Will Lunar Eclipse Bring Forth Bizarre Sports Behaviors Tonight?

What will happen during this "dark knight" of November 28th? Will the stronger than usual pull of the alignment of the moon, earth, and sun cause earthquakes and suicides?  Or a sports fan to go wild?

Or will it just be another opportunity for more debate about "lunacy"? Tonight's events (or Thursday's or Friday's, the effect can cause ripples) remain to be seen, so I am not giving away any spoilers.

Most media folks downplay the link between the strong tidal influences of full and new moons, but for those of us who have worked in the mental health field, caution is always the watchword.

It is a fact that "80 percent of nurses and 64 percent of doctors [believe] that the lunar cycle is a major player in mental health," as mentioned in the skeptical "Penumbral Lunar Eclipse 2012: November 28 Event Won't Bring Out 'Lunatics'."

As that article notes,

During the Nov. 28 lunar eclipse the full moon will pass into the hazy outer edge (penumbra) of Earth's shadow. This subtle shadow across the moon's surface will be visible in East Asia, Australia, Hawaii and Alaska, with possible views at moonset and moonrise for the western United States and parts of Europe and Africa.

While using the ridicule curtain to counter the "lunacy" thoughts that are reflective of full and new moon experiences of front line workers, with jokes about werewolves, some notes are shared about non-human animals.

A 2007 study at Colorado State University found that veterinary ER visits by cats and dogs went up on full-moon nights. It's possible that owners and their pets simply spend more time outside on nights when the moon is bright, increasing the risk of injury, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Perhaps for similar reasons, a study published in the British Medical Journal in 2000 found that emergency-room admissions for animal bites went up at one hospital on nights with full moons, but studies in other places have failed to find a similar link.

But I wonder if people are ignoring the more bizarre human "tidal effects" that are caused by the phrases of the moon. When I was working with suicidal folks, I tracked the suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge. I certainly noticed an increase around the new and full moons. Earthquakes seem to be experienced more intensively by humans too. And pets do go missing around these times.

However, it may be the strangest human behaviors that are missing our notice, because they are so rare and so, seemingly, out of character for Homo sapiens.

The combination of the moon-related behaviors and the copycat effect sometimes does happen.

Here's an example from The Copycat Effect (2004):

It was a typical fall Thursday night at the ballgame in Chicago. The date was September 19, 2002, and the crowd was excited to see the White Sox take on the out-of-towners, the Kansas City Royals. But then something happened in the game that would turn into a repeating copycat cycle, bringing a fear of “terrorism” to the very fields of dreams.

Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa was calmly watching home plate. During the ninth inning of a game that had no bearing on the playoffs, Gamboa took a short trip into hell. He didn’t know what hit him. Two men, a father and his juvenile son, both shirtless, were on top of Gamboa, punching away at him and slamming him to the ground. The 54-year-old coach told ESPN he felt like a “football team” had hit him. Soon Gamboa’s teammates, as well as the umpires and the White Sox team, piled on to get the attackers off. Security then quickly moved in. Royals’ first baseman Mike Sweeney told ESPN: “If it wasn't for them, we'd probably still be beating on those guys.”

Gamboa walked off the field to a standing ovation from the crowd at Comiskey Park, where the Royals beat the Chicago White Sox 2-1. Gamboa escaped with only a few cuts and a bruised cheek (though a year later he suffered partial hearing damage in his right ear and had to be moved to the bullpen), but the attack was a shock to Major League Baseball. A folded-up pocketknife was found on the ground near the scene, and White Sox outfielder Aaron Rowand said he saw it slip out of one of the attacker’s pockets.

Attacks against sports figures by fans are rare. The most notorious came when tennis star Monica Seles was stabbed in the back by an obsessed fan in 1993 during a match in Hamburg, Germany. In 1995, at Wrigley Field, a 27-year-old bond trader who ran out of the stands charged Cubs reliever Randy Myers. Myers saw the man coming, dropped his glove and knocked him down with his forearm. In 1999, a 23-year-old fan attacked Houston right fielder Bill Spiers at Milwaukee. Spiers ended up with a welt under his left eye, a bloody nose and whiplash.

