Chapter 11: NEWS OF THE BIZARRE
News of the Bizarre – July 27th, 1996
Priest Claims Meteors Cause of Demonic Possession
Father Jonathan Baldwin[i] is a priest with a hobby for stargazing. The amateur astronomer claims that his interest in the starry void began when he heard the story from a death row inmate of how the murder the condemned was accused of committing was really caused by an alien that had taken possession of his wife after a meteor strike in their backyard.
Father Baldwin admits that the story was a tough pill to swallow, but it spurred him to investigate the occurrence of reported possessions by demons that followed the occurrence of meteor sightings. The data was what was too compelling to ignore. After years of collecting data and building charts and tables of such possessions and meteor activity, the priest turned astronomer is convinced that some sort of alien intelligence is tampering with humans in an effort to study them.
Most interesting of all the discoveries was the fact that a meteor shower immediately preceded the outbreak of the Salem Witch Trials. Mere coincidence? One can only hope.
[i] This is a reference to the story entitled “The Juggernaut” I wrote in Tome of Horror.
Visions of the Dark 