When I grew up, I renewed my interest in secret messages through investigating a number of historical mysteries as well as during ten years of research for my magnum opus, Pen, Ink, and Evidence: A Study of Writing and Writing Materials for the Penman, Collector, and Document Detective (1990). Thomas Parrish was once kind enough to pen an inscription in a copy of his excellent book, The American Code­breakers (1986), “To Joe Nickell—a cracker of all ciphers.” He gives me too much credit, but here, anyway, are abstracts of some of my interesting cases, from the trivial to the profound.

Secret Posts

One little secret message I came across in an antique store had already been revealed. It was on a postcard, penned in tiny script in the little box reserved for the postage stamp. The stamp had been carefully removed, obviously by the recipient, exposing the hidden writing. I was so taken by the find that I searched the remaining large collection of postcards in the store and found a few others—all clearly from the same sender.

The hidden-under-the-stamp messages were simply miniscule love notes. One consisted of rows of little X’s (a popular shorthand for kisses), while another asked, “Do you you still love this bad boy?” The cards, postmarked between 1911 and 1913 were addressed to a young lady at a Virginia girls’ school (Nickell 1990, 177). Charming!

Another postcard, found on a different occasion, bore a curious-looking script. However, it proved to be an innocuous message, easily read by noting the picture side of the card. It depicted a lady before a mirror and was accompanied by the printed couplet, “This message is for you my dear—/Your looking glass will make it clear” (Nickell 1990, 177). (For a discussion of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous mirror handwriting, see my “Deciphering Da Vinci’s Real Codes,” Nickell 2007).

A ‘Ju-Ju’ Message

Sometimes a message is hidden in plain sight. In researching the case of a devil-baby mummy that I encountered in a Toronto curio shop and that later proved bogus, I came across a published photo of a pair of similar creatures, their arms folded in the repose of death. A sign affixed to the creatures’ coffin proclaimed: “These shrunken mummified figures were found in a crude tomblike cave on the island of Haiti in 1740 by a party of French marines. They are supposed to be the remains of a lost tribe of ‘Ju-Ju’ or Devil Men—who, after death, followed a custom of shrinking & mummifying the dead. Are they real? We don’t know, but . . . X-Rays showed skin, horn, & hooves human!” Astonishingly, however, there was no mention of skeletons, suggesting that—like the Toronto devil-baby mummy—the figures were fabricated (Nickell 2011, 148–149).

Painted beneath the sign were these mumbo-jumbo words:

YENOH M’I DLOC!

My cryptanalytical interests were piqued, and I soon divined the meaning. Can you decipher it yourself before reading further?

I discovered that the text was the simplest form of a transposition cipher, one in which the actual letters of the secret message are rearranged in some fashion. In this in­stance, it is only necessary to read each word backward in turn to reveal a witty commentary on the creatures’ nakedness: “Honey I’m Cold!” Exclamation point indeed.

Encoded Book

Figure 1. The cryptic text in an old book soon yielded up its secrets.

In 1985 my old friend, Canadian writer and bibliophile George Fetherling, sent me copies of some pages from a small 1948 book titled SENATOR, the text of which was printed in a strange sort of code or cipher (Figure 1). George wanted to know what this intriguing work was all about—and so did I!

I set to work, immersing myself in the mysterious text. Soon, I recognized that at least some of the apparent words were indeed words, only they had been abbreviated—mostly by removing the vowels. (Thus whr=“where,” stn=“station,” etc.). Also, some consonants were dropped, particularly double ones (so that rgt=“right” and al=“all”). In addition, some common words were replaced by symbols (such as “£” for “Lodge” and @ for “and” [not for “at,” which was itself “a,” although “a” could also represent “a” itself.) Finally, some of the abbreviations were just acronyms (hence, MA=“Master at Arms”). In short, the text is a very simple form of code. (A code consists of substitutes not just for letters, as in a simple cipher, but for groups of letters, words, or even entire phrases or concepts.)

In beginning to decode the text, and reading phrases and whole clauses (“My station is at the right and front of the Cc [Chancelor?]),” I saw that it concerned a lodge, various officers, and elements of ritual and mystery. I suspected it was the product of some secret order such as the Freemasons, soon realizing that “KOP” in the text clearly referred to a similar fraternal and benevolent society, the Knights of Pythias. This was founded in 1864 in Washington, DC. (“Knights” 1960; Ken­nedy 1904). Various terms in the text are consistent with Pythian use. (Although the book lacked publishing information, and a standard bibliographic search was fruitless, for this publication CFI Libraries Director Tim Binga was later able to use online sources to confirm the KOP origin.)

The book’s title page bears a brief message of a different type. It reads:

NOITINOMDA: Sliated laiceps
rof koob eulb tlusnoc ot
dehsinomda si hturt retfa
rekees dna tneduts esolc
eht.

Can you decipher it? Quickly cover the following explanation and try your hand.

You should have little trouble, since you have already been introduced to simple transposition ciphers like this. However, instead of reading each word backward in turn, you begin with the word in all capitals (which is, of course, “admonition”), then go to the end and read the whole sentence backward. Case closed.

The Cryptograms

So far, we have looked at codes and transposition ciphers. However, the majority of the secret messages I have come across in my work as a historical investigator are what are known as simple substitution ciphers. Popularly mislabeled “codes,” these are created by replacing the letters of the original text, which is known as the “plaintext,” with substitutes—such as other letters, symbols, or the like—resulting in what is termed the “ciphertext.”

I have encountered—and deciphered—many such ciphertexts, written on postcards and greeting cards, in old sentiment albums, and elsewhere (Nickell 1990, 176–77). Solving a simple substitution cipher is usually pretty straightforward. (See Nickell 1990, 177; Gaines 1956, 69–87; also, the previously mentioned Poe and Conan Doyle stories describe the rudiments of decipherment.)

Here is one message from an old autograph album:

L5CY
1992  P42
9476h  M3ddl2  64w9
B457b49  C4
         K2965cky

If you are an experienced cryptanalyst you might want to stop here and give your skills a try.

As it happened, however, the message was accompanied by a partial “key”:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
a e i o u t r s n

In brief, numbers are substituted for certain frequently used letters (vowels, and four of the most–used consonants), while the remaining letters are unchanged. Now you will have no trouble deciphering the message.

If you solved this without the key, you probably noted that the last word was offset, and so it might be the name of a state (on the assumption that such a text in an autograph album might represent a name and address). That word, omitting the numbers, was “K——cky,” and that could only be one state. Similarly “M-ddl-” looks like the word Middle, so the cryptanalyst could begin to construct a key without having been provided one. This message reads: “Lucy Anne Poe, North Middle Town, Bourbon Co., Kentucky.”

Most such texts are similarly mundane, although they are still fun to solve and help one sharpen his or her cryptanalytical skills. However, some are of a more serious nature. Sometimes a code or cipher even promises to lead to a fabulous treasure, as in the next case.

Oak Island’s ‘Cipher Stone’

What is considered by some to be among “the great mysteries of the world” (Crooker 1978, 7), derives from a mysterious shaft on Oak Island, Nova Scotia. It was allegedly discovered in 1795 when three young men came upon a shallow depression over which, hanging from a tree limb, was an old tackle block. The trio believed some treasure lay below but they were never able to recover it. Neither has anyone since, although many have tried, only to be thwarted by water flooding the “Money Pit” (as it came to be known) by means of “pirate tunnels” and other problems. Still, zealots are convinced there is a treasure to be claimed, possibly the French crown jewel or Shakespeare’s manuscripts, even perhaps the legendary Holy Grail (Nickell 2001).

Reportedly, sometime in the early nineteenth century (different dates are given), a treasure-hunting consortium dug up a flat stone that bore a cryptic message. This “cipher stone” takes its place with other such reports—of “strange markings” carved on the old tree (Finnan 1997, 28) and even of “a tier of smooth stones . . . with figures and letters cut on them” (quoted in Crooker 1978, 24). No photo exists of any of these, and the cipher stone—assuming it actually existed—has been missing since about 1919. However, its text has allegedly been preserved, although in various forms and differing decipherments. Zoologist-turned-epigrapher Barry Fell thought the inscription was ancient Coptic, its message urging people to remember God lest they perish (Finnan 1997, 148–49).

Figure 2. A cipher, allegedly inscribed on a stone (see inset, bottom center), is only one of many bogus elements of the Oak Island treasure tale. (Illustration by Joe Nickell)

In fact, the cipher text as we now have it has been correctly deciphered—and redeciphered and verified. It is written in a simple-substitution cipher (reproduced in Crooker 1993, 23). I have reconstructed what the cipher stone might have looked like, providing my drawing as an inset to my Oak Island “treasure map” (Figure 2), based on several sources and my own visit to the island in 1999. My independent decipherment, which tallies with those of several modern investigators (Crooker 1993, 19–24), reads, “FORTY FEET BELOW TWO MILLION POUNDS ARE BURIED.” Although he is convinced there was an original inscribed stone, “mentioned in all the early accounts of the Onslow Company’s expedition,” William S. Crooker states (1993, 24): “Obviously the inscription as we know it today is a hoax—a modern invention deliberately made simple to lure potential investors. It is highly unlikely that the originators of the Money Pit left a coded message giving the amount and depth of buried treasure.”

I agree. My own longtime investigation of the Oak Island mystery, however, indicated that the “Money Pit” and “pirate tunnels” were simply natural formations. More­­over, much of the Oak Island saga—especially certain reported actions and alleged discoveries—tally with the “Secret Vault” allegory of Freemasonry. Indeed, the search for the Oak Island treasure “vault” has been carried out largely by prominent Nova Scotia Free­masons, and it appears that the whole affair is an insiders’ one linked to high-level Masonic rituals (Nickell 2001, 219–34).

The foregoing by no means exhaust my examples. The interested reader might wish to consider the mysterious inscription of the Yarmouth Stone in Nova Scotia, which I was permitted to examine in 1999 (Nickell 2001, 190–193), or the infamously un­solved Beale ciphers that tell of a treasure lost since 1817 (Nickell with Fischer 1992, 53–67), among others. More cases no doubt await.

References

Crooker, William S. 1978. The Oak Island Quest. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelet.

———. 1993. Oak Island Gold. Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus.

Finnan, Mark. 1997. Oak Island Secrets, rev. ed. Halifax, N.S.: Formac.

Gaines, Helen Fouché. 1956. Cryptanalysis: A Study of Ciphers and Their Solution. New York: Dover.

Kennedy, William D. 1904. Pythian History. Chicago: Pythian Hist. Publ. Co.

Knights of Pythias. 1960. Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 18:804.

Masonic Heirloom Edition Holy Bible. 1964. Wichita, Kansas: Heirloom Bible Publishers.

Nickell, Joe. 1990. Pen, Ink, and Evidence: A Study of Writing and Writing Materials for the Penman, Collector, and Document Detective. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

———. 2001. Real-Life X-Files. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

———. 2007. Deciphering Da Vinci’s real codes. Skeptical Inquirer 31(3) (May/June): 23–25.

———. N.d. Secret Messages. Unpublished typescript; see “Cryptographer,” online at www.joenickell.com/Cryptographer/cryptographer1.html.

Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1992. Mysterious Realms: Probing Paranormal, Historical, and Forensic Enigmas. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

Parrish, Thomas. 1986. The American Codebreakers: The U.S. Role in Ultra. Paperback ed. Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House, 1991.

Figure 1. The author, in the persona of a pilgrim, visits the famous “Lourdes of America,” where holy dirt supposedly effects miracle cures. (Author’s photo by Vaughn Rees)

The Legend

The word Chimayó derives from hot springs that were sacred to the Tewa Indians (a linguistic group of Pueblos) who called them Tsimajopokwi (pokwì in Tewa means “pool of water”). After the springs dried up, the name was shortened to Tsimayo (Nealson 2001, 62). According to a pious legend (of which there are many versions), brethren from the secret Penitente Brother­hood were engaging in rites on a nearby hill on a dark Good Friday in 1810 when one saw a mysterious light coming from the valley. Investigating and finding a half-buried crucifix, the men sent for a priest, the nearest church being ten miles away in Santa Cruz. The priest had the wooden crucifix carried in a procession to his church, but by the next morning it had disappeared—having been miraculously re­turned to its original site! This removal and return occurred two more times before people understood the message: the crucifix was to remain on the spot, which had reportedly been a sacred area for the Pueblo Indians (Eckholm 2008).