“It's sad and disturbing, very disturbing,” said general manager Kenny Williams, who apologized to Gamboa and the Royals after the game. “Words don't express the sorrow when you look at a man and he's got blood on his face. All he was doing was coaching first base.”

Then less than a year later came the copycat incident. During the night of April 15, 2003, fans ran on the field during a White Sox game with the Royals in Chicago. According to the Associated Press, the first fan came out before the top of the seventh inning, while the second one ran on to the field to start the bottom half of the inning before he was nailed in center field by security. Another fan raced toward the infield minutes later, following a strike fired by left-handed reliever Kelly Wunsch as he was facing Raul Ibanez with the bases loaded, two outs and the White Sox leading by one run.

Then in the ninth inning, a fan attacked first base umpire Laz Diaz, who stood near where Gamboa had been attacked in the ninth inning of that September 2002 game, also between the Royals and White Sox. The field has been renamed U.S. Cellular Field, but the location was the same. Soon, Royals, security, White Sox, and MLB umpires were wrestling the attacker to the ground, in an eerie repeat of the previous year.

“When the guy ran on the field and came after the umpire, it did bring back memories of last year (with Gamboa),” said White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko to ESPN shortly after the second attack in two years. “I don’t know how you prevent it, unless you have someone every inch of the way.”

The reality of copycat behavior of this kind has hit baseball hard. Security has been increased and improved since the 2002 season, with 60-to-70 police officers at the stadium in Chicago, for example. But it is a well-known fact that the security force will always be outnumbered, even on nights of low attendance.

White Sox veteran Frank Thomas mentioned that the actions could have had something to do with the full moon. Billy Koch, who blew the save in the ninth with four runs, joked, tongue in cheek, how the last fan should have waited a few batters to charge him. But more seriously, White Sox manager Jerry Manuel and Royals manager Tony Pena expressed concern and even some fear over the growing number of incidents. “It’s kind of a sad commentary for Chicago, at least our ballpark,” Manuel told reporter Scott Merkin at MLB.com. “I don’t believe it reflects who we are as Chicago people. It’s unfortunate that it happened, and unfortunate that it happened in Chicago when Kansas City comes to town.”

Pena commented, also to reporter Merkin: “There’s no question I was concerned. That’s what I told the umpire, ‘How can I know my players will be safe or not?’”

Cat People: Enemy Action?

"Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." ~ said by Auric Goldfinger, in Ian Fleming's novel Goldfinger, 1959.

There have been more zoo animal attacks, with one resulting in a fatality in New Zealand and another a death in South Zealand. A cluster of such incidents has occurred since the weekend. What's going on?



First the latest news, and then I'll share a review of recent incidents.

On Wednesday, May 27, 2009, senior zookeeper Dalu Mncube (pictured below, with a lion) was mauled to death by a white tiger at Whangarei's Zion Wildlife Gardens as eight horrified tourists, including two young children, witnessed the attack.



Northland Police spokeswoman Sarah Kennett confirmed that, at about 11am on Wednesday, two keepers went in to clean the white tiger enclosure when the animal attacked Mncube. (The time of 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, May 27, 2009 in New Zealand, converts to 4:00 p.m., Tuesday May 26, 2009, in the Pacific Time Zone/North America.)



Despite the best efforts of the other keeper, the royal white Bengal tiger wouldn't let go. Mncube, who had saved a colleague in an attack earlier this year, died at the scene before an ambulance arrived at the park.

The tiger has since been shot dead. The other keeper was not injured.

The tourists who watched the attack - six adults and two children thought to be from England and New Caledonia - were being offered counselling through Victim Support.


The South African, known as "Uncle Dalu," had been the park's senior cat handler since Craig "The Lion Man" Busch was sidelined following a business dispute with the park's boss, his mother Patricia Busch. Craig Busch says the fatal mauling of a keeper at the park is "absolutely tragic."

