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August 26. Page 1
By Nathan Smeal
Not stakeouts, not increased patrols, nothing has thwarted the mischievous and sometimes dangerous rock throwing vandals of downtown Mercurity City who have been lobbing a rein of terror to all those foolish enough to visit the area late at night. These assaults have been going on for almost a week and police are becoming very frustrated by their lack of leads in this unusual case.
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Broken business windows and inadequate clues haunt downtown residents as weird explanations emerge for rock tossing incidents.
Photo by Junior Plau. |
"Usually we get there right after the rocks have been thrown," said police captain Norvell S. Pinge. "By then, they're just gone." There has been much speculation concerning the outbreak of such an unusual phenomenon. On KRIT AM radio a talk show hosted by Lem Rhodesiac consumed an entire hour about the rock throwing and various theories about its origin and purpose. Callers offered such "new age" speculation as mass
hallucination to retribution from God Almighty. The local chapter of the Fortean Society issued a monograph claiming the stone hurling is actually rocks falling from the sky, and cited many examples of like behavior from such diverse items as frogs, fish and snowballs. Several samples of the rocks found at the crime scenes have been taken for examination at the UMC campus. Dr. Steve Yipe confirmed that they were pretty much "ordinary" igneous and sedimentary stones such as are found in abundance in Cratz County. Yipe also dismissed rumors that the stones are from the moon. Mayor Cindy Weeming called a special session of the community Security Council to discuss the rock attacks. For now, police continue to patrol the area, helped along by private citizen organizations.
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