The Mtstery Chronicles

by Joe Nickell

  One source claims of the fetus that “nothing in either its interior or exterior configuration corresponds to that which is considered to be human” (Monstrum 2002), but that is a ridiculous exaggeration. Not only does it have an essentially human body structure (a head atop a cylindrical trunk, with arms attached to the shoulders and legs extending from the hips), but the interior was also found to contain such organs as a heart, liver, and lungs, according to Dr. Friderici’s autopsy results. The anatomy is also characterized by a vertebrate skeletal structure, although the lower arm and leg bones did not each become differentiated into two separate bones; the cranium had, in effect, burst open, and some of the skull bones (e.g., the upper jawbone) were missing.

  Fringe paranormalists attribute the abnormalities to the purported hybridization. One Internet source bizarrely claims to have received inside information on the matter from “the Cassiopaeans,” allegedly channeled extraterrestrial entities. “They” explained the fetus as “hybridized conception/gestate” and averred: “It was not an experiment. It was the result of Reptoid ’rape’” (Monstrum 2002).

  Actually, the Cassiopaeans are out of touch with reality. Visiting the museum on a trip to Germany in 2002 with Martin Mahner, who has a doctorate in zoology, I was able to learn the facts about the “chicken man.” Museologist Ulrike Budig was most helpful, unlocking the cabinet’s glass doors so we could examine and photograph the specimen from various angles.

  We learned that genetic tests had been conducted by experts in Berlin and Heidelberg (Monstrum 1994). They studied the chromosomes using comparative genomic hybridization, an analytical method developed in 1993. This showed that the fetus was female (two X chromosomes being present). More importantly, the scientists discovered that large parts of chromosome 17 were missing, and concluded that a genetic loss of that amount is more than likely the cause of the rare deformation. Because no other case of this particular chromosome 17 anomaly is known, one must assume that the result is lethal, meaning that such embryos normally die at an early stage and are spontaneously miscarried. In this unique instance, however, further development of the embryo took place until the third trimester of the pregnancy (Miiller 1999).

  Dr. Dietmar Miiller (1999), writing in the museum’s official guidebook, observes sagely that, as occurred with folk of the eighteenth century, such deformations have also inspired the fantasies of some modern people. In this instance, he notes, “ufologists” have brought “aliens” into play, thus giving the museum specimen an unfortunate notoriety. However, he concludes that the scientific studies clearly prove that this specimen has only human DNA.

  REFERENCES

  Ausserirdisches leben—Monstrum humanum rarissimum. Last accessed 20 August 2002. http://acolina.grenzwissen.de/content/seti/huhnm.htm.

  DeLys, Claudia. 1989. What’s So Lucky About a Four-leaf Clover? New York: Bell Publishing.

  Hausdorf, Hartwig. 2000. Monstrum humanum rarissimum. Fate, 1 February, 28-32.

  Huyghe, Patrick. 1996. The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials. New York: Avon Books.

  Monstrum humanum. 1994. Der Spiegel, 27 (4 July): 165.

  Monstrum humanum rarissimum. Last accessed 14 November 2002. http://cassiopaea.xmystic.com/en/cass/monster.htm.

  Muller, Dietmar. 1999. “Monstrum humanum”—Die anatomische Sammlung. In Naturalienkabinett Waldenburg, edited by Ulrike Budig et al., 91-98.Waldenburg, Saxony, Germany: Heimatmuseum und Naturalienkabinett.

  Thompson, C. J. S. 1968. Giants, Dwarfs and Other Oddities. New York: Citadel Press.

  7

  Image of Guadalupe

  Myth-perception

  A radio announcer asked his listeners to brace themselves for a report that would “shock all of Mexico.” When it came, it did not announce an assassination, as some had assumed, but for many it was even worse. It concerned the most popular shrine in the Roman Catholic world next to the Vatican. As the San Antonio Express-News reported in its five-column headline: “Faithful aghast as abbot paints Virgin story as myth” (“Faithful” 1996).

  The reference is to the tale that in 1531 (some 10 years after Cortez’s defeat of the Aztec Empire), the Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian peasant named Juan Diego and gave him a “sign”: her full-length image miraculously imprinted on the inside of his cloak. The reputed miracle was instrumental in effecting the mass conversion of the Aztecs to Catholicism (Smith 1983).

