kind of concern I would have shown, which would be to guffaw directly in the villagers' faces.  They have offered a reward of $2,000 (a considerable amount of money in those parts) to anyone who brings in a dead vampire.

Apparently, the whole thing started because some folks in the area reported that their cattle were being killed and drained of blood by vampires.  My reaction was that such acts are almost always caused not by vampires, but by another creature that doesn't exist, namely El Chupacabra.  Be that as it may, villagers reacted with panic, painting "holy signs" on their doors and leaving notes pleading with the vampires (known as "Ratha Kaatteri") to spare their lives, because everyone knows how a vampire will refrain from biting your neck if you just ask him nicely.

I'm happy to say that not all of the politicians have joined Team Ratha Kaatteri, however; one local leader, O. Jayaraman, said, "It is a big hoax.  Anti-socials whose illegal night activities such as bootlegging and liquor brewing have been disturbed are spreading rumors and killing cattle."

If they're as antisocial as all that, you have to wonder if they might not just kill some poor innocent person and fix the corpse up to look like a vampire to collect the reward.  Opportunities like this always seem to appeal to people's worst instincts.


Speaking of tempting fate, a man in Georgia has posted a broadside request asking all and sundry if they've ever seen an alien being that looks like Yoda.  (Source)

In his post, which strangely hilarious is, the man (who calls himself "Jax") recounts an experience he had twenty years ago:

I know it sounds silly but about 20 years ago my friend and I decided to drive out to an area (Highway 27, Hamilton Rd from Columbus, GA towards Hamilton) we were two dumb teenagers at the time who heard a rumor there were Satan worshipers out in the woods...as teenagers do, we decided to investigate it for laughs and have fun scaring ourselves.

We turned down a dirt road and followed it for a while until we wound up driving into a large open grass field. It was very dark out that night and quiet. While we did not see any "Satan worshipers", I decided to to try and scare my friend sitting in the passenger seat by placing my car in park in the big open field and I turned off my head lights for only about 10 or 15 seconds which put us in complete darkness. We could not even see each other let alone anything outside the car around us.

I then turned my headlights back on (the car was still running the whole time) and when we looked forward, there standing in front of my car, almost touching the front bumper was a creature to this day we cannot explain.

The creature was about 6 feet tall, had two legs but not human legs. They were bent like an animals hind-legs. From the waste up he literally looked like yoda. Grayish light green in color. Strange long ears. Somewhat flat but scrunched up face. Big round eyes which looked us both in the eyes. The eyes were on the front of the face (not on the side). It was definitely NOT a deer or any other normal animal of the woods. I don't remember seeing arms but it appeared to have two little short skinny arms in the front but I can't be certain. It only stood there for about 5 seconds then turned around and quickly went away into the night.

It didn't have a distinct run or walk or jump...it was somewhere in the middle of run, jump, hop, glide kind of movement when it hurried away. Even that was not a normal movement of any animal or person.

Naturally my friend and I screamed and I threw my car in reverse and raced out of there as fast as I could. We never went back to search for another sighting as one time was good enough for us but I am interested to know if anyone else has experienced the same?  

The owner of Phantoms and Monsters, the website on which this appears, ends by saying that Jax is interested only in "serious responses," which pretty much eliminates everything I was thinking of saying.

I keep trying to come up with some kind of appropriate commentary, but words fail me.  I guess there is no try, after all.


Lastly, we have a report out of Birmingham, England about a ghost that is haunting a pub, and is expressing himself by pinching waitresses' asses.  (Source)

The ghost, who has been nicknamed "Grasper," was first reported by assistant manager of The Queen's Arms, Paula Wharton.

"One night three of us were talking and I mentioned that I’d felt this pinch on my bum, and everyone else said that it had happened to them too.  It can’t have been a customer as I’ve never had my bum pinched when I’ve been stood behind the bar.  It’s happened to all of us on a few occasions, it can happen at any time, night or day."

