Here's a Bigfoot theory I haven't heard before. Apparently there are some in the Mormon church who hypothesize that Bigfoot may actually be Cain, condemned to walk the earth forever. Matt Bowman provides some scholarly elaboration on this theory on the Mormon Mentality blog.

Apparently the Bigfoot-Cain connection traces back to a story told by an early leader of the Mormon church, David W. Patten. Patten claimed that in 1835 he encountered Cain walking along the side of the road. He wrote: "He walked along beside me for about two miles. His head was about even with my shoulders as I sat in my saddle. He wore no clothing, but was covered with hair. His skin was very dark."

Hmm. That sounds kind of like Bigfoot. At least, that's what some Mormons have apparently concluded in recent decades. Bowman writes: "Cain’s identification as Bigfoot has provided Mormons with a way to assimilate the claims of folktale with new conceptions of what Cain, the embodiment of evil, should be like."

So if Bigfoot is Cain, maybe Nessie is really the snake from the Garden of Eden.

A New Mexico family reports that an image of the Virgin Mary has appeared in the pattern of the texture of their wall. Their granddaughter says, "I think God is trying to tell us something, like a message from heaven." Maybe that message is, "Don't get a job applying wall texture."

Is it just me, or are these Virgin Mary sightings getting harder and harder to see? I can barely make this one out at all.

Bob forwarded me the link with the comment, "How ridiculous would a 'sighting' of the Virgin Mary have to be before the news would refuse to report it?" I assume, Bob, that this is a rhetorical question.

A Florida man who recently had a chest X-ray says that he can see Jesus in it. Which raises the question, just what HAS that guy been smoking?

Personally, I can't see it at all. (Thanks Joe and Bob)

We've got a pareidolia double feature. First up is an image of the Virgin Mary that some claim to see in a sycamore tree that was burned in the recent Southern California fires. The tree is located off the Sierra Highway in Los Angeles County. KNBC reports:



Second up is a Jesus and Mary Pancake (which sounds kind of like a rock group) which Marilyn Smith recently sold on eBay for $338. In her description of the item, Smith writes:



(Thanks, Cranky Media Guy)

I just posted in the Hoaxipedia an article about Jean Gauntt -- the so-called "immortal baby." Back in 1939, when Jean was only three-months old, the leader of a strange religious cult called the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians claimed that he was going to make her immortal. This would be achieved by never allowing her to hear mention of death or disease. In addition, she would be fed an all-vegetarian "eternity diet." The leader of the cult eventually got hauled into court on charges of grand larceny, and Baby Jean was returned to her mother. So that was the end of the experiment.

Back in 1940 the case of the immortal baby received quite a lot of coverage in the news, but nowadays no one seems to remember it anymore. I myself only stumbled upon it accidentally.

But apparently Jean Gauntt is still alive today. She must be around 68 years old. So maybe the immortality thing worked. At least, it hasn't been definitively disproven yet.

The full article is in the hoaxipedia.

During the 20th century, Padre Pio was one of the most famous and popular Catholic monks. He died in 1968 and was made a saint by Pope John Paul II in 2002. He was recently declared the Patron Saint of New Year Blues.

Pio was particularly famous for the supernatural phenomena associated with him. In particular, stigmata were said to have mysteriously appeared on his hands and feet. But a new book argues that Pio faked his stigmata:

According to Wikipedia, this is hardly the first time charges of fakery have been leveled against Pio:

From Cranky Media Guy, with the comment, "New horizons in pareidolia":

Health officers in Britain have issued a warning to consumers to be on the lookout for fake holy water. From the BBC:

Zam Zam holy water? I immediately thought it sounded like a good name for a kid's soft drink. Turns out it is. You can buy Zam Zam Cola in Iran.

I think they should issue a general consumer advisory about all holy waters -- that tap water shares all their special powers, for a fraction of the price.

In his new article in the hoaxipedia, Elliot gives some background info on the Church of the SubGenius -- the church which may represent a genuine religious movement, or may be just an elaborate joke.

