This rumor is very reminiscent of Stephen King’s The Cell. An unsuspecting cell phone user answers their phone, finds a red-colored apparition of a woman on their display screen, and dies when their brain explodes. The rumor swept through Karachi, with new warnings of impotency and pregnancy.
According to the rumors, the cause of these supernatural killer calls is due to a mobile phone company building a tower at a graveyard. This enraged the spirits, who decided to kill off the company’s customers in retribution.
As preposterous as these rumors are, they have sent a wave a panic among cell phone users in Karachi. This fear has prompted cell phone companies to issue clarifications to their customers that their cell phones are safe to use. Other people have taken this rumor for what it is, an urban legend started by bored kids or an angry customer.
Stigmata begins when Father Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne) visits a Brazilian church to investigate a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary. The camera flicks back and forth between the statue, which weeps bloody tears, and the deceased Father Almeida, who was a highly regarded priest in the community. As Kiernan collects his samples, a mysterious wind picks up inside the church. Candles flicker and go out. Doves fly helter-skelter, and the congregation cries out, “Isn’t this proof enough?”
Kiernan, a scientist before he became a priest, is not convinced that this is a miracle. He gathers his samples and leaves the church.
The camera cuts to another, seemingly insignificant scene where a blond woman buys a rosary from a street vendor. Then we are introduced to Frankie Paige (Patricia Arquette), a self-proclaimed atheist who lives the typical 20-something lifestyle. Her mother calls her from Brazil to ask her about a package she had sent. Frankie opens it and pulls out the rosary.
That night, she returns home and slips into the bathtub. She is lying there, worrying about whether or not she is pregnant, when an unseen force pulls her under the water and stabs her in the wrists. Doctors at the ER immediately jump to the conclusion that her wounds are self-inflicted, and her friends begin to wonder if she’s losing her sanity. When she is attacked again, this time by lashings on her back, Father Kiernan is sent by the Vatican to investigate her case.
At first, Kiernan doesn’t believe that Frankie is suffering from a stigmata because she is an atheist. Only the devoutly religious are prone to this affliction. He soon finds out that what he was taught was wrong and begins to question his faith and his loyalty to the Catholic church.
Stigmata is a fast-paced thriller that challenges the tenets of the Catholic faith. While there are plenty of supernatural elements to this story, there is no heart-stopping horror or chills. I found myself following the intellectual aspect of the film. Why was this girl afflicted with this condition? Why was the church trying to cover it up? These questions were answered in a satisfactory way.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie, although I had expected it to be a horror movie similar to The Exorcist. It is not, which is okay because I’ve already seen that. Patricia Arquette and Gabriel Byrne had a good chemistry, which made the film even more enjoyable. Highly recommended.
GEIPAN’s UFO archive contains more than 100,000 documents that tell bizarre tales of UFO and alien sightings. In one case, two children witnessed a spacecraft hovering over a field, with a band of black aliens running underneath it. They watched these beings get sucked up by the craft before it flew away. Later the parents and the gendarmerie went to the scene, where they found burn marks in the grass, measuring five meters in diameter. A strong odor of sulfur hung in the air for days.
What’s interesting is that only 9% of these cases have been solved, while 58% remain a mystery. Most of these sightings are nothing more than strange lights dancing in the sky. Jacques Patenet, who oversees this project, is hopeful that it will provide the scientific community with new meteorological or astronomical discoveries.
The material is the motherlode for UFO research, said Mr. Rutkowski, and it will be interesting to see if countries like the United States and Russia follow France’s lead.
Poltergeist activity typically centers on prepubescent teens and is defined by parapsychologists as a type of uncontrolled psychokinesis. The qualities of such an activity include raps, bumps, thumps, knocks, footsteps, and bed-shaking. Many cases involved objects being thrown around the room, furniture that moved seemingly by itself, and human levitations. In rare instances, poltergeists have been known to speak, as was the case with the Endfield Poltergeist.
BBC journalists, the police, paranormal investigators and skeptics investigated Enfield case, which began in August of 1977. So far, no one has been able to prove that the girls involved were pulling a hoax. This 45-minute documentary approached this case from all viewpoints involved, which made it an intriguing program.
Towards the end, I found myself leaning towards the skeptical side because there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that these girls weren’t pulling a prank. Then comes the voice, which leads to an interesting twist in the story.