Customers have been groped, too.  Frequent pub crawler Ashley Boland states, "I was standing at the bar enjoying a glass of wine when I suddenly felt a sharp pinch to my bum.  My instant reaction was that it might have been a sleazy bloke trying his luck, but when I spun around ready to give him a piece of my mind there was no one there.  I was really confused until the staff explained that there was a ghost running around the place pinching people on the bottom.  It was a little scary, but I suppose there are worse things that a ghost could do to you."

You have to wonder how the staff will handle this.  I mean, it's not like you can fire a spirit for sexual harassment.  Will they post signs?  "Caution, This Pub Is Haunted By An Ass-Groping Ghost: Bend Over At Your Own Risk."  That's probably what I would do, if I owned the pub -- but I'd also keep a careful eye on my male customers and employees, because chances are, one of them is in fact the "sleazy bloke" of Boland's account.  I have a feeling that Grasper the Over-Friendly Ghost will turn out to be all too human.

But who knows?  Maybe there is a ghost there, and maybe Yoda down to Georgia went, too.  But I'm not buying the Indian vampire story, sorry.  There's such a thing a straining credulity.

Face off

In the third of our series on Giving Woo-Woo Explanations For Every Damn Thing You See, we have:  chance resemblances proving that famous people are actually Evil Undead Creatures of the Night.

I was looking through the news yesterday, and I came across the story of a Civil War era photograph from Tennessee being offered at auction.  What's unusual about it is that the owner is hoping someone will pay a million dollars for it.  By now, you're probably pretty curious about it, so without further ado, here's the photograph:

So, I'm thinking, "Why would anyone pay a million dollars for this?"  So I looked closer, and saw that the guy in the photograph does look kind of like Nicolas Cage.  This made me go, "Huh.  Why would anyone spend a million dollars for a photo just because it looks a little like Nicolas Cage?"

But that's not what the owner claims.  The owner claims that it is Nicolas Cage.  Here's the advertisement for the item in the auction:

Original c.1870 carte de visite showing a man who looks exactly like Nick Cage. Personally, I believe it's him and that he is some sort of walking undead / vampire, et cetera, who quickens / reinvents himself once every 75 years or so.  150 years from now, he might be a politician, the leader of a cult, or a talk show host.  This is not a trick photo of any kind and has not been manipulated in Photoshop or any other graphics program.

Oh, okay.  That makes sense.  Nicolas Cage is lying about having been born in California in 1964.  All of this stuff about his being the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola is also a lie.  Childhood photographs that you find on his fan site?  They're of some other kid.  It makes far more sense that he is an immortal vampire who lived in Tennessee during the Civil War.

*brief pause to pound my head on the desk*

Of course, this isn't the first time this sort of thing has been claimed.  You may not know it, but Keanu Reeves is also one of the undead, and I'm not referring to the fact that he only seems to be capable of a single facial expression:

Yes, folks, this painting by the 19th century French painter Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel is actually of the star of The Matrix.  You'd think it would be hard to persuade an evil immortal vampire to sit still long enough to have his portrait painted.  Oh, well, I guess if you're The One, you can do whatever the hell you want.

Then, there's the claim that Shia LaBeouf is an immortal, shapeshifting clone (see the YouTube video here).  I think this one may be a joke, but honestly, who can tell?  As far as I can see the Nicolas Cage and Keanu Reeves claims are dead serious, so by comparison, the LaBeouf thing is maybe one notch more ridiculous, and still not as generally stupid as (for example) the claim made earlier this year that Han Solo had crashed the Millennium Falcon into the Baltic Sea, where it was later found by some intrepid Swedish treasure hunters.

The whole thing kind of makes me crazy, mostly because I feel sure that today I'll have at least one student ask me today, "Did you hear that they found a photograph of Nicolas Cage from the Civil War?" causing various other students to say, "Dude, that's amazing," or words to that effect, and I'm going to have to exert a heroic effort not to say something extremely snarky.