This grafting of a Roman Catholic element onto a native one—a process called syncretism—was common. It was often similarly accomplished by the shrewd use of a “miracle.” (For example, a “miraculous,” actually tempera-painted, image of the Virgin of Guada­lupe appeared in Mexico City in 1531 to prompt the building of a Catholic shrine—on a hill where the conquered Aztecs had had a temple to their virgin goddess, Tonantzin [Nickell 1988; 2004].)

One of the Penitente brothers, Don Bernardo Abeyta, built a small hermita (shelter) onto his house to enshrine the miracle crucifix. The hermita also allegedly “covered a hole from which came a blessed dirt that cured all ailments” (Kay 1987, 35). Abeyta himself was “instantly healed” of an undisclosed illness (Kutz 1988, 46–47). Alternately, Indian stories from the twentieth century suggested that a Tewa pueblo had once stood on the spot next to a pool whose mud had healing properties (Harring­ton 1916, 342). Revealingly, the chapel’s full name (El Santuariò de Chimayó de Nuestro Señor de Esqui­pulas) evokes a shrine in Guate­mala that had long been venerated for its miraculous healing crucifix and surrounding earth with curative powers. As well, there are much-touted healing mud baths at Chilca, Peru (which I visited with a guide in 2006). In any event, in 1816 a chapel was completed on the Chimayó site by Father Fran­cisco de Otocio, who was in charge of all New Mexico missions (Kay 1987, 29–37; Eckholm 2008).

The Nitty Gritty on the Dirt

Today, pilgrims visiting El Santuariò de Chimayó stoop to enter a small, single-windowed room that is said to be Abeyta’s original hermita. The central hole, El Posito (“little well”), measures some sixteen to eighteen inches wide and less than nine inches deep. Con­sider­ing the great amount of earth that must have been scooped from it during its almost two centuries of history, however, this is a small hole indeed! Hence, there grew a pious legend “that the pit was refilled by divine intervention” (Eckholm 2008). (This was similar to the claim that regardless of how many pieces were taken from the True Cross, the alleged holy relic of Jesus’s Crucifixion, it never diminished in size [Nickell 2007, 91–92].)

But even though “legend still maintains that the hole miraculously replenishes itself,” in fact “priests periodically refill the hole with dirt from outside the church” (Kay 1987, 77). Indeed, previously tipped off to this fact by a television cameraman (Del Monte 2001), we searched for and found the storage area where five-gallon containers of the reddish soil are stored (Figure 2). In recent years, priests at El Santuario de Chimayó have increasingly taken pains to point out the shed where the trucked-in soil is stored, with one complaining, “I even have to buy clean dirt!” (Eckholm 2008).

Figure 2. Despite a legend that the dirt, scooped from a small hole in the church floor, replenishes itself, it is actually purchased from outside and kept in a storeroom until it’s time to refill the hole. (Author’s photo)

In fact, the “holy dirt” is nothing very special. An analysis conducted for The Miracle Detectives television series identified the presence of carbonates that might have a beneficial effect on heartburn by neutralizing excess acid. “Beyond that,” stated series co-star Indre Vìskontas, the show’s skeptic, “there doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary” (Miracle Detectives 2011).

I agree. I had collected my own samples for testing on a visit to Chi­mayó in 2003 with investigator Vaughn Rees. In the guise of a pilgrim needing healing (again see Figure 1), I obtained a small plastic container from the gift shop, sold empty but labeled “Blessed Dirt.” My examination, in my little lab at CSI headquarters, showed that the “dirt” contains no appreciable humus but is largely sand, consisting of tiny grains of minerals and small bits of rock. (Appli­ca­tion of hydrochloric acid yielded a strong effervescence that confirmed the presence of carbonates. The addition of potassium ferrocyanide reagent produced a Prussian-blue reaction that identified a significant amount of iron, consistent with its color of red ocher, an earthy iron oxide. Stereomicroscopic examination showed grains of such common minerals as crystalline quartz and mica, as well as small lumps of sandstone and occasional bits of organic material, including tiny fragments of bone and fine root stems.¹)

Chimayó priest Father Jim Suntum concedes that the dirt itself has no miraculous power (Miracle Detectives 2011). In fact, the local dirt has actually acted in a very anti-miraculous way: it has posed a threat to the church’s artworks. As conservators found in 2003–2004, they “had to deal with the dirt.” Indeed, “It had drifted down from the ceiling and walls in the almost 200 years the church had existed, covering the paintings on the five altar screens, the crucifix and the carved bultos [sculptures] with a fine dust that needed cleaning. Dirt also had fallen behind the main altar screen to push it out of joint and threaten its very existence.” Still, a writer would claim that the preservation process itself, at least, was “almost a miracle” (Russell 2004, 36, 40).

The Healing ‘Miracles’

Nevertheless, while Father Suntum concedes it is not the holy dirt that heals but rather one’s “relationship with God,” he insists: “Something happens in this place.” However, he admits: “We can’t quantify it. We can’t document it. We do ask people to tell their story” (Miracle Detectives 2011). In fact, “officially, the Church has never investigated any of the claims” (El Santuariò ... 1994, 26).

The complete lack of records re­garding alleged miraculous experiences means that claims are entirely dependent on anecdotal evidence, such as the unverifiable stories told by an aging priest at the site. For example, in the mid-1950s, he recalled, a man carried his frail, ill mother into the church. “A few minutes later,” said the priest, “he called me, something has happened. She was kneeling in front of the altar. She was talking and full of health” (Hamm 2006, 42, 45). Yet we do not need to invoke the miraculous to explain what may have been only a simple rejuvenation of the woman’s spirits.

Or consider the tale about a girl from Texas whose family “was told she had little time to live” and that even an operation might not save her. Follow­ing their visit to Chimayó the child was well and no operation was necessary. “Two days later,” recalls the old priest, “they came back to thank God for the cure” (qtd. in Hamm 2006, 45). Now, we cannot prove this story is untrue, but fortunately we do not have to. The tellers of such unverifiable tales have the entire burden of proof.

However, when such cases can be investigated, they are invariably illuminating. For instance, The Miracle Detec­tives examined the case of a Colo­rado woman, Deseree “Dese” Mar­tinez, who claims the dirt of Chimayó helped her cancer go into remission. Diagnosed at the age of fifteen with aggressive bone cancer at numerous sites in her body, she visited Chimayó where she mixed the holy dirt with spit and applied it to a sore spot on her leg. The pain was gone by the next morning, and scans the following week showed the area healed. Inexplicably, she did not then rub dirt on the other lesion spots, but they soon disappeared too.

However, the woman’s doctor, Brian Greffe, at The Children’s Hospital in Denver, observed that with such non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in pediatric cases, the hospital’s “cure rates are quite high.” He attributed Martinez’s success to the chemo treatments, which had worked “within days” of their be­ginning. Obviously, there is no evidence that the interim application of holy dirt to a single site had any effect, although Greffe did say Martinez’s positive outlook and the support of her family were helpful (Miracle Detectives 2011).

As invariably shown by the evidence, so-called miraculous healings are never scientifically verified. Such claims, like those at Lourdes, the most famous “miracle” shrine, are derived from cases that are supposedly “medically inexplicable”; therefore, they are really examples of a logical fallacy called “arguing from ignorance”—that is, drawing a conclusion from a lack of knowledge. Besides, some illnesses are known to exhibit spontaneous remission, and other reputed cures may be attributable to a host of other factors: misdiagnosis, psychosomatic conditions, the body’s own healing mechanisms, and the like, including—as in the case of Martinez—prior medical treatment (Nickell 2008).

While the church displays crutches and canes—ostensibly cast off after previous cures—they may well have been discarded prematurely. Persons may feel better temporarily after experiencing the hope and excitement of a pilgrimage. Writer Anatole France, on visiting Lourdes and seeing the abandoned canes and crutches there, sagely remarked, “What, what, no wooden legs???” (qtd. in Hines 1988, 250).

Conclusions

As the evidence shows, therefore, claims made for holy dirt at Chimayó are unwarranted. Despite borrowed and contrived legends that the site is miraculous, the soil is actually an ordinary variety trucked in from elsewhere and merely blessed. Priests admit that the “something” that happens at the site cannot be quantified or documented—and indeed a major healing claim fell apart on investigation.

One suspects that the “something” is merely what is termed confirmation bias—the willingness to credit any supposed benefits while ignoring countless failures. One writer offers the apologetic, “It is a mystery why certain people and situations are granted a miracle and others are not” (Hamm 2006). But it is only a “mystery” if one chooses to be blind to the evidence.

Note

1. Finally, I ran a battery of standard analyses using a commercial soil-test kit determining the pH was 7.0 (neutral), and that nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash were at insignificant levels.

References

Del Monte, Steven. 2000. Personal communication, October 20.

Eckholm, Eric. 2008. A pastor begs to differ with flock on miracles. The New York Times (February 20).

El Santuariò...: A Stop on the “High Road to Taos.” 1994. Silver Spring, MD: Sons of the Holy Family.

Hamm, Elizabeth Catanach. 2006. It’s a miracle: Hope, faith bond at El Santuario de Chi­mayó. New Mexico (March): 40–45.

Harrington, John Peabody. 1916. Cited in Kay 1987, 14.

Hines, Terence. 1988. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

Kay, Elizabeth. 1987. Chimayó Valley Traditions. Sante Fe, New Mexico: Ancient City Press.

Kutz, Jack. 1988. Mysteries & Miracles of New Mexico. Corrales, NM: Rhombus Publishing Co.

The Miracle Detectives. 2011. Holy Dirt of Chimayó. Episode aired April 10.

Nealson, Christina. 2001. New Mexico’s Sanc­tuaries, Retreats, and Sacred Places. Engle­wood, CO: Westcliffe Publishers, 61–63.

Nickell, Joe. 1988. Secrets of the Supernatural. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 103–17.

———. 2004. The Mystery Chronicles. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 51–55.

———. 2007. Relics of the Christ. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

———. 2008. Lourdes medical bureau rebels (blog entry). Free Thinking (December 25). Online at http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/lourdes_medical_bureau_rebels/.

Russell, Inez. 2004. Saving El Santuario: Preservation process almost a miracle. New Mexico (December): 36–41.

This is the story of a fiery death that became a cold case—a mystery unsolved since 1847. It begins with an elderly Frenchman, whose badly burned body suggested to authorities that it may have been set afire to conceal evidence of foul play. The victim’s son and daughter-in-law were soon charged with homicide. Subsequently, an exhumation and examination of the severely burned remains led the pathologist to conclude that the case was not one of murder but of “spontaneous combustion”—a possibility discounted by modern science. Was it murder after all, or is there still some other possibility?

Scene of the ‘Crime’

Initially reported in the journal Union Médicale, the case found its way—via the Gazette Médicale—to an American medical journal (Flint 1849) and then on to a textbook on medical jurisprudence (Taylor 1883). On the morning of January 6, 1847, the body of seventy-one-year-old Monsieur Char­bonnier¹ was found lying abed “in its usual position during sleep,” yet it was afire with a small, whitish flame that had de­stroyed, almost entirely, both the deceased’s clothing and the bed clothes, as well as part of the bedstead. Surrounding materials were scorched. Monsieur Char­bonnier was de­scribed as “neither very fat, nor given to drunkenness.”

It having been quite cold for a time, when he retired Charbonnier had, “as usual, placed at his feet a heated brick.” It was also noted that he carried matches in his waistcoat pocket. He had gone to his room sometime between six and seven p.m., and, two hours later, his son and his son’s wife, having passed his door, “perceived nothing un­usual” (Flint 1849).

The authorities came to suspect the couple in Charbonnier’s death of “having first murdered him, and then burnt the body, in order to conceal all traces of the crime.” Apparently, the suspicions were founded on nothing more than that the origin of the fire was unknown and the destruction of the body severe. A Dr. Masson was ordered to examine the remains and so make a determination as to the cause of death. Masson had Charbonnier’s body exhumed (Flint 1849).

