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As we hear of Tornadoes ravaging the Midwest and as the severe weather is once again starting up, I am reminded of the devastating Tornado last Year in Joplin Missouri. In the chaotic first days after the tornado, the images that we were seeing on the nightly news could be compared to a nuclear bomb blast. There was devastation everywhere and people were mourning the loss of their entire town. I guess no one really can relate to the trauma of realizing that the town where you raise your family, the town that you call home in just minutes is devastated and nothing exists except a widespread desolation.
People were telling stories of how they survived. They were telling heroic tales of people who would put themselves in harm’s way to protect their families. There were stories of loss and of the sadness of losing loved ones in the disaster. However there was one story that was kept from the mainstream news. It was a story that was told amongst the Red cross volunteers, councilors and psychiatrists hired to work with people and helping them cope with their loss. The story was that during the horrific arrival of the Tornado there was another arrival. It was the day the Butterfly people came.
According to Todd C. Frankel, a writer for St. Louis Today the stories of the butterfly people were shared in hospital waiting rooms and in lines for donated food. They were told by neighbors on streets so devastated there was nothing to do but stand and stare. A Red Cross counselor heard the stories as she handed out water and work gloves to residents in a hard-hit part of town. She got goose bumps. She told her pastor, who asked her to tell the congregation. She remembers how the crowd gasped.
The stories about butterfly people coursed through Joplin, passing one by one and then by the many, tales describing what children reported seeing on that Sunday night in May as the tornado bore down. The children said the butterfly people protected them.
The tornado killed 161 people. It shredded entire neighborhoods. More than 900 homes were lost. The destruction was complete, the landscape rendered foreign. The tornado unleashed stories about death and unlikely survival: A teenager lifted up from an SUV, a toddler taken from his motherundefineds arms, houses that exploded in 200-mph winds as families huddled in bathtubs and closets. For months, just about any place people gathered, the stories spilled out, including stories about the butterfly people coming to save people and in some cases escorting people into the sky to take them into a bright light.
Some of the stories of the butterfly people have been reported on the nightly news and of course in the St. Louis news papers.
In one, a mother and daughter fled their car as the tornado neared. They have no time to reach a nearby house. The mother and daughter hit the ground. The mother covers her child. The mother watches as the winds hurtle her car toward them. She braces for the impact. The tornado passes. They are not hurt. The mother is astonished. That they survived. The little girl is smiling and asking her mother if she saw the people trying to save them. She says to her mother weren’t they beautiful? The butterfly people taking people into heaven the mother is confused as the daughter asks didn’t you see the butterfly people mommy?
The other story involves grandfather and two young boys. They also are trapped outside during the tornado. The wind is so strong that the soles of the old man’s shoes are ripped off. As the Tornado passes over them the boys are able to look up into the vortex and see blue sky. They are being watched over by the butterfly people.
Shelley Wilson heard the story of the mother and daughter. She works as a high school counselor. After the tornado, she volunteered for a Red Cross disaster mental health team. She drove through neighborhoods distributing supplies, assessing how people were holding up. She doesnundefinedt remember who told her the butterfly people stories. She heard them several times. It was never firsthand — the stories never seemed to come from someone who experienced them.
The stories now are taking on a religious overtone as the butterfly people have been called angels and some people even believe that the anomalous entities were part of either a near death experience or an apocalyptic experience compared to rapture like event.
Those who listen to my show know that one of my favorite paranormal stories is the story of Mothman. The thought of a creature that looks half man half moth has always given me the creeps because the prospect seems so demonic in nature. The creature has been described as gray with big red eyes and a large wingspan. The creature frightened the residents of Point Pleasant just prior to the disaster of the Silver Bridge collapse. The timing of this winged creatures appearance made the town of Point Pleasant wonder if they were being visited by an angel, or a harbinger that was there to warn them of some disaster.
Many times after the initial story of the strange creature there were other reports of a winged humanoid creature showing up at various places either prior during or after a disaster as well.
In 1978 there was a report of a man wearing a trench coat standing in front of a mine located in Freiberg Germany. Miners attempted to approach the man when they realized that the man was not wearing a trench coat but had huge wings that covered his body.
The miners who had approached stood in shock and after a moment the dark figure let out a series of piercing shrieks which would later be described by eye witnesses as sounding like 50 men screaming and the sound of a train’s emergency breaks. The minors fled from the creature and the mine’s entrance, from a safe distance the men observed what would later be dubbed the Freiberg Shrieker as it folded its wings back around its body and stood motionless in front of the mine.
