Real-Life X-Files (26 page)

By such rationalizations and questionable evidence sindonologists promote their agenda. They offer one explanation for the contrary gospel evidence (
maybe
certain passages require clarification), another for the lack of historical record (
maybe
the cloth was hidden away), still another for the artist’s admission (
maybe
the reporting bishop misstated the case), yet another for the paint pigments (
maybe
an artist who copied the shroud ritualistically pressed it to the image), and so on. This should be called the “maybe” defense. It is all too characteristic of sindonology, which has failed to produce any scientifically viable hypothesis for the image formation.

Corroborative Evidence

The scientific approach, in contrast, is to allow the preponderance of
prima facie
evidence to lead to a conclusion: the shroud is the handiwork of a medieval artisan. The various pieces of the puzzle effectively interlock and corroborate each other. For example, the artist’s admission is supported by the lack of prior record, as well as by the revealingly red and picturelike “blood” that in turn has been identified as tempera paint. And the radio- carbon date is consistent with the time the artist was discovered.

Given this powerful, convincing evidence, it is unfortunate that we must now once again recall the words of Canon Ulysse Chevalier, the Catholic historian who brought to light the documentary evidence of the shroud’s medieval origin. As he lamented, “The history of the shroud constitutes a protracted violation of the two virtues so often commended by our holy books: justice and truth.”

References

Baden, Michael. 1980. Quoted in Reginald W. Rhein Jr., The shroud of Turin:

Medical examiners disagree,
Medical World News
, Dec. 22, 50.

McCrone, Walter. 1996.
Judgement Day for the Turin “Shroud
.” Chicago: Micro- scope.

Nickell, Joe. 1988.
Inquest on the Shroud of Turin
, 2nd updated ed. Buffalo:Prometheus. Except as otherwise noted, information for this article is taken from this text.

Pickett, Thomas J. 1996. Can contamination save the shroud of Turin?
Skeptical Briefs
, June, 3.

Van Biema, David. 1998. Science and the shroud.
Time
, April 20, 53-61.

Chapter 23

Like the Lake Utopia Monster (see chapter 19), another reputed New Brunswick lake leviathan is the giant amphibian now displayed at the York Sunbury Historical Society Museum in Fredericton (
figure 23.1
). Dating to the 1880s, the huge bullfrog reportedly lived in Killarney Lake, some eight miles from Fredericton, where Fred B. Coleman operated a lodge. Coleman claimed he had made a pet of the great croaker and that his guests fed it June bugs, whiskey, and buttermilk. It thus grew to a whopping forty-two pounds, Coleman recalled, and was used to tow canoes and race against tomcats. It was killed, he said, when poachers dynamited the lake to harvest fish, whereupon the distraught raconteur had it stuffed and placed on display in the lobby of his Fredericton hotel. His son s widow donated it to the museum in 1959 (“Coleman” n.d.).

Some local doubters insist Coleman had simply bought a display item that had been used to advertise a cough medicine guaranteed to relieve “the frog in your throat” (Phillips 1982). A former historical society president called it a “patent fake” and said it should have been thrown out years ago, while other officials coyly declined suggestions that it be examined scientifically (Colombo 1988, 50-51; “Coleman” n.d.).
Maclean’s
magazine concluded, “The argument about whether it is a stuffed frog or an imitation may never be settled, but as a topic of conversation and a tourist curiosity it has had as long a career as any frog, dead or alive” (McKinney n.d.).

. Following my expedition to the museum’s third floor, however, I determined that the exhibit was probably not a
Rana catesbeiana
. Did I penetrate the sealed display case to obtain a DNA sample? No, I simply sweet-talked my way into the museum’s files, which were revealing. A 1988 condition report by the Canadian Conservation Institute referred to the sixty-eight-centimeter (almost twenty-seven-inch) artifact as a “Large, possibly stuffed frog,” but went on to observe that—in addition to many wrinkles having formed in the “skin”—there was actually a “fabric impression underneath,” and indeed “a yellowed canvas” visible through some cracks. There was an overall layer of dark green paint, to which had been added other colors, the report noted. Wax appeared to be “present below the paint layer” and the feet were described as being “a translucent colour, possibly consisting in part of wax.” While a taxidermist of the 1880s might possibly have used some of these materials (“Taxidermy” 1910; 1960), the overall effect is of a fabricated item, especially considering the canvas. Its impression showing through the paint suggests the lack of an intervening layer of true skin, for which the fabric was probably used as a substitute.

