Occhino has conducted psychic readings for clients in Bay Shore on Long Island since the 1990s. After she established a devoted following, her first book, Beyond These Four Walls, was published in 2004 and was followed by Sign of the Dove in 2006. That same year, her daily radio show Angels on Call debuted on December 11. Each show consisted of personal readings based on a different theme, such as “Medical Mon­days” for “listeners’ current and future health” (quoted from Occhino’s SiriusXM webpage, which has since been taken down). Occhino is not a medical doctor, lacks formal credentials in medicine, and, according to her now-defunct radio show biography, “didn’t take college courses.” Rather, she claims that when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1992, it heightened her psychic senses. A promotional sample highlighting Occhino’s “medical readings” in­cluded a caller telling Occhino, “You are right on the money.” After the caller de­scribes headache afflictions, there is this exchange:

Occhino: It’s like I got pains in my eyes.

Caller: Okay. Do you see anything in my stomach?

Occhino: Hold up. No, no. I gotta work my way down because what we think [sic] the minor things may be symptoms of other things.

Caller: Okay.

Occhino: Okay? So you may be getting headaches from the acid or bile in your stomach or whatever. You know what I mean?

Caller: Uh-huh.

Occhino: This could all be connected. So I just gotta work my way down. Now when I work my way [sic] into your in­testines.

Caller: Uh-huh.

Occhino: To the middle of your intestines. They’re long. In the middle it makes me feel, like there’s maybe some acid burn out. (Pause)

Caller: Uh-huh.

Occhino: It makes me feel like. (Pause) Have you ever been treated for duodenal ulcers or bleeding ulcers?

Caller: Yes.

Occhino: Okay because that’s what I’m seeing like little scabs.

Caller: Yep.

Occhino: In the lining of your intes­tines.

Caller: Yep.

Occhino: Have you checked? I would check. If I were you I would check. I would bring up to my doctor diverticulitis.

Caller: Yep. I have that.

This exchange, which has since been re­moved from Sirius’s website, is revealing. First, it is only when the caller directs Occhino to a part of the body that is troubling her that Occhino focuses on the stomach region and claims the affliction is an ulcer. According to the National Institutes of Health website, “abdominal discomfort is the most common symptom of both duodenal and gastric ulcers” (National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse 2010). Furthermore, Occhino asked, “Have you ever been treated for duodenal ulcers or bleeding ulcers?” That is very different from concluding that the caller’s current problem is a specific ulcer. Since twenty-five million people will suffer from an ulcer at some point, it is not unreasonable to assume that an older woman (as the caller’s voice seemed to indicate) with abdominal pain might have had an ulcer at one time. Once Occhino was correct, the rest of the show was built from this “hit.” Next, Occhino tells the caller she has diverticulitis, which Occhino tells the caller “can come with ulcers.” Furthermore, the National Insti­tutes of Health maintains that “diverticulitis is very common. It is found in more than half of Americans over age 60” (“Diver­ticulitis” 2010). Thus there is a 50 percent chance the caller will have this affliction after the age of sixty. Finally, Occhino offers other possible issues that are spun off from the ulcer “hit” before concluding with vague, noncommittal advice, telling the listener to get better by “calming down.”

Beyond “Medical Mondays,” Occhino is happy to mention her involvement in high-profile crime cases. A 2006 Newsday article claims she “may have helped crack the case of the disappearance of Patrick McNeill Jr.” (Dowdy 2006). There is no evidence or in­formation in the paper about what she predicted. Instead, the actual details about McNeill’s disappearance are that McNeill was drinking at a bar with friends and went to meet a girl. He was never heard from again. His body was discovered two months later after being spotted “floating near the 65th Street Pier” and was picked up “by an Army Corps of Engineers boat” (Cooper 1997). An autopsy revealed he had drowned with a “moderate amount of alcohol in his blood” (“Autopsy Shows a Fordham Student Drowned” 1997). It is unclear how Occhino was even involved with the McNeill affair, much less how she “broke” the case.

Occhino also claims to have “weighed in on local cases,” including the 1992 Katie Beers kidnapping and the 1999 disappearance of Katherine Kolodziej (Dowdy 2006). The Beers kidnapping ended when John Esposito told police Beers was “hidden in an elaborate chamber under his Bay Shore bungalow” (Blumenthal 1993). Thus, there is no proof the case was solved by psychic means; rather Esposito told police Beers’s location. In addition, Newsday also re­ported in 1999 that Occhino “said she had identified” Kolodziej’s murderer, who “was already on the police’s short list of suspects” (Dowdy 1999). Despite a police officer saying “We [have] got some very good leads,” the more than decade-old case remains unsolved. Occhino’s psychic insight was therefore not helpful enough to solve the case in the intervening decade.

In 2007, fresh from the celebrity of her radio show, Occhino used her “gift” to gaze into the celebrity world. She told the New York Post that Lindsay Lohan is “going to be blackballed and working in a 7-Eleven on Long Island” (Fleming 2007). While it is not much of a stretch to say a person with a drug problem might be “blackballed,” Lohan entered rehab in Southern California and has not worked at a 7-Eleven on Long Island. Occhino also said Mario Batali, a TV chef, must lose weight or will “have a heart attack within three years.” It does not take psychic power to advise that an overweight middle-aged man should lose weight or he’ll have health problems. The chef lost thirty-five pounds in 2010, but Occhino failed to predict his current business problems and the cancellation of his show.

In another failed prediction, Occhino asserted Whitney Houston would “be back and bigger than ever. . . . She will do a movie and win an Academy award.” Occhino further said, “She’ll work with Mel Gibson.” This prediction again fails on all counts as Houston has neither starred in a recent movie with Gibson nor won the award for a new project. Furthermore, no date was given, which hedges the possibility that the prediction may come true at some point the future. Houston’s 2009 tour suffered from trouble, and in 2010 Gibson faced public-relations problems in a custody fight with Oksana Grigorieva. Occhino then made a prediction that Star Jones would “never get divorced.” After three years of marriage, Jones filed for divorce from Al Reynolds in March 2008. Despite these abysmal predictions, Occhino’s star continued to rise.

In 2006, Occhino’s fee was $300 for an hour-long reading from her Long Island home or her Manhattan apartment on the Upper West Side (Padgett 2006). Two years later, she re­leased her third book, Awakened Instincts, coauthored with her daughter Jacqueline Sul­livan. Despite the fact that fortune-telling is illegal (except for “entertainment” purposes) in New York State, Occhino has built a following in New York and now conducts seminars and readings throughout the United States. In 2010, Atlas Media Corporation gave Occhino a one-hour television show on Syfy. The show premiered on July 15 and chronicled Occhino raising a family, even trying to find her daughter a husband, while coming into contact with people who were seemingly impressed with her psychic abilities. The reaction from the press was immediately negative. Newsday, the largest Long Island newspaper, graded the show a C–, explaining, “The producers slice, dice, nip and tuck hours of daily-life footage into lickety-split montages, and still nothing feels remotely fresh or real” (Werts 2010). The New York Post explained why “Mary knows worst” by saying the show “can’t de­cide if it’s a reality show about a Long Island family that is ripe for ridicule, or a show about a woman who was born with a gift that is no laughing matter.” A few weeks later, in the midst of poor ratings, Syfy cancelled the show. As Rob Vaux, of Mania.com, asked: “Did you see that coming, psychic lady?” (Vaux 2010).

Occhino uses her “involvement” in police cases to further her psychic career while failing to offer independent empirical proof of psychic abilities. Her biography cites an unpublished “test” by Gary Schwartz as validation for psychic powers. In fact, Schwartz’s educational credentials and affiliations are featured prominently in Occhino’s current biography, but the bio neglects her own education and the long history of criticisms about Schwartz’s methods and tests (“About Mary Occhino” 2010). She offered “virtual MRIs” to callers on her show without any medical education, which is potentially dangerous if people accept her claims without seeking proper medical diagnoses. In late December 2010, Occhino announced she would not “renew” her radio contract with SiriusXM, effectively ending her radio show in its current format. But her failed predictions and the end of her shows have not hurt her business. Occhino’s books, business, and seminars continue to attract desperate people, and her store, Mary O’s Celestial Whispers in Center Moriches, New York, remains in business. But does Mary know best? When it comes to her psychic predictions, it appears not.

References

About Mary Occhino. 2010. Available online at http://celestialwhispers.com/about/.

Autopsy shows a Fordham student drowned. 1997. New York Times (April 17).

Blumenthal, Ralph. 1993. The Katie Beers case; mystery surrounds suspect and underground chamber. New York Times (January 15).

Comeback Whitney hits a flat note Down Under. 2010. AFP (February 23).

Cooper, Michael. 1997. Body of missing Fordham Student is found off pier. New York Times (April 8).

Diverticulitis (encyclopedia entry). 2010. Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia. Available online at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000257.htm.

Dowdy, Zachary. 1999. When all else fails, try a sixth sense. Newsday (October 6).

———. 2006. Seeking by sixth sense: Court TV profiles Bay Shore psychic who has more than stars in her eyes when helping in police work. Newsday (April 25).

Fleming, Kirsten. 2007. Divine secrets—Psychic Mary Occhino predicts the fates of the ultra-famous. New York Post (February 8).

Ghost host: At home with a real Long Island psychic. 2010. New York Post (July 15).

National Digestive Diseases Information Clearing­house. 2010. H. pylori and peptic ulcers. Available online at http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hpylori/.

Padgett, Tania. 2006. Paranormal packs halls, sells books and floods airwaves. San Francisco Chronicle (June 18).

Shaffer, Ryan. 2010. Entertainment, fakery, and ambiguity: Examining the ‘Fortune Telling Law’ in New York State. Skeptical Inquirer (March/April).

Vaux, Rob. 2010. The TV wasteland continues. Mania.com (August 8). Available at http://www.mania.com/tv-wasteland-continues_article_124555.html.

Werts, Diane. 2010. LI psychic should know better on ‘Mary Knows Best.’ Newsday (July 15).

A poll in September 2008 showed interest in the celestial beings reaching a new level. Conducted by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion, the poll of 1,700 respondents yielded 55 percent an­swering in the affirmative to the statement, “I was protected from harm by a guardian angel” (Stark 2008, 57). Christopher Bader, director of the Baylor survey, which also covered a number of other religious issues, found that response “the big shocker” in the report. He ex­plained: “If you ask whether people believe in guardian angels, a lot of people will say, ‘sure.’ But this is different. It’s experiential. It means that lots of Americans are having these lived supernatural experiences” (quoted in Van Biema 2008).

But are these experiences really supernatural? Or are they only natural, the result of misperceptions and even misreporting? A look into the phenomenon of claimed guardian-angel encounters is illuminating.

