If God created the universe, then who created God?

Answering the Critics

by Jonathan Sarfati

A number of sceptics ask this question. But God by definition is the uncreated creator of the universe, so the question ‘Who created God?’ is illogical, just like ‘To whom is the bachelor married?’

So a more sophisticated questioner might ask: ‘If the universe needs a cause, then why doesn’t God need a cause? And if God doesn’t need a cause, why should the universe need a cause?’ In reply, Christians should use the following reasoning:

1. Everything which has a beginning has a cause.¹
2. The universe has a beginning.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause.

It’s important to stress the words in bold type. The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning, as will be shown below. God, unlike the universe, had no beginning, so doesn’t need a cause. In addition, Einstein’s general relativity, which has much experimental support, shows that time is linked to matter and space. So time itself would have begun along with matter and space. Since God, by definition, is the creator of the whole universe, he is the creator of time. Therefore He is not limited by the time dimension He created, so has no beginning in time—God is ‘the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity’ (Is. 57:15). Therefore He doesn’t have a cause.

In contrast, there is good evidence that the universe had a beginning. This can be shown from the Laws of Thermodynamics, the most fundamental laws of the physical sciences.

• 1st Law: The total amount of mass-energy in the universe is constant.
• 2nd Law: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or entropy is increasing to a maximum.

If the total amount of mass-energy is limited, and the amount of usable energy is decreasing, then the universe cannot have existed forever, otherwise it would already have exhausted all usable energy—the ‘heat death’ of the universe. For example, all radioactive atoms would have decayed, every part of the universe would be the same temperature, and no further work would be possible. So the obvious corollary is that the universe began a finite time ago with a lot of usable energy, and is now running down.

Now, what if the questioner accepts that the universe had a beginning, but not that it needs a cause? But it is self-evident that things that begin have a cause—no-one really denies it in his heart. All science and history would collapse if this law of cause and effect were denied. So would all law enforcement, if the police didn’t think they needed to find a cause for a stabbed body or a burgled house. Also, the universe cannot be self-caused—nothing can create itself, because that would mean that it existed before it came into existence, which is a logical absurdity.

In Summary

• The universe (including time itself) can be shown to have had a beginning.
• It is unreasonable to believe something could begin to exist without a cause.
• The universe therefore requires a cause, just as Genesis 1:1 and Romans 1:20 teach.
• God, as creator of time, is outside of time. Since therefore He has no beginning in time, He has always existed, so doesn’t need a cause.

Objections

There are only two ways to refute an argument:

1. Show that it is logically invalid
2. Show that at least one of the premises is false.

a) Is the argument valid?

A valid argument is one where it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. Note that validity does not depend on the truth of the premises, but on the form of the argument. The argument in this paper is valid; it is of the same form as: All whales have backbones; Moby Dick is a whale; therefore Moby Dick has a backbone. So the only hope for the sceptic is to dispute one or both of the premises.

b) Are the premises true?

1) Does the universe have a beginning?

Oscillating universe ideas were popularized by atheists like the late Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov solely to avoid the notion of a beginning, with its implications of a Creator. But as shown above, the Laws of Thermodynamics undercut that argument. Even an oscillating universe cannot overcome those laws. Each one of the hypothetical cycles would exhaust more and more usable energy. This means every cycle would be larger and longer than the previous one, so looking back in time there would be smaller and smaller cycles. So the multicycle model could have an infinite future, but can only have a finite past.²

Also, there are many lines of evidence showing that there is far too little mass for gravity to stop expansion and allow cycling in the first place, i.e., the universe is ‘open’. According to the best estimates (even granting old-earth assumptions), the universe still has only about half the mass needed for re-contraction. This includes the combined total of both luminous matter and non-luminous matter (found in galactic halos), as well as any possible contribution of neutrinos to total mass.³ Some recent evidence for an ‘open’ universe comes from the number of light-bending ‘gravitational lenses’ in the sky.⁴ Also, analysis of Type Ia supernovae shows that the universe’s expansion rate is not slowing enough for a closed universe^.5,6 It seems like there is only 40-80% of the required matter to cause a ‘big crunch’. Incidentally, this low mass is also a major problem for the currently fashionable ‘inflationary’ version of the ‘big bang’ theory, as this predicts a mass density just on the threshold of collapse—a ‘flat’ universe.