Figure 23.1.Coleman Frog. Since the 1880s, folk have debated which is the greatest whopper: this giant amphibian or the claim that it is authentic.

It should be noted that the largest frog actually known, according to
The Guinness Book of Records
(1999), is the African goliath frog (
Conraua goliath
), a record specimen of which measured a comparatively small 14 1/2 inches (sitting) and weighed just eight pounds, one ounce. At almost twice the length and five times the weight, Coleman’s pet froggie is no more credible than his other whoppers (his outrageous yarns about the imagined creature).

In the museum file, I also came across a letter stating the policy of the historical society regarding the Coleman Frog. To a man who had objected to exhibition of the artifact, President E.W. Sansom (1961) wrote: “It was agreed… that the stuffed frog was of historical interest only as an artificial duplication used for publicity purposes by F.B. Coleman years ago in Fredericton. As such, the majority of those present felt the frog should be retained but only as an amusing example of a colossal fake and deception.” And so it remains on display, according to one journalist (Brewer 1973), “as big as life—yea, bigger.”

References

Brewer, Jacqueline. 1973. Famous Fredericton frog dates back to city’s founding.
Daily Gleaner
(Fredericton, N.B.), March 30.

Coleman frog. n.d. Vertical files, York Sunbury Historical Society Museum and Fredericton Public Library (undated clippings, correspondence, etc.)

Colombo, John Robert. 1988.
Mysterious Canada: Strange Sights, Extraordinary Events, and Peculiar Places
. Toronto: Doubleday Canada.

The Guinness Book of Records
. 1999, n.p.: Guinness Publishing, 122.

McKinney, Mary. n.d. Canadianecdote, undated clipping from
Macleans
in Coleman n.d.

Phillips, Fred H. 1982. Coleman frog a fake?
Daily Gleaner
(Fredericton, N.B.), April 22.

Sansom, E.W. 1961. Letter to J. Winslow, Nov. 20 (in Coleman n.d.).

“Taxidermy.” 1910; I960.
Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Chapter 24

In a manner similar to the evolution of Jesus’ features in art (Nickell 1988,41-48), or of the popular likeness of Santa Claus (Flynn 1993) the concept of what alien creatures look like has undergone change over time. In the course of graduate work I did in folklore in 1982 and subsequently published (Nickell 1984), I noted (citing Stringfield 1980) that the descriptions of UFO occupants were tending to become standardized, a process that continues at present.

Consider, for example, the development beginning with the origin of the modern UFO era in 1947. (Although many alien encounters were also reported for the pre-1947 period, most of the reports were actually made public after that year, typically with great lapses in time between the alleged date of the encounter and the date of reporting. [Vallee 1969, 179-90] Therefore, there is reason to distrust the accuracy of such reports.) Several sources show the great variety of aliens described in the post-1947 era. (Clark 1993; Cohen 1982; Hendry 1979; Huyghe 1996; Lorenzen and Lorenzen 1977; McCampbell 1976; Sachs 1980; Stringfield 1977, 1980; Story 1980; Vallee 1969) One notes the “little green men” reported in Italy in 1947 (Cohen 1982, 203-05); the beautiful, humanlike beings who appeared to the “contactees” of the 1950s (Story 1980, 89); the hairy dwarfs that were common in 1954 (Clark 1993,177); and the many other varieties of humanoids, monsters, robots, and other alien beings reported in encounters down to the present. The accompanying illustration (
figure 24.1
) depicts a selection of such beings reportedly encountered from 1947 to the present. (Science fiction examples have not been included.) Prepared for a Discovery channel documentary on alien abductions, this illustration also appeared April 4, 1997, on ABC’s
20/20
in a documentary on the “Alien Autopsy” hoax. There I used it to demonstrate that the aliens allegedly retrieved from the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico, UFO crash (actually the crash of a spy balloon) were of a type not popularly imagined until many years later.

Figure 24.1.Alien Time Line illustrates evolution of popular extraterrestrial likeness.