Angel Guardians

Perhaps the earliest depiction of an angelic being, or a precursor of angels, is a winged figure on an ancient Sumerian stele. The entity is pouring the water of life from a jar into the king’s cup. Other precursors may be the giant, winged, supernatural beings—part animal, part human—that guarded the temples of ancient Assyria, thus perhaps serving as models for the concept that angels are protectors. The word angel derives from the Greek angelos, “messenger”; however, in biblical accounts, the entities not only fulfilled the role of messengers (e.g., Matt. 1:20) but also were avengers (2 Sam. 24:16), protectors (Ps. 91:11), rescuers (Dan. 6:22), and more (Burn­ham 1990, 81–82; Larue 1990, 57–61; Guiley 1991, 20).

Figure 1. Guardian angel depicted in a late nineteenth-century print (author’s collection).

In modern times, angels have been seen primarily as guardians (figure 1). “Angels represent God’s personal care for each one of us,” observes Father Andrew Greeley, a priest turned sociologist-novelist (qtd. in Wood­ward et al. 1993). This “new angelology”—the belief in personal guardian angels—is manifested not only in books but in angel focus groups and workshops, as well as angel bric-a-brac, posters, greeting cards, and so on. Ac­cord­ing to Newsweek: “It may be kitsch, but there’s more to the current angel obsession than the Hallmarking of America. Like the search for extraterrestrials, the belief in angels implies that we are not alone in the universe—that someone up there likes me” (Woodward et al. 1993).

Personal encounters with angels—related as inspirational stories—fill the books on angels. One such account appears in Graham’s book (1975, 2–3). It tells of a little girl who fetches a doctor to help her ailing mother. After caring for the woman, the doctor learns that her daughter died a month before, and in the closet hangs the little girl’s coat; “It was warm and dry and could not possibly have been out in the wintry night.”

Investigating the account, I discovered that it is a very old tale, circulated in various forms, with conflicting details (Nickell 1995, 153–55). Noted folklorist Jan Brun­vand (2000, 123–36) followed up on the tale (with some assistance from me) and demonstrated that it derived from a story told by S. Weir Mitchell (1829–1914), a physician and writer of prose fiction. Mitchell himself referred to it as “an early [illegible] ghost tale of [mine ?]”—a seemingly tacit admission that the narrative was pure fiction (Nickell 2011).

Encounters

Most of the currently popular angel stories are personal narratives. Among these are tales of “mysterious stranger angels,” ordinary-looking people who “appear suddenly when they are needed, and disappear just as suddenly when their job is done” (Guiley 1993, 65).

This genre includes the “roadside rescue” story, which one source admits “happens so often that it is almost a cliché in angel lore.” Essentially, “In the roadside rescue, the mysterious stranger arrives to help the motorist stranded on a lonely road at night, or who is injured in an accident in an isolated spot. Or, human beings arrive just in the nick of time” (Guiley 1993, 66). One such testimonial has come from Jane M. Howard, an “angel channeler and author.” According to Guiley (1993, 66):

One night, the gas pedal in Janie’s car became stuck, and she ran off the freeway near Baltimore. She stopped the car by throwing the transmission into park. It would not restart, and she began to panic. It was ten P.M. and she was miles from the nearest exit. She prayed to the angels for help, and within minutes, a van pulled up, carrying a man and a woman.

The woman rolled down her window and told Janie not to be frightened, for they were Christians. Even so, many people would have been wary of strangers at night. But the angels gave Janie assurances, and she accepted a ride to a gas station. She discovered that the couple lived in a town near hers, and knew her family. They pulled off to help Janie, they said, because they had a daughter, and they hoped that if their daughter ever was in distress, she, too, would be aided.

Notwithstanding such mundane occurrences, often the intervention is described so as to leave little doubt that it must have been a supernatural event. One such narrative tells of a woman’s visit to an electronics store and a young man who helped her son with some technical knowledge. The woman stated (in Guiley 1993, 65):

I was just dumbfounded. The young man wished us a nice day and left the store. A couple of seconds later, I rushed out the door to thank him, but he was gone. He literally disappeared. The store is in the middle of the block, so you would still be able to see someone walking down the sidewalk. Obviously, this was not an ordinary human. I still get chills about it.

However, we must ask: Was it really only “a couple of seconds later” or could it have been several seconds—long enough for the man to have entered a waiting car or stepped into an adjacent store?

Then there are the bedside angelic encounters, such as a story told by a Louis­ville woman in Burnham’s A Book of Angels (1990, 275–76). One of the woman’s good friends had died but seemed to linger as a “presence.” Moreover, she says,

Twice I have awakened from sleep to see something mystical. I sat up in bed to convince myself I was not dreaming.

To the right of me, hovering about five feet from the floor, was a bright mass of energy, a yellow and orange ball about six inches in diameter. I closed my eyes and reopened them. I even pinched myself to make sure I was really seeing what was be­fore my eyes, and there it remained until I fell asleep again.

I was frightened. About a year later, the same thing happened under the same circumstances. However, this time I asked questions subconsciously and they were answered. They were all in reference to my friend who had left this world. And the overall summation was, I was not to fear or worry, because I was being watched over. His protection, caring, and love were continuing, though his physical being was gone.

One immediately recognizes in this account the unmistakable characteristics of a “waking dream”—a very realistic-seeming hallucination that occurs in the state between full wakefulness and sleep. Waking dreams are responsible for countless supposed visitations by angels, as well as by ghosts, extraterrestrials, demons, and other otherworldly entities that lurk in the subconscious mind (Nickell 1995, 41, 46, 117, 131, 157, 209, 214; Baker 1995, 278).

In still other cases the percipient may simply be a classic fantasizer (Nickell 1995, 40–41, 57). Children are especially well known for engaging in fantasies. Consider, for example, this anecdote related by Sophy Burnham (1990, 4):

Once my mother saw an angel. She was five years old at the time, just a little girl in her nightie, getting ready for bed, when she looked up and saw an angel standing in the bedroom door.

“Auntie!” She pointed at the figure. “Look!” but her beloved auntie could not see.

“Go to sleep, child,” she said. “There’s nothing there.” I don’t know what her angel looked like. When I asked her, my mother’s face took on a dreamy and exalted look, simultaneously nostalgic and alight. She used words like brilliance or radiance, and I have the impression of many colors. But I have no idea what she saw.

As indicated by the aunt’s inability to see it, the angel obviously resulted from a child’s imagination and is no more credible than an eyewitness account of Santa Claus, a leprechaun, or an elf.

Stress can even produce angels in crisis situations. As psychologist Robert A. Baker observes, there is a “well-known psychological fact that human beings, when subjected to extreme fear and stress, frequently hallucinate. These hallucinations, in many in­stances, take the form of helpers, aides, guides, assistants, et al., playing the role of Savior.” Adds Baker, “If the hallucinator also has religious leanings it is easy to understand how such a ‘helper’ is converted into one of the heavenly host, i.e., a guardian angel” (qtd. in Nickell 1995, 157–58).

Then there are stories that appear to fall into the category of urban legends. One of these features the Angel of Mons that supposedly came to the aid of British soldiers at that Belgian battlefield during World War I. Folklorist David Clarke, for his The Angel of Mons: Phantom Soldiers and Ghostly Guard­ians, exhaustively investigated the story, finding it had been inspired by a fictional tale “at a time when the British people were desperate for news of a miracle” (2004, 241). Appearing in the London Evening News of September 29, 1914, “The Bow­men” by Arthur Machen dramatized the British routing of the Germans in symbolic terms of St. George and “his Agincourt bowmen.” Many read the story as true, prompting rumors of eyewitness accounts. Concludes Clarke (2004, 246):

In 1914, Britain was an imperial nation with a long tradition of success in combat that was sustained by belief in divine intervention. At Mons, the cream of the British Army narrowly escaped defeat at the hands of the Germans during the first month of the war. Many believed it was a miracle, and Arthur Machen’s story provided a perfect conduit for the creation and transmission of a reassuring modern legend that was based upon ancient precedents. His literary skills gave the story a resonance and power that would sustain it long beyond his lifetime. It was a legend that had an important and positive function during the war, sustaining hope, boosting patriotic optimism and shoring up faltering faith during the dark days of the Somme, Passchendaele and all the other disastrous battles that almost exterminated a generation of young men. Today the Angel of Mons remains one of the undying icons of that war and lives on as a symbol of the loss of innocence that was the legacy it left upon the British psyche. This legend re-emerged for a brief spell during the national crisis of 1940, at Dunkirk and during the Battle of Britain. Maybe one day the angels will be needed again.

The concept of guardian angels, notes one writer (Willin 2008, 37), “was given a huge impetus” by the publication of Machen’s tale.

Photographing Angels

Thus far we have considered personal ac­counts of angels acting as guardians; however, if such accounts represent only what serious researchers disparage as “anecdotal evidence,” then what about photographic evidence—photos offered to support claims of angelic encounters? Unfortunately, the evidence is at best unconvincing, usually easily explainable. Many touted examples, for instance, are nothing more than simulacra, images perceived by the mind’s tendency to “recognize” common shapes in random patterns, like seeing pictures in inkblots, clouds, woodgrain patterns, and the like (Nickell 2007, 18).

Such images may also be faked. Consider the “Cloud Angel” photo circulated by Betty Malz, author of Angels Watching Over Me and other books. The picture Malz (1993) was kind enough to send me was accompanied by a brief narrative telling how a honeymooning couple had taken the photo from the window of their airplane. They had undergone severe turbulence that provoked them to pray for safety, whereupon the turbulence soon subsided and later the angel-shaped cloud appeared in one of their photos. It turns out, however, that the same picture has a long history—touted variously as an image of Christ taken during Hurricane Hugo (“Experts” 1990) and a “ghostly ap­parition” taken in 1971 by an “ordained spiritual minister” (Holzer 1993). Suspi­ciously, the cloud lacks the three-dimensional qualities of genuine cloud photographs as determined by a computer imaging expert (Nickell 2001, 200–03).

Much more recently, a few “angel” photos were included in the book The Para­normal Caught on Film by Melvyn Willin (2008, 36–37, 42–43, 46–47, 62–63). Alas, however, these range from the poorly documented to the suspiciously anonymous and are attributable to a variety of a photographic anomalies including reflections, simulacra, and other factors, as well as outright fakery.

As these narrative and photograph examples demonstrate, to many people guardian angels offer comfort in difficult times, while to others they are confirmation of deeply held religious or New Age beliefs. However, the evidence for their existence appears as ethereal, elusive, and doubtful as the alleged entities themselves.

Acknowledgments

As always, I appreciate the assistance of Timothy Binga, director of the Center for Inquiry Libraries.

References

Baker, Robert A. Afterward to Nickell 1995, 275–85.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. 2000. The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story! Chicago: University of Illinois.

Burnham, Sophy. 1990. A Book of Angels. New York: Ballantine Books.

CNN “Headline News.” 1993. CNN/Time/Newsweek poll cited December 18.

Clarke, David. 2004. The Angel of Mons: Phantom Soldiers and Ghostly Guardians. Chichester, Eng­land: John Wiley & Sons.

Experts call “Hugo Christ” photo fake. 1990. Charle­ston, South Carolina, Evening Post (April 12).

Graham, Billy. 1975. Angels: God’s Secret Agents. Gar­den City, New York: Doubleday.

Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 1991. Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience. New York: Harper­Collins.

