Demon redux

A few days ago, I posted about a fellow named Bob Larson who claims to be able to exorcise demons from the possessed via Skype.  My general feeling was that actual demons, if they're as powerful and evil as the religious claim, would have no particular reason to listen to a guy who was babbling prayers at them via a wonky internet connection from 2,000 miles away.

Not that this addresses the deeper problem that there's no evidence that demons exist in the first place.  But still.

Evidently, there are a lot of people who saw the Larson story and agree with me, on the first point at least.  One of them is a gentleman named Isaac Kramer.  Kramer, in an interview that you can watch over at Vocativ, said, "They just can't be done that way.  If a person is fully possessed, the demon inside of them will not let them sit in front of the computer screen to be exorcised.  Chances are, they’re going to throw the computer screen across the room and destroy everything."

Which sounds pretty reasonable, until you find out that Kramer is a Catholic priest who is the director of the International Catholic Association of Exorcists,  and he's apparently only saying this because he thinks he can do it better than Larson can and resents the competition.

I would like to think that belief in demons is on the decline, but if you've been following the news, there have been several recent stories where claims of possession were taken seriously by the powers-that-be.  The best publicized, just last week in Gary, Indiana, involved a house that was a "portal of hell," a nine-year-old boy who walked up a wall backwards, and various priests and chaplains and so on -- a story that got so much press that the priest who was in charge of it all, Reverend Michael Maginot, ended up being interviewed on Fox News' show The O'Reilly Factor.

Bill O'Reilly, to his credit, started out with the right approach; he asked for Maginot to keep his story fact based, and asked the priest what he knew about the little boy.  Maginot responded, not surprisingly, "Actually, I have never met any of the children.  The first time I heard about the incident was after the boy walked up the wall backwards...  I was in my parish, conducting a bible study, when I got the call, and they called me in to do an exorcism."

O'Reilly said, "Now, exorcism in the Catholic church is a serious thing... you have to jump through hoops to get it approved...  It disturbs me a little that the boy involved -- and this is according to the newspaper, and other eyewitnesses -- was doing incredible things, like walking up walls, but you yourself never talked to the boy.  Why not?"

Why not, indeed.  Maginot seemed vaguely embarrassed by the question -- as well he should have been.  "Well," he responded, " when I went to do the interview, at the home, with the mother and the grandmother, it was a four-hour interview, and the first two hours were basically getting information on all the occurrences leading up to the incident."

"The problem I'm having with this," O'Reilly countered, "is number one, you didn't see the boy.  The credibility of the Catholic church is in a tough way now, in this country.  Exorcism is a serious thing, a very serious thing.  I understand you got permission from the bishop in your diocese to do this.  But it seems to me that the story is not solid enough to go public with it.  There are a lot of people watching right now who are saying, 'this is more mumbo-jumbo from the Roman Catholic church, there's no credibility here at all.'  How would you answer that?"

More nervous, sidewise glances from Rev. Maginot.  "Well, the two boys and the girl, the one boy was put into a lockdown psychological children's ward, and the other two were taken to the Carmelite sisters who take care of foster children.  And so they were taken away from the parents, the mother and the grandmother, and so I didn't have access to them.  And the mother, I found out at the very end, was also possessed.  I put the crucifix on her forehead, and she began to convulse."

Righty-o, then, Father Maginot.  That's your evidence?  And you think that the mother, who was the one who had called in the priests, has any credibility at all?  Not mentioning, I notice, that this woman has already been exorcised four times and has a history of mental problems?  That the children need to be in foster care not because there are demons roaming around, but because their mother is a raving lunatic?

I can't say I often agree with Bill O'Reilly, but this time he nailed it, and asked all the right questions.  And it bears mention that O'Reilly himself is a practicing Catholic, who has no vested interest in making Maginot and his In The Name Of Jesus Begone act look silly. 

But that's not stopping the story from making the rounds, not as evidence that the whole practice is ridiculous, but that it somehow proves that demons exist.  As further evidence, they say, there's the photograph of the house, which shows a demon looking out a window:

To me, this more looks like E.T. the Extraterrestrial than it does like your conventional image of a demon.  And all of which goes to show that, as we've seen before, "proof" means something entirely different in the realm of religion than it does in the realm of science.

