“It never happened,” says the retired high school math teacher and self-described physicist, who has been following NASA for years.

Concerns have been raised over pictures showing NASA’s annual employee picnic where the Exploration Systems Division claims to have battled the Space Operations Division for the Mission Directorate softball championship. According to Williams, NASA faked these pictures “just liked they faked the moon landing.”

“We can’t have our government lie to us about what NASA is up to, or what they claim to be doing,” Williams says as he points out irregularities in the photos. He claims they have been airbrushed. “It ain’t been softball, I’ll tell you that,” he says. “These pictures have been doctored.”

As he scans the photos strewn across his kitchen table and tacked to the walls, Williams selects a few and proceeds to explain the evidence—evidence, he says, that proves NASA has been pulling the wool over the eyes of the American public for decades. Williams points to the shadows of the people in line at the BBQ fixins table as inconsistent with a single light source such as the sun. He believes that another picture of NASA employees playing softball is the smoking gun.

“Look here at the length of the shadows on the ground. It’s the middle of the summer, when the sun is at its highest . . . im­possible,” he argues.

Why would NASA do this? Why would they spend so much time and effort to fabricate such an event? Williams admits he gets asked that question a lot and explains that NASA has been unable to safely conduct an organization-wide picnic for decades.

“Sure they’ve had some small outings here and there but whenever they take on something big, the complexity of the event is simply too overwhelming,” he says.

Many believe Williams has a point. The year before, two mid-level managers and a flight engineer got struck by lightening just as the picnic started. The year before that, the entire Aeronautics Research directorate came down with the stomach flu just days before the outing. “There are just too many coincidences!” Williams said.

“NASA has been so desperate to pull off a big event—like the family day the Treasury Department was planning that year—that they were prepared to take an extreme risk and fake a monumental cookout and softball game.”

Some people have suggested that NASA had much to gain from a successful event. For the last two years, Administrator Charles F. Bolden has been competing with Depart­ment of Transportation’s Ray LaHood for the highly sought-after JFK fields near the reflecting pool on the National Mall. Show­ing that NASA could pull off such an outing would have played well with Wash­ington, DC, Parks and Recreation.

Williams cites more photographic evidence that NASA’s summer BBQ was a hoax. “You see this lady right here?” he says as he points to a picture of Communi­cations Planning Director Rachel Sampson handing out drinks to players. “Her hair is perfect and it’s July . . . she ain’t even sweating.” Williams then runs a video showing Roger Flay, the deputy director of the Advanced Capabilities Division, fielding a pop fly. “There’s no way this is real. Look at his speed, his vertical leap. You mean to tell me this 200-pound man in his sixties has that type of agility?” asks Williams, who believes that special effects and increasing the film speed must have been used to fake the action on the field. “If you look closely you can see the wires used to lift this man.”

A NASA spokesperson has responded by noting that they hold this picnic and softball game nearly every year and that any claims of a cover-up are not to be taken seriously. Williams claims that NASA’s official re­sponse is exactly what you would expect them to say if they were hiding something. He wraps up the interview with this observation: “[There’s a] sound stage; definitely a sound stage. You got your lighting, industrial fans to simulate the wind, and rigging, lots of rigging.”

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.

The description of the Navajo witch consists of a rather general description that resembles the more familiar “witch doctor” found in much Haitian voodoo folklore. But even the standard American image of the witch character is depicted as casting spells and, more importantly, possessing the supernatural ability to transform shape; the witch is often depicted as mimicking the form of a black cat. While it is frequently mentioned that the Skinwalker possesses the ability to assume the form of any animal, it is most often reported in the forms of a few key carnivorous animals: a coyote, a wolf, a fox, an owl, or a crow.

Navajo tribal beliefs include the concept of living in harmony with nature, which is anthropomorphized as “Mother Earth.” The beliefs also involve two different types of “beings”: the “Earth People” and the “Holy People.” For instance, “medicine men” are thought to be the bridge between “Earth People” and the “spirit world.” Skinwalkers are really just another type of Navajo witch; more specifically, they are considered to be practitioners of what is called the “witchery way.” The distinguishing characteristics between these different variations of witches are in the details. For example, one specific type of witch relies on the usage of objects to transmit curses, referred to as the “frenzy way.” However, in most contemporary accounts, Skin­walkers often possess certain supernatural abilities that encompass multiple types of Navajo witch.

There is generally a common theme of the number four showing up in both the Navajo and Apache belief systems. Stories usually have spans of four days, tell of four “beings,” or contain four elements as part of the theme. Another example, from the 1944 book Navajo Witch­craft by Clyde Kluck­hohn, states that witches are actually divided into four different groups: witchery, sorcery, wizardry, and frenzy (Kluckhohn 1944, 22).

There seem to be slight variations to the origins of the Skinwalker that permeate the folklore of Navajo people. There is also the notion that this brand of witch started off as a “medicine man” that was corrupted by absolute power. Another suggestion points out that the practice of wearing dead animal skins and emulating them started for hunting purposes. Thus there are countless Native American legends that tell the story of how people were given the ability to hunt by the gods, but these origin stories do not ex­plain the aspects surrounding the bad intentions of Skinwalkers or the Navajo witch.