———. 1993. A radiance of angels. Fate (December): 60–68.

Holzer, Hans. 1993. America’s Restless Ghosts. Stamford, Connecticut: Longmeadow Press.

Larue, Gerald A. 1990. The Supernatural, the Occult and the Bible. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.

Malz, Betty. 1993. Photograph and letter to Joe Nickell, March 17.

Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, New York: Prome­theus Books. (A portion of the material for this article was taken from this source.)

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

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

———. 2011. The Doctor’s ghostly visitor: Tracking ‘The Girl in the Snow.’ Skeptical Briefs 21(2) (Summer): 5–7.

Stark, Rodney. 2008. What Americans Really Believe: New Findings from the Baylor Surveys of Religion. With Christopher Bader, et al. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press.

Van Biema, David. 2008. Guardian angels are here, say most Americans. Available online at www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1842179,00.html; accessed September 19, 2008.

Willin, Melvyn. 2008. The Paranormal Caught on Film. Cincinnati, Ohio: David & Charles.

Woodward, Kenneth L., et al. 1993. Angels. Newsweek (December 27): 54.

The main purpose of this research is to discover if there is any truth to the concept of an NDE. In theory, an NDE occurs when the flow of blood and oxygen to the human brain stops or slows, which can happen for a variety of reasons, including a near-fatal accident, a heart attack, a catastrophic illness, or an Al Gore global warming lecture. Of course, the concept of being “clinically dead” isn’t always easy to scientifically explain, like the crocoduck. Is it when the heart ceases? Or is it when a person’s EEG flatlines even when tempted with cheese fries?

In addition, the AWARE researchers would like to settle the controversy over whether some of the survivors of these brushes with deathness were also exposed to an out-of-body experience (OBE) or whether they were only divinely delusional (ODD). By interviewing those who claim to have returned from “the other side,” researchers hope to settle the age-old question of whether consciousness disappears with brain inactivity or whether it lives on and on and on and on like angels and souls and Twinkies.

Approximately 15,000 patients will be included in the study. It is likely that of the survivors, only about 150 will report an episode that would qualify as an NDE. Moreover, according to some estimates, only about a quarter of patients with an NDE will report some kind of OBE by regaling the listener with tales of bizarre-sounding experiences. These include remote viewing, falling toward a tunnel of light, and meeting religious figures, which proves one thing: even during death, modern humans remain inveterate multitaskers.

The researchers will test for OBEs by “hiding” randomly generated images in the operating room. These images will be visible only to someone who is having an OBE and looking down from the ceiling—that is, unless the out-of-body self decides to wander down to the hospital cafeteria for some yummy chow. Once the previously deceased patient is resurrected, he or she should be able to describe the hidden image observed while buzzing around the OR—unless the patient unfortunately returns as a reincarnated turtle, which would then require the use of a facilitated-communication expert.

Surprisingly, NDEs aren’t a recent phenomenon. Some ancient texts include incidents in which critically wounded soldiers describe their journey into the afterlife after being revived through CPR (common-prayer resuscitation). Also, a number of extraordinary thinkers have experienced or lent credence to NDEs, such as Plato, Carl Jung, and Eric Estrada of CHiPs. Even atheists aren’t immune to the phenomenon. One atheist became an ex-atheist after returning from his “death,” where he observed “billions and billions of Carl Sagans.”

The modern phenomenon of NDEs, however, actually dates back to the publication of Raymond Moody’s best-selling Life After Life (1975), in which he coins the phrase “near-death experience” after X-ing out the alternative: “psychedelic groove-on” (PGO).

Moody’s interest in NDEs developed while he was in medical school, possibly after he sniffed one too many cadavers. Eventually he interviewed dozens of people who had supposedly died and returned to tell the tale. Because of the unexpected similarity of experiences, Moody eschewed science and concluded that there was more to dying than death. To Moody, the common experiences he recorded proved one thing: this crazy-ass idea could sell him some books! Since then, tens of thousands of personal accounts of NDEs have been “recorded all over the world,” just like religious-image discoveries on everyday food items (e.g., a burnt fish stick).

As stated earlier, not everyone who’s dabbled in death has had a heavenly experience. In various studies, anywhere from 2 percent to ___ percent (fill in the blank) of those who have returned from having “nearly passed” reported NDEs as well as OBEs. Others had neither, while a small minority described the event as “like being stuck in Toledo, Ohio, for six weeks.”

Some of the more common universal experiences recorded by Moody and others include:

Out-of-body experiences (OBEs). This is the most controversial claim that AWARE is trying to settle. According to solid, indisputable anecdotal evidence, it’s clearly possible for one’s consciousness to leave one’s body and fly hither and yon like a magic carpet, which allows the deceased to clearly observe his or her own resuscitation without the use of prescription eyeglasses. This phenomenon might eventually come in handy if the patient observes the surgeon mocking his liver and is then called as an eyewitness to his own medical malpractice lawsuit.

Hearing strange sounds. These have been described variously as a buzzing, a ringing, and a Bob-Dylan-singing-Christmas-carols type of noise.

A feeling of peace. This feeling is often difficult to explain since no such state has existed on our planet for decades.

Encountering other dead beings. Many believe they’ve arrived in heaven because they come across religious figures, deceased relatives and friends, beings of light, strangers, or Jerry Garcia. One person even witnessed Buddha driving a yellow school bus. Strangely, the religious figures that are observed are those of the person’s own religion. For example, during an NDE no Hindu is known to have seen Jesus, no Christian has met face-to-face with Mohammed, and no member of the Jewish faith has run into L. Ron Hubbard.

Looking down a long tunnel of light. Described as akin to coming out of the birth canal, visiting The Screaming Tunnels of Niagara Falls, or “feeling like one bitchin’ migraine.”

Rising rapidly into heaven. So far, no one has reported falling rapidly into the bowels of hell.

A desire to stay deceased. Most “zombies” reluctantly return to life kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, it’s practically impossible to compare notes with those who stuck to their guns and decided not to return, since they’re not talking. Apparently, what happens in the afterlife stays in the afterlife.

A profound transformation. The transformed person no longer has a fear of death, unless he or she is driving in Los Angeles.

To some, there is no doubt that these common experiences are evidence of a world beyond. For others, like skeptics, some kind of physical evidence of these events would be welcome. Would it be asking too much for Jesus’ autograph on a temporary visa?

Many scientists (or killjoys) claim there are plenty of logical and rational theories for what causes an NDE, including chemical changes to parts of the brain, unusual electrical activity in other parts of the brain, intrusion of our normal REM dream sleep into our consciousness, and an innate inability to reason. Some scientists claim to be able to duplicate many of these NDE and OBE events through use of certain drugs, electronic stimulation of the brain, or by reading passages from Deepak Chopra’s latest book, but these tests have yet to be duplicated. At some future date, we might know enough about the brain to fully understand the NDE, but right now it’s clear that you don’t necessarily have to be officially pronounced dead to meet up with the seventy-two virgins in paradise.

One question that puzzles many skeptics is that if the brain has stopped functioning (no neural or EEG activity), then where is this “memory” of the afterlife stored? Good question. To give believers the benefit of the doubt, however, there’s much that scientists don’t understand about the human brain, and it’s possible that since it contains more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, there’s probably hidden storage space aplenty.

Since it’s clear I’m bending over backward to accommodate the believers at this point, I’ll also admit that these various “scientific” theories are quite complicated and make my head spin. If we were to apply Occam’s Razor to this issue, might not the existence of an afterlife and angels and beings of light and souls and religious figures and separate consciousnesses and a life review, as well as the ability to communicate with lights and the possibility of attaining complete knowledge about life and the nature of the universe and so on, ad infinitum, be the simplest explanation after all?

Until this ongoing controversy is resolved once but not likely for all by the AWARE experimenters, it would behoove skeptics, including myself, to keep an open mind on this controversial topic. And even before the results are finally published, maybe we should start thinking about award nominations for this worthy study. I’m thinking an Ig Noble Prize. How about a Pigasus Award? If we’re especially lucky, maybe a Darwin Award.

Then again, if the AWARE experiment totally fails, all is not lost. Why not try an alternative test, such as stretching a nano-fiber mosquito net above the dying patient to trap the consciousness when it tries to escape the body? Catching a consciousness would be awesome evidence, wouldn’t it? It surely beats electronic voice phenomena (EVP) and orbs.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, in the name of science, I’m off to run my own AWARE experiment by way of autoerotic asphyxiation. Will I have an NDE? An OBE? And will I be able to watch my own orgasm (O)? Results TBA.

“Help”

Musick’s narrative, titled “Help,” relates how “Doctor Anderson” was awakened by a knock at the door “just past midnight.” He found on his doorstep a girl of twelve or thirteen who was dressed in a blue coat and carrying a white muff. She implored him to hurry to “the old Hostler place,” where her mother was desperately ill, and then she darted down the road. Anderson picked up his doctor’s bag, quickly saddled his horse, and hurried on his way until “he saw the glow of a lamp in the old Hostler house.”

Finding a bedridden woman inside, the physician put wood on the dying fire and set to work to treat her fever. When she had rallied, he told her how fortunate she was that her daughter had fetched him. “But I have no daughter,” the woman whispered. “My daughter has been dead for three years.” Anderson described to her how the girl had been dressed; the woman admitted that her daughter had had such clothing and indicated where the items were hanging.

Thereupon, relates the narrative’s final paragraph, “Doctor Anderson strode over to the closet, opened the door, and took out a blue coat and white muff. His hands trembled when he felt the coat and muff and found them still warm and damp from perspiration.”

How do we explain such an event? Well, first we remember to apply an old skeptic’s dictum: before attempting to explain something, make sure it really happened.

Another Version

As it turns out, a book by Billy Graham contains a remarkably similar story (1975, 2–3), wherein the implication is that the little girl in the tale is not a ghost but rather an angel:

Dr. S.W. Mitchell, a celebrated Philadelphia neurologist, had gone to bed after an exceptionally tiring day. Suddenly he was awakened by someone knocking on his door. Opening it he found a little girl, poorly dressed and deeply upset. She told him her mother was very sick and asked him if he would please come with her. It was a bitterly cold, snowy night, but though he was bone tired, Dr. Mitchell dressed and followed the girl. . . .

As Reader’s Digest reports the story, he found the mother desperately ill with pneumonia. After arranging for medical care, he complimented the sick woman on the intelligence and persistence of her little daughter. The woman looked at him strangely and said, “My daughter died a month ago.” She added, “Her shoes and coat are in the clothes closet there.” Dr. Mitchell, amazed and perplexed, went to the closet and opened the door. There hung the very coat worn by the little girl who had brought him to tend her mother. It was warm and dry and could not possibly have been out in the wintry night. . . .

Could the doctor have been called in the hour of desperate need by an angel who appeared as this woman’s young daughter? Was this the work of God’s angels on behalf of the sick woman?

