Elephants on Acid

by Boese, Alex

  The researchers expressed amazement at what easy marks the group made themselves for the pranksters who, as December 21 approached, targeted Martin with increasing frequency. She and her followers would almost always take the bait, no matter how ridiculous or obvious the trick was. One time a young man called claiming to be “Captain Video from Outer Space.” He told them a spaceship would pick them up at noon. Obediently, the group members trooped outside to wait in the snow for the ship. Another time some boys called up saying they had a flood in their bathroom that they wanted the group to see. Martin, believing the boys were spacemen in disguise, had everyone go over. About the only invitation they didn’t accept was one to an “end of the world cocktail party” a reporter suggested they attend.

  The tension steadily built until the night of December 20, when the entire group gathered in Martin’s living room to wait for midnight. They waited and waited, but no spacemen appeared. At 12:30 a.m. there was a knock at the door, which caused a flurry of excitement. A member went to answer the door as Martin called after him to remember the secret password, but he returned seconds later with the news that it was just some boys playing games. Finally, at 2:30 a.m., Martin announced she had received another message from Sananda. He wasn’t apologizing for blowing them off. Instead, the important message he had beamed all the way from the planet Clarion was that he wanted them to take a coffee break.

  As the members of the group milled around, drinking their coffee, the observers pressed them for their reactions to the nonarrival of the spaceship. Many of Martin’s followers had staked everything on the assumption that spacemen were going to spirit them away. They had quit their jobs and spent all their money. What were they going to do now that they were stuck on Earth? But no one felt like talking. There was a mood of uncomfortable tension. Some members walked around blankly, seemingly disillusioned. Confusion reigned. They were all waiting for Martin to explain why nothing had happened, and at 4:45 a.m. she finally did exactly that. She announced the receipt of a new message from Clarion:

  For from the mouth of death have ye been delivered and at no time has there been such a force loosed upon the Earth. Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room and that which has been loosed within this room now floods the entire Earth.

  What did it mean? It meant, she explained, that they had saved the world! Their devout belief had averted the catastrophe. That’s why the spaceship hadn’t come. Soon, a second message arrived. The spacemen wanted them to spread the “Christmas Message” of joy and salvation to the entire world. Everyone needed to know of the glorious redemption.

  It was just as Festinger had predicted. The stunning disconfirmation of the prediction hadn’t dented the followers’ beliefs at all. Instead, it made their convictions stronger and mobilized the group to seek out new members. Whereas before, Martin and her followers had shunned publicity, the morning of December 21 found them on the phone to reporters, drumming up media attention. Martin made audiotapes of her messages available. She issued a press release. Later, the entire group sang Christmas carols on the lawn, both to spread the message of joy to their neighbors and in a last-ditch attempt to attract a spaceship.

  However, despite great efforts, the group didn’t attract a single convert. It turned out they were lousy at proselytizing. The researchers wrote:

  For about a week they were headline news throughout the nation. Their ideas were not without popular appeal, and they received hundreds of visitors, telephone calls, and letters from seriously interested citizens, as well as offers of money (which they invariably refused). Events conspired to offer them a truly magnificent opportunity to grow in numbers. Had they been more effective, disconfirmation might have portended the beginning, not the end.

  Of course, that a significant percentage of the members were planted stooges, cynically observing all that went on as part of a science experiment, somewhat undermined the group’s effectiveness.

  Festinger’s research offers a gloomy lesson about the resiliency of beliefs. Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone who wouldn’t change his mind no matter what facts, evidence, or logic you presented him with? The case of Dorothy Martin and her followers suggests you might as well give up the effort, because beliefs can easily survive being disproven—and can in fact become stronger as a result. Lurking in the background of Festinger’s thesis is the idea that disconfirmation may have been the triggering event responsible for the spread of many religions.

  So what was the aftermath of the failure of the world to end in 1954? Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter wrote an account of their research that they titled When Prophecy Fails. To protect Martin’s privacy and to shield themselves from lawsuits, they referred to Martin as Marian Keech and set all the events in a fictitious Lake City (rather than Chicago). However, it was never much of a secret that Dorothy Martin was the subject of their study. After all, the Christmas Message that Marian Keech delivers in When Prophecy Fails is the same, word for word, as Dorothy Martin’s Christmas Message, which appeared in many newspapers in December 1954.

  Martin carried on her career as a New Age prophet. She changed her name to Sister Thedra and traveled to South America, where she established a small religious center called the Abbey of the Seven Rays. She continued to predict a coming time of floods, when a new Atlantis would rise from the oceans, but she grew less specific about the date when all this would happen. Eventually she returned to the United 76States, where she died in 1988. Or perhaps, we should say, her spaceship finally arrived.

  The Last Survivor

  It’s the end of the world. The bombs have fallen. The mushroom clouds have bloomed and faded on the horizon. Finally, nothing remains of human civilization except a charred, radioactive ruin. But one creature survives. It crawls from the smoking rubble, clambers to the top of the wreckage, and waves its antennae in victory. It is a cockroach.

