by Joe Nickell
Figure 9.2. Jinxed jewel? Once allegedly doom –laden, the Hope
Diamond now reposes serenely in the Smithsonian. (Photos by
Joe Nickell)
As with “King Tut’s curse,” however, evidence for the Hope Diamond “jinx” depends on a selective process. According to Curtis D. MacDougall in his Superstition and the Press (1983), “Study of the complete history of the fabulous jewel reveals that at least half of those who owned or used it seemingly were not affected by any curse. How unusual is it for about half the members of any family to experience bad luck?” Moreover, he says, since acquiring the stone in 1958, “[T]he Smithsonian Institution has not suffered from fire, theft or death as a result of its famous possession. Because of the prominence of many of the diamond s owners the press has kept alive the myth of a curse, translating every untoward occurrence to fit the pattern.” (See figure 9.2.)
Interestingly, once the selective process changes focus, as happened with the quartz effigy known as the “Crystal Skull,” so do the imagined consequences. Once said to have the power to cause death (Mitchell – Hedges 1954), a claim utterly lacking support (Nickell 1988), the erstwhile “Skull of Doom” has become a talisman to New Agers, who now “channel” hopeful messages from it and credit it with wonderful psychic “energies,” even placing their own crystals next to it to supposedly “charge” them (Bryant and Galde 1991).
In Camelot
A similar process of selection and hype helps promote “the Kennedy curse.” In 1984, Newsweek continued a long journalistic tradition of describing the family as a “star –crossed dynasty” (Beck et al. 1984) and later headlined a report on Michael Kennedy’s accidental death “The Camelot Curse” (Thomas 1998). In reporting on the John F. Kennedy Jr. tragedy, one wire service story proclaimed that “The legendary Kennedy family curse had struck again” (quoted in Times Record 1999).
Actually, the Kennedys themselves have not been blameless in the matter. For example, in his television to the people of Massachusetts in the wake of the Chappaquiddick tragedy, Ted Kennedy (1969) admitted that among his “irrational” thoughts of the period had been the question of “whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys.” And Michael Kennedy had said of RFK’s assassination, “It was as if fate had turned against us. There was now a pattern that could not be ignored” (Kelly and Walsh 1999).
Despite the hype, there has also been much appropriate skepticism. A German daily editorialized: “A plane crash is a dreadful, horrible banality. But when a member of the Kennedy dynasty crashes a plane, the accident becomes a sign of inescapable destiny … and the global infotainment industry has its raw material—the curse of the Kennedys” (quoted in “Curse or Hubris” 1999). Commendably, the Wichita Falls, Texas, Times Record News had this to say:
The notion that a family is cursed harkens back to the Dark Ages or the early days in this country when women were burned at the stake because they were believed to be witches and men were drawn and quartered because they were believed to be inhabited by evil spirits. Yet, even if educated reporters and editors don’t actually believe in the fact that a family or an individual can be cursed, we see that idea promoted to a public that borders on scientific illiteracy already and, as proven by the popularity of all sorts of magical, mystical cures for ailments, the popularity of horoscopes and psychic readings, that is pretty darn gullible.
The editorial went on to indicate various factors that were actually responsible for the alleged curse and concluded that for the notion to be entertained, “there needs to be proof that’s more reputable than the zero proof offered right now. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” (“Irresponsible” 1999).
The Times Record News editorial writers joined other skeptics in pointing out the real factors that can lead to the perception of a curse. Tacitly acknowledging selectivity, U.S. News conceded that the Kennedy family was “blessed and cursed all at once” (Kelly and Walsh 1999). And former JFK special counsel Ted Sorensen (1999), wrote: “The Kennedys are not accursed but blessed. True, they have endured, with remarkable religious faith, more than their proportionate ’share’ of pain (though that is never allotted by the law of averages anyway). But they have also been endowed with good genes, good brains, good looks, good health and good fortune, with both instincts and opportunities for serving their country and helping those less fortunate.”