Graham provides no documentation beyond the vague reference to Reader’s Digest, which in any event is hardly a scholarly source. In fact, I soon discovered that the tale is an old one, circulated in various forms with conflicting details. For example, as “The Girl in the Snow,” it appears in Margaret Ronan’s anthology of Strange Unsolved Mysteries. While Graham’s version is of implied recent vintage, that by Ronan is set on a “December day in 1880.” Whereas Graham states that the doctor was “awakened by someone knocking on his door,” Ronan tells us “the doorbell downstairs was ringing violently.” Absent from the Graham version is the suggestion that the little girl was a ghost, not an angel; for example, Ronan says the child looked “almost wraithlike in the whirling snow,” and that “at times she seemed to vanish into the storm. . . .” In Graham’s account, the doctor is credited with simply “arranging for medical care,” while Ronan insists Mitchell “set about at once to do what he could for her” and “by morning he felt that at last she was out of danger.” Although both versions preserve the essential element that the woman’s little girl had died a month before, Graham’s version quotes the mother as saying, “Her shoes and coat are in the clothes closet there,” while Ronan’s has her stating, “All I have left to remember her by are those clothes hanging on that peg over there.” Indeed the latter account does not describe a coat and shoes but states: “Hanging from the peg was the thin dress he had seen the child wearing, and the ragged shawl” (Ronan 1974, 99–101).

S. Weir Mitchell

Variant Tales

There are many other versions—or “variants” as folklorists say—of the proliferating tale. Of the five others I discovered, all feature the physician S. Weir Mitchell, but only two suggest the time period. Unlike the Graham (1975) and Ronan (1974) versions, which have the garments in a “clothes closet” and hanging from a peg, respectively, four of the other five variant tales say the clothes are in a “cupboard”; one has them in a “shabby chiffonier” (Edwards 1961, 52). There are differences in the clothes: Colby (1959) lists a “little dress” and “tattered shawl”; Edwards (1961) a “heavy dress,” “hightop shoes,” and “gray shawl” with a “blue glass pin”; Hurwood (1967) “all the clothes the child had worn when he saw her earlier”; Tyler (1970) that exact same wording; and Strange Stories (1976) “her shoes and [folded] shawl.”

No doubt there are still other versions of the story. Variants are a “defining characteristic of folklore,” according to distinguished folklorist Jan H. Brunvand (1978, 7), since oral transmission naturally produces differing versions of the same story. In this case, however, Brunvand notes that many of the variants are explained by writers copying others (Tyler from Hurwood, for instance) but adding details and making other changes for literary purposes (Brunvand 2000, 132). In any case, Brunvand (1981, 21) observes that when there is no certain original, the multiple versions of a tale provide “good evidence against credibility.” But was there an identifiable original of the Mitchell story?

Brunvand (2000, 123–36) followed up on the tale (with some assistance from me). Eventually he turned up a couple of versions that supposedly came from Mitchell himself. One was published in 1950 by R.W.G. Vail, then-director of the New York Historical Society:

One day in February, 1949, Dr. Philip Cook of Worcester, Mass., while on a visit to New York City, told me this story which he had heard the famous doctor and writer S. Weir Mitchell tell at a medical meeting years ago. (Dr. Mitchell died in 1914).

“I was sitting in my office late one night when I heard a knock and, going to the door, found a little girl crying, who asked me to go at once to her home to visit a very sick patient. I told her that I was practically retired and never made evening calls, but she seemed to be in such great distress that I agreed to make the call and so wrote down the name and address she gave me. So I got my bag, hat, and coat and returned to the door, but the little girl was gone. However, I had the address and so went on and made the call. When I got there, a woman came to the door in tears. I asked if there was a patient needing attention. She said that there had been—her little daughter—but that she had just died. She then invited me in. I saw the patient lying dead in her bed, and it was the little girl who had called at my office.”

Brunvand (2000, 123–36) also turned up an interesting letter from the Mitchell papers. Dated November 2, 1909, it had been written to Mitchell by physician Noel Smith of Dover, New Hampshire. It read:

S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.

My dear Doctor:—

Please pardon my intrusion upon your valuable time, but—as I should like the truthfulness, or otherwise, of what follows established, I have taken the liberty of addressing you.

A travelling man, a stranger, accosted me a few days since at one of our principal hotels, knowing that I was a physician, asking me if I believe in the supernatural, communications with the spirits of departed friends, etc.—I assured him that I had never experienced any personal observations or manifestations that would lead me to any such belief. He then related to me the following story, vouching for its authenticity.—He was a member of some organization, I think, in N.Y., and they had lectures now and then upon various topics. One evening it was announced that prominent men were present who would in turn relate their most wonderful experiences. You was [sic] the first called upon, and you stated that you could tell your most wonderful personal experience in a few words. You went on to say that you were engaged in writing late one evening in your library when somebody knocked three times upon the library door. This was thought to be very strange, as electric bells were in use. Upon opening the door, a little girl, about 12 years of age stood there, having a red cloak for an outer garment. She asked if you were Dr. Mitchell, and wished you to go at once to visit her mother professionally, as she was very ill. You informed her that you had given up general practice, but that Dr. Bennett lived diagonally across the street, and that you would direct her to his door, which you did. In a few moments the raps upon your door were repeated, and you found the girl there a second time. She could not obtain Dr. Bennett’s services, and urged you to accompany her home; and you did so. She conducted you to a poor section of the city and up a rickety flight of stairs into a tenement house. She ushered you into a room where her mother lay ill upon a bed. You prescribed for the sick lady, giving her some general directions for future guide, and assured her that it was only at the very urgent and persistent efforts of her daughter that you were prevailed upon to come to her. The woman said that that was strange: that she had no daughter—that her only daughter had just died and her body reposed in a casket in the adjoining room. You then looked into this room & viewed the remains of a girl about 12 years of age, while hanging upon the wall was a red cloak.

I am curious to know, doctor, whether you ever had any such experience, or any approach thereto. Hence these words. Let me say right here that Mrs. Smith & myself enjoyed very much the reading together the “Red City” when running in the Century Magazine.

Thanking you in advance for your reply to this inquiry. I am

Yours Sincerely

Noel Smith

The Revelation

Mitchell wrote the following at the top of Smith’s letter in his own handwriting: “One of many about an early [illegible] ghosttale of [mine?]”—a seemingly tacit admission that the ghost narrative was pure fiction.

Indeed, Mitchell must surely be alluding to this very matter when, in his novel Characteristics ([1891] 1909, 208–209), the protagonist, North, observes:

It is dangerous to tell a ghost-story nowadays. . . . A friend of mine once told one in print out of his wicked head, just for the fun of it. It was about a little dead child who rang up a doctor one night, and took him to see her dying mother. Since then he has been the prey of collectors of such marvels. Psychical societies write to him; anxious believers and disbelievers in the supernatural assail him with letters. He has written some fifty to lay this ghost. How could he predict a day when he would be taken seriously?

So there we have it: Mitchell’s oblique confession that he had simply conjured up a ghost tale, filled it with literary verisimilitude (semblance of truth), and sent it forth. Later, as Brunvand (2000, 129) notes, Mitchell was “chagrined to find the public believing that he was presenting the story as the literal truth.” Mitchell—like the Fox Sisters whose phony spirit communications spawned the modern spiritualist movement (Nickell 2007, 39)—discovered that the genie could not be put back into the bottle.

References

Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1978. The Study of American Folklore. New York: W.W. Norton.

———. 1981. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W.W. Norton.

———. 2000. The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story! Chicago: University of Illinois.

Colby, C.B. 1959. Strangely Enough (abridged). New York: Scholastic Book Services.

Edwards, Frank. 1961. Strange People. New York: Signet.

Graham, Billy. 1975. Angels: God’s Secret Agents. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.

Hurwood, Bernhardt J. 1967. Strange Talents. New York: Ace Books.

Mitchell, S. Weir. (1891) 1909. Characteristics. New York: Century.

Musick, Ruth Ann. 1965. The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.

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

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

Ronan, Margaret. 1974. Strange Unsolved Mysteries. New York: Scholastic Book Services.

Strange Stories, Amazing Facts. 1976. Pleasantville, New York: The Reader’s Digest Association.

Tyler, Steven. 1970. ESP and Psychic Power. New York: Tower Publications.

The End of Discovery. By Russell Stannard. Oxford University Press, New York, 2010. ISBN: 978-0199585243. 224 pp. Hardcover, $24.95.

In 1844, the idea that we would ever be able to discover what distant stars are made of was so unthinkable that philosopher Auguste Comte cited it as an archetypal example of an unsolvable question. He was wrong. A mere three years after Comte’s death, scientists figured out how to read a star’s light spectrum to determine its chemical composition: each dark line in the spectrum represents light that was absorbed by a particular kind of atom or molecule.

It’s easy to look like a fool to future generations when one makes predictions, especially predictions about what will “never” happen. But even if we can’t speak with 100 percent certainty, are there any questions that at least seem to have a higher-than-usual chance of remaining unsolved forever? Particle physicist Russell Stannard thinks so. In The End of Discovery, he lists the scientific questions he fears may prove unanswerable and explains why each made the list. The questions are mostly from physics and cosmology, and they include some of the most fundamental issues about the nature of the universe. What happened before the big bang? Is there other intelligent life in the universe? What is space? Why are the laws of physics the way they are?

It’s not always clear why all of the book’s “potentially unsolvable” questions deserve that label any more than other problems that once baffled scientists. Take Stannard’s example of dark matter. Scientists believe it exists, despite never having observed it directly, because they have discovered gravitational forces that can’t be explained by the observable matter in the universe. It’s true that, as Stannard explains, we don’t yet have any idea what dark matter actually is. But there also don’t seem to be any obvious obstacles in the way of us solving that problem. So it’s not clear why we should consider ourselves to be in a more hopeless situation with respect to dark matter than earlier scientists were with respect to, say, the nature of light.

But for many of the questions Stannard raises, there are real obstacles to finding a solution. These fall roughly into one of two categories: obstacles to getting the evidence we need and obstacles to understanding the evidence we have. The former is a particular problem for investigations of the early universe, which is clouded by a “radiation fog” because its conditions were too hot for atoms to form. And some of the leading theories explaining quantum mechanics posit the existence of other, inaccessible universes. What hope do we have of testing those theories empirically?

Even if the evidence is “out there” and could be gathered in principle, it may be impossible to gather it in practice. Every time physicists have succeeded in smashing particles together at a significantly higher energy level—for example, by building bigger particle colliders—we have reaped new discoveries. But there are practical limits to the size of collider we can build, and some of our most promising theories may not be testable within those limits. For example, our equations predict that gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the weak and strong nuclear forces would all converge to the same strength at an energy level of approximately 10¹⁵ billion electron volts, revealing themselves as manifestations of a single force. Yet even the largest particle collider ever built, the Large Hadron Collider, can’t reach much higher than 10⁴ billion electron volts. That’s no guarantee that we won’t hit upon an alternate technological strategy someday, but neither can we assume that every technological challenge will be surmountable just because we want it to be. As Stannard rhetorically asks, “Why should all the indispensible experimental data for formulating a final complete theory happen to match what we humans are able to achieve in practical and economic terms?”

