by Joe Nickell
In any case, whatever meaning(s) we ascribe to the Nazca lines and drawings must be considered in light of other giant ground markings elsewhere. In South America, giant effigies are found in other locales in Peru, for example, and in Chile, in the Atacama Desert (Welfare and Fairley 1980). Interestingly, the plan of the Incan city of Cuzco was laid out in the shape of a puma, and its inhabitants were known as “members of the body of the puma” (Isbell 1978, 1980).
Turning to North America, there is the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio and giant effigies in the American Southwest. In 1978, with the aid of an Indian guide, I was able to view the ground drawings near Blythe, California, in the Mojave Desert. However, although they are thought to date from a much later period (Setzler 1952), none of the Blythe figures match the size of the largest Nazca drawings; also, the human figures and horselike creatures are much cruder in form, typically having solid-area bodies and sticklike appendages. Moreover, absent from the Blythe site are the “ruler-straight” lines that may or may not have calendrical significance.
In short, there are both similarities and dissimilarities between the Nazca and other ground drawings that complicate our attempts to explain them. Certainly the Blythe and other effigies have no attendant von Danikenesque “runways” ; neither do their crude forms suggest that they were drawn with the aid of hovering spacecraft.
It seemed to me that a study of how the lines were planned and executed might shed some light on the ancient riddle. English explorer and filmmaker Tony Morrison has demonstrated that, by using a series of ranging poles, straight lines can be constructed over many miles (Welfare and Fairley 1980). (The long lines “veer from a straight line by only a few yards every mile,” reports Time [Mystery 1974].) In fact, along some lines, the remains of posts have been found at roughly one-mile intervals (Mclntyre 1975).
By far the most work on the problem of Nazca engineering methods was done by Maria Reiche (1976). She explained that Nazca artists prepared preliminary drawings on small six-foot-square plots. These plots are still visible near many of the larger figures. The preliminary drawing was then broken down into its component parts for enlargement. Straight lines, she observed, could be made by stretching a rope between two stakes. Circles could easily be scribed by means of a rope anchored to a rock or stake, and more complex curves could be drawn by linking appropriate arcs. As proof, she reported that there are indeed stones or holes at points that are centers for arcs.
Reiche did not, however, detail the specific means for positioning the stakes that apparently served as the centers for arcs or the endpoints of straight lines. In her book she wrote, “Ancient Peruvians must have had instruments and equipment which we ignore and which together with ancient knowledge were buried and hidden from the eyes of the conquerors as the one treasure which was not to be surrendered.”
Isbell (1978) suggested that the Nazcas used a grid system adapted from their weaving experience, a loom “establishing a natural grid within which a figure is placed.” All that would be necessary, he observed, would be simply to enlarge the grid to produce the large drawings.
However, as one who has used the grid system countless times (in reproducing large trademarks and pictorials on billboards—summer work during my high-school and college years), I am convinced the grid system was not employed. To mention only one reason, a characteristic of the grid method is that errors or distortions are largely confined to individual squares. Thus, the “condor” drawing in FIGURE 1-1—with its askew wings, mismatched feet, and other asymmetrical features—seems not to have been produced by means of a grid.
Other, even less likely possibilities are the plotting of points by a traverse surveying technique (such as is used today to plot a boundary of land) or by triangulation. Having some experience with both of these, I note that such methods depend on the accurate measurement of angles, and there appears to be no evidence that the Nazcas had such a capability.
I decided to attempt to reproduce one of the large Nazca figures— the 440-foot-long condor in the center of FIGURE 1-1—using a means I thought the Nazcas might actually have employed. I was joined in the project by two of my cousins, John May and Sid Haney. The method we chose was quite simple: We would establish a center line and locate points on the ground drawing by plotting their coordinates. That is, on the small drawing we would measure along the center line from one end (the bird’s beak) to a point on the line directly opposite the point to be plotted (say, a wing tip). Then we would measure the distance on the ground from the center line to the desired point. A given number of units on the small drawing would require the same number of units— larger ones—on the large drawing. We used only a set of sticks, set at right angles, for sighting, and two lengths of marked and knotted cord for measuring.
