Beliefs by the Numbers

A lot of the creepy goofiness I write about here is tongue-in-cheek.  A lot of that is because I grew up eating this stuff for breakfast lunch and dinner.  Saturday morning and the weekly-themed Channel 7 4:30 movies (Godzilla, 50s sci-fi, Universal and Hammer horror), Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of, my favorite section in the library my mother worked at (001.9), Star Trek, Space 1999, and all the weird paperbacks I devoured.  So back then, and we’re talking the Seventies, I believed it all.

Sometime in the intervening period, I grew up.

But I still enjoy it.  Call it camp.  Call it nostalgia.  It still appeals to me.

To what degree?  How much of me wants to believe this stuff true?  I found myself wondering this at lunch earlier today working my way through last night’s ziti-and-meatball leftovers.

How about to these degrees –

Bigfoot – 5%

Yeti –  3%

UFOs – 100% (I saw one!)

UFOs as vehicles for sentient alien life – 5%

Alien Abductions – 0%

Ghosts – 10% (maybe just not what we think they are)

Vampires – 0%

Witches – 10% (see Ghosts comment)

Lake and Loch monsters – 3%

Ancient Aliens (the History-channel types) – 2.5%

Atlantis – 25% (definitely not what Pop Culture thinks it is)

ESP – 10%

The events known as “The Amityville Horror” – 1%

The Holy Grail – 50%

The Shroud of Turin – 100%

So there ya have it.  I think I did something like this here on the blog at some remote point in the past, but I can’t remember when exactly (was it in a JFK post?) and am too busy/too tired to do a search for it.  If I do, though, I’ll comment on my “evolution.”