But our own brains may prove our biggest handicap in the quest for scientific understanding. As the biologist J.B.S. Haldane said, the universe might be “not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” If a monkey can’t be made to understand calculus, isn’t it plausible that there might be features of the universe, or mathematics necessary to understand those features, that are as far beyond our ken as calculus is beyond a monkey’s? We’re not at that point yet, but even today the math involved in string theory is a challenge for even the brightest scientists.

Technology could amend the situation to some degree, though Stannard doesn’t discuss that possibility in the book. Computers have already enabled us to perform calculations that are many orders of magnitude too complicated for us to do by hand. And artificial intelligence algorithms can pick up on patterns that are too subtle for a human brain to detect, involving interactions between hundreds or thousands of different variables. There’s even a recent example of a computer algorithm uncovering a law of motion.

However, while technology may be able to help us calculate answers, it’s unlikely to be able to help us understand them. Our brains didn’t evolve to help us understand quantum mechanics; they evolved to help our ancestors survive in the environment in which they happened to live. So, because it was useful to our ancestors, we developed an intuitive grasp of the physics of our day-to-day lives, such as the fact that a dropped object falls to the ground and that solid objects can’t pass through each other. But those generalities are true only for beings of roughly our size that inhabit worlds roughly like ours. If we had evolved in a much smaller world, perhaps we would be able to perceive that solid objects are mostly made up of empty space; if we had evolved to move much faster, perhaps we would have an intuitive grasp of the relativistic effects that warp time and space at high speeds. As it is, those scientific discoveries are hard to wrap our minds around.

And many of the scientific mysteries in The End of Discovery suffer from this problem. Even if we are able to figure out what is the case, we can’t understand how it can be the case. What does it mean for time to “begin” at the big bang? How is it possible for something to be both a wave and a particle simultaneously? Our concepts start to break down when we venture too far from the world we’re used to. One response to this conceptual impasse is to take an instrumentalist approach to science, focusing simply on finding theories that make accurate empirical predictions without trying to interpret them in a way that makes sense to us. This approach, which many physicists take with quantum mechanics, is summed up in the slogan “Shut up and calculate!” Unsatisfying, perhaps, but for some problems we may not have other options.

Stannard reassures us that he’s not anti-science and would be delighted if it turns out that all of these scientific mysteries are solvable after all. Nevertheless, there is something odd about his stated motivations for writing The End of Discovery: “[This book] is to be seen as a call to exercise a measure of humility,” he says in the introduction. “The claim is made that science is the only route to knowledge, and that ultimately it will bring us a complete understanding of everything.” Wait a minute—it’s one thing to say that science may not be able to give us all the knowledge we want about the universe, but it’s another thing altogether to suggest that there are other routes to that knowledge. Stannard doesn’t elaborate on what those other routes are, and it wouldn’t be fair to put words in his mouth. But it’s at the very least an unfortunate choice of phrasing, because it echoes a common but fallacious argument for theism: science doesn’t have answers for everything, therefore we need religion to give us answers.

Stannard also undercuts his pro-science protestations when he explains that in addition to promoting an appreciation for science’s achievements, his book is also intended to “engender an even greater sense of awe when faced with the mystery of existence.” Romanticizing the unknown has been a human tendency throughout our history, but it isn’t exactly a helpful one if we want to reduce the size of that unknown. Stannard may be right that there are mysteries about our universe that we’ll never solve. But whatever mysteries we do manage to solve, it won’t be thanks to us remaining in awe of them.

During a period of twenty-two months beginning in July 1979, thirty African American children and young men in Atlanta either disappeared or were found murdered. The string of senseless killings made national and international headlines. In time, in response to public pressure, a special Atlanta Homicide Task Force was created to solve the crimes. The case even attracted then–President Ronald Reagan, who was characterized by one source as “hardly the black community’s most sensitive friend”; in fact, he pledged $1.5 million in federal funds to assist the investigation (Fido 1993, 283).

The case proved complicated, in part because the murders did not always have the same modus operandi, especially regarding manner of death. Thus, early on, detectives believed they were looking for multiple suspects (Fisher 1995, 142).

The Fiber Evidence

As the task force’s work progressed, criminalist Larry Peterson of the Georgia State Crime Laboratory began to identify distinctive fibers found on the victims’ bodies. Among these were yellowish-green nylon fibers and violet acetate fibers—in all, twenty-eight different fibers plus dog hairs were recovered.

In the meantime, the police arrested a young black man named Wayne Williams as a suspect in the homicides. Officers who had a bridge under surveillance heard a splash at about 2:00 AM on May 22, 1981, and stopped the only car that had been on the bridge at that time, which was driven by Williams. A search of his home and car provided numerous fibers similar to those found on the victims’ bodies. In addition, witnesses testified that they had seen Williams with some of the victims, and of course there was the fact that after his arrest the murders ceased.

At trial, Williams’s defense attorneys sought to discredit the fiber evidence, arguing that a particular fiber might be discovered in the vehicle or home of any of numerous people. But the prosecution challenged the jury to consider the limited number of people who would have the particular carpet that was the source of one distinctive type of fiber; out of those, they asked, how many could also be expected to have a particular bedspread that was the source of light green cotton fibers blended with violet acetate fibers? And of the few who might have the same carpet and bedspread, how many would also drive a 1970 Chevrolet station wagon as well as own a German shepherd? And so on. During the time when Williams was known to have been using a rented car, fibers that could be matched to that car’s carpeting were discovered on victims’ bodies.

The jury understood the evidence, and on February 27, 1982, they convicted Wayne Williams of the two murders for which he was tried. He was sentenced to life in prison, whereupon Atlanta’s police commissioner closed twenty-one other murder cases (Nickell and Fischer 1999).

Later that same year, at an international microscopy conference at which I was a presenter along with Larry Peterson, I was able not only to see the criminalist’s impressive presentation of the fiber evidence but to discuss it with both Peterson himself and world-famous microanalyst Walter McCrone (best known for discovering paint pigments on the Shroud of Turin). McCrone had been called on to review Peterson’s work on the Williams case and had done so favorably.

In 1998, after Williams’s lawyers argued that prosecutors had withheld evidence in the case, Georgia circuit judge Hal Craig upheld the convictions. He termed the fiber evidence “the strongest scientific link in this case.” As a result of Soledad O’Brien’s new, in-depth look at the Atlanta child murders, Williams’s guilt not only seems well established, but there is even new evidence. The DNA from two human hairs found inside one victim’s shirt excludes some 98 percent of people in the world, yet it is consistent with the DNA of Wayne Williams who, according to experts, “cannot be excluded.”

Psychic Detectives?

During the Atlanta child murders case that ended with the arrest and conviction of Wayne Williams, something of a parallel “investigation” took place. As Soledad O’Brien reported, the Atlanta Homicide Task Force was inundated with sketches of the alleged serial killer—no two alike—many of them offered by psychics. For example, my friend and fellow skeptic, the late Henry Gordon, told of appearing on a television talk show in Montreal with self-styled Ottawa intuitive Earl Curley. Curley boasted he had been called in on the child murders case by the FBI for whom he provided a composite drawing and descriptive profile, implying that his input resulted in the apprehension of Wayne Williams shortly thereafter. In fact, Gordon (1994, 24) called the FBI’s Press Information Office and was told, “Mr. Earl Curley contacted our Atlanta office (voluntarily) in 1980 and 1981. He sent in some kind of writeup of what he thought the subject would look like, and he sent in some kind of drawing. However, there was no impact on the case as a result of what he sent in.”

The psychics were merely a sideshow to the circus atmosphere that prevailed in Atlanta at the time. Along with Williams’s bold, defiant antics, “psychics were swarming around, all giving their own ‘profiles,’ many dramatically contradicting each other,” stated pioneer criminal profiler John Douglas (Douglas and Olshaker 1995, 211).

Alleged clairvoyant Dorothy Allison, in her day the most famous “police psychic” in America, traveled to Atlanta in 1980. While riding around in a limousine, Allison made numerous pronouncements about the case. Nothing she said was of any help, however, and one mother complained that the clairvoyant failed to return her only photo of her missing son. Forensic professor Walter Rowe (1994, 238) charged that Allison “provided police with 42 different names, none of which was Wayne or Williams.” Although some sources claim she did include the name Williams, the chief of police denied it, and in any case there were 6,913 persons of that surname in the Atlanta phone book at the time (Dennett 1994, 51–52).

In cases in which psychics like Allison do appear successful—aside from making generalizations or actually having inside information (as from a tip)—they are usually relying on what is called “retrofitting” (or after-the-fact matching). For instance, as a New Jersey Police captain said of Allison, her predictions “were difficult to verify when initially given.” He added, “The accuracy usually could not be verified until the investigation had come to a conclusion” (qtd. in Dennett 1994, 46). To see how this works, suppose the psychic saw water and the number seven: after the facts are in, some stream or body of water can usually be associated with the case, and the number linked to a highway, distance, number of people in a search party, or some other possible interpretation. Then again, some psychics falsely claim successes, while others have engaged in attempted bribery or impersonation of police to seek information they could pass off as mystically acquired (Nickell 1994).

Conclusions

As demonstrated by the Atlanta Child Murders case, psychics are absolutely no help whatsoever in identifying serial killers or providing any breaks in these cases. Instead, Wayne Williams was stopped and brought to justice due to diligent police work—primarily the bridge-stakeout strategy and the use of forensic science (fiber comparison and, more recently, DNA analysis). There was one other factor: a jury was able to understand and assess the evidence using critical-thinking skills.

References

Dennett, M. 1994. America’s most famous psychic sleuth: Dorothy Allison. In Nickell 1994, 42–59.

Douglas, J., and M. Olshaker. 1995. Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crimes Unit. New York: Scribner.

Fido, M. 1993. The Chronicle of Crime. New York: Carroll and Graff.

Fisher, D. 1995. Hard Evidence. New York: Dell.

Gordon, H. 1994. The man with the radar brain: Peter Hurkos. In Nickell 1994, 21–29.

Nickell, J., ed. 1994. Psychic Sleuths: ESP and Sensational Cases. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

Nickell, J., and J.F. Fischer. 1999. Crime Science: Methods of Forensic Detection. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.

O’Brien, S. 2010. Atlanta Child Murders. CNN television special, first aired June 10.

Rowe, W.F. 1994. Psychic detectives: A critical examination. In Nickell 1994, 236–244.

Skeptical Briefs: So why Trebuchet? What attracted you to this particular siege weapon from the Middle Ages? 

George Hrab: I knew that this album was going to have songs that were about being thrown into situations (or throwing things into situations) or being flung (or being the flinger). Flight, air, movement, attack, a siege, and storming the battlements all played a metaphorical role in most of the songs, so I thought that a catapult would be a great symbol to connect them all. That being said, Catapult is a horrible title, [and] Trebuchet seemed way cooler. Plus, a trebuchet is something that is powered by principles as opposed to potential kinetic energy. I like that a “cocked and loaded” trebuchet is actually much safer but way more deadly and accurate than a “cocked and loaded” catapult. That’s a great concept that brings much nerd joy to my DNA.

