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LAFOLLETTE PRESS Thursday, May 16, 2013

MOON:
Continued from 1A

While empirical evidence

doesnt support theories
about full moon follies,
the anecdotal evidence is
compelling.
It does tend to be full
and crazy on a full moon,
said Megan Hill, obstetrics director at Jellico
Community Hospital.
The rural hospital has
a maximum of five labor
and delivery areas, and
on many full moons, each
room has ended up full.
Hill said she didnt believe
it until she saw it with her
own eyes.
You think, Oh thats
silly and people are exaggerating that, and once I
started working, I quickly
realized that is not the
case, its the truth, Hill
said.
A baby was even delivered in the parking lot
one full moon night, she
said.
In Caryville, court recorder Pat Donahue said
that the more interesting
characters visit the municipal building on a full
moon. Across the hall,
librarian Robyn Turner
told of having her son on
a full moon, and of the OB
ward being full before the
night was through.
Caryville Police Chief
Stephanie Smith thought
for a moment before she
answered. Usually call
volume is up, she said.
They seem a little bit
crazier.
Science, however, calls
it just an urban legend,
pure folklore and wives
tales.
The full moon is not
a time of unusual crime
reports or bizarre activity.
In fact, if it were crime,
youd expect quite the
opposite because its a
little brighter and criminals would prefer not to
be seen, said Mark Littmann, a science writing
professor and physics and

000EZ8E

astronomy lecturer at the

University of Tennessee in
Knoxville.
Any statistics that back
up the myth of the moon
and lunacy are probably
not credible, he said.
Still, people use the
moon to plant their crops,
cut hay, begin logging,
plan their surgeries, and
wean children or livestock.
The Farmers Almanac,
published for more than
200 years, features an
astronomy section telling
the moons phases, but
also a section of astrology
defined as the study that
assumes and attempts to
interpret the influence of
the heavenly bodies on
human affairs.
The almanac itself
counters that those planetary movements do not
cause events; rather, they
explain the path or flow
that events tend to follow.
Still, theres an entire
table of the best days for
25 activities. For example,
plan on quitting smoking on May 31 during
Gemini, when the signs
are in the arms. Get your
dental work done on May
18 or 19 (Taurus, neck),
or just wait until June
14-16 (Cancer, breast).
Have cows to slaughter?
Best hold out until May
23 or 24.
Despite the charts and
tables, true data has
never backed up any
claims about the moons
effect on the earth.
In Campbell County,
everybody has a story,
but data gathered by the
LaFollette Press didnt reveal anything remarkable
about the full moon.
Campbell Countys
E-911 Center shared
the number of calls dispatched on days of a full
moon (brightest moon)
versus calls dispatched
during the new moon

(moon is shadowed and

invisible) each month
for the last year. Director Charlie Hutson
couldnt specifically say
if full moons meant crazier shifts, but instead
said they typically see
higher call volumes during the first weeks of the
month.
Between April 2012 and
April 2013, full moon dispatches surpassed new
moon dispatch in seven
of the 12 months. Overall,
there were 1,170 calls
dispatched on full moon
days, versus 1,110 on new
moon days. The statistics
dont take into account
when the full moon occurred during the first
weeks of the month.
Some of the LaFollette
Presss 1,900 Facebook
fans acknowledged full
moon follies, but couldnt
always name specifics
either.
I read some data once
and discovered that some
of it was true, wrote Timothy Savage. More babies
are born on the full moon,
People with mental problems become more difficult, some folks without
mental problems become
more difficult, crime has
a tendency to rise, and
strange animal behavior
has been noted.
Littmann dismisses
even anecdotal evidence.
If you are expecting
people to behave bizarrely, you see bizarre
behavior on a night, he
said.
At the Campbell County
Sheriffs Department,
numbers were again
pulled to chart the number of book-ins during full
moons and new moons.
They showed higher bookins in eight of 12 months
with 125 arrested during
full moons and 105 arrested during new moons
for the April 2012 through

You think Oh thats silly and people are exaggerating that, and once I started working I quickly
realized that is not the case, its the truth.

Megan Hill, obstetrics director at Jellico Community

=Hospital on the spike of births at the hospital on a full moon

Local emergency dispatches during a New Moon v.s. Full Moon

Bookings at the county jail during a New Moon v.s. Full Moon

April 2013 timeframe.

Still, other Facebook
fans were more fascinated
with concrete lunar phenomena.
Moon bows, wrote
Lisa Bishop Casey.
A moon bow is a rare
occurrence when light is
reflected off the surface of
the moon and refracts off
of moisture in the air, displaying a faint rainbow. It
is most likely to happen

when the moon is full,

low in the sky and it is
raining directly opposite
of the moon. Additionally,
they are only visible in the
two to three hours prior
to sunrise.
There are also spray
moon bows that occur at
a waterfall because the
spray serves as the moisture in the air. There are
only two places in North
America to see a spray

moon bow Yosemite National Park in California

and Cumberland Falls
near Corbin, Ky, about
50 miles from LaFollette.
The only other place to
see a spray moon bow
is Victoria Falls on the
border of Zimbabwe and
Zambia in Africa.

The next full moon is

May 24 and again on
June 23.