My father, J. Wendell Nickell, took charge of logistics; my young cousin Jim Mathis and nephew Con Nickell completed our crew. After we had marked the figure—a total of less than two days’ work—pilot Jerry Mays flew us over the drawing at just under 1,000 feet. John took photos while leaning out of the banked plane, with me holding onto his belt. (For more details of the construction, see Nickell 1983.) Scientific American magazine (Big Picture 1983) later termed our production “remarkable in its exactness” to the Nazca original (see Figures 1-2 and 1-3).
In summary, we do know that it was the Nazca peoples who produced the drawings. Although the large size of the drawings does suggest the possibility that they were meant to be viewed from above, as by the Indian gods, the figures can be recognized, at least to some extent, from the ground. The drawings could have been produced by a simple method requiring only materials available to South American Indians centuries ago. The Nazcas probably used a simplified form of this method, with perhaps a significant amount of the work done freehand. There is no evidence that extraterrestrials were involved; but if they were, one can only conclude that they seem to have used sticks and cord just as the Indians did.
FIGURE l-2. The author’s duplication of the giant “condor” drawing, made full size and using only sticks and cord such as the Nazcas might have employed. The experimental drawing—possibly the world's largest art reproduction—is viewed here from just under 1,000 feet.
FIGURE 1-3. Detail showing the author standing in one of the giant bird’s claws.
REFERENCES
Aveni, Anthony F., and Helaine Silverman. 1991. Between the lines: Reading the Nazca markings as rituals writ large. The Sciences (July/August): 36-42.
Isbell, William H. 1978. The prehistoric ground drawings of Peru. Scientific American 239 (October): 140-53.
———— . 1980. Solving the mystery of Nazca. Fate (October): 36-48.
Kosok, Paul (with Maria Reiche). 1947. The markings of Nazca. Natural History 56: 200-38.
Mclntyre, Loren. 1975.
Mystery of the ancient Nazca lines. National Geographic (May): 716-28.
Mystery on the mesa. 1974. Time, March 25.
Nickell, Joe. 1983. The Nazca drawings revisited: Creation of a full-size duplicate. Skeptical Inquirer 7, no. 3 (Spring): 36-44.
Reiche, Maria. [1968] 1976 (rev. ed.). Mystery on the Desert . Stuttgart: Privately printed.
Setzler, Frank M. 1952. Seeking the secrets of the giants. National Geographic 102: 393-404. The big picture. 1983. Scientific American June, 84.
Von Daniken, Erich. 1970. Chariots of the Gods? New York: G. P. Putnam.
————. 1972. Gods from Outer Space. New York: Bantam Books.
Welfare, Simon, and John Fairley. 1980. Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World.New York: A & W Publishers.
Woodman, Jim. 1977. Nazca: Journey to the Sun. New York: Pocket Books.
2
The Fiery Specter
Gruesome deaths attributed to spontaneous human combustion (SHC) continue to intrigue the public. Arch-promoter of SHC, Larry E. Arnold, has produced a weighty tome on the subject, entitled Ablaze! The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion (1995). Unfortunately, the cases Arnold
hypes have very plausible—indeed, probable—explanations. For example, in the 1951 case of Mary Reeser in St. Petersburg, Florida, it was established that when last seen she was wearing flammable nightclothes and smoking a cigarette, after having taken Seconal sleeping pills. The extreme destruction of her body was almost certainly due to the “wick effect,” in which the body’s melted fat is retained by clothing, carpeting, chair stuffing, and so on; this fuels still more fire to cause still more destruction (Nickell 2001).
Case after case put forward by Arnold and other mystery mongers succumbs to investigation. One such case in Ablaze! is that of a “baffling” and “abnormal fiery accident” that occurred “about fifteen miles southeast of Baltimore, in Arundel [sic] County, Maryland” (actually Anne Arundel County). The date is rather vaguely given as “early April 1953” —a curious way of expressing it, as the accident transpired on April 1 (“Man hurt” 1953). Arnold provides not a single source citation for the case other than a brief quotation from the late Frank Edwards, one-time columnist for Fate magazine and author of several mystery-mongering books, like Stranger Than Science, notorious for their errors and exaggerations.
