Grainger took a picture of his chicken, Gloria, and saw the face of Jesus in the feathers in the picture – see the green circle. Gloria the chicken, who was the sole survivor of a 19-chicken massacre by foxes, was NOT named Gloria as an expression of thanks for perhaps divine intervention, but rather was named after Gloria Gaynor, the disco queen who sang “I Will Survive.” Perhaps this was enough to irritate the heavens into sending an image of Jesus to appear on the bird’s feathers. Now, why a chicken should be a vessel for the message of Christian salvation, I can’t explain. This makes no more sense to me than if he appeared on a flag at a water park or on someone’s x-ray.

Of course, someone sees a face in a pattern and POOF! It must be Jesus! Well, I see another face in those feathers. I see a cat face! (See pink circle.) So what’s THAT supposed to mean? Maybe it’s not a cat and is the face of the fox that didn’t manage to make this bird its chicken dinner. Maybe Jesus likes to travel with a pet.

So the next time you are looking to find Jesus, it seems there are three simple steps:

1. Take a picture of something.

2. Squint hard to find some pattern in the picture that looks like a face.

3. Call the pattern an image of Jesus. Done!

Don’t ask me what you’re supposed to do with Jesus when you find him. Alerting the media seems to be the popular thing to do, though I would think consulting a priest might be a little more appropriate, though way less entertaining.

- Julie

P.S. Do check out the Halesowen News link below. The reporter clearly had a good time writing the story.

Sources:
http://www.halesowennews.co.uk/news/8286801.Jesus_Christ_super_chicken_is_heav_hen_sent_for_amazed_Rowley_Regis_policeman/?ref=mr
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/835932-jesus-found-in-chickens-feathers

Photo by Thomas Roy

Kevin Dumont, the owner of the Liquid Planet Water Park in Candia, New Hampshire, says he has seen the image of Jesus in a lifeguard station flag at the park.  Dumont has asked his pastor to examine the flag.

Business had been terrible for the water park over the last two years, but it has miraculously picked up since Dumont alerted the media to the alleged apparition. Dumont claims he had asked for a miracle to turn around the poorly performing park and says he’s pretty sure he got one in the form of this flag with some strange stains on it. Um, Mr. Dumont, it’s not a divine miracle that business picks up when you promote something like this to the local media. It’s called marketing. I’m pretty sure he knows this already but is not about to back off from the “It’s a miracle! Jesus at my water park! Everyone come see! and pay an entrance fee!” mantra any time soon. Maybe the owners of Six Flags will see this story and soon we’ll be seeing reports of the Virgin Mary appearing somewhere on the Batman roller coaster. Maybe Dollywood can advertise being haunted by the ghost of Porter Wagoner.

I’m not saying Jesus isn’t making appearances now and then, but this is every bit as silly as appearing on a grilled cheese sandwich. Now, appearing in the swirls of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? THAT would be impressive and just might wake people up. Maybe the image of Jesus is just taking a little R&R breather at the water park to store up the energy to pull off the Savior in the Slick trick. If he shows up in an elephant ear or a fried Snickers bar, though, I think it might be time to start thinking the heavens are just mocking us for their own good time. Who could blame them, really, as most of us are far more interested in Lindsey Lohan going to jail than the destruction of a major ecosystem and resulting financial disaster that, combined with the super fun economic times around the world, makes for some pretty scary stuff that we really ought to be both paying attention to and trying to fix.

Does the image on the flag look like Jesus? I don’t know. I don’t know what he really looked like. I think it does kind of look like Lenin, or Snoop Dog, or maybe Obi Wan Kenobi with one of those aliens from the Mos Eisley cantina band on either side. Even Dumont’s sister thinks it looks like a gladiator, or maybe the Beatles. Who do you think it looks like?

Photo by Google

Jesus has also been seen appearing in a field in a Google Maps image. What do you suppose this is supposed to mean, especially since it can’t even be detected on the ground? Is this some kind of holy graffiti? Once again, it’s a pretty hazy image, and I’m not sure who it looks like.  I’ve never heard of Jesus sporting a Hitler-stache, which the “face” in this image seems to have.