Interesting, too, that it only seems like people who were already religious get possessed, isn't it?  You'd think that a strident nonbeliever like myself would be perfect Satan bait.  But atheists never seem to need exorcisms.  Funny thing, that.

Probably the true believers would explain this by saying that we're being controlled by the Evil One, we just don't realize it.  You can't win.

Anyhow, that's our story for today.  I just want to end by stating a hope that the poor kids involved in this mess get some help and counseling, and their mother gets the help she needs, too... probably in the form of some heavy-duty medication.

The flammable chemtrail snow vortex of doom

Those of us in the northern slice of the United States have had to contend with unusually cold weather over the past few weeks, coupled with snow and ice that have reached even the usually mild southeast.  My original hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana actually got snow two days ago, and Lafayette is the place that my dad described as being so Deep South that if it were any deeper, we'd have been floating.

And almost everyone has heard about the snow storm that paralyzed the city of Atlanta, leaving highways gridlocked, thousands of car accidents from minor to horrifying, and hundreds of students who were stranded at their schools overnight.

What many of you may not know, though, is that the white flakes you saw falling from the sky over the last few days...

... may not have been snow.

*cue scary music*

At least, that's the contention of a variety of conspiracy theorist types who evidently have three scoops of rocky road with extra nuts where the rest of us have brains.  Take a look, for instance, over at The Resistance Journals, where a post hit yesterday called "What is With the Snow From the Recent Storm -- Solar Vortex?"  Notwithstanding that I think he means "polar" vortex, in that post we find out that (1) there is no doubt that the government is now controlling the weather, (2) the snow that has fallen doesn't seem to be melting, and (3) people have reported that this snow is flammable.

Now, I'm not buying the "flammable" part.  Snow is made of frozen water, which is notoriously non-flammable, explaining why water is commonly used to put out fires.  And as far as the snow not melting, that may have something to do with the fact that it's cold.  Snow does that when it's below 32 F, you know.

Then we have this lunatic, over at YouTube, who believes that chemtrails are being used to generate snow to combat global warming, and this has created special snow.  He then does an experiment, which you must watch for the humor value alone, wherein he tries to set some snow on fire first with a butane lighter, and then with what appears to be a propane torch.  When faced with the blue-hot flame of the propane torch, the snow basically evaporates instantaneously, and the guy is mystified by its disappearance.  "Where is the water?" he asks, evidently having forgotten that in third grade we all learned that there is a third state of water besides liquid and solid.

"What is this?" he asks.  "This ain't snow.  This is crazy."

Yes, sir, it is that.

So the wingnuts are really having a field day with the recent weather.  But of course, being a skeptic, I had to run an experiment of my own.  You can't just discount something because you're biased to think it is ridiculous; that wouldn't be proper skepticism, right?  Fortunately, here in upstate New York we are liberally endowed with snow at the moment, so I got a beaker and went out into my front yard and collected some, and brought it inside and put it on my kitchen counter.

Fig. 1.  Some snow in a beaker.  Yes, I have beakers at home.  Don't judge.

I attempted to light it with a match, with no success.  The match made a sizzling noise and went out, which I believe is the expected behavior.

So then, I let the beaker of snow sit on my counter for about an hour.  After an hour, this is what it looked like:

Fig. 2.  The same snow after one hour had passed.

Note how much less volume the water takes up than the snow did.  This, of course, is part of the explanation for why the aforementioned lunatic didn't notice much in the way of water coming from his chunk of snow after it was hit with a blowtorch; snow has lots of air space.  (And it's relevant that the snow from my front yard was old snow that had had several days to pack down.  Even so, it lost about 80% of its volume when it melted, give or take.)

The whole time I was running this experiment, my dog was staring at me in hope, because when I'm rummaging around in the kitchen it usually means food is being prepared, and if food is being prepared, it means he might get some.  He did not really understand why I was messing about with beakers and snow and cameras in the kitchen, and no ribeye steaks were being cooked.  His general philosophy is, "Why be in the kitchen if no ribeye steaks are involved?"