In addition to the selective process, there is the sheer size of the Kennedy family. With nine children producing twenty –nine grandchildren, there have been increased opportunities for tragedy. Observes Temple University mathematics professor John Allen Paulos (1999), “If we look at large families we can sometimes find more death, disease and tragedy than is generally expected.”
Still another factor is the common tendency to connect the unconnected. Much like the impulse that prompts us to see pictures in clouds or other random forms, there is the impetus to find dubious relationships between events—a sort of connect –the –dots tendency that the Times Record News (1999) observed “seems to be one characteristic of human nature.” Asks the editorial, “When traffic accidents cluster around one intersection, would we blame our luck on the curse of the car gods or would we recognize that congestion or some other factor might play the major role in the number of accidents occurring there?”
The News joined others in pointing out the evident Kennedy “propensity for risk –taking” (Paulos 1999). Although Sorensen (1999) insists that the family is characterized by an adventurous rather than foolhardy spirit, the line between the two often blurs. Michael Kennedy died as a result of the risky family pastime of “ski football”—a game the Aspen, Colorado, ski patrol had warned against (Thomas 1998,23). And a friend of JFK Jr. stated that the son of the thirty –fifth president “loved to dance on the edge” (Barlow 1999), a tendency that may have been involved in his chancing a nighttime flight. Apart from mere adventurousness, simply seeking political office obviously brings increased risk of assassination—a factor that belies the notion of a curse in the deaths of JFK and RFK.
And speaking of assassination, there is another factor that aids the perception of a curse: visibility. Paulos (1999) notes that “When a celebrity’s private life and death become public, news gets disseminated so rapidly and so thoroughly that we’re blinded to everyone else’s lives”—as happened with JFK’s assassination. Also, the Kennedy family’s involvement in various aspects of American society—an involvement that increases the family members’ visibility—can help foster “the perception of more misfortunes” (Paulos 1999).
Especially when taken together, these factors may help promote superstitious belief in a Kennedy curse, although it is never stated who or what has cursed them or why. But as presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (1999) said of the cumulative tragedies, the family’s willingness to carry on demonstrated “a love of life that’s just the opposite of giving in to a curse.” And conservative columnist William Saffire concluded (1999), “There is no curse that hangs over anybody. It’s against our idea of free will, whether you buy the Hope diamond or enter King Tut’s tomb.”
References
Acquistapace, Fred. 1991. Miracles That Never Were: Natural Explanations of the Bible’s Supernatural Stories. Santa Rose, Calif.: Eye –Opener, 39 –79.
The American Heritage Desk Dictionary. 1981. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, s.v. “superstition.”
Anthony, Ted. 1999. Litany of Kennedy tragedies seen as product of risk –taking lifestyles, Buffalo News, July 18.
Asimov, Isaac. 1968. Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, vol. 1. New York: Avon.
Barlow, John Perry. 1999. Appearance on Larry King Live, July 19.
Beck, Melinda, et al. 1984. A Kennedy shadow legacy? Newsweek, July 2, 25.
Blackman, W. Haden. 1988. The Field Guide to North American Hauntings. New York: Three Rivers, 92 –94.
Bryant, Alice, and Phyllis Galde. 1991. The Message of the Crystal Skull St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 49 �
�63, 203 –07.
Curse or hubris—Europe’s press mourns JFK Jr. 1999. London: Reuters, July 19.
Davis, John H. 1984. The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster. New York: McGraw – Hill.
Diamond of doom. 1976. In Perrott Phillips, ed., Out of This World, vol. 1. n.p.: Phoebus, 47 –50.
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. 1999. Appearance on Tim Russert, CNBC, July 24.
Graham, Lloyd M. 1979. Deceptions and Myths of the Bible. New York: Bell, 157 – 63.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 1991. Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience. New York: HarperCollins, 472 –74.
Irresponsible: The media should rethink the “Kennedy family curse.” 1999. Wichita Falls, Texas, Times Record News, July 20.
Keller, Werner. 1995. The Bible as History, 2nd revised ed. New York: Barnes & Noble, 124.