  Now, though, Monsignor Guillermo Schulemburg, abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe where the Image is enshrined, was admitting that the whole story was a myth. The Italian magazine 30 Giorni (“30 Days”) quoted Schulemburg as saying that Juan Diego was fictitious, “a symbol, not a reality” (cited in “Faithful” 1996). He also stated, according to the magazine, that Juan Diego’s 1990 beatification by Pope John Paul II (a step preparatory to sainthood) was simply “a recognition of a cult. It is not a recognition of the physical, real existence of the person” (cited in “Faithful” 1996).

  FIGURE 7-1. Supposedly a “miraculous” portrait of the Virgin Mary, the Image of Guadalupe actually exhibits artistic motifs and evidence of painting.

  In an extensive folkloristic and iconographic investigation of the Image, forensic analyst John F. Fischer and I learned that the Guadalu-pan story was quite similar to an earlier Spanish legend, and that the portrait of the Virgin in the Image was typical of Spanish art of the period. Although obvious evidence of paint throughout the Image areas has prompted miraculists to claim that the paint was added later, infrared photographs indicate otherwise, revealing apparent preliminary sketch lines and other evidence that the picture was produced in the usual manner for a painting. (See FIGURE 7-1.) Moreover, during a formal investigation of the cloth in 1556, one priest testified that the Image had been “painted yesteryear by an Indian,” and another that it was “a painting that the Indian painter Marcos had done.” An Aztec painter, Marcos Cipac, was active in Mexico at the time the Image of Guadalupe appeared (Smith 1983, Nickell and Fischer 1985).

  As the faithful reacted bitterly to Schulemburg’s reported statements, the office of the beleaguered, 80-year-old abbot issued a statement saying the comments attributed to him were “absolutely false.” However, my colleague, Skeptical Inquirer magazine’s Mexico City correspondent, Patricia Lopez Zaragoza, provided this informed assessment:

  Schulemburg has repeatedly said that the apparitions are a myth. He has pointed this out since some years ago. After this scandal Schulemburg insisted a couple of times on his version of the story. However, after political pressure grew against him he somewhat retreated to a safer position, claiming the value of the apparitions as a mere symbol of Mexican Catholicism.

  “It must be said,” she added, “that he hasn’t really retracted his previous antiapparitionist position.”

  In early September 1996, the Roman Catholic Church announced Abbot Schulemburg’s resignation as head of the basilica. According to an Associated Press dispatch, the church “gave no reason for his departure.”

  In 2002, the results of a secret 1982 scientific study of the Image were reported by the Spanish-language magazine Proceso (in its May 12 and 19 issues). Art restoration expert Jose Sol Rosales examined the cloth with a stereomicroscope and determined that it had not originated supernaturally, but was instead the work of an artist who used the materials and methods of the sixteenth century.

  According to Rosales, the canvas appeared to be a mixture of linen and hemp or cactus fiber. It was prepared with a brush coat of white primer (calcium sulfate), and the painting was then rendered in distemper (i.e., paint consisting of pigment, water, and a binding medium). The artist used a “very limited palette,” stated the expert, consisting of black (from pine soot), white, blue, green, various earth colors (”tierras”), reds (including carmine), and gold (Vera 2002a; Vera 2002b).

  Rosales’s report confirms and amplifies what skeptics had determined from early records, infrared photographs, and other evidence (Nickell and Fischer 1985). In addition, new scholarship s
uggests that, whereas the Image was painted not long after the Spanish conquest (when miraculous powers were almost immediately attributed to it), the pious legend of Mary’s appearance to Juan Diego may date from the following century (Vera 2002c; Poole 1996).

  Meanwhile, none of this appears to have had any effect on the Vatican, which proceeded to canonize “Juan Diego” as a saint, fictitious or not.

  REFERENCES

  Faithful aghast as abbot paints Virgin story as myth. 1996. San Antonio, Texas. Express-News, 2 June. Nickell, Joe, and John F. Fischer. 1985. The Image of

  Guadalupe: A folkloristic and iconographic investigation. Skeptical Inquirer 9, no. 3 (Spring 1985): 243-55.

  Poole, Stafford. 1996. Our Lady of Guadalupe. Tucson: Arizona University Press.