Fig. 3.  Grendel looking perplexed.  This is a common look for him.

So, after running my highly scientific experiment, I have come to the conclusion that (1) the recently fallen snow is not flammable, (2) when it melts, you get plain old water, and (3) none of this has anything to do with "chemtrails." 

Oh, and (4); if I don't cook ribeye steaks soon, my dog is going to be really disappointed in me.

And I'm not even going to address something I saw on Reddit a couple of days ago, which is that the recent snowstorm is all part of a big experiment being run at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.  How on earth an underground particle accelerator could be used to influence the weather on the other side of the freakin' world, I have no idea.  So I'll end here, with a wish that wherever you are, you are experiencing clement weather.  I don't know about you, but I've had about enough of this polar vortex crapola, even if it isn't being artificially created by the government.

Eat like a werewolf

I'm sure that by now all of you have heard of the "Paleo Diet," that claims that the path to better health comes from eating like a cave man (or woman, as the case may be) -- consuming only foods that would have been eaten by our distant ancestors living on the African savanna.  The "Paleo Diet," therefore, includes grass-fed meat (cow is okay if you can't find gazelle), eggs, fish, root vegetables, fruits, nuts, and mushrooms.  Not included are dairy products (being that domestication of cattle and goats was post-cave-man), potatoes, salt, sugar, and refined oils.

Despite gaining some traction, especially amongst athletes and bodybuilders, the "Paleo Diet" has been looked upon with a wry eye by actual dieticians.  A survey of experts in the field, sponsored by CNN, placed the "Paleo Diet" as dead last in terms of support from peer-reviewed research and efficacy at promoting healthy weight loss.

But the "Paleo Diet" will sound like quantum physics, technical-science-wise, as compared to the latest diet to take the world of poorly-educated woo-woos by storm:

The "Werewolf Diet."

I wish I were making this up.  I also wish, for different reasons, that it was what it sounded like -- that people who sign up find themselves, once a month, sprouting fur and fangs and running around naked and eating unsuspecting hikers.  That, at least, would be entertaining.

[image courtesy of Rodrigo Ferrarezi and the Wikimedia Commons]

But no such luck.  The Werewolf Diet, however, does resemble being an actual werewolf in that (1) what you get to eat is tied to the phases of the moon, (2) it more or less ruins your health, and (3) it completely fucks up any chance at a normal social life.

The site "Moon Connection" describes the whole thing in great detail, but they make a big point of their stuff being copyrighted material, so I'll just summarize so that you get the gist:

You have two choices, the "basic plan" or the "extended plan."  On the "basic plan," you fast for 24 hours, either on the full moon or the new moon.  You can, they say, "lose up to six pounds of water weight" by doing this, but why this is a good thing isn't clear.

The "extended plan," though, is more interesting.  With the "extended plan," you fast during the full moon, then eat a fairly normal diet during the waning part of the moon cycle (with the addition of drinking eight glasses of water a day to "flush out toxins").  On the new moon, you should fast again, only consuming dandelion tea or green tea (more toxin flushing).  During the waxing part of the moon cycle, you must be "disciplined" to fight your "food cravings," and avoid overeating.  "Thickeners," such as sugar and fats, should be avoided completely, and you can't eat anything after 6 PM because that's when the moon's light "becomes more visible."

Then you hit the full moon and it all starts over again.

Well, let me just say that this ranks right up there with "downloadable medicines" as one of the dumbest things I have ever read.  We have the whole "flushing toxins" bullshit -- as if your kidneys and liver aren't capable of dealing with endogenous toxic compounds, having evolved for millions of years to do just that.  We're told, as if it's some sort of revelation, that our "food cravings will increase" after we've been consuming nothing but green tea for 24 hours.  Then we are informed that the moon's gravitational pull has an effect on us, because we're 60% water -- implying that your bloodstream experiences high tide, or something.  But contrary to anything Newton would have had to say about the matter, the gravitational pull the moon exerts upon you somehow depends on the phase it's in, because, apparently, the amount of light reflecting from the moon's surface mysteriously alters its mass.

