ON THE AFTERNOON of Friday, 5 August 1904, Abbott Parker was struck by lightning while sheltering under a maple tree on Mount Kemble Avenue in Morristown, New Jersey.
Fortunately, there were a number of witnesses to the incident who immediately ran to help. They found Parker lying face down on the pavement; his clothing had been ripped open by the lightning – from his neck to his waist – revealing the seared red flesh of his back.
He was unconscious – but alive.
Parker was taken to All Souls’ Hospital – a hospital run by the Grey Nuns of Montreal – where he was treated by Dr J B Griswold.
“When I first saw Parker, his back showed a heavy burn, apparently the result of lightning,” Griswold said. “There was nothing remarkable about the case then, and after doing what I could to relieve the man, I went to my other patients.”
Griswold left the still unconscious Parker in the care of the nuns, who began washing and dressing his burnt flesh. But a short time later, the doctor was called urgently to Parker’s room. Something incredible was happening.
As the nuns had been washing Parker, an image began to appear in the burn on his back. It was feint at first, but grew more and more distinct as they stared in awe and bewilderment.
It was an unmistakable image. It was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The nails in his hands and feet were plain as if they had been painted there.
The image – which appeared to be “perfectly placed”, according to the Carbondale Leader – stretched from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, and was about 16 inches long, running down Parker’s spine.
“The nails in his hands and feet were plain as if they had been painted there,” reported the Leader. “The wound in the side can be seen, and upon the head of Christ appears the crown of thorns as distinctly upon the large crucifix which hands directly over the young man’s bed.”
Two large scars at the foot of the cross appeared to look like rocks. And the cross was surrounded by streaks, “which reminds one of the lightning strikes from every direction.”
According to The St Louis Republic, the image appeared to have been painted by a “brush of fire.”
From the moment of the lightning strike, and throughout the medical examinations, the treatments and ministrations of the nuns, Abbott Parker remained unconscious and unaware of what had happened to him. And he did not stir until the image had been fully formed on his back.
According to The Pittsburgh Press, this is how Parker was informed of his strange injury:
“At about 6:30 PM he was able to sit up in bed and by the aid of two mirrors and candles he saw the picture on his back. As soon as he recognised what it was, for no one had told him, he fell back on his pillow crying. And as soon as he could be made to talk, declared he could not understand.”
2
On Saturday, Abbott Parker was all anyone could talk about in Morristown. And thanks to the efforts of the local journalists, quite a bit more was known about this miracle man.
Parker was twenty-seven years old and came from Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he worked as a masseuse at the Charlestown Public Baths. He identified as Episcopalian, but had been raised Catholic by his mother.
Abbott, it seems, had a long history of disappearing from his Charlestown home. He would just leave without warning – with nothing but the clothes he was wearing – for months at a time, before returning just as unexpectedly. Parker would never explain why he had left or reveal where he had gone.
However, journalists had discovered that, during his last disappearance, in the weeks leading up to the lightning strike, Abbot had been working as a painter and lodging in a boarding house under the name Wilmer Parker.
They also discovered that Parker had attempted to conceal his identity from the medical staff at All Souls’ Hospital. And when the staff discovered his name from correspondence he’d been carrying in his pockets, Parker begged them not to contact his parents.
It was all very strange – and just added to the mystery.
But on Saturday afternoon, two doctors at All Souls’ Hospital, Dr Mills and Dr Henriques, carried out what was described as a “microscopic examination” of the image on Parker’s back.
Their conclusion? It was just a tattoo.
Not a miracle tattoo: it hadn’t been etched by lightning or painted with a “brush of fire.” It was just a regular tattoo that they believed had been done some years before but that had faded over time. The lightning strike, they opined, had “had the effect of making it vivid again.”
Up to this point, very few people had actually seen the image on Parker’s back. But, based on the descriptions given in some of the newspapers, you’d be forgiven for believing that the image was something akin to the works of Raphael or Botticelli.
However, a reporter for New York’s The World newspaper had gained access to Parker’s room and had seen the image for himself. He wasn’t impressed. “It is far from artistically done,” he said, “and the outline of the figure on the cross is quite indistinct.”
It was all quite damning, really. And it should have been the end of the story.
But it wasn’t.
3
In an interview that appeared in The Allentown Morning Call on 8 August 1904, we finally got Abbot Parker’s account of the incident.
“I was walking through the bushes during the storm, seeking shelter. The rain was falling in torrents, and the lightning was playing in vivid flashes,” he said. “I was conscious of a terrible burning sensation and of an instantaneous numbness, and then I knew no more until I woke here in the hospital. Then after a time they brought mirrors and showed me this wonderful picture of the crucifix on my back.
“I was never tattooed in all my life, and I am as much at a loss to account for the appearance of the sacred image as anyone else.”
So, despite the conclusions of the two doctors, Parker was denying that the image was a tattoo. And he wasn’t the only one.
Parker’s family said he had never been tattooed. His colleagues and the regulars at the public baths in Charlestown also confirmed that when they had last seen him at the baths – three weeks earlier – Parker had no tattoos of any kind anywhere on his body.