United States Army surgeon and Civil War veteran Washington Matthews is historically known for his ethnographic study of Native American cultures. In one of his early accounts into Navajo beliefs, “witchcraft” gets first established in the Navajo emergence story “Creation of First Man and Woman,” reported by Matthews in 1894:

In four days after the last twins were born, the gods came again and took First Man and First Woman away to the eastern mountain for four days. The gods may have taught them the awful secrets of witch-craft. Witches always use masks, and after they returned, they would occasionally put on masks and pray for the good things they needed—abundant rain and abundant crops.

Witches also marry people who are too closely related to them, which is what First Man and First Woman’s children had done. After they had been to the eastern mountain, however, the brothers and sisters separated. Keeping their first marriages secret, the brothers now married women of the Mirage People and the sisters married men of the Mirage People. But they never told anyone, even their new families, the mysteries they had learned from the gods. Every four days the women bore children, who grew to maturity in four days, then married, and in their turn had children every four days. In this way many children of First Man and First Woman filled the land with people. (Matthews 1897)

Since both Navajo men and women can become “witches,” technically, women can become Skinwalkers as well. However, the generally accepted view is that mainly men are this type of “witch”; otherwise it is thought to be only old or childless women who may possess these abilities. It is also said in the account of this legend that Skin­walkers are a specific type of “Navajo witch” that have committed some sort of cultural taboo to gain their supernatural ability. Some present the following portion of this legend from Matthews of “First Man” and “First Woman” as the evidence for the origins of witchcraft within the Navajo culture:

The gods had the people build an enclosure of brushwood, and when it was finished, First Man and First Woman went in. The gods told them, “Live together now as husband and wife.” At the end of four days, First Woman bore hermaphrodite twins. In four more days she gave birth to a boy and a girl, who grew to maturity in four days and lived with one another as husband and wife. In all, First Man and First Woman had five pairs of twins, and all except the first became couples who had children. (Matthews 1897)

There is one other account that rarely gets discussed that involves the origins of the Skinwalker legend: the Navajo “witch purge” in 1878. Apparently, in the 1800s, the people of Salem were not alone in their quest to hunt down witches. As A. Lynn Allison wrote in the introduction of her article “The Navajo Witch Purge of 1878,” which appeared in the Arizona State Uni­versity West literary magazine Paloverde:

The words “Navajo Witch Purge” might at first call to mind the similar phrase “Salem Witch Hunt” and all the lurid imagery that goes with it. A bit of investigating, however, produces a cultural and historical picture of the Navajo and their tradition of witchcraft profoundly different from anything ever imagined by those early New England Puritans. As the Salem Witch trials in seventeenth-century Massa­chusetts may have evolved as a societal re­sponse to the religious thinking of the day, so the Navajo Witch Purge of 1878 evolved as a cultural response to the effects of colonialism on the Navajo way of life. Witchcraft was always an accepted, if not widely acknowledged, part of Navajo culture, and the killing of “witches” was historically as much ac­cepted among the Navajo as among the Europeans. The events of 1878 were a culmination of situation and circumstance that created the seemingly sensational out of what had been the cultural norm. (Allison 2001)

This reported incident is said to come from the days of the “Long Walk of the Navajo,” the deportation to Bosque Re­dondo (Fort Sumner) of the Navajo people by the U.S. Government. Apparently, it was during these dire times that some Navajo people would “shape-shift” to escape their impoverished living conditions. In an at­tempt to describe some of the conditions that Navajo people were being exposed to while at the Bosque Redondo in 1878, Raymond Locke states in The Book of the Navajo that “They were convinced that their gods—even the benevolent Changing Woman—had deserted them” (Locke 1976, 365). Some people, like Ruth Underhill, think that it was these tragic events that left a void in Navajo societies and ultimately lead to the resurgence in accusations of witchcraft: “The indigenous cultural reality and the jealousy that the new rules caused, as well as unexpected sickness that killed both people and livestock, cumulated in an age-old Navajo response: accusations of witchcraft” (Underhill 1956, 160).

The Navajo people used witchcraft to explain a sudden sickness or unexpected tragedies during these times of plight. After they thought their gods had left them, it is believed that witches went unchallenged and became prevalent once again. The struggles that the Navajo people went through during that time are often not fully detailed or well known. Another reason this topic is still reasonably difficult to put together is due to the nature of cultural beliefs differentiating from each other in so many variations from one tribe to another. The general avoidance of death among the beliefs of the Navajo also contributes a great deal to the scarcity of information. How­ever, there has always been witchcraft in Navajo culture since the creation of “First Man” and “First Woman.” It is simply part of the “Navajo way” and is considered to be amoral but just another integral part of the spiritual system. l

References

Allison, A. Lynn. 2001. The Navajo witch purge of 1878. PaloVerde 9(1). Available online at www.west.asu.edu/paloverde/Paloverde2001/Witch.htm.

Kluckhohn, Clyde. 1944. Navajo Witchcraft. Boston: Beacon Press.

Locke, Raymond Friday. 1976. The Book of the Navajo. Los Angeles: Mankind Publishing Co.

Matthews, Washington. (1897) 1984. Creation of First Man and First Woman. In American Indian Myths and Legends, selected and edited by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz (New York: Pantheon, 39–40).

Underhill, Ruth M. 1956. The Navajos. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.