The Church of the SubGenius is affiliated with the Universal Life Church, "an organization that has been legally (in some states) offering tax-exempt ministerships to all who apply regardless of religious or non-religious affiliation." Years ago I sent away to become a Universal Life Church minister, but I no longer have any clue where I put the sheet of paper saying I'm a minister.

I've sometimes thought about starting my own church. It would be the Church of the Great Hoax. Its motto would be: "Whatever you believe, it's wrong."

At least two or three faces seen in trees seem to get reported a month, and I faithfully note them here. Here are the latest:

Lodi, California: Emily West was doing some meditating over the weekend in her sister's backyard in central Lodi when something caught her eye. "I looked up and saw the face of Christ in the fence and I said, "Whoa," West said. She called her sister Ana over to ask what she saw. She too agreed, it was the Son of God.

Cranky Media Guy forwarded me this story with the comment, "If this is the face of Jesus, then the Son of God is wearing one of those laser-equipped face masks like the Cylons on the original Battlestar Galactica." Yes, well that sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Jesus might be a big Battlestar Galactica fan.

And here's a a second face in a tree seen in Portland, Maine, though there are no details about exactly where it was seen, or by whom.



The thing about this image is that I can see two faces. There's the one on the left, outlined in blue lines below. But there's also the face outlined in green lines (on the right), which is actually the one I saw first.

Due to personal circumstances, this week's Best of the Forum post is brought to you by guest writer and board moderator Madmouse.

Unauthorised Reincarnation Banned in Tibet (MadCarlotta)
China has banned Buddhists from reincarnating without permission, in an apparent attempt to have the next Dalai Lama chosen by the Chinese government.
From the news article:
"According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”

This could lead to a situation where there are two Dalai Lamas, one recognised by millions of Buddhists around the world, and one by the Chinese government.
I don’t know how much of an effect this would have, but it would be a situation best avoided, if possible.

Skype Outage Caused By U.S. Government Spy Plan? (LaMa)
There’s been a lot of discussion in the forum about this conspiracy theory.
http://www.skype-news.com says:
“Skype says the problem was triggered by a Microsoft patch, delivered by Windows Update, which caused an automatic reboot of many PCs. "The high number of restarts affected Skype's network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction," says Skype's Villu Arak. According to Arak, the system would normally have recovered quickly, but on this occasion "a previously unseen bug" caused the network to fail.”
However, this news item suggests that the outage was in fact caused by the introduction of eavesdropping technology, made permissible by a newly-introduced law.

Online Game Used As Epidemic Scenario (Hulitoons)
Scientists have been studying players’ reactions to a disease in online game ‘World of Warcraft’. The researchers say that the information gathered about people’s varying reactions to a crisis like this could prove useful in the event of a genuine epidemic.
From the BBC article:
Researcher Professor Nina Fefferman, from Tufts University School of Medicine, said: “Human behaviour has a big impact on disease spread. And virtual worlds offer an excellent platform for studying human behaviour.The players seemed to really feel they were at risk and took the threat of infection seriously, even though it was only a game.”
Even if people might act somewhat differently in a game, I think that this is a reasonable (and safe) way of gathering data.

Rampant Rabbit In Stick-Up (Dave and Madmouse)
A man was jailed for five years for a robbery at a bookmakers in which he used the sex toy instead of a gun. The vibrator was hidden in a carrier bag, and seemed realistic enough that the shop staff handed over £600.
I do wonder what on earth made him think of using that rather than, say, a toy gun…

A Texas woman thinks a pattern in the trunk of a tree in the parking lot of her local supermarket looks like a pair of angel wings. And, for good measure, she also thinks she might see Jesus there too. The woman, Gayle Griffin, says:

"I was drawn to this tree. Something compelled me to take pictures. Something kept telling me to go back." Maybe that something was her need to buy groceries.

So this is another tree to add to my growing list of images in trees. The wing pattern is quite easy to see, but does it count if the bark has been ripped off, as looks to be the case?

Interestingly, this Jesus/Angel Wing tree is located in the same area that the famous Screen Door Jesus appeared in, back in 1969. Screen Door Jesus recently became the title of a movie (though I don't think the movie is actually about the 1969 incident). There was also a recent movie called Tortilla Heaven inspired by the case of the face of Jesus supposedly visible on a corn tortilla.