Kelly, Brian, and Kenneth T. Walsh. 1999. The curse. U.S. News & World Report, July 26, 17 –21.
Kennedy, Ted. 1969. Live TV broadcast, July 25, text given in James E.T. Lange and Katherine DeWitt, Jr. 1992. Chappaquiddick: The Real Story. New York: St. Martin’s, 171 –75.
Kusche, Lawrence David. 1975. The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved. Reprinted Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1986.
MacDougall, Curtis D. 1983. Superstition and the Press. Buffalo: Prometheus, 206 –09.
Mitchell –Hedges, F.A. 1954. Danger My Ally. London: Elek, 243.
Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 41,117.
———. 1989. The Magic Detectives. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 55 –56.
———. 1988. Secrets of the Supernatural, with John F. Fischer. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 29 –46.
Paulos,John Allen. 1999. Curse of the Kennedys? http://abcnews.go.com/sec –tions/science/WhosCounting/paulos990720.html, July 20.
Rather, Dan. 1999 CBS live broadcast, July 17.
Saffire, William. 1999. Appearance on Tim Russert, CNBC, July 24.
Salkin, Allen. 1999. Clan history is written in tears. New York Post, July 18, 12 – 13.
Sorensen, Theodore C. 1999. The Kennedy curse, and other myths. New York Times, July 23.
Thomas, Evan. 1998. The Camelot curse. Newsweek, Jan. 12,23 –29.
Chapter 10
Riddle of the Circles
For years a mysterious phenomenon has been plaguing southern English crop fields. Typically producing swirled, circular depressions in cereal crops, it has left in its wake beleaguered farmers and an astonished populace—not to mention befuddled scientists and would–be “investigators”—all struggling to keep apace with the proliferating occurrences and the equally proliferating claims made about them.
The Mystery and the Controversy
The circles range in diameter from as small as three meters (nearly ten feet) to some twenty–five meters (approximately eighty–two feet) or more. In addition to the simple circles that were first reported, there have appeared circles in formations; circles with rings, spurs, and other appurtenances; and yet more complex forms, including “pictographs” and even a crop triangle! While the common depression or “lay” pattern is spiral (either clockwise or counterclockwise), there are radial and even more complex lays (Delgado and Andrews 1989; Meaden 1989; “Field” 1990). In most cases, the circles’ matted pinwheel patterns readily distinguished them from fairy rings (rings of lush growth in lawns and meadows, caused by parasitic fungi) (Delgado and Andrews 1989). The possibility that they were due to the sweeping movements of snared or tethered animals, or rutting deer, seemed precluded by the absence of any tracks or trails of bent or broken stems. And the postulation of helicopters flying up–side–down was countered by the observation that such antics would produce not swirled circles, but crashed helicopters (“England” 1989; Grossman 1990).
A “scientific” explanation was soon attempted by George Terence Meaden, a onetime professor of physics who later took up meteorology as an avocation. In his book The Circles Effect and Its Mysteries, he claims, “Ultimately, it is going to be the theoretical atmospheric physicist who will successfully minister the full and correct answers.” Meaden’s notion is that the “circles effect” is produced by what he terms the “plasma vortex phenomenon.” He defines this as “a spinning mass of air which has accumulated a significant fraction of electrically charged matter.” When the electrically charged, spinning mass strikes a crop field, Meaden contends, it produces a neat crop circle (1989, 3, 10–11). Variant forms, he asserts, are also allowed by his postulated vortices. However, as even one of Meaden’s staunchest defenders concedes, “Natural descending vortices … are as yet unrecognized by meteorologists” (Fuller 1988). Meaden himself acknowledges that “some from among my professional colleagues who have expressed surprise at the discovery of the circles effect and questioned why it has not previously attracted the attention of scientists, prefer to deny its existence and reject the entire affair as a skillful hoax” (Meaden 1989,15).