Autopsy

A medical journal (Flint 1849) reported on Dr. Masson’s examination:

The coffin was found half filled. The body was folded in a white shroud. A cravat, nearly destroyed by the fire, and a fragment of a shirt collar, remained round the neck. The hands, burnt to a cinder, were attached to the forearm merely by some carbonized tendons, which gave way at the least touch. Lastly, the thighs were so completely separated, that, had it not been for fragments of animal charcoal, the separation might have been attributed to a knife.

The journal continued:

From the examination of these facts, it was concluded that, as it was impossible to attribute the phenomena to the action of the combustibles with which the body had been in contact, they must be ascribed to a cause inherent in the individual, put in action, perhaps, by the heat of the brick applied to the feet, but which must have found a fuel in the tissues which it de­stroyed; that, in a word, it must be classed among cases of spontaneous combustion.

As a result, “This opinion of M. Masson being fully confirmed by that of M. Orfila, the accused were acquitted” (Flint 1849).

Spontaneous Human Combustion?

But if there was no evidence of homicide, does “Spontaneous Human Combustion” (the title of the medical journal article) provide a more viable alternative as a cause of death? Debate over the possibility of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) raged throughout the nineteenth century. When Charles Dickens invoked the alleged phenomenon to kill off a drunken character in his 1853 novel Bleak House, he was following a then-current belief. Early theorists, including members of the temperance movement, had suggested that alcohol-impregnated tissues were rendered highly combustible, but scientists refuted the notion by experimentation. And they pointed out that a person would die of alcohol poisoning long before imbibing enough alcohol to have even a slight effect on the body’s flammability (Lewes 1861, 398). Dickens’s novel set off a controversy.

Response came immediately from George Henry Lewes, the philosopher and critic, who upbraided Dickens for perpetuating superstition. Lewes insisted that SHC was scientifically impossible, a view shared by the great scientist Liebig (1851), who stated: “The opinion that a man can burn of himself is not founded on a knowledge of the circumstances of the death, but on the reverse of knowledge—on complete ignorance of all the causes or conditions which preceded the accident and caused it.” In short, SHC proponents were essentially engaging in a logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance: “We don’t know what caused the fire, so it must have been spontaneous human combustion.”

Thus rationalists like Lewes were seizing the scientific high ground with the question of cause, while Dickens was arguing primarily from effect, citing several cases of the alleged phenomenon. To assess the contrary views, I teamed up with forensic analyst John F. Fischer to launch a two-year investigation of the phenomenon, culminating in a two-part report in the journal of the Inter­national Association of Arson Investi­gators (Nickell and Fischer 1984) and portions of a book (Nickell with Fischer 1988). We reviewed thirty historical cases and focused on one of the most famous, that of Mary Reeser of St. Petersburg, Florida, who in 1951 was reduced to a few bones, a quantity of “grease” (i.e., human body fat), and an intact slippered foot. In our forensic investigation, we focused on both cause and effect.

We found that the correlation of bizarre fiery deaths to drunkenness was likely due to inebriated persons being more careless with fire and less able to properly respond to an accident. We also found a more significant correlation: In those incidents in which the destruction of the body was relatively minimal, the only significant fuel source appeared to have been the victim’s clothes; however, where the destruction was considerable, additional fuel sources—bedding, chair stuffing, wooden flooring, and so on—augmented the burning. Impor­tantly, materials under the body appear also to have helped to retain melted body fat (present in significant amounts even in a relatively lean individual), which volatized and burned, destroying more of the body’s tissues and yielding still more liquefied fat to continue the process known as the wick effect (Gee 1965). In case after case, we found plausible causes for the ignition, thus removing the word spontaneous from the equation (Nickell with Fischer 1988, 161–171). For example, Mary Reeser was seen just before her death wearing flammable night clothes, sitting in a large stuffed chair, smoking a cigarette, after having taken sleeping pills. She was a proverbial accident waiting to happen (Nickell with Fischer 1988, 149–157).

The Explanation

But if the death of Monsieur Charbonnier was not a case of spontaneous human combustion, was it one of murder after all? That is doubtful. Not only was there no evidence of homicide, but a fiery death, under the circumstances given, is an unlikely—though not unheard of—means of murdering someone (Taylor 1883, 719–720). No doubt the accused family members could have staged a more convincing “accident” had they wished to do so.

No, M. Charbonnier’s mode of death was not homicidal; neither was it suicidal or natural (unless a heart attack, say, was directly involved; see below). (It assuredly was not preternatural as in “spontaneous combustion.”) The most likely mode is accidental. As to the manner and cause of death, they remain unexplained but not unexplainable. Indeed, there are many credible explanations that could account for the known data, if we allow some reasonable assumptions. For example, we do not know whether there was a fireplace in the room, but bedrooms typically had such; or whether the victim was a smoker, but matches in his pocket suggest the distinct possibility; or whether he was infirm or had dementia, but he was elderly and being cared for by his son and daughter-in-law. Here are some possibilities:

1. Since Charbonnier was still wearing his clothes (indicated by the remaining fragments of cravat and shirt collar about his neck), probably because it was so cold, he might simply have been lying abed while smoking. In such circumstances it is a common cause of death for a person to fall asleep (or much less commonly to die suddenly, say from cardiac arrest), and so drop the smoking material, thus causing the bedding to smolder, with the result that the victim dies of smoke inhalation before the smoldering process ignites the gasses produced. (If ignition occurs at all, it may be an hour or more after smoldering began.) (Spitz 1993, 427–­428; Nickell 1988, 155)

2. The friction matches in M. Char­bonnier’s vest pocket might have ignited as they rubbed together while he tossed and turned in sleep. They were described as “chemical matches” (Flint 1849) and again as “Lucifer-matches” (Taylor 1883, 722)—that is, a type of friction match using white phosphorous. (These were created in 1830; safety matches were not developed until 1855 [Bellis 2010]).

3. The “heated brick” that the deceased placed at his feet for warmth might have carried, stuck to its underside, a cinder from the fireplace; this could easily have caused smoldering of the linen in which it was wrapped. This scenario is possible even though early sources inform that the brick, “before being wrapped in linen, had been slowly cooled by water thrown over it twice” (Flint 1849). The cinder could have been picked up from the hearth even after the brick was wrapped.

4. A popping, crackling fire in the fireplace might have propelled a burning cinder, or sent adrift a spark, that landed on the bed, or even on the victim’s clothing to be thus carried to the bed. Again, all that was needed was for the smoldering process to be initiated. Such an occurrence need not have been common, since the resulting phenomenon was itself rare.

Other scenarios are possible. However, I think we may conclude not only that the mode of death was accidental but that the manner of death was, generically, carelessness with fire, and the cause of death smoke inhalation.² (Remember, the victim was found in bed in the repose of sleep.) Taylor (1883, 723) concludes that the medical investigator, Masson, probably “underrated the effects which are liable to follow from an accidental ignition of the clothes.” He says of alleged SHC—that is, of severe destruction of the body in cases where the origin of the combustion is unknown—that “In the in­stances reported which are worthy of any credit, a candle, a fire, or some other ignited body has been at hand, and the accidental kindling of the clothes of the deceased was highly probable” (Taylor 1883, 719). As true as that statement was in 1883, today—given our knowledge of how the body’s fat can contribute to its own destruction by means of the wick effect—it is even more defensible.

Acknowledgments

CSI Libraries director Timothy Binga was very helpful with research, especially in tracking down an early account of this case.

Notes

1. Flint (1849) and, presumably, his source give the name only as “Ch______,” but Arnold (1995, 46) has somehow discovered the complete surname. ( Char­bonnier is a perfectly good French name, but—as one cannot help but note with irony, given that the man was largely reduced to ash—it means “charcoal-burner.”)

2. For further discussion of mode, manner, and cause of death, see Nickell and Fischer Crime Science (1999, 254–261).

References

Arnold, Larry E. 1995. Ablaze! The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion. New York: M. Evans and Company.

Bellis, Mary. 2010. The history of matches. Available online at http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmatch.htm; accessed Feb. 24, 2010.

Flint, Austin, ed. 1849. Buffalo Medical Journal and Monthly Review of Medical and Surgical Science, volume 4. Buffalo, N.Y.: Jewett, Thomas & Co., 247 (citing the Gazette Médicale, which in turn quoted from the Union Médicale).

Gee, D.J. 1965. A case of ‘spontaneous combustion.’ Medicine, Science and the Law 5: 37–38.

Lewes, George Henry. 1861. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 89 (April), 385–402.

Liebig, Justus von. 1851. Familiar Letters on Chemistry, Letter no. 22. London: Taylor, Walton & Maberly.

Nickell, Joe, and John F. Fischer. 1984. Spontaneous human combustion. The Fire and Arson Investigator 34: 3 (March), 4–11; 34: 4 (June), 3–8.

———. 1999. Crime Science: Methods of Forensic Detec­tion. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Ken­tucky.

Nickell, Joe, with John F. Fischer. 1988. Secrets of the Supernatural. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

Spitz, Werner U., ed. 1993. Spitz and Fisher’s Medico­legal Investigation of Death, 3rd ed. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas.

Taylor, Alfred Swaine. 1883. The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, 3rd ed., vol. Ed. Thomas Stevenson. Philadelphia: H.C. Lea’s Son & Co.

In 2012 he published two new books: The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead (Prometheus Books) which Michael Shermer termed “the definitive book on ghosts from a scientific perspective,” and CSI Paranormal: Investigating Strange Mysteries (the first title published by CSI’s new Inquiry Press). These bring the total of Nickell’s books to more than forty, and represent his over four decades of investigative work, involving paranormal, forensic, and historical mysteries. In 2012, Nickell also completed the manuscript for yet another comprehensive book, The Science of Miracles: Investigating the Incredible.

As so often in the past, Nickell was again filmed for numerous television shows, including National Geographic’s The Paranatural series, episodes of Canadian television’s The Conspiracy Show, and a documentary forthcoming on NBC. He appeared on Anderson Cooper’s syndicated afternoon TV show, Anderson, where, according to the Los Angeles Times, he “did a fine job offering a coherent, yet sympathetic, response” to several UFO witnesses. Nickell was also seen in reruns on several other TV programs.

In addition, Nickell appeared on radio shows (like Barry Lynn’s Culture Shocks and Coast to Coast AM), was interviewed for many newspaper articles an d online sources, and wrote for the Huffington Post—these in addition to his many lectures and other conference contributions (as far away as Manchester, England). Nickell was sought on such new subjects as the predicted Mayan apocalypse (he correctly said not to worry), and such old standbys as the Shroud of Turin (telling the Buffalo News, for instance, “It’s the work of a confessed medieval forger done in France in the middle of the 14th century using red ochre and vermilion tempera as part of a faith-healing scam”). (He also commented on the “Shroud” for MSNBC online).

Nickell was the subject of several media profiles as well. The summer 2012 issue of & magazine (published by the University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences) interviewed him about his work. The piece was titled “Curiously Inclined” (each letter of the heading being composed of fine-print lines of text listing many of his numerous “personas” (over a thousand now): stage magician, undercover operative, historical document consultant, fingerprint recorder. . . .

Alan Boyle, writing for NBCNews.com, interviewed Nickell for a special pre-Halloween (October 26) profile titled, “Sleuth Finds the Truth in Ghost Stories.” Boyle called him “the world’s longest-running full-time professional paranormal investigator.”

A more expansive profile appeared as a front-cover story in Buffalo’s alternative paper, Artvoice, titled “Hunting Monsters, Chasing Ghosts: The Marvelous Life of Detective Joe Nickell.” Stated writer Charlotte Hsu regarding CSI’s “staff detective”: “You are mesmerized. You see that he has lived the lives of many men. He has hunted for lake monsters on two continents, sought out graves of vampires, unmasked phony psychics, and read the flattened wheat of crop circles for signs of hoaxers.” (To read the entire May 30 article, go to www.joenickell.com, select “Press Page” and see “Profiles.”)