As Arnold relates the case:
Here, Maryland and State Police found Bernard J. Hess in his overturned car at the bottom of a twenty-foot embankment. The Baltimore man had a fractured skull. Therefore, the cause of death appeared obvious, the case routine. Then the coroner investigated. Routine quickly ceased. Although he found no trace of fire damage to the wreckage, the coroner discovered first- and second-degree burns covered two-thirds of the dead man’s fully clothed body. Police failed initially to notice Hess’s searing because . . . well, because his garments hadn’t burned!
Authorities concluded that Hess’s severely blistered skin would make it impossibly painfully [sic] for him to dress himself after being burned. Contemporary reports do not mention officials finding any electrical or fuel problems with the car that would have caused his injuries.
Arnold continues:
Did Hess fall victim to foul play at the scene, as unknown assailants stripped Hess naked, doused him with unidentified chemical accelerants and lit them, then re-dressed and drove their victim to a location remote from the crime to push him over the embankment in his car? No evidence supported this. Did Hess succumb to SHC?
As Frank Edwards remarked three years after this incident: “The burns which played a part in his death constitute another mystery which remains unsolved.”
Whereas Arnold insists that “contemporary reports” give no clue to the mystery, in fact newspaper accounts actually report the medical examiner’s official determination. First, however, the reader is invited to provide a plausible solution to the mystery. There are several potential hypotheses, each more credible than spontaneous human combustion, but you may ignore Arnold’s deliberately silly scenario of “unknown assailants” stripping, burning, and re-dressing the victim. Instead, simply consider the circumstances of an overturned car and the damaged skin coupled with unburned clothing. Please pause here to construct your hypothesis.
Finished? My own analysis began with the possibility that Mr. Hess had simply been scalded by hot water from a ruptured radiator— or from the heater core located in the dashboard. Apparently that was not the actual mechanism, but it certainly represents a hypothetical solution. According to the Baltimore Sun, “Gasoline ‘burns’ on the body of Bernard Joseph Hess . . . ha[d] nothing to do with his death, an autopsy yesterday disclosed” (‘“Burns’” 1953). Dr. Russell S. Fisher, Baltimore’s chief medical examiner, stated that the 35-year-old Hess died of head injuries suffered when the convertible he was driving overturned on April 1. Dr. Fisher said that gasoline had soaked through the victim’s clothing to inflict what the Sun called “skin injuries similar to burns,” caused by a reaction to the fuel. The Baltimore News-Post (“Mystery burns” 1953) cited an assistant medical examiner who provided a concurring opinion: “The examiner, Dr. Francis J. Januszeski, said gasoline is an ‘organic solvent,’ used in cleaning to remove grease, and has somewhat the same effect on flesh.”
Interestingly, Bernard “Whitey” Hess was a convicted forger who had been released on probation. He had used another man’s credentials to pose as a potential auto buyer and thus steal the convertible in which he died. His wife—then serving a sentence for embezzlement—was notified in jail of his death (“Mysterious death” 1953; ‘“Burns’” 1953).
Obviously, the Hess case had nothing to do with spontaneous human combustion, as Larry Arnold should have realized. Arnold, who is not a physicist but a Pennsylvania school-bus driver, had no justification for asking ominously, “Did Hess succumb to SHC?” The unburned clothing should have led any sensible investigator to one of the possibilities limited by that fact: for example, that Hess had been burned previously, or his skin injuries were caused by steam or hot water, chemical liquids or vapors, or some type of radiation (possibly even extreme sunburn through loosely woven clothing). In any event, Arnold could have done as I did and sought out the newspaper accounts of the day. It would have saved him from yet another folly.
REFERENCES
Arnold, Larry. 1995. Ablaze! The Mysterious Fires of Spontaneous Human Combustion. New York: M. Evans and Co., 181-83.
