Recent reports of what are being termed “zombie apocalypse” attacks may have some people wondering if the End Times are here, but are there other explanations for these gruesome acts, and could they be a reflection of our modern society?
On almost a daily basis now, reports of “zombie-like” attacks grab headlines. Within the past several days there were new reports out of Miami and Louisiana. In Miami, police arrested a homeless man after he snarled at them and threatened to “eat two officers.” In Louisiana, a 43-year-old man was arrested after allegedly biting off a piece of another man’s face during a domestic issue. Both of these incidents are being blamed on “bath salts.”
Like an episode from AMC’s “Walking Dead” television series, reports of bizarre behaviors and cannibalistic attacks began last Saturday when Rudy Eugene literally chewed 75% of victim Ronald Poppo’s face off in Miami. Within days, there was another incident in Maryland when a Kenyan college student was arrested for dismembering and eating the heart and brains of his roommate. Then there was the New Jersey man who stabbed himself dozens of times, throwing pieces of his intestines at police when they arrived, and “Canadian Psycho,” Luka Magnotta, who posted a video of himself that showed him hacking apart his victim, then eating parts of his flesh. Investigators said Magnotta literally “tore his victim apart like a doll.” The list goes on…
What’s happening? Why the sudden increase in all of these bizarre acts involving cannibalism, depravity, and almost superhuman strength? Could these events be happening more than we would like to think? Are they the result of the new street drug, “bath salts?” Is there a virus or parasite to blame? In the case of AMC’s “Walking Dead,” is life imitating art? Is it really just a “Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?”
Look around and the zombie theme is everywhere—zombie parties and parades, zombie pub crawls, advertising, movies, books—people seem to be infatuated with zombies. Zombiephiles are everywhere. You can even purchase zombie gnomes.
Zombies are used in everything from commercials to safety and disaster preparedness campaigns. In Illinois, the Department of Transportation uses commercials depicting a zombie apocalypse in efforts to get drivers to “click it or ticket,” stating that “Anything can happen on the road…even zombies, so be prepared!” In British Columbia, a recent campaign for preparedness used the zombie apocalypse theme, stating that “If you’re ready for zombies, you’re ready for a disaster.” Even the World Health Organization (WHO) got into the act in May, listing a “zombie infestation” as a threat after an outbreak of unknown origin in Uganda turned children into mindless “zombies.”
The “brainchild” for all of these types of campaigns can be traced to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which created a campaign for disaster preparedness in May 2011 based on a zombie apocalypse, hoping to reach “younger, media-savvy” audiences by using the popular zombie theme. In light of recent tragic events, however, the CDC is now maintaining its stance that zombies aren’t real, and that the “CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms).” Additionally, the CDC is downplaying an article which ran in Discovery Magazine in August 2008 regarding parasites that can alter brain chemistry and cause bizarre behaviors in their hosts.
Considering past government experiments testing new viruses through vaccines, could this rash of recent attacks be the result of viruses being introduced through vaccines or a host of other means? As Larry Berrreth of the Longmont, Colorado, Examiner notes, the incident in Miami “appears to be an escalating part of a series of strange events that began in that area ten days before. Taken individually, it is easy to dismiss these as random unfortunate events. When reviewed as part of a larger picture, consider them as food for thought, rather than becoming food for zombies.”
But is the “zombie apocalypse” being used to cover up the real mental illnesses behind these depraved acts? As Elizabeth Heath points out in her article, perhaps as we “struggle with our fears of something so unthinkably horrible as cannibalism, dismemberment or self-evisceration,” using the term zombie apocalypse “trivializes – in an especially cruel way for loved ones of both the perpetrators and victims – both these heinous crimes and the extreme mental illness that likely prompted them. The men suspected of committing these crimes all had histories of violence, erratic behavior and mental illness. Whether it was drug use or psychosis that pushed them so far over the edge to complete loss of impulse control, we’ll never know for sure.”
Throughout history there have been many incidences of cannibalism and dismemberment, from the Maori of New Zealand to Alferd Packer, Andrei Chikatilo, and Jeffrey Dahmer to name a few, without people associating these with a zombie apocalypse. Has society become so conditioned and fearful that the mere suggestion of a zombie apocalypse turns ordinary people into zombies willing to believe this is what’s happening? Or is it that our society has become so hardened to violence and gore that these recent incidences somehow seem funny to us, trivializing them as a zombie apocalypse?
Will the dead rise from their graves and attack? Doubt it. But everywhere you go these days there are signs of the living dead among us…the mindless masses who fill their heads with useless entertainment to people so self-absorbed they’re unaware of the world around them. People are in despair—they’re angry, fearful, and paranoid. Alzheimer’s is becoming an epidemic, and the use of prescribed psychotropic medications continues to rise. Add polarization, a failing economy, chemtrails, HAARP, GMO foods, environmental pollutants and so on into the mix and we’re a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. But zombie apocalypse…probably not.
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