Nickell published in Skeptical Inquirer and other venues as well as his own blog, Investigative Briefs, the results of earlier investigations in China (including traditional Chinese medicine and China’s version of Bigfoot, the Yeren), in Italy (the Holy Mandylion), and elsewhere, and he wrote (with co-author Major James McGaha) the SI cover story, “The Roswellian Syndrome.” (This identifies how debunking can send a UFO report underground, where it becomes mythologized before resurfacing as a vast conspiracy tale.) Other significant case reports included an examination of the evidence in the “murder” of Vincent van Gogh, a magician’s analysis of the famous Enfield Poltergeist phenomena, on-site repeating of the mysterious twitching outbreak at LeRoy, New York, a forensic review of a historic “spontaneous human combustion” death, and a firsthand investigation of a “haunted” Shaker village.

Importantly, Nickell also conducted a number of new investigations on various fronts, including, in Scotland, the Loch Ness Monster, the spectral Green Lady of Stirling Castle, and others, and, in England, the Lake Windermere Monster. As well, he looked into UFO and ghost cases, some newly surfaced Davenport Brothers spiritualist records, and much, much more, including the notorious Tennessee “Bell Witch” (in progress). He and Major James McGaha co-authored another large, encompassing piece, “Treatise on Invisible Beings.”

In part, the varied nature of Nickell’s work stemmed from his diverse background. In 2012, for example, he took “orb” photos in a “haunted” cave; performed chemical and microscopical analyses of “miracle dirt” from Chimayo, New Mexico; monitored sonar scans aboard a boat on Loch Ness; interviewed two alien abductees; conducted (in St. Louis) an examination and textual analysis of archived “Patience Worth” automatic writings; participated in a “psychokinetic” spoon-bending workshop; analyzed the speech patterns of allegedly channeled extraterrestrial beings; did folkloristic studies of several legends (one of which, in verse form, he translated from the German and reversified in English); visited and photographed a traveling “miracle” statue; and so on.

In his approximately weekly blogs (he also tweets now), Nickell again offered diversity. Although his “Investigative Briefs” is typically a report or occasionally an essay, he also sometimes provides a satire, movie analysis (as a “Nickell-odeon Review”), an offering from the “Skepcook” (such as a healthy recipe), or other form, such as a poem, or even a political cartoon. As a wag once said of him, “He seldom sleeps.”

Together, as we shall see, these cases illustrate that UFOlogy continues its long tradition of mystery mongering and the implicit reliance on a logical fallacy called “arguing from ignorance”: “We don’t know what was seen in the sky; therefore, it must have been an extraterrestrial craft.” The cases also reveal that much of what is claimed depends on the states of mind of the alleged eyewitnesses. Following the show I was able to spend more time investigating the cases, and here is a look at each of the three revealing Anderson segments in turn.

UFO: ‘Hovering’ in the Mind’s Eye

First up was Denise Murter, age fifty-two, from Levittown, Pennsylvania. Her encounters began in May 2008, when she and her husband were awakened by their growling dog, Alex. Finding nothing unusual in the apartment, she took the dog outside so he could relieve himself. Thereupon, she “noticed a light in the sky,” which she guessed to be “about 1000 feet in the air.” While it seemed to be “moving very quickly from spot to spot,” nevertheless, she stated, “It was hovering over the trees in the yard.” There was no noise and Alex became “perfectly well behaved.” The light hovered for some twenty minutes, but she does not say what became of it.

The incident was repeated about four weeks later, but the night sky was more overcast, so she said of the UFO that she “could just see parts of it creeping in the clouds.” Depending on how it moved, it appeared circular or boomerang shaped.¹ She saw windows that were “bluish green” and “were all the way around the craft.” A “little pink light” was following it, and “On the bottom there were three giant headlights in a triangle shape.”

After another month, Alex again woke her and she “immediately knew that they were back and I had to go outside again.” The craft appeared closer to the house “but still hovering over the trees.” Then she saw a beam of light and a sparkling powder that “looked like it was dancing in the trees” (Murter 2012a).

Murter stated, “I was paralyzed. I could not move.” She waited until the next day to tell her husband because this particular experience “was just too unbelievable. . . . I didn’t want people to think I went bonkers; it was like it was in a movie.” Her husband advised her not to tell others of her experience, but she “told MUFON”—the Mutual UFO Network—about it and more (Murter 2012a).² Another version of the events, citing a MUFON field investigator, describes “half a dozen sightings” beginning April 20, 2008 (Howe 2008).

The “paralysis”—together with the strange as if “in a movie” experience—provides a clue as to what probably happened on this occasion: Being half asleep (and perhaps having rested on one of the lounge chairs in her back yard to watch the hovering UFO),³ Murter had a hypnagogic experience (or “waking dream”). This occurs in the interface between being fully awake and asleep. It is typically characterized by hallucinations, often with bright lights reported, and sleep paralysis, the body’s inability to move because it is still in the sleep mode (Mavromatis 1987, 14–52). This state probably explains Murter’s perceived beam of light and sparkling powder. I suspect that during at least part of each of her reported events Murter was not fully awake, and that that affected many of her perceptions.

Regarding the UFO itself, I discussed Murter’s sightings with James McGaha, one of our organization’s UFO experts and director of the Grass­lands Observatory in Tucson. He suggested that the UFO might have a ready explanation, given the direction in which Murter was looking at the approximate times and place reported: that is, a celestial object, some twenty-five times brighter than the stars in her field of vision—namely, the planet Jupiter. That it seemed to move was probably due to the autokinetic effect (McGaha 2012). This occurs when one stares at a bright light in the dark, particularly when it is well above the horizon (so there is no frame of reference). Autokinesis is due to “small involuntary jerking movements of the human eye” (Hendry 1979, 26). (In one UFO case, for example, a light that “zigzagged” while remaining in the same basic position for forty minutes proved to be a combination of star and “autokinetic motions” [Hendry 1979, 95].)

As to the shifting colors Murter described, McGaha (2012) noted that that effect would be due to scintillation—that is, the “twinkling,” not only of stars but also of planets like Jupiter when the atmosphere is especially turbulent. Scintillation can occur on the clearest nights, even affecting a single celestial light, and it results in refraction (bending) of the different wavelengths to cause the changing colors. Like autokinesis, scintillation can also produce “an illusion of motion” (Hen­dry 1979, 26). Both probably helped cause the illusion of changing shapes Murter described, aided by her own imagination. After the show’s taping she sent me an angry note in which she said, “I know what I saw” (Murter 2012b). Actually, of course, this no doubt well-meaning lady only “knows” what she thinks she saw.

Anyway, as I told Cooper on his show, it seems farfetched that extraterrestrials would traverse the incredible distances involved—on some secret mission to Earth—then repeatedly hover over Murter’s back yard with their bright lights on!

Aliens and Hypnotic Recall

The next segment on Anderson featured two young women from Law­rence­burg, Kentucky, Brittany Fields and Jennifer Morgan, who encountered UFOs late one night, then, subsequently, under hypnosis, “recalled” alien encounters.

Their story began April 26, 2011, when, about midnight, the two went on a drive with three young male friends. As they turned down one road and looked over farmland, they saw a light above the trees speeding toward them. Jennifer first thought it could be a helicopter: It was “somewhat long” with lights on the front and back. However, when it flew over them it was “huge,” she said, “bigger than a helicopter,” and made a noise that was like no helicopter she knew. It sounded like a loud, high-pitched, thumping rhythm. There was also a high-pitched whining noise.” Soon, she says, there seemed to be lights everywhere, “red, white, and green,” that were “blinking sporadically” (Morgan 2012). Brittany described somewhat similar events, except that she had first thought their initial sighting was of a blimp (Fields 2012).

No doubt the young people saw something, and they categorically deny they were under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. However, the three males’ unwillingness to come forward does suggest that they were less inclined to become caught up in the imaginative possibilities (rather like Murter’s reticent husband in the previous case).

I also discussed this particular case with James McGaha—this time not in his persona of astronomer but as a former special operations and electronic warfare pilot. He stated that the witnesses’ UFO description had “helicopter written all over it.” He pointed out that the area was well within the reach of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, which is where American military helicopter training occurs. Stationed there is the famous “Night Stalkers” special-operations unit. (Indeed, it was out of Fort Campbell that the training for the days-later, successful “Night Stalkers” mission against terrorist Bin Laden took place.) The Night Stalkers unit has an impressive variety of huge and odd-looking helicopters that the public rarely sees. Major McGaha suggests that some nighttime helicopter training operation could explain the young people’s UFO sighting. As to the red, green, and white lights reported, those are the colors of lights on all aircraft—military or civilian.

In any event, Brittany says that later, “no one remembers a period of time after we turned left at a four-way stop towards the end of the night.” Because of this “missing time” and other concerns, she also contacted MUFON and “They proposed the idea of us getting hypnotized” (Fields 2012). Under hypnosis she “remembered” four small humanoid beings, one of whom held her hand, while the others poked at and examined her body. She “locked eyes” with the entity that was holding her hand and she “felt a flood of emotion.” He, too, seemed “overwhelmingly concerned” and “just wanted to make me better.” In a second session she explored the period of “missing time” and reported that she and Jen­nifer had been in a state “like frozen animation” (Fields 2012).

For her part, Jennifer says she “was not as responsive to hypnosis as Brit­tany.” Her session seemed “almost like a dream.” “The only thing I can remember,” she says, “was seeing a bright light, Brittany pulling off the road, and then literally my memory jumped from being in a car to being in a circular white room.” Completely naked, she felt a pain in the back of her head, and later her boyfriend found a scar on the back of her neck that she did not recall having. Did she think she was abducted by aliens? “There’s no other explanation. It’s the only logical explanation,” she concluded (Morgan 2012).

Actually, there is quite another, much more rational explanation for such en­counters. They have their origins in a now-ubiquitous UFO myth­ology. Brit­tany said, on describing their first sighting, “Listen, I’ve always believed in this kind of thing” (Fields 2012). The willingness to presume that an un­known object is an extraterrestrial craft (an exercise in illogic called “arguing from ignorance”) sets the stage for other expectations. The familiar humanoid likeness, the “missing time,” the unremembered scar—these are common motifs of UFO lore.

In fact, there is nothing remarkable about a scar going unremembered, especially in an out-of-sight location. As well, “missing time” may result from nothing more than the percipient having been lost in thought. As to the supposed recall under hypnosis, that is simply mistaking imagination for memory. Hypnosis is merely an invitation to fantasize (Baker and Nickell 1992, 216–31). (Being easily hypnotized is even one of the indicators, though not diagnostic in itself, of a personality type that is characterized by proneness to fantasy [Wilson and Barber 1983]—discussed more fully later.) For these reasons, on Anderson I called for MUFON and others to immediately stop using hypnosis to elicit “memories” in UFO cases.

The Star People

The final guest on Anderson was a professed psychic named Cassandra Van­zant. She claimed to be in telepathic communication with extraterrestrials, whose messages she “translates.” At Cooper’s request, she told him he had a star family—the “Lamarians”—who live in “the fourth dimension” (Vanzant 2012). Cooper struggled to keep a straight face, and when he asked the audience how many believed Vanzant could indeed communicate with aliens, just one person raised her hand.

The audience was right to be skeptical. Vanzant is only the most recent “contactee”—one who purports to be in repeated communication with alien beings. (Contactees emerged in the early 1950s but were eventually supplanted by “abductees” who now also frequently serve as cosmic messengers [Story 2001, 134; Nickell 2007, 255–56].) Like others of this ilk, Van­zant exhibits many of the traits associated with a fantasy-prone personality. This describes an otherwise normal and sane person with a great tendency to fantasize. Vanzant, for in­stance, has what seem for all the world like imaginary friends (“Artoli” and “Madascrat”), believes she receives special messages from higher beings, purports to have psychic powers, has had an out-of-body experience, and exhibits other traits that are indicative of fantasy proneness (Wilson and Barber 1983).

When she “channels” her clients’ star families, she first speaks to them in the “ET language” (“Twinkle” 2012), which sounds suspiciously like she is just “speaking in tongues.” Called glossolalia, it is typically “psychobabble,” which uses nonsense syllables to create pseudolanguage (Nickell 1993, 103–109). Vanzant subsequently provides “translations” that are rife with New Age clichés, such as “on this earthly plane” and references to people having “their own truths” (“Twinkle” 2012). Revealing, I think, is the fact that Vanzant also talks like this.⁴ The evidence suggests that she is herself the source of the “messages.” She seems to first fool herself, then other imaginative, credulous folk.

