Anectodal Evidence
October 1998

NUMBER ONE:

Jersey City, New Jersey
N.Y.Times report 10-6-98

"Police Inquiry Focuses on Eight Chicken Heads"

Police are investigating whether eight severed chicken
heads and an unlighted candle placed under the bench of
a municipal court judge were part of a Santeria ritual
or merely a prank.

A court employee found the heads, candle and kernels of
dried feed corn and broken glass beneath the bench of
Judge Joseph Falbo who has presided in Jersey City for
nearly 30 years. Sergeant Hector Martinez said the incident
is so far being viewed as harassment, not a threat against
Judge Falbo's life.

Sgt. Martinez said Santeria, an Afro-Cuban faith in which
practicioners make offerings to deities in exchange for
their earthly intervention, is common in the city, especially
among its Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican communities.

Judge Falbo said he did not believe he was a target, but he
added "I will remain on alert, especially after yesterday when
I came home and found water running from every faucet in my
house!"


NUMBER TWO:

Colorado
N.Y.Times report 10-7-98

"The Woman Who Stalked Letterman Is a Suicide"

Margaret Mary Ray, 46, repeatedly jailed for stalking
David Letterman over the last decade committed suicide
by kneeling in front of a speeding train in western
Colorado, police said.

Her first arrest was in 1988 while driving Mr. Letterman's
Porsche through the Lincoln Tunnel. When she could not
pay the toll, she identified herself as Mr. Letterman's
wife and her son as David Letterman, Jr.

In 1993, Letterman's "Top 10 List of Things I Have to
Do Before I Leave NBC" included "#10: Send change-of-
address forms to that woman who keeps breaking into my
house".

However in a 1992 interview with his hometown newspaper,
the Stamford, CT. Advocate, he said "The thing of it is,
she's insane. And you don't want to do anything to
make it worse."

Four years ago, Mary Ray begain to harass Story Musgrave,
a NASA astronaut who retired in 1996 at age 61, and lived
in Osceola County, FL. She called Story repeatedly,
sent unwanted packages and broke into his home, turning
on all the faucets. "I love him and want to spend the
rest of my life with him", she told a local newspaper.

Letterman, through a spokesman, said "This is a sad
ending to a confused life, but I'll work it into my
next Top Ten list, somehow. How about, 'Top Ten Reasons
for Making Sure You Lock the Door When You Leave Home,
#10: Otherwise Margaret Mary Ray May Turn Your House
into Viagara Falls'?"



NUMBER THREE:

"Pictures Give Hints of Universe At Its Dawn"
N.Y.Times report 8-9-98

Peering farther back in space and time than ever before, the
Hubble Space Telescope has taken infrared pictures of what
may be the most distant objects ever detected, early light
from the galactic dawn of the universe.

Astronomers think some of the faint objects could be galaxies
formed in the first stages of the development of the universe.
"The fact that we have found new objects means we really have
reached the edge of the universe," said Dr. Roger Thompson,
a University of Arizona astronomer.

Dr. Alan Dressler, an astronomer with the Carnegie Observatories
in Pasadena, CA said, "Although these pictures may show the first
stages of galaxy formation, the objects are such faint blobs that
their true nature can only be explored with the advanced
telescopes of the future." He was referring in particular to the
more powerful replacement for the Hubble telescope, planned for
launch in 2007.

NASA made the infrared pictures public yesterday at a news conference
in Washington. A catalog of the observed objects and other details
will be available soon:

www.NASA.gov.us/Hubble/discoveries/newest/oldest/blobs.html

Dr. Thompson, the principal scientist working the infrared instrument's
observations, estimated that the most distant objects in the picture
date back to when the universe was 5 percent of its present age which
is still under debate but is believed to be almost 13 billion years.

These observations take astronomers close to the time when matter
coalesced into stars and the stars clustered into galaxies. How this
happened is one of the great mysteries of astronomy. In analyzing
the results, Dr. Thompson found that faint red blobs matched up to
similar faint blue blobs that had been seen in earlier visible
light photography of the region.

"On close inspection we've come to think that some of these earliest
matter blobs may be bits of broken glass and dried feed corn.
One of the biggest looks an awful lot like a candle, and god help
me, others when viewed with the scanning electron microscope, look
just like chicken heads, beaks and all!", said Dr. Thompson.

"And then there's the e-mail note Dressler sent me yesterday. Seems
that when he got back home from the lab, he found water spewing out
of every tap in his whole damn house. 'Watch Letterman tonight,'
his note said 'Especially the part with the Top Ten list!'," he
continued.

"My god, I haven't watched t.v. in years." said Dr. Thompson.
Do you know what network this program is found on? Is this
the one that replaced 'Here's Johnny Carson?'"