Zion Wildlife Park is home to 42 rare lions and tigers.

Mncube had saved fellow park employee Demetri Price during a white tiger attack in February 2009, after he used his hands to open the animal's jaws. Price required surgery after he was attacked by the cat who had been spooked by a pride of lions. The zoo has had a series of incidents in recent years making it "controversial," according to the New Zealand National.

Meanwhile, from New Zealand to South Zealand, as in Denmark, it was discovered on Monday, May 25, that on Sunday, May 24, a zookeeper apparently decided to die by suicide by having Bengal tigers there maul him to death.

The body of a former employee of Næstved Zoo was partly eaten by white tigers after the man broke into their enclosure on Sunday night.


One of the Næstved Zoo's white tigers.

Ekstra Bladet newspaper reports that the remains of the man were found by zoo staff on Monday morning. An investigation showed that the man broke into the tiger enclosure with a flammable substance, where he set fire to the straw and opened the door to the animals’ cage so they could get access to him.

The man had been employed as an animal keeper at the South Zealand zoo for ten months, where he was described as having a deep fascination with the zoo’s Bengal tigers. He developed a mental illness last winter which resulted in him losing his job due to the perceived security risk, according to the Copenhagen Post.

"'Hm,' said Bond. 'Bogeyman stuff.'" ~ Ian Fleming, Live and Let Die, 1954.

The animal incidents constitute a remarkable cluster.

Is what is taking place here merely the reflective factor at work, where humans don't notice how frequent these types of events occur until they are brought to their attention? Is it all coincidence? Or an enemy action?

So, of course, I compiled a list, to ponder the short view of the long weekend.


Jane Randolph, who starred in the two Cat People film noir classics of the 1940s, as the “other woman,” died earlier in the month.

Let's look at this recent animal incidents cluster:

Zookeeper Dalu Mncube was killed by a white tiger at a zoo in New Zealand. Wednesday a.m., May 27 local date. (Tuesday, May 26, USA.)

An elementary-aged girl Bailey Rhine Stine was attacked by a pet mountain lion on Lones Road in Columbiana County, Ohio, near Lisbon. Monday a.m., May 25.

A former zookeeper died (apparently by suicide) from being killed by two Bengal tigers at a South Zealand, Denmark, zoo. Sunday late p.m., May 24.

A 14-year-old female mountain lion escaped from the Brit Spaugh Zoo, before being shot and killed by police at the Kansas zoo. Sunday p.m., May 24.

A moose was killed in Thompson Lake, Oxford County, Maine, after it began swimming around boats. Sunday p.m., May 24.

A female moose wandered into Portland, Maine, and was killed by police when it was deemed a danger to the public. Sunday a.m, May 24.

A zookeeper was bitten in the leg by a 3-year-old Bengal tiger at the Memphis Zoo. Sunday a.m., May 24.

Royal Bengal Tigers have killed 36 people in Bangladesh during the first four months of 2009. The tigers prey on villagers in the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to the Royal Bengal Tigers. In the mangrove forest in Bangladesh, at least 100 people are killed by the Royal Bengal Tigers. The villagers also kill tigers wandering around their village, at the rate of a dozen tigers a year. Sunday, May 24, Digital Journal.

Enemy action, indeed?

A great deal of Bengal tigers appear to be in the mix above, in an ongoing war that seems to be going in both directions.

On May 24, 2009, the The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the Tamil Tigers admitted that its founder and leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, was dead and declared a week of mourning starting the next day. The Sri Lankan war that had begun in May 1976, was over, according to the BBC News.


Or maybe it is only the The Butterfly Effect at work?

Malta Today reports that naturalists have recorded thousands of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui) migrating over the Maltese islands. Sunday, May 24.

New Moon - Sunday, May 24, 2009, 12:11 Universal Time.

"Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the death of it." ~ Ian Fleming, The Spy Who Loved Me, 1962.

(Thanks to Cryptomundo correspondent and Aucklander celebrity, Club Bizarre's Mark Wallbank for the Kiwi news tip.)

Added later...