The minors reportedly began to busy themselves with clean up outside of the mine, hoping that the Shrieker would go away, it is unclear why they did not reported the beast to the local authorities. After waiting for what seemed like an hour, at approximately 8 am the miners were startled by a massive subterranean explosion which rocked the mine and shook the very ground on which they stood. They rushed to the mine’s entrance to discover the Shrieker was gone and a huge plume of smoke and flame bellowed from the entrance of the mine.
When the smoke and flame died down and officials were able to examine the mine it was determined that all 36 miners, should they had been at their designated posts, would have perished. This has lead some investigators to suggest that the Freiberg Shrieker appeared that day to prevent the men from entering the mine and in the process saved their lives.
In 1986, shortly before the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster a human looking creature with wings was supposedly sighted, giving some credibility to the idea that the creature is sign of a nearing horrific event.
There were also rumored sightings of winged human creatures near the World trade Center before and during the collapse of the twin towers,
During the September 11th, attacks there were also reports of angels being seen in the smoke and equally there were sightings of demons and UFO’s . The most remarkable account was that of onlookers who stated that during the attacks there were people jumping out of windows. Some of the witnesses claimed that they saw flashes of light as if something had opened up. Some even speculated that what the jumpers saw were angels ready to take them up into heaven.
On October 15th, 2010 Grant Lawrence blogged details of what he claims was a large Butterfly. . He reports that an eyewitness named Tim saw the “butterfly” in Montrose, California, Los Angeles County, just north of the Glendale/Burbank area, in the afternoon 3:00 pm. According to Tim it was a partly cloudy day and he saw a man that had wings but it did not fly like a bird. The wings moved like butterfly wings. This was all prior to some severe weather that hit California which was accompanied by a few earthquake swarms.
The question is, are these beings real or are they just figments of an imagination that blocks out reality in order to cope with a major disaster.
The Children of Joplin, the townspeople of Point pleasant, The German Miners, and others have seen theses winged human beings in sky and there are faithful religious people who are awaiting the Rapture.
Is this part of a mass hysteria or are we witnessing the gradual taking of people fulfilling prophecy that is written about in biblical texts?
The meme of the rapture has been in the minds of some people who are faithful to their religious leanings. In a time of what appears to fulfillment of ancient prophecy, the possibility of a rapture or divine intervention has always been a controversial subject when preachers and cult leaders start giving dates and times of a possible arrival of beings that we have only read about from ancient texts. In 2011 a controversial preacher told the world that on May 21st, 2011 that the rapture would take place and that faithful Christians would be taken up into heaven on that day.
Harold Camping’s predictions caused a lot of anxiety and it is hard to fathom that many people even considered that the hour of god’s judgment was at hand.
However, while we laugh at the foiled attempt at prophecy, there is a matter that may come back and bite us all, and that is the symbolic gesture of a final judgment being placed into the zeitgeist only to materialize in a terrifying reality that cannot be discounted. Understand that the words used to describe the disaster in Joplin sounded just like the description of a rapture event. Many people were unaware of the verbiage that was being used by the media during the devastating Tornadoes that were ravaging the Southeast around May 21st, 2011 the day of the predicted apocalypse by Harold Camping
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During the Joplin Tornado there were stories of a young boy “taken up” out of his car and the “devastation of biblical proportions” “left behind” by the horrible storms. Now we have butterfly people or angels helping the people during the disaster and others being escorted into heaven by the Butterfly people.
Does this not make you wonder what was happening? They were all having a simultaneous experience and every story had different details, there was that element of religious experience. There were winged humans, bright lights, whirlwinds, destruction, people being taken up and survivors left behind mourning the loss of their homes and family.
I am not endorsing Camping’s predictions of an end time’s rapture; however I have to consider the power of thought and the ability of manifestation in times of trauma. I have to consider that there have been historical records that speak of winged creatures like the Mothman and the Butterfly people that appear before during and after major disasters.
During the summer, a mural was painted in downtown Joplin. It is called “The Butterfly Effect” representing the metamorphosis of the town. What is unique is how the mural shows big, colorful butterflies fluttering with two small angels in the mural as well .
Joplin now is still dealing with disaster, however no one is discouraging the tales of the butterfly people. It seems it is helping the town cope with the disaster and giving them faith that there are guardian angels watching over them.