Finally, no known mechanism would allow a bounce back after a hypothetical ‘big crunch’.⁷ As the late Professor Beatrice Tinsley of Yale explained, even though the mathematics says that the universe oscillates, ‘There is no known physical mechanism to reverse a catastrophic big crunch.’ Off the paper and into the real world of physics, those models start from the Big Bang, expand, collapse, and that’s the end.⁸

2) Denial of cause and effect

Some physicists assert that quantum mechanics violates this cause/effect principle and can produce something from nothing. For instance, Paul Davies writes:

… spacetime could appear out of nothingness as a result of a quantum transition. … Particles can appear out of nowhere without specific causation … Yet the world of quantum mechanics routinely produces something out of nothing.⁹

But this is a gross misapplication of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics never produces something out of nothing. Davies himself admitted on the previous page that his scenario ‘should not be taken too seriously.’

Theories that the universe is a quantum fluctuation must presuppose that there was something to fluctuate—their ‘quantum vacuum’ is a lot of matter-antimatter potential—not ‘nothing’. Also, I have plenty of theoretical and practical experience at quantum mechanics (QM) from my doctoral thesis work. For example, Raman spectroscopy is a QM phenomenon, but from the wavenumber and intensity of the spectral bands, we can work out the masses of the atoms and force constants of the bonds causing the bands. To help the atheist position that the universe came into existence without a cause, one would need to find Raman bands appearing without being caused by transitions in vibrational quantum states, or alpha particles appearing without pre-existing nuclei, etc. If QM was as acausal as some people think, then we should not assume that these phenomena have a cause. Then I may as well burn my Ph.D. thesis, and all the spectroscopy journals should quit, as should any nuclear physics research.

Also, if there is no cause, there is no explanation why this particular universe appeared at a particular time, nor why it was a universe and not, say, a banana or cat which appeared. This universe can’t have any properties to explain its preferential coming into existence, because it wouldn’t have any properties until it actually came into existence.

Is creation by God rational?

A last desperate tactic by sceptics to avoid a theistic conclusion is to assert that creation in time is incoherent. Davies correctly points out that since time itself began with the beginning of the universe, it is meaningless to talk about what happened ‘before’ the universe began. But he claims that causes must precede their effects. So if nothing happened ‘before’ the universe began, then (according to Davies) it is meaningless to discuss the cause of the universe’s beginning.

But the philosopher (and New Testament scholar) William Lane Craig, in a useful critique of Davies,¹⁰ pointed out that Davies is deficient in philosophical knowledge. Philosophers have long discussed the notion of simultaneous causation. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) gave the example of a weight resting on a cushion simultaneously causing a depression in it. Craig says: The first moment of time is the moment of God’s creative act and of creation’s simultaneous coming to be.

Marc Kay’s critique of Davies The Mind of God points out further logical and physical fallacies of Davies’ reasoning.¹¹

Some skeptics claim that all this analysis is tentative, because that is the nature of science. So this can’t be used to prove creation by God. Of course, sceptics can’t have it both ways: saying that the Bible is wrong because science has proved it so, but if science appears consistent with the Bible, then well, science is tentative anyway.

ARE GHOSTS REAL?

Are Ghosts Real? Science Says No-o-o-o

If you believe in ghosts, you're not alone: A 2005 Gallup poll found that 37 percent of Americans believe in haunted houses, and about one-third believe in ghosts. Tens of thousands of people around the world actively search for ghosts as a hobby. Researcher Sharon Hill of theDoubtful Newsblog counted about 2,000 active amateur ghost-hunting groups in America.

Do you believe in ghosts?
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Ghosts have been a popular subject for millennia, appearing in countless stories, from "Macbeth" to the Bible, and even spawning their own folklore genre: ghost stories. Ghosts are perhaps the most common paranormal belief in the world. Part of the reason is thatbelief in ghosts is part of a larger web of related paranormal beliefs, including near-death experience, life after death, and spirit communication.
The idea that the dead remain with us in spirit is an ancient one, and one that offers many people comfort; who doesn't want to believe that our beloved but deceased family members aren't looking out for us, or with us in our times of need? Most people believe in ghosts because of personal experience; they have seen or sensed some unexplained presence.