SB: Let’s say you just bought a full-scale trebuchet from the Acme Corporation—maybe it was returned by Wile E. Coyote or something—and a really, really, big yard. You open it up and want to test it to make sure it works. What three test objects would you use, and how far would they fly? 

Hrab: 1. [Rush drummer] Neil Peart’s drum set.  [It wouldn’t be] a very far flyer but a wondrous clang would ensue.

2. Glenn Beck. [He wouldn’t be] a very far flyer but a wondrous clang would ensue.

3. I would love to launch a smaller trebuchet just for the pure Magrittian joy.

SB: You, like Phil [Plait] and Richard [Wiseman] and [Ben Radford], are a prominent, bald, bespectacled skeptic. To what do you attribute this curious phenomenon? 

Hrab: Isn’t it obvious? Brilliant thinking causes poor vision and hair loss. Duh.

SB: What did you think of Phil’s famous TAM “Don’t Be a Dick” speech? Some people thought it was brilliant (“Restore respect and courtesy to skepticism!”), while to others thought it seemed like a straw man argument (“Who is saying you should be a dick?”). What’s your take? 

Hrab: I thought that Phil’s talk was excellent. (His vision and hair were really affected that day.) His argument that being nasty will seldom convince anyone of a proposition, especially when it’s a hard sell like rationality, made complete sense to me. I don’t think that it was a straw man argument because there are times when you should be a dick. One’s “dickishness” should be reserved for appropriate occasions, much like thermonuclear weapons—or live renditions of “Freebird.” I think that being nasty in order to score self-satisfying points in an argument is an understandable urge, but we need to be bigger than that. It’s tough, but all things worthwhile are tough. Like knitting a macramé house.

SB: I attended your Geologic Show at Dragon*Con, and it was great. I do have to ask, however: Are there any puns or double entendres that you especially regret? Maybe they were just really awful when performed, or caused some disease? 

Hrab: I regret nothing. The pope’s wife is not “The Holy C,” and attractive nuns are still hard to come by.

SB: I see from your awesome new CD that at least two of the song titles are actually book titles. What was it about those books that inspired the songwriter in you? 

Hrab: Ideas are always the hardest thing for me to come up with. Once I have a concept, be it for a song, sketch, or interpretive dance involving feather boas, the rest is just details. I love working on the details, but hate coming up with the concept. So if some writer has taken the time to come up with a brilliant title and subject, I figure an “ode” to that book saves me the trouble of being creative on my own. Steal from the best, right? Plus Death from the Skies and God Is Not Great are just phenomenal books. I guess that plays into it too. 

SB: Why do you think it is that people get all weird when you suddenly bring up masturbation? 

Hrab: Not as weird as when you bring up male ass play. Right? Am I right? Hello?

SB: Two of my favorite songs are “Far” and “When I Was Your Age.” Any particular things inspire those songs? 

Hrab: Both of those songs were written in a very brief amount of time, and initially for other people. “Far” was commissioned by the fine folks over at the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast. They asked me to write a theme that “didn’t sound like Enya.” Luckily, I minored in Not Sounding Like Enya, so that worked out ok. “When I Was Your Age” was written for the incredible guys in Beatnik Turtle, who were writing and recording an entire album in twenty-eight days. They called and asked if I’d write something for them, so thirty hours later I sent them a demo of “When I was Your Age.” They recorded their version, and I subsequently recorded mine. There must be something to this working on a deadline thing. . . .  

SB: As you know, one of the things that skeptics and scientists often battle is misinformation. Yet you have repeatedly been seen in public associating with a certain Ms. Information. How do you explain this contradiction? 

Hrab: There is little to no misinformation in Ms. Information, just as every adult is not a dolt. 

SB: As you know, there are many famous musical rivalries—Neil Young and Lynryrd Skynyrd, Biggee and Tupac, Pavarotti and Lady Gaga. Many of your fans may not realize that you have also been engaged in a similar musical smackdown of your own. I am of course referring to George Harb, a musician who, according to his website, “can only be described as unique, talented, helpful, and caring.” Yet Harb was quoted as calling you “a punk” who is “pasty and hairless as a newborn camel’s testicles.” [Editor’s note: We were unable to verify the source or accuracy of this quote. It may have come from Harb himself, or been paraphrased by one of his fans, or we may have just made it up.] George, I don’t want to fuel any trash-talking, but do you have an answer for your fans? And can you address the rumors of reconciliation and an upcoming Hrab/Harb “Find the Typo” national tour?

Hrab: Mr. Harb has not responded to numerous attempts at contact and is apparently going on tour with both Lady Goo Goo and Stang. All three artists are touring under the moniker “Vowel Movement” and I am deeply disappointed that I was not asked to open. Or at least help move gear.

SB: You mentioned that songs like “Far” and “When I Was Your Age” [WIWYA] were written for other people. Do you often write songs for others, and is the writing process any different than when you’re writing for yourself?

Hrab: “Far” and WIWYA were unique in that they were commissioned, but the writing process is pretty much the same as when I’m writing for myself. If anything, it tends to be more efficient because there’s usually a deadline involved, and I absolutely stink at motivating myself. Ultimately though, since I figure that someone is hiring me to write the thing, I would guess they want the piece to be “somewhat Geoish”—which might be the title of my next album by the way.

SB: Who do you consider to be the top five living songwriters today and why?

Hrab: Lists are tough, and there are always weird caveats. For example, I think Stevie Wonder is an absolute genius and he’s written enough incredible material to last ten lifetimes but really hasn’t done anything to ring my bell in two decades. But he’s still alive—so do we count him? Same with Sting. Someone like Elvis Costello has pounded out amazing songs, and continues to do so, and is always trying out different styles and sounds and textures, so he’s absolutely on the list. Alf Clausen, who writes music for The Simpsons, is an absolutely brilliant writer/parody/homage/soundtrack composer, but [he] isn’t necessarily seen as a “songwriter” [even though he] has more skill than most of the artists on billboard. Eminem has such a distinct style and approach and is instantly recognizable, but traditional folks would be cautious in calling him a “songwriter.” I love most everything that Sheryl Crow has done—and Peter Gabriel, the Beastie Boys, Paul McCartney, and the boys in Rush are all still technically “alive” so. . .

SB: I’ve had a longstanding debate about meaning in song lyrics. When I was a teenager and in my twenties I hated songs that were catchy but had no discernable meaning. I dismissed songs that were merely catchy riffs, and appreciated narrative songs that spoke to coherent and profound themes. Yet as I have matured as a music listener (if in no other way), I have found myself really enjoying songs whose meanings I can’t decipher—a lot of classic Bob Dylan and the Beatles come to mind. Your music tends to have meaning and message, but where do you stand on this as a songwriter? Do inscrutable lyrics belong in music?

Hrab: There are entire genres and complete catalogs of certain artists where the “words” are essentially nice sounding pitched mouth noises. I love that. There are entire swaths of Yes and Duran Duran that are really cool sounding words put together. I mean, what the hell is a Siberian Khatru? Is The Reflex a lonely child? Really? OK, whatever. . . . Often the guys in the band don’t even know what the songs are about. There are punk and metal acts that pride themselves on the lyrics not only being indecipherable, but unintelligible.

It comes down to using the human voice as a timbral instrument and not necessarily a delivery of “meaning.” That being said, I tend to favor writing songs that have a meaning, and [I] have tried to write nice sounding indecipherable words but somehow my analytic brain won’t let me do that. There is absolutely a point to writing music without words, so conversely there is a point to writing songs with words that are un-understandable. If that’s even a word. . . .

SB: Some musicians, such as Tom Waits, have experimented with non-traditional instruments such as the theremin, pot-and-pan percussion, and so on. How far have you gone in that direction?

Hrab: While recording with the incredible Slau of BeSharp studios, we have experimented a bit with creating interesting sounds through non-traditional ways. We like to manipulate the human voice a lot, and that tends to create some neat otherworldly sounds. The background ghost hum in “Stigmata” from the album Minutiae, and the “Jerrymin” solo on “Hai Yookito ’Ya” from Trebuchet are prime examples of that.

SB: Though you are best known for your musical oeuvre, you have expanded to other areas, including publishing the now-infamous Non-Coloring Book in 2007—which featured drawings of Elvis, the Pope, and Batman in identical poses on the cover. Have you considered expanding into visual media, such as oil painting or performance art?

Hrab: I’ve always dug working in multiple media, and I think I might try to get more into doing some video production. I have a backlog of songs and ideas that just need a commitment of time. In a weird way (that totally sounds pretentious I realize—sorry) I consider most of my performances a weird kind of performance art to begin with. Especially the solo shows. There is a bit of a persona that I adopt to answer audience questions, and I do like the semi-Dada nature of many of my gigs. I hope to work on another book too. It all comes down to time management.

SB: In Terry Zwigoff’s fascinating 1994 documentary film Crumb about legendary underground comix artist Robert Crumb, we learn among other things that Robert is a compulsive masturbator. Are you a fan of documentaries, and if someone were to make a documentary about your life, what are two or three interesting, private facts that the public would learn about you?

Hrab: That’s interesting. I enjoyed masturbating while watching Crumb. Go figure. Anyway. . . I think if someone were to make a documentary of me, folks would be most surprised to learn how lazy and short I am. I think they would also be surprised to see how much of my time is spent alone. That and of course the Crumb masturbation thing. . .

SB: What’s a curious question you have asked a celebrity?

Hrab: I asked Levar Burton what it was like to work with Tim and Eric [of Cartoon Network’s Awesome Show, Great Job!]. This was a question I was very proud of. It took unimaginable amounts of self control to not ask why power from the front array isn’t automatically diverted to the shields in a Red Alert combat situation seeing as that is almost always the primary command directed by the First Officer.

Victor J. Stenger

Einstein had inserted into his gravitational equation a factor called the cosmological constant that provided a repulsive force to counteract the gravitational attraction that otherwise would make the universe collapse. Although the cosmological constant is often referred to as a “fudge factor,” that is a misnomer. Such a constant is required in Einstein’s equation, although no value is given for it. If positive, it produces a gravitational repulsion. If negative, we have an attraction added to that of normal gravity.

In the early 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble, working at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California, discovered that many of the diffuse objects in the sky called nebulae were in fact distant galaxies. The universe extended well beyond our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Later in the decade, Hubble and his assistant Milton L. Humason estimated the distances to galaxies using a technique invented by Henrietta Swan. This they combined with measurements of the redshifts of the spectral lines from stars in the galaxies that had been measured by Vesto Sipher.

The light emitted from a high-temperature gas is characterized by “spectral lines” of well-defined frequencies. Different gases have different spectra. By observing the spectra of light from stars, astronomers are able to decipher the composition of the surface of the star. The element helium was observed this way in the sun before it was discovered on Earth. When a spectral line is shifted to lower frequency it is called a redshift. When it is shifted to a higher frequency, we have a blueshift.

Hubble and Humason showed that the galaxies were generally redshifted and so were, on average, receding from us. They found that the amount of redshift from a galaxy was roughly proportional to its distance from us, although there was a lot of scatter in the data points.