* * *

Like UFOlogical cases generally, these examples from Anderson are telling. They illustrate how distorting the eye of the beholder can be, and how—through credulity, pro-UFO bias, illusions and misperceptions, altered states of consciousness, personality traits, and other factors, including a UFO-mythmaking culture—it can transform mundane phenomena into perceived alien encounters.

Following the show, Anderson Cooper received flak from flying saucer proponents (like the Herald-Tribune’s embarrassingly gullible blogger Billy Cox [2012]) and even a bit from praise­worthy rationalists (like Ed Stockly [2012], who blogs for the Los Angeles Times and suggested I did a “fine job” while being “outnumbered”). In my view, Cooper did a very good job, from identifying himself as a skeptic at the outset to giving me the opportunity to respond throughout. As Stockly noted: “Perhaps the best measure of Nickell’s effectiveness was shown when Cooper polled the studio audience. Only a few hands were raised when asked how many believed that UFOs were alien visitors, and all but a few hands went up when asked how many didn’t believe. Mark that one for the skeptics. It seems that Cooper’s audience is on the ball.” I would add that Cooper himself led the way.

Acknowledgments

I received considerable help with this project from Major James McGaha (USAF Retired) and my trusty assistant Ed Beck, to both of whom I am very grateful.

Notes

1. A photo Murter snapped (see Howe 2008) shows a non-aerodynamic, banana-shaped effect, very grainy or pixelated, probably a photo artifact caused by a point of light photographed by a camera in motion while the shutter is still open (McGaha 2012).

2. MUFON obtained samples from the tree and soil where Murter says the glittering substance fell. Unfortunately, “Three independent laboratories checked the samples with different results” (emphasis added); one unidentified lab re­ported traces of magnesium and boron (Mattar 2008). However, these could potentially be found in some fireworks residues (magnesium being a common ingredient and boron compounds producing a green flame); Pennsylvania is a state where fireworks are legal. Importantly, not one speck of the “glitter” or “little squares of light” was found, either at the site or in the samples (Howe 2008).

3. See photograph in Howe 2008.

4. Of course the “messages” sometimes are in a heightened form compared to her ordinary speech, just as Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” has a more elevated diction than his routine letters.

References

Baker, Robert A., and Joe Nickell. 1992. Missing Pieces: How to Investigate Ghosts, UFOs, Psychics, & Other Mysteries. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

Cox, Billy. 2012. Memo to AC: Ditch this gig. Online at devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/12997/memo-to-ac-ditch-this-gig/; accessed May 1, 2012.

Fields, Brittany. 2012. In “I Was Abducted” 2012.

Hendry, Allan. 1979. The UFO Handbook: A Guide to Investigating, Evaluating, and Re­port­ing UFO Sightings. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Howe, Linda Moulton. 2008. Morphing UFO Over Levittown, PA. Online at http://tech.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/armageddon-or-newage/message/71220?var=1; accessed August 28, 2012.

I was abducted by aliens. 2012. Anderson show episode, CBS, aired April 24 (includes aired statements, unused portions, online clips, personal communications, etc.).

Mattar, George. 2008. Fallswoman stars in UFO documentary. Bucks County, PA, Courier Times, November 25.

Mavromatis, Andreas. 1987. Hypnagogia: The Unique State of Consciousness Between Wake­fulness and Sleep. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

McGaha, James. 2012. Personal communications to Joe Nickell, April 9 and 11, May 18.

Morgan, Jennifer. 2012. In “I Was Abducted” 2012.

Murter, Denise. 2012a. In “I Was Abducted” 2012.

———. 2012b. Facebook communication to Joe Nickell, April 16.

Nickell, Joe. 1993. Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

———. 2007. Adventures in Paranormal Investi­ga­tions. Lexington: University Press of Ken­tucky.

Stockly, Ed. 2012. TV skeptic: A ‘balanced’ discussion of UFOs on ‘Anderson.’ Online at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/04/tv-skeptic-a-balanced-discussion-of-ufos-on-anderson.html; accessed April 26, 2012.

Story, Ronald D., ed. 2001. The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters. New York: New American Library.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star—a Channeled Message by Cassandra Vanzant. 2012. On­line at lightworkersworld.com/2012/03/twinkle-twinkle-little-star-a-channeled-message-by-Cassandra-Vanzant/; accessed May 15, 2012.

Vanzant, Cassandra. 2012. In “I Was Abducted” 2012.

Wilson, Sheryl C., and Theodore X. Barber. 1983. The Fantasy-Prone Personality, in A.A. Sheikh, ed., Imagery: Current Theory, Research and Application. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

The Shaker motto was “Hands to work, and hearts to God.” Their craftwork em­bodying Shaker design was renowned for its aesthetic simplicity. They sold to the outside world furniture, brooms, nesting boxes, and myriad other craft items and marketed herbs and other goods.

In Kentucky in 1805, the Shakers founded a farming community they called Pleasant Hill. Spanning some 3,000 acres of largely rolling land, it is located about twenty-five miles southwest of Lexington. It consists now of thirty-three restored buildings where Shaker-costumed interpreters demonstrate crafts, give tours, and perform authentic Shaker songs and dance in the Meeting House. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The “haunted” Farm Deacon’s Shop at Pleasant Hill was built in 1809 and remains the oldest permanent structure there. (Pen and ink drawing by Joe Nickell.)

Enter Spirits . . .

Thomas Freese, who became one of the Pleasant Hill Singers in 1996, has collected accounts of alleged spirit encounters there, publishing them in his book, Shaker Ghost Stories from Pleasant Hill, Kentucky (Freese 2005). We met when we had tables next to each other at the Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort. I read my autographed copy of the book with the interest of one who has himself often toured, lectured, and re­searched at Shakertown at Pleasant Hill. (I even prowled the outlying grounds looking for the possible site of a reputed paper mill, only to finally determine the Shakers never had such an enterprise there.)

Freese acknowledges (2005, 3) that “a number of the sightings of Shaker spirits were assumed to be encounters with Pleasant Hill employees who were dressed in Shaker style clothing.” (This is like re-enactment soldiers being mistaken for ghosts at Gettysburg and other historic battlefields [Nickell 2012]). Other apparitions are at­tributable to the percipient being tired or in a daydream state or the like, in which imagery may well up from the unconscious and be superimposed on the visual scene (Nickell 2001).

An overnight guest had a rather common ghostly experience. She awoke at about 3 AM feeling a “heaviness” and seeing a “series of faces” that was, she said, “almost as if I was watching an old movie reel” (Freese 2005, 26–27). She is giving an excellent description of a common “waking dream” that occurs in the twilight between being fully asleep and awake. The heavy feeling is due to the body being still in the sleep mode, and the hallucinatory imagery is common to the experience (Nickell 1995, 41, 214).

A former employee who worked night security at Pleasant Hill recalled his first evening there: “I was in the Trustee’s Office and I went up to check on one of the security locks. When I went up the spiral stairs and reached the top floor, I felt something breathing down the back of my neck. But there wasn’t anyone there.” However, the man concedes that while the sensation may have been “a ghost or the boogie man,” it could also be attributed to “first-night jitters” (Freese 2005, 19).

. . . Or Not

Indeed, a maintenance worker acknowledges that many of the sounds made by old buildings have nothing to do with spirits of the dead. “Pipes will moan,” he says. “I’ve heard that.” And creaking sounds can result from an old building’s settling, from woodwork that yields knocking and popping noises due to temperature changes, and from various other causes. This could well explain the report of a man at work below the floorboards of a shop building who heard “bumps and stomping” (Freese 2005, 10, 19). It could also account for “footsteps” heard here and there (Freese 2005, 9, 20, 45).

There could be similar mundane causes for other spooky happenings: a rocking chair moving by itself (possibly caused by people walking on a rickety floor), rattling pots and pans coupled with an unaccountably open back door (due to a forceful wind), during a storm the repeated sound of something falling (thought to have been possibly “a loose shutter,” but the earwitness was too fearful to investigate), and other incidents (attributable to overactive imaginations or even the outright pranks of others) (Freese 2005, 13, 23, 25, 74).

Sheer superstition can cause someone to imagine the supernatural from the merest coincidence. For instance, when some employees visited the Shakers’ secret worship site that was being excavated by archaeologists, they were greeted with an “unusual sleet storm” that drove them to their cars then “suddenly stopped.” Freese (2005, 106) ventures, “Perhaps the Shaker spirits were restless and had not approved of the excavation?” Yet no unusual storm plagued the actual archaeologists before or after. In any case, to suppose that spirits of the dead were capable of causing a sleet storm is an exercise in magical—superstitious—thinking.

That the Shakers themselves engaged in trancelike behavior, “speaking in tongues,” and channeling “prophecy” has obviously set the stage for impressionable people to expect mystical happenings at Pleasant Hill and to interpret almost any out-of-the-ordinary occurrence accordingly. But are there really spirits of the dead at the site, or are they just expressions of our own hopes and fears?

References

Freese, Thomas. 2005. Shaker Ghost Stories from Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse.

Houran, James, and Rense Lange. 2001. Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company.

Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

———. 2001. Phantoms, frauds or fantasies? In Houran and Lange, 2001, 214–223.

———. 2012. The Science of Ghosts (in press). Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

Figure 1. This photo of the Montauk Monster was widely circulated on the Internet, causing much speculation.

Before long, the original creature was credibly identified as a raccoon by wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin (Boyd 2008). Al­though questions remained, I gave the matter little more attention—for a time.

Case of the Missing Hair

However, when—on an investigative outing on September 19, 2009—I came across a dead raccoon by the roadside, I quickly decided it might be profitable to study the issue further. My wife, Diana, drove the getaway car while I retrieved the roadkill in busy traffic. I subsequently deposited it at a convenient wooded site she dubbed the Raccoon Body Farm (after the famous forensic site maintained by the University of Tennessee). (See Figure 2.) I monitored it to observe developments.

Figure 2. Raccoon roadkill is studied at the author’s Raccoon Body Farm. (Photo by Joe Nickell)

The experiment raised questions. The already putrid carcass decomposed quickly, and in about three days it was largely gone, leaving behind a swarming mass of maggots plus all of the raccoon’s fur (Figure 3). As I looked again at the Montauk Monster photo, I thought the creature’s fur loss needed explaining. One suggestion was mange (Radford 2009), which can produce strange-looking creatures. (Indeed, Diana and I once went in search of a Bigfoot in Pennsylvania that turned out to be a mangy bear [Nickell 2008; “Big Foot” 2008]. More recently I examined, up close, a mangy coyote mistaken for a “chupacabra” near Springfield, Missouri [Nickell 2011].) However, long familiar with mange from my boyhood days in eastern Kentucky, I did not think the Montauk Monster looked like a case of mange.

Figure 3. After three days, the decomposition is advanced, but the animal’s fur remains. (Photo by Joe Nickell)

Paleontologist and science blogger Dar­ren Naish (2008) observed that water-logged creatures often lose their fur. But what was a raccoon doing in the ocean in the first place—if it did not just die on the beach, and if it really was a raccoon?

A housefly on the creature’s back allowed photo enlargement (by colleague Tom Flynn) to be made approximately life size (assuming an upper limit for the fly as 12mm) and the carcass to be measured as about 65cm (approximately 25.6 inches) long. This is well within the range of the adult common raccoon, Procyon lotor (accord­ing to the National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Mammals [Whitaker 1996, 748], which gives a length range of 24–37 inches).

Those who doubted the raccoon identification had their main arguments refuted by Darren Naish (2008). First, whereas the creature was said to be too long-legged for a raccoon, Naish observed: “Raccoons are actually surprisingly leggy”; he asserted that “claims that the limb proportions of the Montauk carcass are unlike those of raccoons are not correct.” Secondly, claims that the creature had a “beak” prompted Naish to say of raccoons: “The tendency for the soft tissues of the snout to be lost early on in decomposition immediately indicates that the ‘beak’ is just a defleshed snout region: we’re actually seeing the naked premaxillary bones. . . . The Montauk animal has lost its upper canines and incisors (you can even see the empty sockets [in one photo]). . . .”

Viking Funeral?