I mean, I'm not a dietician, but really.  And fortunately, there are dieticians who agree.  Keri Gans, a professional dietician and author of The Small Change Diet, said in an interview, "This diet makes me laugh. I don’t know if it’s the name or that people will actually believe it.  Either way, it is nothing but another fad diet encouraging restriction.  Restriction of food will of course lead to weight loss, but at what cost to the rest of your body?  If only celebrities, once and for all, would start touting a diet plan that makes sense and is based on science."

Yes.  If only.  But unfortunately, fewer people have heard of Gans, and (evidently) the scientific method, than have heard of Madonna and Demi Moore, who swear by the Werewolf Diet.  Not that Moore, especially, is some kind of pinnacle of rationality; she is a devotee of Philip Berg's "Kabbalah Centre," which preaches that "99% of reality cannot be accessed by the senses."

Nor, apparently, by logic and reason.

Interestingly enough, today is a new moon, meaning that today we're all supposed to be subsisting on dandelion tea.  To which I answer: the hell you say.  I'm off to get some bacon and eggs.  Detoxify that, buddy.

Asteroid astrology

I've written more than once about astrology, a slice of woo-woo that has never failed to impress me as the most completely ridiculous model on the market for explaining how the world works.  I mean, really.  Try to state the definition of astrology in one sentence, and you come up with something like the following:

The idea that your personal fate, and the course of global events, are controlled by the apparent movement of the Sun and planets relative to bunches of stars that are at varying (but extreme) distances from the Earth, patterns which some highly nearsighted ancient Greeks thought looked vaguely like scorpions and rams and lions and weird mythical creatures like "sea-goats."

It definitely falls into the "how could that possibly work?" department, a question that is usually answered with vague verbiage about vibrations and energies and cosmic resonances.

But like I said, all of that is old territory, here at Skeptophilia.  But yesterday, thanks to a loyal reader and frequent contributor, I found out something that I didn't know about astrology; lately, astrologers have been including the asteroids in their chart-drawing and fortune-telling.

Don't believe me?  Listen to this lady, Kim Falconer,  who tells us that we should consider the asteroids in our astrological calculations -- but only use the ones we want.  There are too many asteroids, she said, to track them all; "Use the asteroids that have personal meaning to you."

Falconer is right about one thing; there are a great many asteroids out there.  Astronomers currently think there are between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter alone, and that's not counting the ones in erratic or elliptical orbits.  So it would be a lot to track, but it would have the advantage of keeping the astrologers busy for a long time.

As far as which ones to track, though -- this is where Falconer's recommendations get even funnier,  because she says we should pay attention to the names of the asteroids.  Concerned about money?  Check out where the asteroids "Abundantia" and "Fortuna" are.  Concerned about love?  Find "Eros" and "Aphrodite."  And I'm thinking; where does she think these names come from?  All of them were named by earthly astronomers, more or less at random.  I mean, it's not like the names have anything to do with the actual objects.  For example, here's a photograph of Eros:

[image courtesy of NASA and the Wikimedia Commons]

Anything less sexy-looking is hard to imagine, especially given all of the craters and pits and warts on its surface.

But that's missing the point, from Falconer's view, and I realize that.  She and her cohort believe that when Auguste Charlois and Gustav Witt discovered the thing way back in 1898 and gave it its name, they somehow were tapping into a Mystical Reservoir of Connectedness and linked it to Quantum Energies of Love.  Or something like that.

But even so, the "choose the asteroids you like" thing seems very much like just drawing up the astrological chart you want.  Because, after all, if there are over a million to choose from, there are bound to be some that have names and positions that are favorable to whatever direction you'd like your life to take.  It's a little like drawing up your Tarot card hand by going through the deck and pulling out the cards you like, and arranging them however you want, and claiming that's your reading.

Yes, I know that the actual way Tarot cards are read is equally ridiculous.  It was just an analogy, okay?

Anyhow, that's the latest from the world of horoscopes.  But I better wrap this up, because the asteroid Hygiea is currently crossing into the constellation Horologium the Clock, which means it's time for me to go take a shower so I can get ready for work.

