Full Moon Madness

There's a word for bad astronomy, it's called astrology.  And I really wish it weren't so, because I'd love to believe all the ages-old stories about what a full moon can do, the havoc it can wreck, the changes in humans it can inflict.  You ask any policeman or nurse and they'll swear that crime and violence goes up during the full moon.  Strange happenings, too.  How we love our werewolves.  Let's not forget the tides of the oceans - and the fact that we humans are 80% water.  That would draw one into the conclusion that the full moon affects our behaviors.  I want this to be scientifically true, so much so that I can talk myself into thinking it is.

But it's not.

With science as our ever-neutral, always objective guide, we find no rise in homicides, births, deaths, or vampire sightings.  The truth is a bit more plebeian.  The moon does pull on the ocean and create tides, but that's because of the emmense size of our seas.  The oceans have tides because they're so big - now take us little humans, with our pittance of water in our bodies in comparison.  Not enough to measure, no less affect our behavior.  I know, it's a let down, and I feel that same sense of the loss of something we always saw as mysterious in its ways.  

Mostly, the reason things go awry during the full moon is because it's so noticeable, people tend to gaze at it more, becoming distracted and almost hypnotized by watching it.  Another "ancestral memory" perhaps?  Either way, if no one were to notice it, the full moon would lose its mystery and penchant for creating werewolves and serial killers. 

Believe me, this is not an idea I embrace.  But it is true. 

Scientific studies for years back it up.  Record keeping in hospitals and police stations over the globe do as well.  And let's not forget the all-seeing human eye:  how many times have you seen a traffic accident and not seen a full moon?  But if you did see one, you tend to correlate the two.  We forget all that happens under a clear sky.  We're romantics at heart who once saw this bright orb as a god, and paid it homage at the very risk of our lives, so we thought.

Oh fear not, Luna Maria still holds untold mystery, or we wouldn't have spent billions getting to her.  She can tell us about the earth's earliest beginnings, having once been part of it.  She has the power to block out our view of the night constellations just by her refracted light.  And she can also infuse the night air with a soft light only lovers can truly understand.  Luna will never lose her mystery, facts or no.  

I will always examine those facts, and dismiss the fantasies if I want the truth.  And at the same time, I know I will always be in awe of her.  

With help from author Phil Plait, see also www.badastronomy.com