Lemaître provided an explanation consistent with Einstein’s equation: the universe is expanding, so as time goes by the galaxies are moving, again on average, away from us. The observed redshift is the Doppler effect that results from their recessional speeds. Hubble’s result showed that the galaxies were moving away from one another as if from a giant explosion, where those galaxies with higher speeds have moved the farthest apart. This became know as the big bang.

When Einstein realized that the cosmological constant was not needed to agree with observations, he called it his “biggest blunder.” For many years the cosmological constant was assumed to be zero, however, no theoretical reason has yet been found for this assumption.

In the meantime, the cosmological constant has resurfaced. In 1980 it was put forward as a candidate for the repulsive force that produced the enormous exponential expansion, called inflation, that the universe apparently underwent during its earliest moments. More recently, the cosmological constant has been proposed for the repulsive dark energy that is responsible for the acceleration of the universe’s expansion discovered in 1998.

In Einstein’s gravitational equation, the cosmological constant is equivalent to an energy density in a vacuum, that is, a space devoid of matter. By equating this density to the density of the zero point energy that is left in a volume after you remove all its particles, you obtain a number that is 120 orders of magnitude higher than what is observed. Such a high value would result in a universe that would so rapidly inflate that galaxies would have no time to form. This is the problem with the cosmological constant.

The cosmological constant problem is used by theists as the prime example of the fine-tuning of the universe that they claim as evidence for God. However, cosmologist Don Page, an evangelical Christian, has pointed out that the apparent positive value of the cosmological constant is somewhat inimical to life because its repulsion acts against the gravitational attraction needed to form galaxies. If God fine-tuned the universe for life he would have made the cosmological constant slightly negative.

Physicist Leonard Susskind calls the problem with the cosmological constant “the mother of all physics problems” and “the worst prediction ever.” The currently favored solution to the problem among physicists is called the “multiverse” in which our universe is just one of a great many others having a wide variation of values for the cosmological constant as well as other physics parameters. We happen to live in the universe suitable for us. Susskind notes that string theory has some 10500 possible solutions, each of which could correspond to a separate universe within the multiverse.

While I have nothing against the multiverse theory, my view is that the cosmological constant calculation is so obviously wrong that it can be ignored. While physicists have not yet reached a consensus on the correct calculation, one possibility that agrees with observations is called the holographic principle.

The calculation of the vacuum energy density of the universe involves a sum over all the zero-point energy states in the universe. The “worst prediction ever” assumed that the number of states is proportional to the volume, but now there is reason to believe that this is wrong. The holographic principle asserts that the number of states in a volume is proportional to the surface area of that volume, as in the case of a black hole. The universe can have no more states than that of a black hole of the same size. The energy density calculated from this assumption is of the same order of magnitude as the vacuum energy density that is determined from observations. Even if this is not the actual source of the dark energy, we can say that the calculation giving a 120-orders-of-magnitude discrepancy is almost certainly wrong.

So, the fine-tuning of the cosmological constant is another God-of-the-gaps argument in which the gap is being filled in by some purely natural mortar.

Art of the Hoax

Artist Sam Van Aken told me he was surprised to learn that there really is a Grovers Mill, New Jersey, where—according to Welles’s broadcast—extraterrestrial invaders supposedly first landed. There, behind the Wilson farmhouse, was a water tower with thin iron legs. Panicked by the broadcast (and failing to hear the disclaimers that it was a dramatization of the H.G. Wells novel), a group of armed townsfolk reportedly went hunting for the aliens, mistook the tower for one of the metal-legged “tripod machines” of the Martian invaders, and consequently riddled it with bullets.

Influenced by trompe l’oeil (“deceives the eye”) paintings, Van Aken explores the interface between the real and the seemingly real, understanding that it can be difficult at times to distinguish one from the other. His exhibit—featuring drawings, a replica of the old water tower, and a radio-studio exhibit (broadcasting his own dramatized hoax)—is an homage to the power of illusion to motivate people.

If the legendary incident at Grovers Mill really occurred, how could a water tower be mistaken for an alien “tripod machine”? First, there was the broadcast’s semblance of reality: in 1938, news-bulletin radio enjoyed a position of trust, and the dramatization of Welles’s story by the Mercury Theater players made the event seem terrifyingly real, all the more so because there were no commercial interruptions (see Stein 1993, 100–101). Then there was the expectation of seeing a certain thing: Just as someone primed to see a giant lake serpent can mistake a few otters swimming in a line for a monster, so an excited mob, anticipating an alien “tripod machine” and encountering in the darkness something approximating that description, can be deceived. The supposed paranormal is rife with such illusions of expectancy—something magicians well understand. But did the water-tower shooting incident really occur?

Invasion Panic

According to Welles’s realistic dramatization (broadcast on October 30, 1938), the Martian invaders spewed forth destruction from their heat rays. As a consequence, according to Martin Gardner (1957, 67):

Thousands wept, prayed, closed their windows to shut out poison gas, or fled from their homes expecting the world to end. Phone lines were tied up for hours. The panic was from coast to coast, but the greatest hysteria was in the southern states among the poorly educated.

Hadley Cantril (1940) conducted a study that indicated that of about six million people who listened to the broadcast, well over one million took it literally and responded in a variety of ways, some with panic. Additionally, an unknown number who were not tuned in to the show were nonetheless caught up in the excitement. More recent writers have suggested that the idea of such an intense national panic is an exaggeration (Bartholomew 2001; Boese 2002, 128). Certainly, reports that the panic resulted in death were untrue (Nilsson 2009).

I had a delightful conversation with CSI Founder Paul Kurtz (2010) about the “very scary” night of the broadcast. That night he and his sister, aged about thirteen and eleven respectively, were alone in their home in Irvington, a suburb of Newark, while their parents were out visiting friends. The youngsters were listening to the radio and became caught up in the fantastic “reporting.” Paul phoned a neighbor boy named Freddie, who was also frightened and came running over to the Kurtzes’. Paul then decided to call his father, who asked him to hold the phone while he listened to the radio himself. When Paul’s father came back on the line, he told Paul that he had determined the broadcast was a spoof because the other stations he had checked were not reporting the sensational attack. It was a lesson in critical thinking.

According to the New York Times the day after the sensational events (“Radio” 1938):

The broadcast . . . disrupted households, interrupted religious services, created traffic jams and clogged communications systems. . . . In Newark, in a single block at Heddon Terrace and Hawthorne Avenue, more than twenty families rushed out of their houses with wet handkerchiefs and towels over their faces to flee from what they believed was to be a gas raid. Some began moving household furniture. Throughout New York families left their homes, some to flee to near-by parks. Thousands of persons called the police, newspapers and radio stations here and in other cities of the United States and Canada seeking advice on protective measures against the raids.

The New Jersey State Police found it necessary to send this teletype: “Note to all receivers—WABC broadcast as drama re this section being attacked by residents of Mars. Imaginary affair” (“Radio” 1938).

At Grovers Mill

A subsequent CBS nationwide survey found, not surprisingly, that the percentage of people who were frightened by the radio play was higher in the general vicinity of the “invasion” (Cantril 1940, 147). But even so, accounts of shotgun-armed locals at or near Grovers Mill, roaming about in search of either the Martians or the militia that had supposedly been deployed (Koch 1970, 120), might be exaggerated.

Nevertheless, one resident, a seventy-six-year-old man named William Dock, posed the very next day for a New York Daily News photo. In the photo Dock is shown in a staged pose—with pipe in mouth and double-barreled shotgun ready at his shoulder—recreating his resistance to the invading Martians (Holmsten and Lubertozzi 2001, 7).

As for the shooting of the water tower, writer Howard Koch was told the story when he and his wife visited Grovers Mill while doing research for his 1970 book. Koch—who had actually written the radio play for Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre—visited the Wilson farm. Behind its “prosperous-looking farmhouse adjacent to the mill” was the windmill-cum-water-tower with “spidery” iron legs. As we shall see, Koch was dubious about the shooting story.

The Tower Shooting

According to an interview published in 2001, the owner of the tower in recent years, Catherine Shrope-Mok, said she understood that shots had been fired at the structure. However, she noted that the shooters were actually the persons (plural) who lived just across the road, “who you’d think would know better,” she remarked, “since they saw it every day.” Now across the road was the mill, and—because the elderly Mr. Dock had posed with his shotgun beside stacked feed sacks—I thought he might just have been the alleged shooter (Holmsten and Lubertozzi 2001, 7), which indeed proved to be the case (Capuzzo 2005a).

Figures 1–2. Although obscured by foliage, today the water tower at Grovers Mill, New Jersey, appears relatively intact. (Photos by Joe Nickell)

In my research (aided by CFI Libraries Director Tim Binga) I found no fewer than nine versions (or as folklorists say, variants) of the tale. Here they are, arranged from the least to the most sensational:

1. William Dock, age seventy-six, posed with his double-barreled shotgun to show a photographer for the New York Daily News (November 1, 1938) how he had stood “ready for the Martian invaders” (Nilsson 2009).

2. “. . . William Dock, a 73 [sic]-year-old farmer . . . grabbed his shotgun and went looking for the invaders. Later, Dock gladly posed for the hordes of photographers who invaded the town” (“Martian” 1978).

3. “On the night of the broadcast, a local resident, William Dock, grabbed his rabbit gun and shot at the water tank, thinking it was the aliens’ spacecraft” (Capuzzo 2005a).

4. “In Grovers Mill that night, some people mistook this water tower for a Martian ship. One resident shot at it” (Capuzzo 2005b).

5. “Some people, who had brought firearms, reportedly mistook a farmer’s water tower for a Martian Tripod and shot at it” (“The War” 2010).

6. “Some of the Grovers Mill locals actually fired shots at what they believed to be one of the Martians rising up on its giant metal legs. . . . The ones who were primarily shooting at the water tower in 1938 were in fact the neighbors from across the road” (Holmsten and Lubertozzi 2001, 7).

7. “Standing in the yard of the Grover [sic] family property, some of the residents bearing firearms mistook this tower . . . for the alien ships as they were described in the broadcast. Accordingly, they opened fire on the water tower” (Van Aken 2010).

8. “A bunch of people in the town went out looking for the aliens, and they had shotguns, rifles, and stuff. And they mistook the water tower for an alien ship and shot holes all through it” (Van Aken in Dakbowski 2010).

9. In Grovers Mill, “you can peek at what remains of the water tower that was shot to pieces by nervous residents in 1938” (“1938 Martian” 2010).

Now, the version reported by Koch in his The Panic Broadcast was told to him by the former fire chief of nearby Cranbury, whom Koch seemed to regard as something of a raconteur. The chief told one tale about a local man who was in such a hurry to flee the Martian invaders that he drove his car out of the garage without opening the garage door, shouting at his protesting wife, “We won’t be needing it anymore!” Koch interjected that “The rest of the story may be true or it may be the work,” he hinted, of the chief’s “imagination stimulated by our interest.” This bit of jokelore had the man returning home after learning he had been deceived about the invasion, whereupon his foot slipped off the brake and the car plunged through the garage’s rear wall. The punch line: “With the help of the Martians he had converted his garage into an instant carport” (Koch 1970, 121–22).