Skype exorcisms

Some of my regular readers may remember that a few months ago, I posted about a trio of young and extremely Christian ladies who were invading Britain to rid the country of demons that had been brought there because so many British children read Harry Potter.

One of them is named Brynne Larson.  It will come as no surprise that Ms. Larson is from an fundamentalist household; hard to imagine your believing anything that ridiculous if you didn't learn it as a very young child.  Be that as it may, Ms. Larson's father is Bob Larson, an evangelical preacher, talk radio host, and general wingnut.  Larson has been doing his dog-and-pony show for a while; I remember listening to him back in the 80s when I lived in Seattle.  I'd turn the show on when I got stuck in traffic, which was often, because I figured that the best thing to keep you from experiencing road rage is to listen to a radio show that distracts you by making you even madder at something else.

Well, Larson is still around, and just this week announced that he's out there fighting the Evil One just as hard today as he was thirty years ago.  He has, he claims, performed over 20,000 exorcisms in his life.  Doesn't that seem like a lot, to you?  It would imply that a good many of the people we meet on a daily basis are possessed, which I kind of doubt.  I don't think I've seen anyone lately who was guided by a demon, with the exception of the woman who ran a stop sign and cut me off in a Syracuse mall parking lot last weekend during a snowstorm, and I don't think she was possessed by anything but the evil spirit Dumbassimus.

But Larson begs to differ.  The demons are out there, he says; "there'll never be a shortage."  There are so many, in fact, that Larson can't keep up with the requests.  He receives so many that now he has to do his exorcisms...

... via Skype.

I don't know about you, but my first thought upon reading that was, "How could that work?"  Here you have a wicked, dangerous minion of Satan, who has latched on to some poor unfortunate soul in Hogfoot Junction, West Virginia.  And a guy shows up on Skype and says, "Get thee gone, evil spirit!" from 2,000 miles away via an internet connection, and the demon has no choice but to retreat in disarray?  If I was a demon, and Larson showed up babbling at me to Return to Hell From Whence I Came, the least I would do is to flip him off and then cause his computer to experience the Blue Screen of Death.

I mean, it can't be that hard.  My computer does that often enough without any demons being involved.

And it has to make you wonder what's next.  Will he start distributing general exorcisms through Twitter?

Get thee behind me Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord Amen #ChalkAnotherOneUpForMe #IGuessThatShowedYou

What if he doesn't finish his magical incantation before he runs into the 140-character limit?

My overall impression is that he's fighting a losing battle, trying to use the internet to fight Satan.  Just considering the volume of pornography alone, out there on the 'net, I think that so far it's Larson 0, Satan 1,489,352.

Larson, of course, doesn't see it that way.  When asked in an interview with ABC15 if his Skype-your-way-out-of-hell method was nothing more than a fire-and-brimstone circus act, he said, "It’s real.  There would be no reason to theatrically stage this for any reason.  Why would anybody do that?  I have no idea."

I'll pass over the fact that he used the word "reason" twice, and that his worldview isn't exactly one in which reason, in its literal sense, is the driver.  But really, Reverend Larson?  You can't think of any other incentives for doing what you're doing, other than the need to fight the Evil One?  How about money?  Notoriety?  Being interviewed by a major news outlet?

But other than those, nothing, right?

Of course, right.

So that's the latest from the world of religious wingnuttery.  I live in hope that most Christians recognize whackjobs like Bob Larson for what they are, but the sad fact is that there are enough people still listening to Larson that his show, Talk Back, is still being aired, and his ministry still gets followers.

And he still gets people, over Skype, who are eager for him to free them of demons -- for just a small donation to support the ministry, of course.

Unreal estate

I've always wanted to spend a night in an (allegedly) haunted house.

Not alone, preferably.  It'd be nice to have someone's sleeve to clutch whenever a branch creaks against the roof.  But still.  There's nothing like direct experience.  Even though I tend to cast a wry eye at eyewitness testimony, the human memory and perceptual apparatus being what they are, having a personal encounter with the spirit of a dead guy would go a long way toward convincing me that this stuff is real.