The science and logic of ghosts
Personal experience is one thing, but scientific evidence is another matter. Part of the difficulty in investigating ghosts is that there is not one universally agreed-upon definition of what a ghost is. Some believe that they are spirits of the dead who for whatever reason get "lost" on their way to The Other Side; others claim that ghosts are instead telepathic entities projected into the world from our minds.
Still others create their own special categories for different types of ghosts, such as poltergeists, residual hauntings, intelligent spirits and shadow people. Of course, it's all made up, like speculating on the different races of fairies or dragons: there are as many types of ghosts as you want there to be.

Carol Anne: Hello? What do you look like? Talk louder, I can't hear you! Poltergeist helped define a paranormal culture in the United States.

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There are many contradictions inherent in ideas about ghosts. For example, are ghosts material or not? Either they can move through solid objects without disturbing them, or they can slam doors shut and throw objects across the room. Logically and physically, it's one or the other. If ghosts are human souls, why do they appear clothed and with (presumably soulless) inanimate objects like hats, canes, and dresses — not to mention the many reports of ghost trains, cars and carriages?
If ghosts are the spirits of those whose deaths were unavenged, why are there unsolved murders, since ghosts are said to communicate with psychic mediums, and should be able to identify their killers for the police. And so on; just about any claim about ghosts raises logical reasons to doubt it.
Ghost hunters use many creative (and dubious) methods to detect the spirits' presences, often including psychics. Virtually all ghost hunters claim to be scientific, and most give that appearance because they use high-tech scientific equipment such as Geiger counters, Electromagnetic Field (EMF) detectors, ion detectors, infrared cameras and sensitive microphones. Yet none of this equipment has ever been shown to actually detect ghosts.
Other people take exactly the opposite approach, claiming that the reason that ghosts haven't been proven to exist is that we simply don't have the right technology to find or detect the spirit world. But this, too, can't be correct: Either ghosts exist and appear in our ordinary physical world (and can therefore be detected and recorded in photographs, film, video, and audio recordings), or they don't. If ghosts exist and can be scientifically detected or recorded, then we should find hard evidence of that — yet we don't. If ghosts exist and cannot be scientifically detected or recorded, then all the photos, videos, and other recordings claimed to be evidence of ghosts cannot be ghosts. With so many basic contradictory theories — and so little science brought to bear on the topic — it's not surprising that despite the efforts of thousands of ghost hunters on television and elsewhere for decades, not a single piece of hard evidence of ghosts has been found.

Why many believe
Many people believe that support for the existence of ghosts can be found in no less a hard science than modern physics. It is widely claimed that Albert Einstein suggested a scientific basis for the reality of ghosts; if energy cannot be created or destroyed but only change form, what happens to our body's energy when we die? Could that somehow be manifested as a ghost?
It seems like a reasonable assumption — unless you understand basic physics. The answer is very simple, and not at all mysterious. After a person dies, the energy in his or her body goes where all organisms' energy goes after death: into the environment. The energy is released in the form of heat, and transferred into the animals that eat us (i.e., wild animals if we are left unburied, or worms and bacteria if we are interred), and the plants that absorb us. There is no bodily "energy" that survives death to be detected with popular ghost-hunting devices.
While most ghost hunters engage in harmless (and fruitless) fun, there can be a darker side. In the wake of popular ghost-hunting TV shows, police across the country have seen a surge in people being arrested, injured, and even killed while looking for ghosts. In 2010, a man died while ghost-hunting with a group of friends hoping to see the ghost of a train that crashed years earlier. The ghost train did not appear — but a real train came around a bend and killed one man.
The evidence for ghosts is no better today than it was a year ago, a decade ago, or a century ago. There are two possible reasons for the failure of ghost hunters to find good evidence. The first is that ghosts don't exist, and that reports of ghosts can be explained by psychology, misperceptions, mistakes and hoaxes. The second option is that ghosts do exist, but that ghost hunters are simply incompetent. Ultimately, ghost hunting is not about the evidence (if it was, the search would have been abandoned long ago). Instead, it's about having fun with friends, telling stories, and the enjoyment of pretending they are searching the edge of the unknown. After all, everyone loves a good ghost story.
Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books, including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