I recalled an earlier claim that the presence of a hairless raccoon at Montauk had been explained—and then the explanation dismissed as not credible. Reportedly, three young men had found a dead raccoon on nearby Shelter Island two weeks earlier. As a lark, they gave it a “Viking funeral”: sending it adrift on a makeshift raft (made of twigs and an inflatable toy)—containing a watermelon and cloth scraps—after setting the carcass afire. (Their prior revelry involved a “waterboarding endurance competition,” and later hijinks included a “clothespins-on-your-genitals challenge.” Many were skeptical of the trio’s story, pointing out what a circuitous fifteen-mile route the carcass would have had to travel to get to Montauk (“The Latest” 2009).

However, an investigator is not a dismisser who ignores evidence because it is inconvenient or merely because someone’s behavior does not comport with what he or she thinks someone would do in a situation. Neither is an investigator the equivalent of a newspaper’s rewrite staffer. Mysteries are solved by the use of the best, corroborative evidence, together with the principle of Occam’s razor (that the preferred hypothesis is the one that makes the fewest assumptions consistent with the evidence). It turns out there is considerable corroborative evidence for the “Viking funeral” claim.

Figure 4. A “Viking funeral” appears to account for the presence and condition of the Montauk Monster.

First, data on the surface currents and winds in the area show that the “Viking funeral” critter would likely have been pushed in the proper direction (“The Latest” 2009). Significantly, the trio provided photographs documenting their launching. The snapshots (see Figure 4) clearly show a dead raccoon—first being launched on a raft of sticks as claimed, then blazing and adrift. Also the Montauk Monster has what appears to be a strip of cloth around its right foreleg, possibly linking it to scraps of cloth used with the “Viking funeral” raccoon. (Enlarge­ment of one of the trio’s photos shows what could be a band around the raccoon’s right foreleg.) Moreover, the forelegs of the latter are in the same approximate position with respect to each other as those of the Mon­tauk Monster (“Has the Montauk” 2009). Finally, the latter’s flesh has a decidedly baked appearance, consistent with the re­ported burning.

Therefore, the best evidence thus far indicates—until perhaps better evidence comes to light—that the Montauk Monster was neither a hoax (involving either a fake latex creature or a skinned animal) nor a mangy, gone-swimming-and-drowned critter; instead, it is an identifiable raccoon whose dead body was set ablaze and adrift on a makeshift raft as part of a comically wry ritual dubbed a “Viking funeral.” The dead raccoon does seem to be achieving a kind of immortality as a result.

Acknowledgments

I appreciate the research assistance of Tom Flynn and Henry Huber as well as CFI Libraries Direc­tor Timothy Binga.

References

Big Foot in the Pennsylvania wilds. 2008. Online at http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/stonemanguitars/bigfoot.html; accessed February 27, 2008.

Boyd, Aaron. 2008. Naturalists confirm Montauk Monster is relative of Rocky Raccoon. Online at http://www.hamptons.com/print.php?articleID=4474; accessed December 23, 2009.

Has the Montauk Monster mystery been solved? 2009. Online at http://gawker.com/5278112/has-the-montauk-monster-mystery-been-solved; publ. June 4, 2009; accessed December 22, 2009.

The latest Montauk Monster theory: A compleat accounting. 2009. Online at http://gawker.com/5280493/the-latest-montauk-monster-theory-a-com; accessed December 22, 2009.

Naish, Darren. 2008. What was the Montauk monster? Online at http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2008/08/the_montauk_monster.php; accessed October 27, 2009.

Nickell, Joe. 2008. Personal journal entry, February 24.

———. 2011. Chupacabra attack (blog post). Avail­able online at http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/Chupacabra_attack/; accessed Febru­ary 17, 2012.

Radford, Benjamin. 2009. Hide the kids and wake the neighbors: The Montauk Monster returns! Skeptical Briefs 19(3) (September): 14.

Whitaker, John O. Jr. 1996. Field Guide to North American Mammals, revised ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

It began in 2011, a “mysterious illness” among teenage girls at the high school in Le Roy, New York (Figure 1) (Asztalos 2011). Six cases were reported, then twelve, then fifteen and counting as the story captured attention across the United States and beyond (“Doctors baffled” 2012). The story’s development included significant coverage on NBC’s Today show and CNN’s Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers. I twice visited Le Roy (just fifty miles from my office) on behalf of the Skeptical Inquirer, to talk with parents and others involved, visit relevant sites, and otherwise investigate this strange outbreak.

Failed Theories

Beginning with at least one case as early as May 2011 and increasing to twelve by early January 2012, the phenomenon originally struck only teenage girls, who exhibited the symptoms of a strange Tourette-like condition with tics (involuntary twitches) and uncontrolled verbal outbursts.

Tourette syndrome is an inherited neurological disorder, and it is not caused by environmental conditions. It is some three to four times more likely to affect boys than girls and tends to occur sporadically in a given population, so the odds against a dozen girls at one location suddenly developing Tourette syndrome are astronomical (Mink 2012; Tan 2012a). Indeed it was not that disorder that assailed the Le Roy teens.

But if not Tourette syndrome, then what could it be? Health professionals considered a variety of possibilities:

Autoimmune disorder. A Health De­part­ment report pointed to a lack of evidence for one touted theory, an autoimmune disorder known as pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections (PANDAS). While four of the six girls tested did have elevated levels of a strep antibody, the levels were not high enough to involve PANDAS. Besides, for a diagnosis of PANDAS to be made five criteria must be met, and not one of the Le Roy cases met all criteria (New York 2012; Orr 2012). Moreover, PANDAS occurs three times more often in boys than in girls (Swedo 2012).

Vaccines. Some persons suggested vaccines—especially the Gardasil human papillomavirus vaccine, which is given to young females to prevent cervical cancer and is now also approved for use by males—as a potential cause of the outbreak. How­ever, according to a New York State Department of Health report, while seven of the twelve girls had received one or more injections of that vaccine, they were at different stages in the vaccination process; for six of the seven the onset of their symptoms came over a year after their last injection. Moreover, the scientific literature does not show any links between the Gardasil vaccine and tic disorders (New York 2012; Orr 2012).

Drugs. That the symptoms might be caused by something the students ingested—including stimulants, prescription drugs, or other substances—was discounted as unlikely by Jonathan Mink, chief of child neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Cen­ter. (Mink is also cochair of the Tourette Syndrome Association’s scientific advisory board.) Mink noted that it would take a significant dosage of a drug—whether prescribed or not—to cause tics, whereupon other behavior changes would become ap­parent (Mink 2012). The Health Depart­ment noted that toxicology screens for five of seven of the students were negative, while two were positive for prescribed medications (New York 2012).

Environmental causes. Some environmentalists, such as high-profile activist Erin Brockovich, have suggested that toxic substances may be responsible for the girls’ symptoms. In particular they have referred to a site some three-and-a-half miles away (outside the nearby village of Lime Rock) where, on December 6, 1970, a train derailment resulted in the spill of one ton of cyanide crystals (which were promptly removed) and 30,000 gallons of trichloro­ethene (TCE), which still contaminates the site (En­viron­mental Protection Agency 1999) (Figure 2). Brockovich (2012) referred to reports of “an orange-yellow substance oozing up from the ground” in a Le Roy school field. I talked with one afflicted girl’s father, Jim DuPont (2012), who also called attention to the possibility of incomplete combustion of natural gas from four wells drilled on school property.

Figure 2. U.S. Representative Kathy Hochul investigates the site, about 3.5 miles from Le Roy school, where a 1970 train derailment caused a serious toxic spill.

I spent more of my time on environmental concerns than on any other theory—speaking with parents, an environmental activist visiting from Toronto (Tarr 2012), an environmental tester (Rumrill 2012), and beleaguered school superintendent Kim Cox (2012a); twice visiting the toxic-spill site, where I met investigating U.S. Repre­sentative Kathy Hochul; and more. Ms. Cox exhibited grace under fire, especially at a raucous community meeting (Figure 3). She has worked for months with numerous medical professionals and other relevant agencies (the state’s Department of Health and En­vironmental Conser­va­tion and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). Professionals from these agencies provided assurance that the school is safe, and an independent firm is conducting ongoing research. So far, tests of air quality and drinking water confirm that conclusion (New York 2012; Holvey 2012; Cox 2012b; Tan 2012c). The alarming “orange ooze” was simply rust fungi, which is common to the Ken­tucky bluegrass sod used for the field. The Health Department’s report (New York 2012) concluded that “the occurrence of symptoms in only female students and the range of time of symptom onset are not consistent with an environmental cause.” Kim Cox (2012a) stressed that point to me, stating that environmental causes would not discriminate between girls and boys, that a wide range of people—younger students, more boys, teachers, staff—would also have been affected.

Figure 3. Panel of school officials and environmental experts hears criticisms at an often heated community meeting held at the school, February 4, 2012.

Conversion Disorder

In time, neurologists diagnosed the students with conversion disorder, “a group of symptoms suggestive of organic disease but without an identified cause in a group of individuals with shared beliefs about the cause of symptoms.” Conversion disorder is, there­fore, a psychological condition whose cause is, typically, “significant life stressors,” the brain “converting” severe mental stress into actual physical symptoms, such as blindness, paralysis, numbness, fainting, and mutism. While conversion disorder (formerly called “hysteria”) is the diagnosis for an individual, the group diagnosis is mass psychogenic illness (popularly called “mass hysteria”) (New York 2012, 7; Goldenson 1970, 260–63). Much additional evidence in the Le Roy outbreak appeared to confirm both individual and group diagnoses.

Of the twelve girls, three had previous medical illnesses associated with tics—one of them “a pre-existing Tourette’s diagnosis” (New York 2012, 4, 6). One of these could have served as an “index” case that produced subconscious mimicry in the other girls. Of the remaining eight (one girl did not seek medical attention), each was discovered to have had a major stress in her life—such as parents divorcing—according to a pediatric neurologist in nearby Batavia, Jennifer McVige, who has seen ten of the girls (Stobbe 2012). Not only had some of the teens’ own physicians diagnosed them with conversion disorder, but McVige and colleague Laszlo Mechtler, MD, also confirmed the diagnosis (Tan 2012b). Neurologists are able to distinguish between movements caused by neurological conditions and those due to conversion disorder. For example, one girl was observed in a video to have a flailing right arm that she was able to later use to carefully apply eyeliner (Tan 2012d).

Some of the parents, however, refused to accept the conversion disorder and mass psychogenic illness diagnoses. Jim DuPont (2012) told me that he instead suspected “a combination of things”—such as some students’ predisposition toward illness, as well as anything that could impair the im­mune system and, of course, any of the various environmental causes—was to blame. Another parent, Beth Miller (2012), told me that she suspected a toxin or other cause, possibly a strep virus. She said the authorities have not looked at other children who report migraines and stomach conditions. (To play Devil’s advocate, I suggested to her that probably some students at any school anywhere would exhibit some such common symptoms.) David G. Lichter, MD, a clinical professor of neurology at the University at Buffalo, observes that it is not uncommon for parents in such a situation to refuse to accept a psychological cause and to “doctor shop” for another diagnosis, which delays proper treatment (Tan 2012a). As for others, Mechtler notes that some will not accept such a psychological diagnosis because “they live a conspiracy life in a bioterrorist world” (qtd. in Tan 2012b).

Yet cases of conversion disorder and mass psychogenic illness are well known: in 2002, ten teenage girls at a rural North Carolina high school exhibited epileptic-like seizures and fainting spells. In 2007 some 600 girls at a Catholic boarding school in Chalco, Mexico, suffered fever and nausea and, in some instances, an inability to walk. Later in 2007, at least eight girls at a high school in Roanoke, Virginia, exhibited twitching symptoms like those that afflicted the girls in Le Roy. In none of these outbreaks was a physical cause found. Mark Hallett, MD, who helps field calls for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), states that the NIH averages two individual reports of conversion disorder per week. But while those cases are common, actual outbreaks involving several people are unusual. And why these outbreaks typically in­volve females is unclear. Some believe it is because of the manner in which girls are socialized to deal with stressful situations (Stobbe 2012). Those susceptible to conversion disorder tend to be “highly smart, vulnerable to suggestion, and very sensitive,” according to a child and adolescent psychiatrist (Tan 2012d).