Apparently, I'm not alone.  Not only do we have the whole ghost-hunting industry (and the television shows it's spawned), we now have people who seem to consider a resident ghost to be a selling point in real estate deals.

Just in the last week, I've seen four advertisements for houses in which hauntings were mentioned -- and none of them seemed to be the sort of mandatory disclosure statement you'd make about, for example, leaky plumbing.  All of them had the air of a brag -- "You definitely want to buy our house.  It comes with a pre-installed ghost."

First, in the UK, we have Sawston Hall, a grand Tudor manor house in Cambridgeshire.  It comes with a hundred-foot-long "great hall," a moat, an arboretum... and a disembodied spirit of a dead queen.

 The house was a favorite hideout of Queen Mary I, better known to history as "Bloody Mary" Tudor -- and it's said that she still haunts the place.  Stephen and Claire Coates, the current owners, say they've never seen her.  Still, having a royal ghost is quite a selling point, and they'd like a cool £4.75 million for the place.

If you'd like the UK but are looking for something a little more... "atmospheric"... then consider Dornoch Castle, which is a bargain at less than half of what Sawston Hall is going for -- only £2.25 million.

Consider the selling points -- an already-outfitted restaurant that seats ninety, a bar with an open fireplace, proximity to prominent whisky distilleries and golf courses, and a dead Sutherland sheep rustler.

The ghost at Dornoch is apparently one Andrew McCornish, who was hanged there in the 19th century for stealing livestock.  Which opens up an interesting question; why would ghosts linger around the place they were executed?  If I were hanged, and found myself a ghost, I would get the hell out of there.  Bad memories, you know?  But to each his own, I suppose, and I'm sure that Dornoch is charming in many other respects.

If that's still too rich for your tastes, or if you'd like something a little more subtropical, there's this lovely historic home in Punta Gorda, Florida, on the market for $1,590,000:

Vander and Natalie Wynn have this house for sale, and proudly include a 14-year-old dead girl as one of the house's selling points.

"It's a great view so it's a great place to be. And if you have a perpetual 14-year-old teenage girl playing tricks on you, kinda fun," said Wynn.  "I hear my wife walk down the stairs, and I call out her name and she says yes from a different part of the house.  There's some weird things like that you really can't explain."

"She's really not scary, she just makes noise.  Sometimes I've told her you need to be quiet," his wife, Natalie, added.

Apparently the ghost belongs to a girl who died in an unfortunate accident involving kerosene and a match back in the early 20th century, once again raising the "painful memories" question.  But you can't argue with the location.  Given that we're currently in the dead of winter in upstate New York, I'd happily move to Punta Gorda even if I had to content with a perpetual noisy adolescent.

Last, we have this lovely 19th century house in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, which is a steal at only $144,000, probably because its owners say it is only "slightly haunted:"

It does, however, make me wonder how a place can be "slightly haunted."  Either it has a ghost, or it doesn't, right?  "Slightly haunted" is like "a little bit pregnant."  And from the description, it's sounds like it's more "pretty freakin' haunted," if the owners are being straight with us:

Slightly haunted.  Nothing serious, though, e.g. the sound of phantom footsteps.  A strange knocking sound followed by a very quiet (hardly noticeable, even) scream at 3:13 AM, maybe once a week.  Twice a week, tops.  And the occasional ghastly visage lurking behind you in the bathroom mirror.  Even still, this occurs very rarely and only in the second-floor bathroom.

It also has a "study/library that has a secret door behind a moving bookcase leading into a small office," and a "large unfinished crawlspace behind a concealed door hidden in a bedroom closet."  All of which sounds like horror movie material, to me.

Oh, but the house has "tons of charm."  So there's that.

Anyhow, if you're in the market for some unreal estate, there you have it.  And I'm sure that's just scratching the surface.  A Google search for "haunted house for sale" got over 100,000 hits, so there has to be one in your area.  Make sure to find out the particulars about the ghost before you put in a purchase offer.  Caveat emptor, you know.

Diseased cannibal rat ship

In the last few days we have a new story circulating in the media, and this has led to considerable buzz on Facebook and Twitter.  Comments I've seen have included, "Yuk," "This is horrible," "Terrifying!," and "The government better do something about this, soon!"