In contrast to Meaden’s approach is that of Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews (1989), two engineers who have extensively studied and recorded the crop–circle phenomenon. The pages of their Circular Evidence are filled with digressions and irrelevancies—all calculated to foster mystery. Overall, Delgado and Andrews hint most strongly at the UFO hypothesis—perhaps not surprisingly, since both have been consultants to Flying Saucer Review (Grossman 1990). Although they profess “guarded views” about whether circles and rings have an extraterrestrial source, they frequently give the opposite impression. For example, they go out of their way to observe that a 1976 circle “appeared about seven weeks before a Mrs. [Joyce] Bowles had seen a UFO [and a silver–suited humanoid] just down the road.” Again, after visiting one circle Andrews met two teenagers, one of whom had earlier seen “an orange glowing object” nearby. Other mysterious lights and objects are frequently alluded to in connection with crop circles (Delgado and Andrews 1989, 17, 63, 98).
Almost predictably, a hybrid of the main theories has appeared in “eyewitness” form. Late one evening in early August 1989, or so they claimed, two young men witnessed a circle being formed near Margate, Kent. One of them, a nineteen–year–old, described “a spiraling vortex of flashing light” (a nod to Meaden et al.), which, however, “looked like an upturned satellite TV dish with lots of flashing lights” (a gesture to flying saucer theorists). The youth kept a straight face while posing with the circle for a news photo (“A Witness” 1989–1990).
As the crop–circle phenomenon entered the decade of the nineties—bringing with it the emergence of ever more complex forms that earned the sobriquet “pictograms”—the main circular theorists rushed into print their various “Son of Crop Circles” sequels. For example, Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles (who are Meaden’s disciples, although, ironically, they are ufologists) followed their Controversy of the Circles with Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved. Several periodicals devoted to the phenomenon also sprang up, such as The Cereologist, The Crop Watcher, and The Circular, which was published by the Centre for Crop Circle Studies (Chorost 1991). If critics of the main theories were not capitalizing on an expanding market of interest in crop circles, they were nevertheless busily poring over the data and pointing out that the prevailing circle theories were, well, full of holes.
Data Analyses
Forensic analyst John F. Fischer and I launched an investigation into the crop–circle mystery. It soon seemed apparent that the crop–circle phenomenon had a number of potentially revealing characteristics. Cereologists—whether of the “scientific” or “paranormal” stripe—tend either to deny these characteristics or to posit alternative explanations for them, for the implications are serious. While any single attribute may be insufficient to identify a phenomenon, since other phenomena may share that feature, sufficient multiple qualities may allow one to rule in or out certain hypotheses so as to make an identification.
The identification alluded to is hoaxing. The characteristics that point to it include an escalati
on in frequency, the geographic distribution, an increase in complexity over time, and what we call the “shyness effect,” as well as a number of lesser features.
An Escalation in Frequency
This aspect of the phenomenon has been well reported. Although there have been reports of circles and rings in earlier years and in various countries—e.g., circles of reefs in Australia in 1966 and a burned circle of grass in Connecticut in 1970—only a few had the flattened swirl feature, and not many of those were well documented at the time (Delgado and Andrews 1989, 179–89; Story 1980, 370–71). In any case, by the mid 1970s, what are now regarded as “classic” crop circles had begun to appear. In 1976, swirled circles in tall grass were shown near a Swiss village by a man who claimed he was regularly visited by extraterrestrials (Kinder 1987), and Delgado and Andrews (1989) claim an instance in England that same year. When Delgado saw his first circles in 1981, his response was “to share the experience with other people, so I contacted several national papers, along with the BBC and ITN.” Then, he says, “Local papers jumped on the bandwagon as soon as they could get the story into print” (Delgado and Andrews 1989, 11–17).
Delgado s use of the word “bandwagon” seems appropriate, since the term refers to an increasingly popular trend or fad. It was in an attempt to quantify and assess such perceptions that we decided to create a data bank of information on the circles. We used the data in Delgado and Andrews’s Circular Evidence, which reviewers praised for its “level of detail” (Shoemaker 1990). Of course, we considered that the incidences of the phenomenon in their book did not represent a complete list, but we intended to look at other sources of data as a cross–check on the sample.