It was perhaps in this spirit that the chief had also remarked, says Koch (1970, 126), “that some shots had actually been fired at a supposed Martian”—i.e., at the water tower. It is worth noting that the previously mentioned report of men roaming about with guns also came from this years-later interview with the retired fire chief (Koch 1970, 120), who may have been elaborating on his memory of the photo of an armed William Dock.

Further Investigation

Figure 3. Philadelphia skeptic Eric Kreig poses with a historical marker about the so-called Martian invasion at Grovers Mill.

Of course neither William Dock nor anyone else at Grovers Mill would have been influenced by illustrations they had not seen. They had only the word-pictures of the broadcast, which described “a shield like affair . . . standing on legs . . . actually rearing up on a sort of metal framework . . . reaching about the trees” and “Enemy tripod machines” with “huge metal legs” (quoted in Cantril 1940, 22, 28, 33). The water tower might have looked like that to an excited person.

Today, the tower is largely hidden among trees (see figures 1 and 2), but as best as I could see on a visit to Grovers Mill (with Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking President Eric Krieg), the tower was definitely not shot to pieces.¹

But was there a shooting incident at all? To attempt to settle that matter, I sought to obtain a copy of the New York Daily News article of November 1, 1938, which accompanied the photo of shotgun-wielding William Dock. Back issues of the News were not readily available to me (either online or on microfilm at nearby libraries), but Tim Binga put me in touch with NYPL Express (a service of the New York Public Library), and they were able to find and copy the article for me. It was revealing.

Located among a spate of related articles—such as “Nazi Press Gloats over U.S. ‘Wars’ on Air”—the news story by George Dixon was headlined, “A Martian Raid Can’t Wake Up Grover’s [sic] Mill.” If that was not suggestive enough, Dixon reported that while there was panic elsewhere in the country, at the Wilson farm, the supposed site of the invasion, things were pretty quiet:

James Anderson, a tenant on the farm, said he was taking a nap when his wife shook him awake to tell him that [the] radio had just announced a “bomb or a meteor or something” had fallen on the place.

“What did you do?” a reporter asked.

“Oh,” yawned Anderson, “I just looked out the window and saw everything was about the same and went back to sleep.” (Dixon 1938)

Dixon quoted another tenant on the farm, Wyatt Fenity, who said he was not listening to the broadcast, “But you can see no Martians landed here. That old mill was built in 1776 and it’s still standing.”

The reporter’s next comments seemed to settle the matter of the alleged shooting of the tower:

William Dock, 76-year-old neighboring farmer, said he grabbed his shotgun when he heard the first “news” flash and went out looking for invaders. But he didn’t see anybody he thought needed shooting. (Dixon 1938)

Conclusions

Would someone really have mistaken a water tower that he saw just across the road every day for a Martian tripod machine? The possibility is good enough for jokelore, but I do not think it is very credible otherwise. The tale appears to have originated with a comically posed picture of an elderly, shotgun-armed William Dock as an unlikely defender of Grovers Mill, together with someone’s notion that the water tower resembled a Martian machine. Possibly, Dock became the butt of jokes, one of which may have had him shooting at the tower.

The alleged episode is now part of the folklore of the famous Martian invasion panic—what is sometimes called a hoax, although it was stated at the beginning and at three other points in the broadcast that it was a radio play (Stein 1993, 100; Boese 2002, 128). Still, Orson Welles admitted in 1955:

We weren’t as innocent as we meant to be when we did the Martian broadcast. We were fed up with the way in which everything that came over this new magic box, the radio, was being swallowed. . . . So, in a way, our broadcast was an assault on the credibility of that machine. We wanted people to understand that they shouldn’t take any opinion predigested and they shouldn’t swallow everything that came through the tap, whether it was radio or not. (Quoted in Holmsten and Lubertozzi 2001, 17–18)

The broadcast, then, was not a hoax but a satire (that is, a literary work that exposes human follies, abuses, etc., to ridicule). As is sometimes the case with satires, the pretense to truth may deceive some people, which in fact is what happened with the War of the Worlds broadcast. However, the alleged incident of locals shooting a water tower they mistook for a Martian machine apparently never happened. It may itself have originated as a bit of satire and so—mistakenly—was believed.

Acknowledgments

In addition to those mentioned in the text, I am grateful to John Massier, visual arts curator, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, for his generous assistance.

Note

1. After Eric Kreig accompanied me to Grovers Mill, another skeptic—prompted by my investigation—researched and published two articles (I am chagrined to say) in advance of mine.

References

Bartholomew, Robert E. 2001. Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland.

Boese, Alex. 2002. The Museum of Hoaxes. New York: Dutton.

Cantril, Hadley. 1940. The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. New York: Harper, 1966.

Capuzzo, Jill P. 2005a. Steven Spielberg aside, Mars has attacked before. The New York Times, June 19.

———. 2005b. “Correction appended” to 2005a.

Dakbowski, Colin. 2010. Artful hoax. Gusto magazine, Buffalo News, April 23.

Dixon, George. 1938. A Martian raid can’t wake up Grover’s [sic] Mill. New York Daily News, November 1.

Gardner, Martin. 1957. Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science. New York: Dover.

Holmsten, Brian, and Alex Lubertozzi. 2001. The Complete War of the Worlds: Mars’ Invasion of Earth from H.G. Wells to Orson Welles. Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks.

Koch, Howard. 1970. The Panic Broadcast: The Whole Story of Orson Welles’ Legendary Radio Show Invasion From Mars. New York: Avon.

Kurtz, Paul. 2010. Interview by Joe Nickell, April 27.

Martian invasion recounted. 1978. Lodi News-Sentinel, October 30.

Nilsson, Jeff. 2009. Are we ready for another Martian invasion? The Saturday Evening Post. Available online at http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2009/10/24/archives/retrospect/ready-martian-invasion.html. Accessed April 28, 2010.

1938 Martian landing site monument. 2010. Available online at http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2749. Accessed April 28, 2010.

Radio listeners in panic. 1938. The New York Times, October 31.

Stein, Gordon. 1993. Encyclopedia of Hoaxes. Detroit: Gale Research.

Van Aken, Sam. 2010. Quote from the didactic panel of his exhibition, “i am here today,” at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, April 23–May 28.

The War of the Worlds (radio). 2010. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio). Accessed April 26, 2010.

One such religious notion is the story of creation: once upon a time there was nothing, and then, miraculously, there was something. But is that the only possibility? Why couldn’t there always have been something? If there never was a transition from nothing to something, it follows that there was no creation and, therefore, no creator—personal or otherwise.

Of course, creation ex nihilo (the creation of the universe out of nothing) is a major component of virtually all religions. On the other hand, modern cosmology suggests that the universe was not created but rather is eternal in time.

Theologians, theist authors, and theist debaters have developed several arguments that they maintain prove that the universe can’t be eternal, that it had to have a beginning. I will start with the frequently heard claim that an eternal universe can’t exist for mathematical reasons. The argument made is that in an infinite universe it would take an infinite amount of time to reach the present from the beginning.

However, this is a straw man argument that exploits the fact that most scientists as well as laypeople improperly use the word infinite when they really mean endless or unlimited. An eternal universe is not the same as an infinite universe. Time is the number of ticks on a clock. In the eternal universe, that number is endless, not infinite. Counting backward in time, the eternal universe has no beginning—not a beginning that was an infinite time ago. The time interval from any moment in the past to the present is finite. So an eternal universe is mathematically possible.

The second argument for a cosmic creation that theologians and Christian apologists have been using for decades now is that the universe, and time itself, began with a singularity identified with the big bang. This singularity is a point in space-time of unlimited density. This claim is based on a theorem derived from Einstein’s general relativity that was published by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose in 1970.

It has now been over twenty years since Hawking and Penrose admitted that there was no singularity. Their calculation, while not wrong as far as it went, had not taken into account quantum mechanics (see page 50 of Hawking’s 1988 bestseller A Brief History of Time). I do not know of a single working cosmologist today who says that the universe began with a singularity.

Some Christian authors and debaters also refer to other more recent calculations they claim require the universe to have a beginning. To give the shortest possible rebuttal, I will just quote the Caltech cosmologist Sean Carroll, who wrote to me in an e-mail: “No result derived on the basis of classical general relativity can be used to derive anything truly fundamental, since classical general relativity isn’t right. You need to quantize gravity.”

So the universe need not have had a beginning. But let’s suppose for a moment that it did. That fact alone would not prove it was purposefully created. Another premise must be made to show that. The assumption must be added that everything that begins has a cause. Once again, this ignores quantum mechanics, in which events commonly occur without cause. This is the case for the atomic transitions that give us light and the nuclear decays that give us nuclear radiation. They all happen spontaneously, without cause. In short, all attempts to prove that the universe had to have a beginning caused by God fail on several fronts.

The third creationist argument, called the anthropic cosmological principle, is made by a whole army of Christian theologians and authors. It is the claim that the universe is fine-tuned for life—in particular, human life. Here the story is even more complicated because several notable physicists think such fine-tuning does exist, although they attribute it to natural causes rather than a creator god. I identify with an opposition group of physicists who see no need to invoke the anthropic principle at all. We can offer natural explanations for all the values of all parameters claimed to be fine-tuned (see my book The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning, in press).

The claims that evidence for a cosmic creation can be found in physical observations are based on a gross misunderstanding of basic physics. Several theist authors have carelessly lifted out of context the following quotation from Hawking’s A Brief History of Time:

If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have collapsed before it ever reached its present size. (pp. 121–22)

This is presented as an example of the incredible fine-tuning of the universe. However, those making this claim ignore Hawking’s explanation (seven pages later) for why no fine-tuning was needed. There he describes the inflationary cosmological model, in which the universe began with a tiny period of very rapid, exponential expansion. While still new in 1988, inflationary cosmology is now well established. Hawking writes,

[In the inflationary model] the rate of expansion of the universe would automatically become very close to the critical rate determined by the energy density of the universe. This could then explain why the rate of expansion is still so close to the critical rate, without having to assume that the initial rate of expansion of the universe was very carefully chosen. (p. 128)

So the rate of expansion of the universe is not fine-tuned at all. Its value is exactly what it should be.

This is only one of the thirty or so parameters that theists claim were fine-tuned by God. Reasonable explanations based on known physics and cosmology can be given for them all. Computer simulations show that some kind of life is possible in universes over a wide range of parameters.

The erroneous claims I have discussed here are widely disseminated in Christian literature and appear frequently in debates and discussions on religion and science. They are rarely challenged by scientists who have the necessary technical knowledge required to discern the validity of arguments based on mathematics, physics, or cosmology. Instead these scientists choose to remain outside the fray. The unwillingness of most scientists to engage in the very real war between science and religion is handing victory to religion by default.

This column is adapted from an article that appeared in the Huffington Post, where Victor Stenger is now a regular blogger. His tenth book, now in press and scheduled to be available in April 2011, is The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: How the Universe Is Not Designed for Us (Prometheus Books).