Not once have I seen anyone post my immediate reaction, which was, "Okay, really?"

The story has appeared on various woo-woo websites, but has also made it onto Fox News and The Independent.  Here are excerpts from the version that appeared on Stranger Dimensions, entitled, "Is a Russian Ship Filled With Diseased Cannibal Rats Heading Toward the UK?"

Experts believe a derelict cruise ship that’s been missing for a year may be en route to the U.K. The problem? It’s filled with disease-ridden cannibal rats.

Built in Yugoslavia in 1976, the Lyubov Orlova was a cruise liner that had for many years transported passengers to destinations around the world. Unfortunately, in 2010, the ship was impounded in Newfoundland, Canada and deserted by her crew. Two years later, while being towed to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped, a heavy storm caused the tow-line to break, sending the Lyubov Orlova out to aimlessly wander the North Atlantic Ocean...

Now, a year later, new concerns are being raised that the ship is heading for the U.K.

It’s completely empty, save for the potentially hundreds of diseased rats aboard the ship that have most likely been forced to eat one another to survive.

Diseased cannibal rats!  By the millions!  Waiting for their chance to get onto land, and rush around swarming over and eating innocent British citizens, like a scene from the movie Willard!

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

But then we hear what data these "experts" are currently going on:

Over the following months, the Lyubov Orlova was spotted at various locations in the North Atlantic. In one instance last year, satellites found an object near Scotland that may have been the ship, but subsequent searches in the area found nothing...

Discerning readers may point out that the ship’s emergency position-indicating radio beacon had activated off the Kerry coast on March 1, 2013 after presumably being submerged in water, implying that the ship had, indeed, sunk. However, authorities say some of the life-boat emergency signals have yet to activate, and the ship may still be out there, diseased cannibal rats and all.

The ship’s current position is unknown, but due to recent high winds, experts fear the ghost ship may be on a crash course for the British coastline. If they’re right, the Lyubov Orlova is likely to wind up on the west coast of Ireland, Scotland, or southern England. What happens if/when it gets there? I don’t know, but…diseased rats. Can’t be good.  

That's right; there was a beacon signal detected in March of 2013, and it was "maybe" spotted by a satellite later that year -- and no one has had a glimpse of it since then.  The ship's current position is unknown.

Remember a couple of days ago, our discussion of what the word "unknown" means?

But then what went through my mind was: even considering that the ship may be out there, how do they know about the rats?  Were they detected on the satellite, baring their decay-ridden fangs defiantly at the sky?  Okay, presupposing that any ship is gonna have rats, still... how would anyone know that they're diseased cannibal rats?  When the beacon went off, did the people who picked it up hear, in the background, the sound of hoarse, coughing squeaks, as if a diseased rat were being savagely dismembered and eaten by its pack mates?

I know that the whole thing was written for no other reason than to get people stirred up, but what bugs me is that hardly anyone seems to be questioning how the writer of the article knows all of this stuff.

Oh, but to hell with the facts; the diseased cannibal rat ship may still be out there.  And if it may still be out there, then it might be headed for England.

Even the Wikipedia article on the Lyubov Orlova has been contaminated by this silliness; the last paragraph of the article is, "Certain independent researchers and amateur salvage hunters have also stated that a population of rats are on board the vessel, and that in the absence of edible food, the rat population have turned cannibalistic.  The opportunity to study the cannibalistic rats has been welcomed by researchers."  (Although I will say that at least someone appended "citation needed" after this paragraph.)

Well, I think we can do better than this, can't we?  Let's see... back in 1950, a ship called the Phoenix went missing off the coast of Australia.  It was last seen near Darwin, but no word of it was heard from thereafter.  But it could still be out there.  Carrying a load of... cannibalistic kangaroos and feral wombats.  Experts can't be certain that this is wrong.  And maybe by now, it's drifted across the Pacific, and is on a collision course with San Francisco.  What would happen if it ran aground near the Embarcadero, depositing its cargo of hopping, waddling death into the waterfront cafés and shops filled with unsuspecting tourists?

I don't know, but it can't be good.