Real-Life X-Files (50 page)

Significantly, the locale where the Flatwoods Monster made its appearance—near a large oak tree on a partially wooded hilltop overlooking a farm on the outskirts of town—tallies with the habitat of the barn owl. Indeed, it is “the best known of farmland owls” (Cloudsley–Thomp
son 1983). It builds no nest but takes as its “favorite home” a “hollow tree” (Blanchan 1925). It “does not mind the neighborhood of man” (Jordan 1952), in fact seeking out mice and rats from its residence in “wood–lands, groves, farms, barns, towns, cliffs” (Peterson 1980).

Considering all of the characteristics of the described monster, and making small allowances for misperceptions and other distorting factors, we may conclude (adapting an old adage) that if it looked like a barn owl, acted like a barn owl, and hissed like a barn owl, then it was most likely a barn owl.

How “Monsters” Appear

It may be wondered, however, why the creature was not immediately recognized for what it was. The answer is that, first, the witnesses were led to
expect
an alien being by their sighting of a UFO that appeared to land and by the pulsating red light and strange smell that seemed to confirm the landing. Therefore, when they then encountered a strange creature acting aggressively, their fears seemed to be confirmed and they panicked.

Moreover, the group had probably never seen a barn owl up close (after all, such birds are nocturnal) and almost certainly not under the adverse conditions that prevailed. The brief glimpse, at night, of a being that suddenly swept at them—coupled with its strange “ghastly” appearance and shrill frightening cry—would have been disconcerting to virtually anyone at any time. But under the circumstances, involving an inexperienced group primed with expectations of extraterrestrials, the situation was a recipe for terror.

And so a spooked barn owl in turn spooked the interlopers, and a monster was born. A “windy” newspaperman and pro–sparanormal writers hyped the incident, favoring sensational explanations for more prosaic ones. Such is often the case with paranormal claims.

References

Barker, Gray. 1953. The monster and the saucer. Fate, Jan., 12–17.

———. 1956.
They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.
New York: Tower.

“Barn Owl.” 2000.
http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/raptor/history/barnowl.htm
Blanchan, Neltje. 1925.
Birds Worth Knowing
. Garden City, N.Y.: Nelson Doubleday, 180–82.

Brookesmith, Peter. 1995.
UFO: The Complete Sightings
. New York: Barnes & Noble, 54.

Bull, John, and John Farrand Jr. 1977.
The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region
. New York: Knopf, 500.

Byrne, Holt. 1966. The phantom of Flatwoods.
Sunday Gazette–Mail State Magazine
(Charleston, W. Va.), March 6.

Clark, Jerome. 1998.
The UFO Encyclopedia, second edition
. Detroit: Omnigraphics, I: 409–12.

Cloudsley–Thompson, John, et al. 1983.
Nightwatch: The Natural World from Dusk to Dawn
. New York: Facts on File.

Collins, Henry Hill, Jr. 1959.
Complete Guide to American Wildlife
: East, Central and North. New York: Harper & Row.

Forshaw, Joseph. 1998.
Encyclopedia of Birds
. San Diego: Academic Press.

Jordan, E.L. 1952.
Hammond’s Nature Atlas of America
. Maplewood, N.J.: C.S. Hammond.

Keyhoe, Donald E. 1953.
Flying Saucers from Outer Space
. New York: Henry Holt.

Marchal, Terry. 1966. Flatwoods revisited.
Sunday Gazette–Mail State Magazine
(Charleston, W. Va.), March 6.

“Monster” held illusion created by meteor’s gas. 1952.
Charleston Gazette
(Charleston, W. Va.), Sept. 23.

Peterson, Roger Tory. 1980.
A Field Guide to the Birds
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 174–75.

Reese, P.M. 1952. Cited in Sanderson 1967.

Ritchie, David. 1994.
UFO: The Definitive Guide to Unidentified Flying Objects and Related Phenomena
. New York: MJF Books, 83,96.

Sanderson, Ivan T. 1952. Typewritten report quoted in Byrne 1966.

———. 1967.
Uninvited Visitors: A Biologist Looks at UFOs
. New York: Cowles, 37–52.

Chapter 47

Throughout the Hindu world on September 21,1995, statues of Indian deities sipped spoonfuls of milk in supposed fulfillment of a devotee’s dream.

As the phenomenon progressed, it spread from the deity Lord Ganesh, the elephant-headed, multihanded, Hindu god, to other idols, including Nandi the Bull, and statues of Lord Shiva, who is often depicted in human form with a serpent around his neck. Spreading across India, the milk-sipping phenomenon soon extended to other parts of the Asian continent as well as to Europe and North America where it was duly noted on television and in newspapers.

An Indian psychiatrist explained: “All people are vulnerable to such credulousness. Hindus were especially susceptible because this was the season of
pitr baksh
when the devout offered milk for the souls of their ancestors” (Nickell 1996). So many Hindus were caught up in the excitment that milk supplies were depleted and prices soared—even for canned and powdered milk, although only “Kachcha,” unboiled milk, was supposed to be accepted by the deities.