TIME TRAVEL

Time Travel: Theories, Paradoxes & Possibilities

Time travel may be theoretically possible, but it is beyond our current technological capabilities.
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Time travel — moving between different points in time — has been a popular topic for science fiction for decades. Franchises ranging from "Doctor Who" to "Star Trek" to "Back to the Future" have seen humans get in a vehicle of some sort and arrive in the past or future, ready to take on new adventures.
The reality, however, is more muddled. Not all scientists believe that time travel is possible. Some even say that an attempt would be fatal to any human who chooses to undertake it.

Understanding time

What is time? While most people think of time as a constant, physicist Albert Einstein showed that time is an illusion; it is relative — it can vary for different observers depending on your speed through space. To Einstein, time is the "fourth dimension." Space is described as a three-dimensional arena, which provides a traveler with coordinates — such as length, width and height —showing location. Time provides another coordinate — direction — although conventionally, it only moves forward. (Conversely, a new theory asserts thattime is "real.")

Most physicists think time is a subjective illusion, but what if time is real?
Credit: Shutterstock/Kim D. French

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Einstein's theory of special relativity says that time slows down or speeds up depending on how fast you move relative to something else. Approaching the speed of light, a person inside a spaceship would age much slower than his twin at home. Also, under Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity can bend time.
Picture a four-dimensional fabric called space-time. When anything that has mass sits on that piece of fabric, it causes a dimple or a bending of space-time. The bending of space-time causes objects to move on a curved path and that curvature of space is what we know as gravity.
Both the general and special relativity theories have been proven with GPS satellite technology that has very accurate timepieces on board. The effects of gravity, as well as the satellites' increased speed above the Earth relative to observers on the ground, make the unadjusted clocks gain 38 microseconds a day. (Engineers make calibrations to account for the difference.)
In a sense, this effect, called time dilation, means astronauts are time travelers, as they return to Earth very, very slightly younger than their identical twins that remain on the planet.

Through the wormhole

General relativity also provides scenarios that could allow travelers to go back in time, according to NASA. The equations, however, might be difficult to physically achieve.
One possibility could be to go faster than light, which travels at 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second) in a vacuum. Einstein's equations, though, show that an object at the speed of light would have both infinite mass and a length of 0. This appears to be physically impossible, although some scientists have extended his equations and said it might be done.
A linked possibility, NASA stated, would be to create "wormholes" between points in space-time. While Einstein's equations provide for them, they would collapse very quickly and would only be suitable for very small particles. Also, scientists haven't actually observed these wormholes yet. Also, the technology needed to create a wormhole is far beyond anything we have today.

Alternate time travel theories

While Einstein's theories appear to make time travel difficult, some groups have proposed alternate solutions to jump back and forth in time.
Infinite cylinder
Astronomer Frank Tipler proposed a mechanism (sometimes known as aTipler Cylinder) where one would take matter that is 10 times the sun's mass, then roll it into very long but very dense cylinder.
After spinning this up a few billion revolutions per minute, a spaceship nearby — following a very precise spiral around this cylinder — could get itself on a "closed, time-like curve", according to the Anderson Institute. There are limitations with this method, however, including the fact that the cylinder needs to be infinitely long for this to work.

An artist's impression of a black hole like the one weighed in this work, sitting in the core of a disk galaxy. The black-hole in NGC4526 weighs 450,000,000 times more than our own Sun.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Black holes

Another possibility would be to move a ship rapidly around a black hole, or to artificially create that condition with a huge, rotating structure.
"Around and around they'd go, experiencing just half the time of everyone far away from the black hole. The ship and its crew would be traveling through time," physicist Stephen Hawking wrote in the Daily Mail in 2010.
"Imagine they circled the black hole for five of their years. Ten years would pass elsewhere. When they got home, everyone on Earth would have aged five years more than they had."
However, he added, the crew would need to travel around the speed of light for this to work. Physicist Amos Iron at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel pointed out another limitation if one used a machine: it might fall apart before being able to rotate that quickly.