Figure 4. Le Roy Outbreak, 2011–2012. The original three cases had pre-existing conditions; school was out during the summer; then cases resumed at an accelerating rate.

Meanwhile the Le Roy numbers had increased. By February 2, as many as fifteen cases were reported, including one boy and a thirty-six-year-old licensed practical nurse and mother, Marge Fitzsimmons, whom I met at a community meeting at the school. She accepts her doctor’s diagnosis of conversion disorder (Schenek 2012). By February 4 the number had increased to eighteen students—still only one boy among them (Tan 2012c). (See Figure 4.) Added to this were reports of two girls with similar symptoms in Corinth, New York, some 250 miles away. Interestingly, the Corinth girls are members of a softball team that had stopped in Le Roy during a road trip in July 2011, though this was after one girl’s symptoms had appeared (Roman 2012). While two Le Roy students had reportedly recovered after treatment, a few others regressed somewhat following the publicity and controversy (Mrozek 2012).

Although cases like those at Le Roy sometimes provoke allegations of fakery (indeed one restaurant employee there told me she thought the girls were just looking for attention), most experts think otherwise. Using the analogy of stage fright—which can produce shortness of breath, nausea, and other physical symptoms—experts believe the patients have actual symptoms that they cannot consciously control (Tan 2012a; Stobbe 2012).

Corroborative Evidence

A preponderance of the evidence tends to corroborate the diagnosis of conversion disorder/mass psychogenic illness in the Le Roy outbreak: (1) Medical examinations of the students failed to show any organic disease; (2) expert scientific investigations of the school and its environs failed to disclose any credible infectious or environmental sources for the cases; (3) the sufferers are mostly females, and conversion disorder is more prevalent among fe­males than males; (4) the diagnoses were made by physicians, including neurological specialists, who actually examined the patients; (5) neurologists noted the difference between patients’ imitative movements and those caused by an actual neurological condition; (6) three students had pre-existing illnesses associated with tics (one with a Tourette syndrome diagnosis), which could have sparked cascading cases of subconscious mimicry; (7) a bandwagon effect may be evidenced by the increased number of cases, the off-site case of an adult female, and the cases of two teenage girls in distant Corinth, New York; (8) students who accepted the diagnosis and treatment began to improve; (9) two students treated for conversion disorder were considered re­covered; (10) overall, the Le Roy outbreak fits the profile of other cases of mass psychogenic illness that have been investigated elsewhere; and (11) the diagnosis has been supported by numerous knowledgeable medical and psychological professionals who re­viewed the evidence.

Such an outbreak eventually runs its course. Lichter points out that suffering from a psychogenic illness does not mean that one is mentally deficient or otherwise unhealthy (Tan 2012a). It is important to understand that al­though the teens’ symptoms may have a psychological origin, they are none­theless real and painful. Accord­ing to psychologist Gail Saltz (2012), the sufferers “need a psychiatric or psychological treatment. Treatment does work.” And the neurologist Mechtler assured, “The bottom line is these teenagers will get better” (Jaslow 2012).

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the many persons in and near Le Roy, New York, who assisted me in my efforts (including several who spoke with me confidentially). Thanks are also due my wife, Diana, CFI Executive Direc­tor Barry Karr, CFI Libraries Director Timothy Binga, Librarian Lisa Nolan, and others, including Roe Giambrone and my assistant, Ed Beck, for research assistance.

References

Asztalos, Jaclyn. 2011. Mysterious illness at Leroy High School. WKBW News (Novem­ber 8). Available at www.wkbw.com/home/Leroyjac-133424788.html.

Brockovich, Erin. 2012. Appearance on Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, January 30 (cited in Michel 2012).

Cox, Kim. 2012a. Personal communication at press conference. February 4.

———. 2012b. Letter to community, January 31; address at community meeting, February 4.

Doctors baffled as Tourettes-like syndrome spreads. . . . 2012. Daily Mail (UK) (January 27).

Du Pont, Jim. 2012. Personal communication, February 4.

Environmental Protection Agency. 1999. Lehigh Valley Railroad Derailment Site, New York, report NYD986950251 (January 19).

Goldenson, Robert M. 1970. The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, vol. 1. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Holvey, Mary Ellen. 2012. Public presentation as certified industrial hygienist (February 4).

Jaslow, Ryan. 2012. Mass hysteria outbreak reported in N.Y. town . . . cbsnews.com (January 19).

Michel, Lou. 2012. Brockovich’s efforts in Le Roy halted. The Buffalo News (January 31).

Miller, Beth. 2012. Personal communication, February 4.

Mink, Jonathan. 2012. Cited in Owens 2012.

Mrozek, Paul. 2012. Doctor treating 10 Le Roy students says media saturation not helping. The Daily News (Batavia, New York, February 2).

New York State Department of Health. 2012. Investigation of Neurologic Symptoms among Le Roy Jr/Sr High School Students, October 2011–January 2012, Interim Re­port, January 31.

Orr, Steve. 2012. More Le Roy details emerge. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (February 4).

Owens, Howard. 2012. Expert to discuss tic outbreak in Le Roy. . . . The Batavian (January 10).

Roman, Dayelin. 2012. Girls’ illness still a puzzle. Available at www.timesunion.com/local/article/Girls-illness-still-a-puzzle-2830889.php.

Rumrill, Michael P. Personal communication, February 4.

Saltz, Gail. 2012. Speaking on NBC’s Today show, January 17.

Schenek, Dan. 2012. NY medical mystery: Woman showing same symptoms as Le Roy teens. Available at www.hlntv.com/video/2012/01/31/medical-mystery-adult-shows-symptoms.

Stobbe, Mike. 2012. Associated Press release by AP medical writer, reprinted in ABC News online, “Mass Hysteria Rare, but Usually Seen in Girls,” February 3, 2012.

Swedo, Susan. 2012. As investigator for the National Institutes of Health, cited in Tan 2012d.

Tan, Sandra. 2012a. Mass hysteria cited as cause of problems in Le Roy. The Buffalo News (January 13).

———. 2012b. Le Roy students, public still seek answers. The Buffalo News (January 29).

———. 2012c. Le Roy residents air concerns. The Buffalo News (February 5).

———. 2012d. In search of answers to the many questions in Le Roy. The Buffalo News (Febru­ary 9).

Tarr, Charley. 2012. Personal communication, February 4.

See also Steven Novella’s “The Science of Medicine” column »

Suspicious Acts

The events began on August 30 in the Enfield home of Margaret Hodgson. The divorced Hodgson lived there with her four children—Peggy, thirteen; Janet, eleven; Johnny, ten; and Billy, seven—whose names, in early accounts, were fictionalized. Two of the children, Janet and Johnny, attempted to convince their mother that their beds were unaccountably shaking. The next night brought mysterious knocking sounds and the sliding of a chest of drawers in the girls’ room. There were more knockings, and soon Hodgson had a police car making a call to 284 Green Street (Playfair 1979; 1980, 12–33).

A female police constable witnessed a chair wobble and slide but could not determine the cause of the movement. By the next morning, marbles and Lego toy pieces began to “zoom out of thin air and bounce off the walls.”

“Janet, did you throw that?” Her mother’s question began a long series of witnesses’ suspicions—or outright accusations—that Janet was the cause of the trouble that centered on her. According to Guy Lyon Playfair—who, with colleague Maurice Grosse, observed and recorded much of the phenomena over their course—Janet was the “main focus” or “epicentre” of incidents. “She was always near when something happened, and this in­evitably led to accusations that she was playing tricks, although Grosse was already fully convinced that she could not be responsible for all the incidents” (Playfair 1980, 37).

Was her sister, Peggy, partly to blame? Although Janet was by far the most frequently present suspect, with disturbances even following her to school, her older sister was also central to some events. Once, for example, when Peggy shouted, “I can’t move! Something’s holding me!” she was found on the stairs with one leg extended behind her in a manner that could easily be explained as play-acting. She was also involved in other incidents, and when on one occasion the girls were separated (with Peggy sent to a neighbor’s home), the antics continued at both houses; moreover, when neither girl was present—for example when Playfair spent a night alone in the house—there were no disturbances at all (1980, 80). Were both girls playing tricks, or could the poltergeist be in two places at once? When Janet was in the hospital for six weeks for evaluation, some incidents occurred only at home (Playfair 1980, 69, 90, 102, 263).

Still, says Playfair,

Janet was all energy, big for her age, jumping up and rushing around on the slightest pretext, and talking so fast that I had some difficulty at first in understanding her. She had an impish look, and I could understand why some visitors to the house in the later months would suspect her of playing tricks. (1980, 44)

Children’s Tricks

Even Playfair himself, who chronicled the events in his book This House is Haunted: The True Story of a Poltergeist (1980), had occasional doubts. After a chest of drawers tipped and jammed at an angle against a wall, Playfair played his tape recorder and heard suspicious creaking noises, as if someone like Janet had slipped up to the chest. “Could they have been made by her?” Playfair asked. “I was beginning to have my doubts again” (1980, 52).

There were reasons aplenty for suspicion. The poltergeist, a.k.a. “The Thing,” tended to act only when it was not being watched. Stated Grosse: “It’s smarter than we are. Look at its timing—the moment you go out of a room something happens. You stay in the room for hours, and nothing moves. It knows what we’re up to” (Playfair 1980, 53). Indeed, when Janet knew a camera was on, nothing occurred (1980, 53). Incredibly, Playfair and Grosse found that the children were sometimes “motivated to add to the activity with some tricks of their own.” When members of the Society for Psychical Re­search (SPR) made visits, the children’s trickery was the main feature of their interest, whereas, says Playfair, “it did not bother us very much. We had already seen incidents with our own eyes that the children could not possibly have done deliberately” (1980, 70). (More on this presently.)

The incidents involving “curious whistling and barking noises coming from Janet’s general direction” suggest the extent of Playfair and Grosse’s credulity. In time, the entity began to voice words, including obscenities, and although Playfair wondered if it were really Janet acting as “a brilliant ventriloquist,” he did not think so. His faith in Janet continued even though “the Voice” refused to speak unless the girls were alone in the room with the door closed (Playfair 1980, 138, 146). More­over, the credulous investigators noted that, when the growling voice occurred, “as always Janet’s lips hardly seemed to be moving” (1980, 190).

Evidence of ventriloquial fakery was even taken as proof of authenticity! Ac­cord­ing to Playfair, “The connection between Janet and the Voice is obviously very close. There have been several occasions when she says something it obviously meant to say, and vice versa. Would she slip up like that if she was faking the whole thing?” (1980, 173).

Is he kidding? Even after professional ventriloquist Ray Alan visited and concluded that the girls were producing the Voice because they “obviously loved all the attention they got,” Playfair and Grosse were not persuaded that the girls were faking. In fact, they were quick to claim that even if the girls faked the Voice, the other mysterious happenings remained un­explained (Playfair 1980, 233).

This remained Playfair’s and Grosse’s defense even when Janet was caught at trickery (Playfair 1980, 196–7) and when Janet and Peggy confessed their pranking to reporters. The two investigators soon elicited a retraction from the girls (1980, 218–21). Others, such as the professional ventriloquist, were not so quick to rationalize.

Anita Gregory, who was investigating for the SPR, reported on the events in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. She suggested that the case had been overrated, describing several episodes of behavior on the part of Janet and Peggy that were revealing. Gregory concluded that the girls were nonpsychically responsible for many of the incidents that were attributed to “poltergeist” phenomena. Although she thought the outbreak might have originated paranormally (Gregory was a British parapsychologist inclined to believe in the paranormal), she concluded it had turned quickly into a farcical performance for investigators and reporters desiring a sensational story (Gregory 1980; Clark 1981).

Even more skeptical was American magician Milbourne Christopher, who investigated briefly at the house. On one occasion, when Janet claimed she was unable to open the bathroom door to get out, Christopher stated that he could not determine paranormal causality if he could not see an incident. Playfair writes, “It almost seemed that the poltergeist was out to incriminate her, by producing third-rate phenomena in the presence of a first-rate observer” (1980, 170). Another time, when Janet was sent to her room and the Voice manifested, Christopher slipped upstairs to observe. He saw Janet quietly steal out of her room to peer down the stairs as if to make sure she was not being watched. Seeing Christopher clearly flustered her. Christopher would later conclude that the “poltergeist” was nothing more than the antics of “a little girl who wanted to cause trouble and who was very, very, clever” (1984–85, 161).