“Burns” on the body of forger ruled out as cause of death. 1953. Baltimore Sun, 3 April.
Man hurt in auto crash dies here. 1953.
Baltimore Sun, 2 April. Mysterious death of forger probed. 1953. Baltimore Sun, 2 April, evening edition.
Mystery burns caused by gasoline, doctor reports. 1953. Baltimore News-Post, 2 April.
Nickell, Joe. 2001. Real-Life X-Files. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 28-36.
3
The Exorcist
The Case Behind the Movie
Belief in demonic possession is getting a new propaganda boost. Not only has the 1973 horror movie The Exorcist been re-released, but the “true story” that inspired it is also chronicled in a reissued book and a made-for-TV movie, both titled Possessed (Allen 2000). However, a year-long investigation by a Maryland writer (Opsasnik 2000), together with my own analysis of events chronicled in the exorcising priest’s diary, belie the claim that a teenage boy was possessed by Satan in 1949.
Psychology versus Possession
Belief in spirit possession flourishes in times and places where there is ignorance about mental states. Citing biblical examples, the medieval Church taught that demons were able to take control of an individual; by the sixteenth century, so-called demonic behavior had become relatively stereotypical. It manifested itself in convulsions, prodigious strength, insensitivity to pain, temporary blindness or deafness, clairvoyance, and other abnormal characteristics. Some early notions of possession may have been based on the symptoms of three brain disorders: epilepsy, migraine, and Tourette’s syndrome (Beyerstein 1988). Psychiatric historians have long attributed demonic manifestations to such aberrant mental conditions as schizophrenia and hysteria, noting that as mental illness began to be recognized as such after the seventeenth century, there was a consequent decline in demonic superstitions and reports of possession (Baker 1992, 192). In 1999, the Vatican did update its 1614 guidelines for expelling demons, urging exorcists to avoid mistaking psychiatric illness for possession (“Vatican” 1999).
In many cases, however, supposed demonic possession can be a learned role that fulfills certain important functions for those claiming it. In his book Hidden Memories: Voices and Visions from Within, psychologist Robert A. Baker (1992) noted that possession was sometimes feigned by nuns to act out sexual frustrations, protest restrictions, escape unpleasant duties, attract attention and sympathy, and fulfill other psychologically useful or necessary functions.
Many devout claimants of stigmata, inedia, and other powers have also exhibited alleged demonic possession. For example, at Loudon, France, a prioress, Sister Jeanne des Anges (1602-1665), was part of a contagious outbreak of writhing, convulsing nuns. Jeanne hersel
f exhibited stigmatic designs and lettering on her skin. A bloody cross “appeared” on her forehead, and the names of Jesus, Mary, and others were found on her hand—always clustered on her left hand, just as one would expect if a right-handed person were marking them. She went on tour as a “walking relic” and was exhibited in Paris to credulous thousands. There were a few skeptics, but Cardinal Richelieu rejected the idea of testing Jeanne by enclosing her hand in a sealed glove. He felt that such an experiment would amount to testing God (Nickell 1998, 230-31). Interestingly enough, while I was researching and writing this chapter I was called to southern Ontario on a case of dubious possession that also involved stigmata.
Possession can be childishly simple to fake. For example, an exorcism broadcast by ABC’s 20/20 in 1991 featured a 16-year-old girl who, her family claimed, was possessed by 10 separate demonic entities. However, to skeptics her alleged possession seemed to be indistinguishable from poor acting. She even stole glances at the camera before affecting convulsions and other “demonic” behavior (Nickell 1998).
Of course, a person with a strong impulse to feign diabolic possession may indeed be mentally disturbed. Although the teenager in the 20/20 episode reportedly improved after the exorcism, it was also pointed out that she continued “on medication” (“The Exorcism” 1991). To add to the complexity, the revised Vatican guidelines also appropriately urge against believing that a person is possessed rather than counting him or her as merely “the victim of [his or her] own imagination” (“Vatican” 1999).