  We’ve all heard the claim that in the event of a nuclear war, cockroaches will be the only survivors. But where does this idea come from? Do people say this just because the bugs look tough enough to survive anything, or has someone actually irradiated a bunch of cockroaches to measure precisely how many rads they can withstand?

  By now you can probably guess that, yes, someone has irradiated cockroaches. In 1959, at the Quartermaster Research and Engineering Center in Natick, Massachusetts, the Whartons (D. R. A. and Martha) performed what remains the one definitive experiment on this question. They filled polyethylene bags with twenty to twenty-five cockroaches (Periplaneta americana), inserted a breathing tube into the bag so the little guys had some air, and then placed the bags on a conveyor belt that ran through a two-MeV Van de Graaff 77electron accelerator. Different groups of roaches were exposed to varying amounts of radiation.

  Subsequently, the Whartons placed each cockroach in a beaker, gave it some dog food—apparently roaches love the stuff—and waited to see how long it would live.

  Surprisingly, given the reputation of roaches, the critters didn’t fare very well. One thousand rads will kill a human. The same amount made the roaches sterile. So even if they do survive the bomb, they won’t be breeding much. Ten thousand rads stunned them. At 40,000 rads they died.

  These amounts are far more than humans could survive, but the subjects’ response was not enough to guarantee roaches will rule a postapocalyptic planet Earth. So the legend of the radiation-proof roach is just that—a legend.

  The true lord of radiation, it turns out, is the parasitoid wasp Habro bracon. It takes an unbelievable 180,000 rads to be sure of killing it, as the researchers R. L. Sullivan and D. S. Grosch discovered in 1953. Which means, to paraphrase T. S. Eliot, the world will end not with the bang of bombs or the hiss of cockroaches, but with the buzzing of wasps.

  ELEPHANTS ON ACID

  Alex Boese holds a master’s degree in the history of science from the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of The Museum of H
oaxes and Hippo Eats Dwarf and the creator of www.museumofhoaxes.com.

  He lives near San Diego.

  Also by Alex Boese

  THE MUSEUM OF HOAXES

  HIPPO EATS DWARF

  A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S.

  Once again, to Beverley

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my editor, Stacia Decker, for providing me with the opportunity to write this book and for the numerous improvements she made to it. Thanks also to my agent and fellow Lost fan, Pistek.

  Sally Richards deserves special credit for, week after week, offering her thoughts and comments on the manuscript—as well as for keeping me on target to finish on time.

  The love and support of my family and friends kept me going during the months of writing. Beverley—I absolutely couldn’t have finished without you. Mom and Dad—I’m incredibly lucky to have you as parents. Ted—once again, you came through with the coffee breaks. Charlie—how could I even begin to list all the things I should thank you for? Kirsten, Ben, Astrid, and Pippa—I wish I could see you guys more often, but at least I knew you were cheering me on from Malawi. Boo—as a spoiled little cat, I’m sure you know how important you are.

  Flora Streater greatly helped me by keeping the Museum of Hoaxes operating while I took a leave of absence to work on the book. And thanks to all the other site regulars, especially the gang from the Edinburgh get-together—Annette Hudson (Nettie), Rowenna Streater (Madmouse), Sarah Kirkham (Smerk), Amber Belken (Tru), and William Wilhite (Charybdis)—for keeping the site active while I went off chasing elephants.

  REFERENCES

  References are listed according to the sections in which they appear in the book. Those already footnoted in the text are not repeated here. For some sections there are no additional references beyond the one in the text.

  One: Frankenstein’s Lab

  THE BODY ELECTRIC

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  London Times (January 22, 1803), page 3, column D.

  London Times (February 15, 1803), page 3, column C.

  Morus, I. R. (1998). Frankenstein’s Children: Electricity, Exhibition, and Experiment in Early-Nineteenth-Century London. New Haven, CT: Princeton University Press. 125–52.

  Pera, M. (1992). The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity. Translated by Jonathan Mandelbaum. New Haven, CT: Princeton University Press.

  ZOMBIE KITTEN

  Finger, S., & M. B. Law (1998). “Karl August Weinhold and his ‘Science’ in the era of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Experiments on Electricity and the Restoration of Life.” Journal of the History of Medicine 53: 161–80.

  THE ELECTRICAL ACARI

  Crosse, C. (1857). Memorials, scientific and literary of Andrew Crosse, electrician. Longman: 353–60.

  Haining, P. (1979). The Man Who Was Frankenstein. London: Frederick Muller.

  Miller, S. L. (1953). “A Production of Amino Acids under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions.” Science 117 (3046): 528–29.

