[Newspoetry] A Mistaken Rapture

Fri Sep 21 14:38:49 CDT 2001

On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Kate McDowell wrote:

> This is news, not poetry, but it does feature a hint of poetic justice.
> >> >ARKANSAS CITY (EAP) --- A Little Rock woman was killed yesterday...

An urban legend, I'm afraid, Kate: see below.

Regards, 

C. G. Estabrook, who has theological objections against the misreading of
Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians...

	*	*	*

    Leap of Faith  

Claim:   A woman dies leaping through her car's sunroof when events
convince her that Jesus has returned. 
Status:   False. 

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2001] 

ARKANSAS CITY (AP) -- A Little Rock woman was killed yesterday after
leaping through her moving car's sun roof during an incident best
described as "a mistaken rapture" by dozens of eye witnesses. Thirteen
other people were injured after a twenty-car pile up resulted from people
trying to avoid hitting the woman who was apparently convinced that the
rapture was occurring when she saw twelve people floating up into the air,
and then passed a man on the side of the road who she claimed was Jesus.

"She started screaming "He's back, He's back" and climbed right out of the
sunroof and jumped off the roof of the car," said Everett Williams,
husband of 28-year-old Georgann Williams who was pronounced dead at the
scene. "I was slowing down but she wouldn't wait till I stopped," Williams
said.

She thought the rapture was happening and was convinced that Jesus was
gonna lift her up into the sky," he went on to say. "This is the strangest
thing I've seen since I've been on the force," said Paul Madison, first
officer on the scene. Madison questioned the man who looked like Jesus and
discovered that he was dressed up as Jesus and was on his way to a toga
costume party when the tarp covering the bed of his pickup truck came
loose and released twelve blow up sex dolls filled with helium which
floated up into the air.

Ernie Jenkins, 32, of Fort Smith, who's been told by several of his
friends that he looks like Jesus, pulled over and lifted his arms into the
air in frustration, and said , "Come back here," just as the Williams' car
passed him, and Mrs. Williams was sure that it was Jesus lifting people up
into the sky as they passed by him, according to her husband, who says his
wife loved Jesus more than anything else.

When asked for comments about the twelve sex dolls, Jenkins replied "This
is all just too weird for me. I never expected anything like this to
happen."

Origins:   This inventive work of fiction was penned and released onto the
Internet on 2 August 2001. It was written by Elroy Willis, proprietor of
Religion in the News, a site that warns visitors what they're in for: 

Some of these stories are really true.
See if you can figure out which ones they are. 

Apparently, some readers didn't manage to work out which were which,
because this tale has washed up in our inbox numerous times since its
debut.

"The Rapture" refers to a time when Jesus will return to claim the
faithful. On that day, Christians dead and alive will be drawn up into the
clouds to meet Him. A recurrent theme in descriptions of this event
involves their floating up through the air, irresistibly drawn as if to a
holy magnet. It's this image which fuels the "mistaken Rapture" piece,
spurred by the twelve helium-inflated sex dolls heading skyward. The joke
may be lost on those whose religions do not teach about The Rapture -- for
them, this story might seem an oddball bit of humor; not quite the belly
laugh it is for those of us who have been taught to expect to see this
flight to Jesus firsthand.

Barbara "only that which is 99 44/100% pure is expected to float"
Mikkelson

Last updated:   16 August 2001 

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/religion/rapture.htm 