Paranormal investigator Melvin Har­ris also weighed in on a fast photo sequence that supposedly “recorded poltergeist activity on moving film for the first time” (Playfair 1980, 106). Harris (1980) demonstrated how the photos actually reveal the schoolgirls’ pranking. While demonologist Ed War­ren claimed that Janet at least once was “sound asleep, levitating in midair” (Brittle 1980, 223), the photographs did not record these levitations nor did independent witnesses see them. War­ren was notorious for exaggerating and even making up incidents in such cases, often transforming a “haunting” case into one of “demonic possession” (Nickell 2009). Harris dubbed the pho­tographed levitations “gymnastics,” commenting, “It’s worth remembering that Janet was a school sports champion!” (1980, 554). (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. An eleven-year-old girl is supposedly levitating during the poltergeist outbreak of 1977–79 in Enfield, England. (Forensic illustration by Joe Nickell based on a photo in This House Is Haunted, 1980.)

History’s Verdict

By 1979, the Enfield “poltergeist” had left the Hodgson home “inexplicably,” except for an occasional isolated incident. The motivating force—we may suspect tension in the household following the parents’ divorce—eventually ran its course. But the question re­mains: Is it true that Janet and the other children really could not have caused certain disturbances, as Grosse and Playfair insisted? Let us look at just one instructive incident. Maurice Grosse reported that “[the poltergeist] just threw a slipper while we were all in the room. It was not within the reach of the children, it was down near the end of the bed” (Playfair 1980, 82).

However, all that would have been necessary would be for Janet, say, to have earlier gotten hold of the slipper and then waited for the proper moment—when Grosse was not looking at her—to toss it. Time and again in other “poltergeist” outbreaks, witnesses have re­ported an object leaping from its resting place supposedly on its own, when it is likely that the perpetrator had secretly ob­tained the object sometime earlier and waited for an opportunity to fling it, even from outside the room—thus supposedly proving he or she was innocent.

As a magician experienced in the dynamics of trickery, I have carefully ex­amined Playfair’s lengthy account of the disturbances at Enfield and have concluded that they are best explained as children’s pranks. The principle of Occam’s razor—that the explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the best one—well applies here. Inter­viewed by the Lon­don Daily Mail (Brennan 2011), Janet at age forty-five (living in Essex with her husband, a retired milkman) ad­mitted that she and her sister had faked some of the phenomena. “I’d say 2 percent,” she admitted. The evidence suggests that this figure is closer to 100 percent; however, as another eleven-year-old girl insisted after confessing to playing poltergeist to attract attention in an earlier case: “I didn’t throw all those things. People just imagined some of them” (Christopher 1970, 149).

Acknowledgments

Barry Karr, CSI’s executive director, tipped me to the forthcoming 2012 movie being made about this case (which I had discussed briefly in my book Entities), and Timothy Binga, director of CFI Libraries, assisted with research.

References

Brittle, Gerald. 1980. The Demonologist: The True Story of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the World-Famous Exorcism Team. New York: St. Mar­tin’s Paperbacks.

Brennan, Zoe. 2011. What is the truth about the Enfield Poltergeist? (October 28). Online at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054842/Enfield-Poltergeist-The-amazing-story-11-year-old-North-London-girl-levitated-bed.html.

Christopher, Milbourne. 1970. ESP, Seers & Psychics. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 124–31.

———. 1984–85. A final interview with Mil­bourne Christopher, by Michael Den­nett, Skeptical Inquirer 9:2 (Win­ter), 159–165.

Clark, Jerome. 1981. Update . . . Fate. July: 94.

Gregory, Anita. 1980. Letter to the editor. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 50(786) (December): 538–41.

Harris, Melvin. 1980. Letter to the editor. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 50(786) (December): 552–54.

Nickell, Joe. 2009. Demons in Connecticut. Skeptical Inquirer 33(3) (May/June): 25–27.

Playfair, Guy Lyon. 1979. Poltergeist on a rampage. Fate. June: 74–81.

———. 1980. This House Is Haunted: The True Story of a Poltergeist. New York: Stein and Day.

Very Close Encounter

Hickson, then forty-two, was fishing from an old pier on the Pascagoula River with a friend, nineteen-year-old Calvin Parker Jr., on the night of Octo­ber 11, 1973. Hickson claimed they heard a “zipping” sound and en­coun­tered a glowing object—an elongated UFO—hovering above the ground. Three robotlike aliens exited from the craft; although they were gray humanoids just over five feet tall, they were otherwise of a type not reported before or since (Nickell 2011): each entity lacked a neck, exhibited only slits for eyes and mouth, had a nose and ears that were sharply pointed protrusions, and possessed clawed hands. The legs were joined, pedestal-like, and the entity glided (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Recreation of Hickson and Parker’s encounter, based on several sketches made from their descriptions. (Drawing by Joe Nickell)

The two men claimed they were taken aboard the spacecraft, where they were examined, after which they were returned to their fishing site. Un­nerved, they sat in a car to regain their composure (with Hickson, at least, drinking whiskey), then reported their experience to the sheriff.

Although the UFO reported by the men had apparently not been seen by people on the heavily traveled nearby highway (Randle 2001), there had been other UFO sightings in the area, including on the night in question. The UFOs were variously described—some saw a helicopter-like object; one person re­ported a supposed “experiment” from an Air Force base; and so on (Clark 1998, 715; Blum with Blum 1974, 14–19).

Controversy

The pair’s veracity was accepted by UFO believers J. Allen Hynek of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and James Harder of the Aerial Phe­nomena Research Organization (APRO), both of whom rushed to interview the “abductees.” Harder tried unsuccessfully to hypnotize the men (Clark 1998, 717) but did conclude they had experienced “an extraterrestrial phenomena [sic].”¹ Hynek believed the pair had at least had “a very real, frightening experience” (Blum with Blum 1974, 24–25). The sheriff’s de­partment also felt the men were telling the truth, and Hickson requested and passed a lie-detector test arranged by the agent with whom the men had signed a contract to promote their story. Parker suffered a breakdown and was briefly hospitalized (Clark 1998, 714–17).

The men’s fantastic report drew much skepticism. Famed UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass noted discrepancies in Hickson’s account (for instance, once referring to the creatures as having a “hole” for a mouth but later calling it a “slit”). Klass also pointed out that the lie-detector test was conducted by an “inexperienced” polygraph operator and that Hickson refused to take another administered by an expert police examiner. Based on other evidence—including the fact that Hick­son had once been fired for improperly obtaining money from employees under his supervision—Klass concluded the case was a hoax ([1974] 1976, 347–69; 1989, 18–19).

A Solution

So which was it: a genuine alien abduction or a hoax? Or is that a false dichotomy? In reviewing the case, I thought there might be another possibility: the two men, who might have been drinking before the incident (as Hickson admitted he was after), might have dozed off. Hickson could then have entered a hypnagogic (“waking dream”) state, a trancelike condition between waking and sleeping in which some people experience hallucinations, often with bizarre imagery, including strange beings (aliens, ghosts, etc.). This state may be accompanied by what is called “sleep paralysis” (the body’s inability to move due to still being in the sleep mode). In fact, Hickson not only reported the bizarre imagery but also said that the aliens “paralyzed” him before carrying him aboard the UFO in what sounds like a hypnagogic fantasy.

The imagery might even have been triggered by Hickson actually sighting something—almost anything—that, while he was in the waking-dream state, appeared to be a “UFO.” During a recorded interview with Sheriff Fred Diamond (Blum with Blum 1974, 30–36), Hickson described the UFO as “a blue light,” adding: “It circled a bit.” He emphasized it was blue, saying, “And you think you dreamin’ about something like that, you know” (original emphasis). Hickson also reported that it made “a little buzzin’ sound—nnnnn­nnnnn, nnnnnnnnn” (Blum with Blum 1974, 31). Bright lights and odd noises can also be part of the waking-dream experience, as can the sense of floating (Mavromatis 1987, 148). Hickson stated, “I couldn’t resist [the extraterrestrials], I just floated—felt no sensation, no pain” (Blum with Blum 1974, 32). These phenomena, coupled with the paralysis and fantastic imagery, corroborate the diagnosis of a hypnagogic experience.

Of additional corroborative value are other factors, including Hickson’s description of the aliens as speaking inside his head (Clark 1998, 715), be­cause a feature of hypnagogia is the sense of perceiving “with whole consciousness.” This explains the bright lights and clarity of his experiences, since hypnagogic visions often seem particularly illuminated, vivid, and de­tailed (Mavromatis 1987, 14–52, 148).

But if Hickson had a hypnagogic experience, what about Parker? Actu­ally, he need not have been in such a state himself because, as he told officers, he had passed out at the beginning of the incident and failed to regain consciousness until it was over (United Press International 1973). Later he “remembered” bits and pieces of the alleged encounter. This would be consistent with an example of folie à deux (a French expression, the “folly of two”) in which a percipient convinces another of some alleged occurrence (as by the power of suggestion, the force of a dominant personality, or the like) or the other person simply acquiesces for whatever reason. (Young Parker’s position was vulnerable: he had recently joined the shipyard where Hickson worked and was residing with the Hick­sons.) It would have been significant if Parker had himself been in a hypnagogic state, since “suggestibility is high during this state” (Goldenson 1970, I: 574). Interestingly, when the two men were left alone in a room at the sheriff’s office, where they were secretly tape recorded (Clark 1998, 716), they did not make incriminating statements as they might have if perpetrating a hoax but acted more like people comparing notes to see if they were in agreement with each other.

Still, some of Hickson’s behavior is questionable. For example, he kept adding to his story. He claimed on a television show a month later that the interior lights of the UFO had been so intense as to cause eye injury lasting for three days, although an extensive hospital examination the day after the incident had shown no such eye damage (Klass 1974, 349–50). But this is a familiar story: even accounts of the truest occurrences gain distortions and embellishments over time, so why should Hickson’s story be any different? UFOlogist Kevin D. Randle (2001) in­sists Hickson’s alterations “went be­yond that.” Specifically, he says, “These changes seemed to be in response to criticisms and appeared to be an attempt to smooth out rough spots in the story.” But to me that just signals Hickson’s defensiveness brought on by people ridiculing him—not proof of initial hoaxing.

When all the facts are weighed, the preponderance of evidence appears not only to favor the hypothesis involving the hypnagogic state but to provide corroboration as well. The realization may not benefit the late Charles Hickson, but it could help others who hear of supposed alien abductions to rest in peace.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Major James McGaha (USAF retired) and CFI Libraries Director Tim Binga for help with this article.

Note

1. The men were later hypnotized by another person (Hickson and Mendez 1983). ↩

References

Blum, Ralph, with Judy Blum. 1974. Beyond Earth: Man’s Contact with UFOs. New York: Bantam Books.

Clark, Jerome. 1998. The UFO Encyclopedia, vol. 2. Detroit, Michigan: Omnigraphics, 714–19.

Goldenson, Robert M. 1970. The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior: Psychology, Psychiatry, and Mental Health. New York: Doubleday.

Hickson, Charles, and William Mendez. 1983. UFO Contact at Pascagoula. Tucson, Arizona: Wendelle C. Stevens.

Klass, Philip J. (1974) 1976. UFOs Explained. New York: Vintage Books.

———. 1989. UFO Abductions: A Dangerous Game, updated edition. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.

Mavromatis, Andreas. 1987. Hypnagogia: The Unique State of Consciousness between Wake­ful­ness and Sleep. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Nickell, Joe. 2011. Tracking the Man-Beasts. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 184–86.

Peebles, Curtis. 1995. Watch the Skies! A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth. New York: Berkley Books.

Randle, Kevin D. 2001. Pascagoula (Mississippi) abduction. In Story 2001, 423–24.

Story, Ronald D. 2001. The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters. New York: New American Library.

United Press International. 1973. Wire-service story, “Creatures” (Pascagoula, Mississippi, October 12). In Blum with Blum 1974, 9–11.