  Smith, Jody Brant. 1983. The Image of Guadalupe. Garden City, N.Y.: Double-day.

  Vera, Rodrigo. 2002a. Manos humanas pintaron la Guadalupana. Proceso. May 12, 27-30.

  ———— . 2002b. El analisis que ocult el Vaticano. Proceso, May 19, 28-31.

  ———— . 2002c. Hacer la biografia del supuesto pin tor de la Guadalupana. Proceso, June 2, 66-68.

  8

  Human Blowtorch

  This case involves a young African-American man with a seemingly remarkable ability. It has interested a string of mystery mongers, from Charles Fort (1932) to Frank Edwards (1961), Vincent Gaddis (1967), and, more recently, Jane Goldman (1995, 132). Edwards called his account“Human Blowtorch”—a “unique case,” he said, for which wno one ever proposed any explanation”(1961, 163-64).

  A contemporary account was published in 1882 in Michigan Medical News and is given here in its entirety:

  A SINGULAR PHENOMENON.—Dr. L. C. Woodman, of Paw Paw, Mich., contributes the following interesting though incredible observation: I have a singular phenomenon in the shape of a young man living here, that I have studied with much interest and I am satisfied that his peculiar power demonstrates that electricity is the nerve force beyond dispute. His name is Wm. Underwood, aged 27 years and his gift is that of generating fire through the medium of his breath assisted by manipulations with his hands. He will take anybody’s handkerchief and hold it to his mouth[,] rub it vigorously with his hands while breathing on it and immediately it bursts into flames and burns until consumed. He will strip and rinse out his mouth thoroughly, wash his hands and submit to the most rigid examination to preclude the possibility of any humbug, and then by his breath blown upon any paper or cloth envelop it in flame. He will, when out gunning and without matches desirous of a fire, lie down after collecting dry leaves and by breathing on them start the fire and then coolly take off his wet stockings and dry them.

  The account continues:

  It is impossible to persuade him to do it more than twice in a day and the effort is attendant with the most extreme exhaustion. He will sink into a chair after doing it, and on one occasion after he had set a newspaper on fire as narrated, I placed my hand on his head and discovered his scalp to be violently twitching as if under intense excitement. He will do it anytime, no matter where he is, under any circumstances, and I have repeatedly known of his setting back from the dinner table, taking a swallow of water and by blowing on his napkin at once set it on fire. He is ignorant and says that he first discovered his strange power by inhaling and exhaling on a perfumed handkerchief that suddenly burned while in his hands. It is certainly no humbug, but what is it? Does physiology give a like instance, and if so when?

  What are we to make of this? We can scarcely trust Dr. Woodman’s assurance that the phenomenon was “certainly no humbug.” He seems one of those (like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) who believes that he is too smart to be fooled; hence, because he saw no trickery, there could have been none. (Houdini knew that the simplest card trick could fool Sir Arthur.) In response to such people, I have a saying: “The person who thinks he can’t be fooled has just fooled himself.”

  Gaddis did concede that legerdemain was possible in the case. “It is true,” he wrote,“that a trickster with nimble fingers, a piece of phosphorus and a bit of saliva might possibly duplicate these feats”(1967, 173-74). However, Gaddis thought that in light of alleged “poltergeist fire-makers,” one should not be too quick to dismiss Underwood’s ability as mere deception. (For a debunking of poltergeists, see Christopher 1970.)

  Gaddis may have chanced to read Houdini’s book Miracle-Mongers and Their Methods (1920, 105-7), which has this to say:

  To set paper on fire by blowing upon it, small pieces of wet phosphorus are taken into the mouth, and a sheet of tissue paper is held about a foot from the lips. While the paper is being blown upon[,] the phosphorus is ejected on it, although this passes unnoticed by the spectators, and as soon as the continued blowing has dried the phosphorus it will ignite the paper.

  Of course, if Underwood employed this method, he would have had to secretly store the phosphorus and surreptitiously introduce it into his mouth—achieving this in much the same way that a strip-searched Houdini might have done with a lock pick (Gibson 1930). It is tempting to think that Underwood might have utilized the very water with which he rinsed his mouth as a means of keeping a pellet of phosphorus protectively wet, and then—after the searching and rinsing— transferring it in a follow-up sip to the tongue. Underwood’s “intense excitement”might only have been due to his natural nervousness and fear of being caught at deception. That he would not perform the feat more than twice in one day merely suggests that some preparation was necessary to repeat the effect. Or it may indicate a magician’s shrewdness: conjurers know that repeating a trick increases the risk of discovery. “Once is magic,” we magicians say; “twice is an education.”