Cosmic strings

Another theory for potential time travelers involves something called cosmic strings — narrow tubes of energy stretched across the entire length of the ever-expanding universe. These thin regions, left over from the early cosmos, are predicted to contain huge amounts of mass and therefore could warp the space-time around them.
Cosmic strings are either infinite or they’re in loops, with no ends, scientists say. The approach of two such strings parallel to each other would bend space-time so vigorously and in such a particular configuration that might make time travel possible, in theory.

Time machines

It is generally understood that traveling forward or back in time would require a device — a time machine — to take you there. Time machine research often involves bending space-time so far that time lines turn back on themselves to form a loop, technically known as a "closed time-like curve."

The Doctor's time machine is the TARDIS, which stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.
Credit: BBCAmerica

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To accomplish this, time machines often are thought to need an exotic form of matter with so-called "negative energy density." Such exotic matter has bizarre properties, including moving in the opposite direction of normal matter when pushed. Such matter could theoretically exist, but if it did, it might be present only in quantities too small for the construction of a time machine.
However, time-travel research suggests time machines are possible without exotic matter. The work begins with a doughnut-shaped hole enveloped within a sphere of normal matter. Inside this doughnut-shaped vacuum, space-time could get bent upon itself using focused gravitational fields to form a closed time-like curve. To go back in time, a traveler would race around inside the doughnut, going further back into the past with each lap. This theory has a number of obstacles, however. The gravitational fields required to make such a closed time-like curve would have to be very strong, and manipulating them would have to be very precise. [Related: Warp Speed, Scotty? Star Trek's FTL Drive May Actually Work]

Grandfather paradox

Besides the physics problems, time travel may also come with some unique situations. A classic example is the grandfather paradox, in which a time traveler goes back and kills his parents or his grandfather — the major plot line in the "Terminator" movies — or otherwise interferes in their relationship — think "Back to the Future" — so that he is never born or his life is forever altered.
If that were to happen, some physicists say, you would be not be born in one parallel universe but still born in another. Others say that the photons that make up light prefer self-consistency in timelines, which would interfere with your evil, suicidal plan.
Some scientists disagree with the options mentioned above and say time travel is impossible no matter what your method. The faster-than-light one in particular drew derision from American Museum of Natural History astrophysicist Charles Lu.
That "simply, mathematically, doesn't work," he said in a past interview with sister site LiveScience.
Also, humans may not be able to withstand time travel at all. Traveling nearly the speed of light would only take a centrifuge, but that would be lethal, said Jeff Tollaksen, a professor of physics at Chapman University, in 2012.
Using gravity would also be deadly. To experience time dilation, one could stand on a neutron star, but the forces a person would experience would rip you apart first.

So is time travel possible?

While time travel does not appear possible — at least, possible in the sense that the humans would survive it — with the physics that we use today, the field is constantly changing. Advances in quantum theories could perhaps provide some understanding of how to overcome time travel paradoxes.
One possibility, although it would not necessarily lead to time travel, is solving the mystery of how certain particles can communicate instantaneously with each other faster than the speed of light.
In the meantime, however, interested time travelers can at least experience it vicariously through movies, television and books.
— Elizabeth Howell, SPACE.com Contributor

10 MYSTERIOUS PLACES

10 Places As Mysterious As The Bermuda Triangle

Everyone has heard of the Bermuda Triangle and the mysteries that surround it. Theories about this area range from reasonable to just plain ridiculous, but whether you believe it’s the site of time warps, alien abductions, or just plain paranoia, it certainly abounds with strangeness. It’s not the only place you can find creepy things happening, however—here are 10 other places on Earth with their fair share of mysteries:

10

Superstition Mountains

The Superstition Mountains are a mountain range located east of Phoenix, Arizona. Already it’s off to a great start with the name.