Skeptics pointed out that many of the statues were made of baked clay, which absorbs liquids prodigiously by capillary attraction. States Julia Higgins, professor of polymer chemistry at London’s Imperial College, “Break a flowerpot, dip it in water, and the water disappears like mad.” With glazed statues, only a bit of the glaze need be absent, say from a tooth (as indeed seemed the case in one statue), for capillary attraction to work.

But what about relatively nonporous materials like marble or even nonporous ones such as brass and other metals? Some people noticed milk
pooling at the bottoms of such statues but could not explain how it was getting there. The secret was discovered by the federal Department of Science and Technology in New Delhi. Researchers there offered a statue milk mixed with a red dye and observed that while the milk quickly disappeared from the spoon, it soon coated the statue due to surface tension. Explained the secretary of the Indian Rationalists’ Society, Sanal Edamaruku: When a spoonful of milk is offered to a “wet idol” (many of the idols had been ritually washed) the spoon is naturally tilted a bit and the milk imperceptibly drains over the idol. In such a thin layer it is virtually transparent, especially on marble or other white or light-colored surfaces. “The basic principle behind it,” says Edamaruku, “is that when two drops of a liquid are brought together it leads to the formation of one drop.”

Hoaxing was apparently responsible in a few cases. For example,
India Abroad
reported (September 29, 1995): “At a temple in the Bengali Market area of the capital, canisters with pipes running into them were found in the backyard. The canisters had gathered the milk fed by the devotees.” And at a temple in Toronto investigated by CSICOP Fellow Henry Gordon, a well known magician and author in Canada, the attendants refused to allow him to lift the small, thirsty idol from its large base. (He was also refused the opportunity to give the idol water and thus test the claim that it drank only milk.)

Although the widespread phenomenon reportedly ceased after one day, possibly due to official expectations, it continued in some homes in New York City for a time. Reported the
Miami Herald
, “It took ‘the miracle’ exactly eight days to reach Miami from India.” On the other hand, at certain sites, such as the Ganesh temple in Toronto’s Richmond Hill suburb, nothing ever happened.

Nature
magazine (September 28,1995) reported that “science took a hammering from religion” over the affair, but it did so only on the propaganda level.
Nature
seemed heartened by the statement signed by prominent scientists in Madras. It called on educated Indians to help ensure “that primitive obscurantism and superstition did not hold sway over a society on the threshold of the 21st century.”

My own involvement with the phenomenon was initially to monitor developments and answer news queries, as well as write a short article about the events for
Skeptical Inquirer
magazine. At the end of May 2001, however, I had an opportunity to study the phenomenon with Indian skeptic Vikas Gora. He was visiting the Center for Inquiry, where I have my office and paranormal-investigation lab, and we spent an entertaining and illuminating afternoon replicating and discussing the milk-drinking effect. Vikas had witnessed the original “miracle” and had considerable first-hand knowledge about the entire matter.

Figure 47.1. Indian skeptic Vikas Gora demonstrates the milk- drinking-idol effect in the authors lab.

Figure 47.2. Statue of Ganesh appears to drink a spoonful of milk as it is drawn—seemingly mysteriously—onto the figurine.

Our experiments confirmed that it is not important what effigy is used, although white is best if milk is the beverage of choice. (A Casper the Friendly Ghost figure proved as thirsty as any other, for example.) When a colored figurine is used, water may be substituted for the milk. The statue does need to be wet for the first demonstration, but thereafter each successive dribbling sets up the next apparent sipping. Also the effect works best if the spoon is brimful of liquid.

References

Nickell, Joe. 1996. Milk-drinking idols,
Skeptical Inquirer
20:2 (March/April 1996), 7. (See this for additional news sources.)

1. I used principles and evidence detailed in my books
Pen, Ink and Evidence
(1990),
Detecting Forgery (
1996), and
Crime Science
(1999). The scrapbook consists of fifty–six leaves (112 pages) of unwatermarked, machine–made “wove” paper about 6 5/8 by 15 1/4 inches high, bearing ledger–style vertical rulings; it is bound with pasteboard covers (having marbled–paper exteriors and leather spine and corners) in the manner of many mid–nineteenth–century “blank books” (see Nickell 1990,164). The dated clippings and writings are consistent with their time periods, ranging from 1856 to 1910.

2. Another clipping—annotated “1861/Adrian, Mich.”—notes that on January 26, Ira E. Davenport wed “Miss Augusta Green of this city.”

3. Mr. B gave readings for three women, offering about a dozen assertions for each in a rambling style but scoring only one or two “hits” with each. Even those were dubious: for example, he told one woman, “I’m getting some sickness vibes with you, as if you had been in the hospital not too long ago, had been through something that came close to being an operation.” He also said he saw a brother. She credited him with success by switching the focus from herself, saying (to applause), “I’ve a brother who had an operation, and I’ve been in his hospitals lately.”

4. Dahmer’s grisly crimes came to light with his arrest on July 22,1991; he was sentenced February 17,1992 (see Croteau and Worcester 1993).

5. This contrast in approaches is illustrated with regard to the Shroud of Turin in my “Science vs. ’Shroud Science,’”
Skeptical Inquirer
22.4 (July/August 1998): 20–22.