Photo from www.dtinews.vn

Perhaps not wanting to be forgotten in the shadow of that attention-seeking Jesus, Buddha has now also gotten into the apparition racket. Rubber plantation workers in the Ben Cat District of the Binh Duong Province in Vietnam came across an ant hill in the shape of the seated meditating Budhha.  The enigma is attracting thousands of visitors, so many that the government has asked for the removal of the ant hill to a pagoda so people can visit it without disrupting the plantation area. This just wreaks havoc with my fantasy iconographic apparition team stats.

- Julie

Sources:
http://unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=At+Candia+water+park,+some+see+Jesus+in+lifeguard+flag&articleId=32b56755-ac25-4ae7-9f79-06490d1c15ec
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38153106/ns/travel/
http://www.necn.com/07/08/10/Jesus-in-New-Hampshire-water-park-flag-/landing.html?blockID=268118&feedID=4215
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/7872137/Pictures-of-the-day-5-July-2010.html
http://www.dtinews.vn/news/news/headlines/workers-discover-buddha-ant-hill_3477.html

Professor Kim claimed he invented a contraption of filters and water purification cards that would give the water healing properties. He claimed that medical properties could be made into digital signals and that those signals could be radiated onto water, thereby giving the water special healing ability. That’s why different waters could be programmed to treat different conditions, he said.

The people at the Discover blog had a field day with the total scientific quackery of this scheme.

In a totally non-shocking turn of events, people complained to the police that the devices the bought from Kim failed to cure their ills. What is shocking is that Kim managed to get enough people (5,000!) to buy the stuff that he made the equivalent of $1.3 million in US dollars.

Then again, I know a lot of otherwise intelligent people who seem to think the Master Cleanse is a healthy and medically sound way of ridding the body of toxins. You know, just because something doesn’t kill you . . .

- Julie

Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10472269.stm
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/07/01/shocker-inventor-of-a-diy-holy-water-device-charged-with-fraud/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiscoverMag+%28Discover+Magazine%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

A local priest, Father Jorge Gandur, collected some of the substance and sent it to be tested to see what it is.

Thousands of pilgrims have already come to the see the potential miracle, despite words of caution from the of the Archdiocese  of Tucuman, which has asked people not to jump to the conclusion that this is a holy supernatural event.

Reports of bleeding religious iconography have been discounted due to analysis of the blood, which sometimes turned out to be paint or colored water. None have been recognized by the Catholic Church as authentic or sufficiently unexplainable.

There is something about religious status that might be bleeding that completely freaks me out. Way more than if vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. were real, even though that would probably be a lot more dangerous. Really, I should probably be more afraid of the people that appear every now and then to tinker with or do some half-assed cleanup on the semi-abandoned house next door to mine. I mean, what exactly is going on in there? Why did they bring a U-Haul over yesterday to just take what looked like a child’s car seat away? Why does the backyard look like it could be part of Tennessee’s Body Farm experiments?

Back to the complete creepiness of the bleeding statues. Why would that happen? If something great were about to happen, why would a sign include blood? If it’s a miracle, then whatever or whoever causing it could surely create something a little more uplifting, like making the statues talk instead and tell us. No, it seems more likely that if a bleeding Jesus or Mary were really to happen, it would only be because either something really awful had happened and we were being informed that we were making God cry, basically, and were likely to get the crap smitten out of us if we didn’t watch it, or that something really awful was about to happen and that we should pretty much hang it up and start praying. Either way, not good. This is why I get nervous when I see reports like this and do a little internal happy dance of relief when they are shown to be hoaxes. Hoaxes might disappoint some people, but at least they aren’t signs of impending apocalypse.

I anxiously await confirmation of well-intentioned but ill-guided hoaxery in this case. Until then I’ll get back to worrying about why there is suddenly a lot of freshly cut firewood stacked at the creepy house.

- Julie

P.S. Did you know there is a drink called the “Bleeding Jesus”? That’s just gross.

Sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1286732/Pilgrims-storm-church-blood-runs-image-Christ.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeping_statue
http://www.idrink.com/v.html?id=46559