According to legend, sometime in the 1800s a man named Jacob Waltz discovered a huge goldmine within the mountains that has since been dubbed the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine (because Waltz was German, and eh, close enough). He kept the location a secret until his deathbed, upon which he may or may not (depending on which version of the story you’re reading) have told a single person the secret. Regardless, the mine has never been found, in spite of many expeditions. Some say the spirits of people who’ve lost their lives in search of the gold still haunt the mountains.

One reportedly Native American legend goes that the treasures of the mountains are guarded by creatures called Tuar-Tums (“Little People”) that live below the mountains in caves and tunnels. Some Apaches believe that the entrance to hell is located in the mountains. This is, of course, ridiculous, as we all know the entrance to hell is in Sunnydale.

9

South Atlantic Anomaly

Did you ever wonder if there was a Bermuda Triangle in Space? No? Well you’re probably wondering it now, and you’re in luck! Because there totally is, and it’s called the South Atlantic Anomaly. The SAA is the area where the band of radiation known as Earth’s inner Van Allen belt comes closest to the Earth’s surface.

It’s an area centered just a bit off the coast of Brazil, and it’s responsible for numerous problems with satellites and spacecraft, from messing up their programs to actually shutting down their function. The Hubble Telescope is actually turned off from taking observations when passing through the Anomaly, and the International Space Station avoids scheduling spacewalks when passing through it (which happens up to 5 times a day). It’s not just technical problems, either—some astronauts report seeing “shooting stars” in their visual field as they pass through.

The cause of all these problems isn’t fully understood. The main suspect is the high levels of radiation that accumulate at the anomaly, but scientists aren’t sure exactly how or why the effects occur. So let’s just pin this one on aliens.

8

Lake Anjikuni

Not content with just a few individuals disappearing, Lake Anjikuni decided to take things to the next level and provide the locale for the disappearance of an entire village. It all happened in November 1930, when a trapper named Joe Labelle was looking for shelter for the night. Labelle was familiar with the Inuit village, whose population ranges from 30-2000, depending on who you believe. He made his way there and found quite an eerie scene—the villagers were nowhere to be found. Everything else, including food and rifles, had been left behind.

Labelle telegraphed the RCMP and an investigation began. In the Village Burial Ground it was discovered that at least one (sources vary) grave had been opened, clearly not by animals, and emptied. Furthermore, about 300 feet from the village, the bodies of around 7 sled dogs were found, having starved to death despite open stores of food at the village. Some versions of the story even report strange lights being seen above the lake around the time of the disappearance.

So what really happened? There have been all sorts of claims about the cause for the disappearance, including aliens (of course), ghosts, and even vampires. The RCMP’s own website disregards the story as an urban legend, but with so many versions of it floating around from so many years ago, it’s hard to be certain. Except about the vampires, I think we can be certain it wasn’t vampires.

7

The Devil’s Sea

The Devil’s Sea (or Dragon’s Triangle, take your pick of which sounds more ominous) is an area of the Pacific Ocean as riddled with strange happenings as its Atlantic counterpart near Bermuda. Located off the coast of Japan, it’s been the site of countless claims of unexplained phenomena including magnetic anomalies, inexplicable lights and objects, and of course, mysterious disappearances. The area is even considered a danger by Japanese fishing authorities.

One story has it that in 1952 the Japanese government sent out a research vessel, the Kaio Maru No. 5, to investigate the mysteries of the Devil’s Sea. Naturally, of course, the Kaio Maru No. 5 and its crew of 31 people were never seen again. Another story tells of Kublai Khan’s disastrous attempts to invade Japan by crossing the Devil’s Sea, losing at least 40 000 men in the process.

The usual theories abound for what’s really going on: from aliens, to gates to parallel universes, even to Atlantis (because why not). Some suggest that high volcanic activity in the region is responsible for some of the disappearances (the Kaio Maru No. 5 may have been caught in an eruption). Our advice? Just stay out of the ocean, period.

6

Bigelow Ranch

Bigelow Ranch (formerly known as Skinwalker Ranch and Sherman Ranch) is a 480-acre property in northwest Utah that is home to countless UFO sightings, animal mutilations, and other strange occurrences. Though mysterious happenings have been documented since the 50’s, some of the most bizarre stories happened to a pair of ranchers named Terry and Gwen Sherman after they bought it in 1994.