  Secord, J. A. (1988). “Extraordinary Experiment: Electricity and the Creation of Life in Victorian England.” In The Uses of Experiment, Gooding, D., T. Pinch, & S. Schaffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 337–83.

  SEVERED HEADS – AN ABBREVIATED HISTORY

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  Brukhonenko, S. (1929). Expériences avec la tête isolée du chien II: Résultats des experiences. Journal de physiologie et de pathologie générale 27 (1): 65–79.

  Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940). Soviet Film Agency. Viewable at: http://www.archive.org/details/Experime1940.

  Hecht, J. M. (1997). French Scientific Materialism and the Liturgy of Death: The Invention of a Secular Version of Catholic Last Rites (1876–1914). French Historical Studies 20 (4): 703–35.

  Loye, P. (1888). La mort par la décapitation. Bureaux du Progres medical. Paris.

  “An Outrage Against Humanity” (January 5, 1885). Galveston Daily News: 3.

  Shaw, G. B. (March 17, 1929). Shaw will sich köpfen lassen, wenn . . . Ein Privatbrief des Dichters über ein neues, abschreckendes Tierexperiment. Berliner Tageblatt: 1.

  HUMAN-APE HYBRID

  Patterson, N., et al. (2006). “Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees.” Nature 441 (7097): 1103–8.

  THE MAN WHO CHEATED DEATH

  “Cornish Readies Life Machine” (May 15, 1947). Oakland Tribune: 16.

  “Dr. Cornish, Chemist, Dies at 59” (March 6, 1963). Oakland Tribune: 1–2.

  Ford, J. E. (February 1935). “Can Science Raise the Dead?” Popular Science Monthly 126 (2): 11–13, 108.

  Life Returns (1935). Scienart Pictures. Available on DVD from Alpha Video: http://www.oldies.com.

  Shuster, E. (March 16, 1934). “Life-Giving Fluid Is Injected into Dead Dog’s Veins and Breath Breathed into Lungs to Restore Life to Him.” The Burlington (N.C.) Daily Times-News: 8.

  THE TWO-HEADED DOGS OF DR DEMIKHOV

  Mosby, A. (April 26, 1959). “Two-Headed Russian Dog Displayed for Reporters.” Nevada State Journal: 8.

  FRANKEN-MONKEY

  Fallaci, O. (November 28, 1967). “The Dead Body & the Living Brain.” Look: 99–108.

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  Two: Sensorama

  THE MOCK-TICKLE MACHINE

  Harris, C. R. (1999). “The Mystery of Ticklish Laughter.” American Scientist 87 (4): 344–48.

  TOUCHING STRANGERS

  Hornik, J. (1992). “Tactile Stimulation and Consumer Response.” The Journal of Consumer Research 19 (3): 449–58.

  Ovesen, L. (2004). “The Midas touch and other tipping stunts.” European Journal of Cancer Prevention 13: 465–66.

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  Stephen, R., & R. L. Zweigenhaft (1986). “The Effect of Tipping of a Waitress Touching Male and Female Customers.” Journal of Social Psychology 126: 141–42.

  WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

  Sage, A. (January 14, 2002). “Cheeky little test exposes wine ‘experts’ as weak and flat.” Times (London).

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  COKE VS. PEPSI

  Thompson, C. (October 26, 2003). “There’s a Sucker Born in Every Medial Prefrontal Cortex.” New York Times Magazine: 54–57.

  SYCHRONOUS MENSTRUATION (THE SCENT OF A WOMAN)

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  Wright, K. (1994). “The Sniff of Legend; Human Pheromones? Chemical Sex Attractants? And a Sixth Sense Organ in the Nose? What Are We, Animals?” Discover 15 (4): 60–68.

  THE SMELL OF MONEY

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  Trivedi, B. (2006). “The Hard Smell.” New Scientist 192 (2582): 36–39.

  SMELL ILLUSIONS

  De Araujo, I. E., E. T. Rolls, M. I. Velazco, C. Margot, & I. Cayeux (2005). “Cognitive Modulation of Olfactory Processing.” Neuron 46 (4): 671–79.

  Slosson, E. E. (1899). “A Lecture Experiment in Hallucinations.” Psychological Review 6: 407–8.

  THE INVISIBLE GORILLA

  Simons, D. J., & D. T. Levin (1998). “Fai
lure to Detect Changes to People During a Real-World Interaction.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 5 (4): 644–49.

  THE MOZART EFFECT

  Bangerter, A., & C. Heath (2004). “The Mozart Effect: Tracking the Evolution of a Scientific Legend.” British Journal of Social Psychology 43: 605–23.

  Chabris, C. F. (1999). “Prelude or Requiem for the ‘Mozart Effect’?” Nature 400 (6747): 826–27.

  Hetland, L. (2000). “Listening to Music Enhances Spatial-Temporal Reasoning: Evidence for the ‘Mozart Effect.’” Journal of Aesthetic Education 34 (3/4): 105–48.