  Another method involves use of a hollowed-out nut filled with smoldering punk (a material that, when lighted, will smolder and is often used to ignite fireworks). This method is attributed to a fire-breathing wonder-worker from ancient Roman times, a Syrian called Eunus (d. 133 b.c.e.). To excite his fellow slaves to revolt against the Romans, Eunus claimed that he had received supernatural powers from the gods, who foretold that he would someday be king. As proof, Eunus exhaled jets of fire like the legendary dragon (Nickell 1991, 13-14).

  In his book on carnival life, titled Step Right Up!, fire-eater/swordswallower Dan Mannix (1951, 149-50) relates a humorous story of his experimentation with this “very old” stunt. To practice, he used to slip the nut into his mouth after breakfast “and carry it all day long like a quid of tobacco,blowing out sparks and smoke every now and then to keep it lighted. For a sideshow act, “you begin to eat cotton or paper and secretly slip the nut in your mouth with the cotton.”

  One night, when out with a friend, Mannix stopped in a drugstore and somewhat absentmindedly leaned on the counter while, he wrote, “thoughtlessly rolling the nut around in my mouth.” Suddenly he burped, ejecting a burst of smoke and sparks, some of which landed on the hands of the clerk who was wrapping his purchase. The firebreather clapped his hand over his mouth, exclaimed, “I beg your pardon,”and made a hasty exit with his package. “As we drove off,” Mannix recalled, “I happened to glance back at the store. The clerk and his few customers were standing around staring at each other as though suddenly paralyzed.”

  Mannix’s anecdote indicates that the smoldering-nut feat was long known to carnys. Indeed, the very same“deception of breathing out flames, which at present excites,” is described by Houdini (1920, 117— 18), who details various improvements on the ancient trick.

  Other techniques that “Human Blowtorch” William Underwood might have used to set paper, cloth, and dry leaves aflame also come to mind, including a chemical spontaneous-combustion technique (see Nickell 1998), and still other means. Whatever the exact method—and the phosphorus trick might be the most likely—the possibilities of deception far outweigh any “occult powers” hinted at by Charles Fort (1932, 926) or others.

  REFERENCES

  Christopher, Milbourne. 1970. ESP, Seers & Psychics. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. />
  Edwards, Frank. 1961. Strange People. New York: Signet.

  Fort, Charles. [1932] 1974. Wild Talents, reprinted in The Books of Charles Fort, Part 2. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms.

  Gaddis, Vincent H. 1967. Mysterious Fires and Lights. New York: David McKay.

  Gibson, Walter B. 1930. HoudinVs Fscapes and Magic. New York: Blue Ribbon Books.

  Goldman, Jane. 1995. The X-Files Book of the Unexplained. New York: Simon & Schuster.

  Houdini, Harry. [1920] 1980. Miracle-Mongers and Their Methods. Reprinted Toronto: Coles Publishing.

  Mannix, Dan. 1951. Step Right Up! New York: Harper & Brothers.

  Nickell, Joe. 1991. Wonder-workers! Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

  ————— . 1998. Fiery tales that spontaneously destruct. Skeptical Inquirer 22, no. 2 (March/April): 62.

  A singular phenomenon. 1882. Michigan Medical News (Detroit) 5: 263.

  9

  Remotely Viewed?

  The Charlie Jordan Case

  Was fugitive drug smuggler Charlie Jordan nabbed after a CIA “remote viewer” helped pinpoint his location in northern Wyoming? Does this supposedly successful use of psychic phenomena (or “psi”) by the intelligence agency’s then-secret Stargate program indeed represent “one of their more memorable cases” (Mysteries 1998)?

  For an episode of the television series Mysteries (which subsequently aired in England on November 23, 1998), I was asked by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to examine and comment on claims made about the case. Not surprisingly, I found much more information than my brief on-air time allowed me to relate, and I have since learned even more about the matter.