The first day they moved on to the property, they saw a large wolf out in the pasture. They even went to pet the wolf as it seemed tame (to the curious reader, yes, this is always a good idea). It was docile with the Shermans, but ended up grabbing a calf by the snout through the bars of its enclosure. When Terry shot at the wolf with a pistol, the bullets had no effect. It finally left after Terry brought out the shotgun, though even that didn’t do any actual damage. The Shermans tried tracking the wolf, but it’s tracks stopped abruptly as if it had vanished.

And that wasn’t the end of things. The Shermans were constantly plagued by such events as UFO sightings, intelligent floating orbs (reputed to have incinerated three of their dogs), inexplicable cryptids, and gruesome cattle mutilations. It got so bad that the Shermans actually sold their ranch to Robert Bigelow in 1996, the founder of the National Institute for Discovery Science, who wanted to study the mysteries surrounding the ranch. Bigelow owns the ranch to this day and NIDS keeps a tight lid on their findings.

5

Point Pleasant

Point Pleasant was probably aptly named at one point, but it is now so shrouded in tales of mysterious and creepy events as to be nothing but an ironic alliteration. The most famous of these events involves a creature known as Mothman, who reputedly terrorized the small West Virginia community from November 1966 to December 1967. Over a hundred different citizens of Point Pleasant are eyewitnesses to this creature, a 7-foot tall broad chested man with hypnotic, glowing red eyes, and wings that stretch 10 feet long and drag behind him on the ground.

The Mothman, who’s been the subject of both a book and a movie (and who has his own statue in Point Pleasant), has many possible explanations. Some believe him to be an extraterrestrial, others a mutant or a cryptid, and some suggest the people of Point Pleasant were actually being scared by owls or a Sandhill Crane. Whatever the case, reports of Mothman stopped after the Silver Bridge collapsed on December 15, 1967, killing 46 people and leading many to believe that the two events were somehow connected.

In addition to Mothman, several other paranormal tales from Point Pleasant include UFO sightings and reports of so-called “Men In Black”—human looking creatures who unnerve others by the sheer abundance of peculiarities in their speech, appearance, and mannerisms. These “men” supposedly appear looking for information about the paranormal (or rather, people who have this information).

4

Michigan Triangle

The Michigan Triangle is another geographical triangle, located in the middle of Lake Michigan. It, too, is the site of mysterious disappearances of both land and sea craft. Some of the more famous ones include:

Captain Donner: On April 28, 1937, Captain George R. Donner of the O.M. McFarland was on his way from Erie, Pennsylvania, to Port Washington, Wisconsin, and had to pass through the triangle. As the story goes, he was exhausted and retired to his cabin, leaving the second mate to wake him when they neared their destination. About three hours later, when the second mate went to do so, Donner was not in his cabin. Nor was he in the galley. An exhaustive search of the ship was conducted, but he was never found.

Flight 2501: On June 23, 1950, Northwest Airlines Flight 2501 was on its way from New York to Minneapolis at the hands of experienced pilot Robert C. Lind, and was carrying 58 passengers. Due to bad weather, when the flight was near Chicago it changed course and turned over Lake Michigan. Around midnight, Lind requested permission to drop altitude from 3500 ft to 2500 ft, without ever specifying a reason. His request was denied, and that was the last communication Flight 2501 ever had. It’s last known position was supposedly within the Michigan Triangle.

While sources vary as to what amount of wreckage of Flight 2501 has been found (some say nothing, whereas others specify assorted floating debris such as seat cushions and the like), it seems clear that the plane crashed into the water. Mysterious, however, is that the plane was in perfectly good condition and in capable hands at the time of the disappearance. What’s more, despite searches still being conducted annually, neither the body of the plane nor complete human remains have ever been recovered.

3

San Luis Valley

San Luis Valley, in southern Colorado, is an area high in inexplicable phenomena including UFO sightings and hundreds of unexplained farm animal mutilations. UFO sightings are so common that a woman named Judy Messoline has even set up a UFO watchtower on her property, which has witnessed over 50 UFO sightings since 2000 alone. Some of these are observed by dozens of people at a time.

