Fortean Name Game and More: Beebe, Arkansas

Last New Year's, birds fell to their deaths in Beebe, Arkansas. The cause of the deaths was said to be from fireworks. Or gunfire. Or both. Or maybe something else. No one was sure, but officials did their best to stick with the "celebratory noise" explanation. Many other reports of bird falls in the U.S. came in last year around that time. But Beebe, Arkansas seemed to be the point of origin for the Fortean falls.

Then this New Year's, a new report of birds falling to the ground, and again, in Beebe. A Fortean coincidence to be sure. Same town, twice? At the same time of the year? So I looked up Beebe, Arkansas and I found that the town was named after Roswell Beebe. Roswell! Also on the Wikipedia entry is a section on the bird falls from 2011, but also, information on the current bird deaths. That was quick!

Updated List of Animal Die-Offs

An updated list of fish and bird deaths from around the world, along with official explanations. The official explanations vary: cold, poison, hit by traffic, intoxicated, getting lost, forgetting to migrate, "beats us," fireworks, fishing nets damaged, storms, earthquakes, humans killing animals, algae, and "a strange white fog caused lung infection." Er, what?

Updated List Of Animal Die-Offs

From Mysterious Universe:Startling Chupacabra Kill, or Merely Another Varmint Vanquished? | Mysterious Universe

Micah Hanks writes on the chupacabra: Startling Chupacabra Kill, or Merely Another Varmint Vanquished? I've posted here and on my Sasquatch blog Frame 352 about the trigger happy people in the U.S. who happily blast away at creatures they think might be the "chupacabra." Of course, as I and others have pointed out many times, the chupacabra is a spiny backed, red eyed, high jumping creature of the Fortean kind. Stories of the blood sucking cryptid came out of Puerto Rico, migrated to Mexico, Florida, elsewhere in the states and South and Central America, retaining its eerie high strangeness nature. No one spoke of mange ridden canines, or other mundane animals. Until, it seems, maybe three years ago or so, where reports of the latter creatures came in, mainly from the southwest but other states as well. People persisted in calling these poor creatures "chupacabra" and killed one as soon as they saw one.

So now the meme has been firmly planted: chupacabra of the true cryptid high strangeness variety, with all its conspiratorial theories -- government projects gone horribly awry, alien pets, inter-dimensional travelers, etc. -- are forgotten, and blue-gray skinned, hairless canine type creatures, probably foxes and or coyotes, etc. with mange or some type of disease have replaced the chupie of legend.

The fear persists however. Fear at seeing something unfamiliar. And so naming it with a handy pre-labeled moniker (chupacabra) and insisting the creature is unknown, a strange interloper, gives one justification for kill first, ask later.

As Micah correctly points out, the media that gladly reports on these stories, and the people that shoot away, are the same ones who laugh at the subject of cryptids, cryptozoology, and the like. Hanks quotes from a recent Fox "news" segment on a recent killing of a "chupacabra"

The legendary chupacabra has been spied, shot and killed — will bigfoot be next?

And rightfully points out the disgusting exploitative implications:

Wonderful to see that some odd-looking little creature (likely a possum, or perhaps a varmint of some sort, as we’ll get to in a moment) has been shot and killed, rather than the diminutive, lizard-like little monsters from the early Puerto Rican reports back in the 1990s. To be clear, this is not a “chupacabra” in the truest sense by any means. However, before we go any further with the report from today, is it too much to ask also that the word “Bigfoot” be capitalized? To quote Loren Coleman, author of Bigfoot: The True Story of Apes in America, since “words like Sea Serpent, Nessie, Bigfoot, Yeti, and related forms all have not been technically ‘accepted’ by systematic zoology, as of this date, the capitalized form (should) be employed.” (Curiously, the same does not typically apply to the use of the term chupacabra in Fortean literature, hence my use of the lower case… but I digress)

Startling Chupacabra Kill, or Merely Another Varmint Vanquished? | Mysterious Universe
Thank you Lesley at The Debris Field for link.

Lon Strickler on The Bigfoot Paradox

I'm a contributor to The C-Influence blog, along with Bruce Duensing, Lon Strickler of Phantoms and Monsters, Bruceleeeowe, Eric Ouellet, J.S. Flower,John Carlson, Lesley Gunter, and Rick Phillips. The idea of the blog is to have "seed posts," -- an article by a contributor --  about esoteric subjects that generates discussion and responses by other blog members. Pretty neat, and different, idea!

Currently, Lon has a great post about paranormal Bigfoot: Visit the blog, read Lon's excellent post, and the equally interesting responses by blog contributors, including me :)

Rain of Frogs: Scene From Magnolia

 Magnolia, with Tom Cruise, made in had Fortean and Biblical references, including this scene of frogs falling from the sky. Classic.

If there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere. ~ Charles Fort

8:2  If you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your borders with frogs:

8:3  and the river shall swarm with frogs, which shall go up and come into your house, and into your bedchamber, and on your bed, and into the house of your servants, and on your people, and into your ovens, and into your kneading-troughs:

8:4  and the frogs shall come up both on you, and on your people, and on all your servants.'"

8:5  Yahweh said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Stretch forth your hand with your rod over the rivers, over the streams, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.'"

8:6  Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.

8:7  The magicians did in like manner with their enchantments, and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt.

8:8  Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, "Entreat Yahweh, that he take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice to Yahweh."  ~ Bible, Exodus