For the UFO skeptics out there, far more chilling are the tales of animal mutilations from the region. They began in 1967, with a horse named Snippy. Snippy was found one morning with her brain missing, and her neck bones completely cleaned. Since then, hundreds if not thousands of inexplicable animal mutilations have occurred in the region, sharing several things in common—firstly, there is never a trace of blood around the animals, and secondly, the animals are all damaged with precise cuts, distinctly not the work of predators. Finally, all of the mutilations happen overnight to otherwise healthy creatures.

Investigations into the incidents haven’t wielded any results, yet they continue to this day. Some farmers report seeing strange lights in the sky the nights before finding a carcass, leading some to believe that extraterrestrials are involved. Though it’s hard to imagine aliens caring so much about farm animals in Colorado, the alternative isn’t much more appealing—that humans are the so-called “Phantom Surgeons of the Plains”. Personally, I’d rather it was aliens.

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Bennington Triangle

Oh look, another triangle. This one is found in southwestern Vermont, and is the site of a string of 5 mysterious disappearances between 1945-1950, related in no way but geographic location. These include:

Middie Rivers, 75 years old, was out leading a group of hunters on November 12, 1945. On their way back, he got ahead of his group and was never seen again. Only a single rifle shell found in a stream was recovered as evidence.

Paula Welden was an 18 year old sophomore of Bennington College who was out hiking on December 1, 1946. She never returned and no trace of her was ever found.

Exactly 3 years later, on December 1, 1949, a veteran named James E. Tetford was taking a bus back to his home at the Bennington Soldier’s Home, returning from a visit with relatives. Witnesses saw him on the bus the stop before this, but when the bus arrived at his destination he was nowhere to be seen. His luggage was still on the bus.

Eight year old Paul Jepson disappeared on October 12, 1950, while his mother was busy feeding the pigs. Despite having a highly visible red jacket, none of the search parties formed were able to find the boy.

The last disappearance was a woman named Frieda Langer. On October 28, 1950, she was hiking with her cousin on Glastenbury Mountain when she slipped in a stream. She decided to go back quickly and change her clothes, and, if you’ve been paying attention so far, you’ll surmise that she was never seen again. Well, not exactly—she’s the only victim whose body was ever recovered, though it was only found on May 12, 1951 (about 6 months later), in an area that had been thoroughly searched after her disappearance. The body was in such a mangled shape that no cause of death could be determined.

Though many theories abound, including aliens, bigfoot-like monsters, or some unknown serial killer, there’s one thing we know for sure: it’s a good idea to stay the hell away from triangles.

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Bridgewater Triangle

No, seriously—stay away from triangles. Especially this one. The Bridgewater Triangle, an area of about 200 square miles in Southeastern Massachusetts just south of Boston, is like an all you can eat buffet of the supernatural.

Among other things, the area has been subject to numerous cryptozoological sightings. Since the 1970’s there have been several reports of tall, hairy, ape-like creatures roaming the swamp. There have also been numerous sightings of Thunderbirds, giant Pterodactyl-like creatures that have been seen fighting in midair. In 1976 there was a report of a man who saw a giant, ghostly, red-eyed dog rip the throats out of two of his ponies.

Besides these cryptids, there have been numerous reports of mutilated animals (mainly cows and calves) in the region. Some credit these mutilations to satanic cults, but no one has come forward and no one even knows where the animals came from.

As if all this weren’t enough, the Bridgewater Triangle is a hotbed of UFO sightings, dating all the way back to 1760, when a “sphere of fire” was reportedly seen hovering over New England. Since then there have been numerous sightings of unexplained objects in the sky—including mysterious black helicopters. One from 1976 describes two UFOs landing along Route 44 near the city of Taunton, and another from 1994 recounts a strange triangular object with red and white lights seen by a Bridgewater Law Enforcement Officer. In 1908 on Halloween night, two undertakers who were traveling to Bridgewater noticed in the sky what looked like a “giant lantern”. They watched it for almost 40 minutes before it disappeared.

Bermuda isn’t looking so bad anymore.