Parker’s roommate at the hostel said he wasn’t tattooed. And Parker’s cousin, who had gone swimming with Parker every day for the three weeks they’d been in Morristown together, denied he was tattooed.
Then there were the people who ran to help Parker immediately after the lightning struck. All of them saw the burn on his back. Some of them were able to describe the burn in great detail. But no one recalled seeing any kind of image.
But what about the findings of Dr Mills and Dr Henriques?
Well, it appears that their examination of Parker had not been sanctioned by Dr Griswold. In fact, their actions may have been motivated by professional jealousy – rather than a genuine desire to uncover the truth.
Of course, it is far beyond me to explain how the picture came to appear on the man’s back, but I am absolutely certain it was never put there by a tattooer.
When Dr Griswold arranged for tattooing expert Edward Gravel to examine Parker, this is what Mr Gravel had to say:
“The markings on the back of Abbott Parker were not tattooed on him, and bear no resemblance to tattoo marks. It is not even possible that the picture was tattooed on the man years ago and has now been restored by the lightning. When the man says he never was tattooed he is telling the truth.
“In the first place the colouring of the picture is not at all such as it would be if it had been tattooed on his back and I know of no colour tattooers use which would produce such a result as I saw.
“Another way in which the impression is different from what it would be if it had been tattooed is that it is somewhat less distinct and is slightly distorted. No man except an expert tattooer could have put such a picture on a man’s body, and an expert would have made the drawing more correctly.
“But the effect as a whole is exceedingly clear and the merest glance is enough to plainly show the nature of the picture. The detail of it is one of its strongest points. Of course, it is far beyond me to explain how the picture came to appear on the man’s back, but I am absolutely certain it was never put there by a tattooer.”
4
On being discharged from All Souls’ Hospital, Parker immediately began appearing as an attraction at Huber’s 14th Street Museum in New York.
Huber’s was a dime museum, a place where – according to the Mirriam-Webster dictionary – you could see “often lurid and sensational curiosities, monstrosities and freaks.” They were an extremely popular – and affordable – form of entertainment at the time.
Huber’s was just the first, though. Over the next few years, Parker appeared in dime museums right across the country, for which he was paid a “fabulous salary.”
And while this could easily be interpreted as a man shamelessly exploiting his newfound fame in the dogged pursuit of wealth – the truth may have been slightly more complicated.
Because it seems that Parker desperately wanted rid of the image – even if it was a gift from the heavens. In every city he visited during his tour of the dime museums, Parker would meet with its most prestigious doctors in the hope that one of them could remove the crucifixion scene from his flesh.
5
It’s not known if he ever found a doctor willing to remove the image. Parker was still appearing in dime museums up until November 1907 – but he appears to have disappeared from public life some time after that. And I have been unable to find any news on an attempt – successful or otherwise – to remove the image.
But had the image really been created by lightning?
As too-good-to-be-true as this story is, the consensus at the time was that Parker was telling the truth. There was just disagreement over how exactly the lightning had produced the image.
The Grey Nuns believed the image was a genuine miracle. And this belief, according to The Buffalo Courier, was a belief shared by many Christians.
“Abbott Parker has photographed upon his back, through a lightning strike, an exact reproduction of the crucifixion. His case is exciting the greatest interest and enthusiasm among Christians of every denomination, who are convinced, as must all who see it, that the wonderfully vivid impression of Christ’s last agony upon his body, was placed there for a purpose, and that the age of miracles has not passed.”
… the wonderfully vivid impression of Christ’s last agony upon his body, was placed there for a purpose …
Unsurprisingly, the men and women of science had a very different theory for what was responsible for Parker’s crucifixion scene; but it was no less fantastic.
The prevailing theory amongst the scientists approached by journalists at the time was that Parker’s skin had become “sensitised” by the lightning, causing it to act “as a slow photographic plate” that had captured an image of the crucifixion from either a set of Rosary beads carried by the nuns or from the crucifix that was reportedly hanging above the bed that Parker was treated on.
In short: the lightning had turned Parker into a human camera.
Photographers were quick to point out that photographic plates will not capture an image without a lens – and nothing corresponding to a lens had been found. But this did little to derail the theory.
Dr LaBarre Jayne Leamy, one of the doctors approached by Parker to remove the image, explained the likely mechanism behind this seemingly miraculous phenomenon.
“The electrolytic decomposition of the inorganic salts in the body into ions, the units of electricity, take place when lightning strikes. These ions turn the skin, as it were, into a negative plate ready to take a picture when exposed. This is done when the lightning tears the clothing off the body.
“Parker’s skin was made photographically sensitive by the lightning. He was brought to the hospital, and when his clothing was removed the photograph of the crucifix hanging on the wall, or perhaps that suspended from the Rosary hanging by the side of one of the sisters in attendance, was transferred to the skin.”
6
As sciency as the “slow photographic plate” theory sounds – it really was no more plausible than the genuine miracle theory – or the tattoo theory.
The truth of it was that no one knew how the image had been created. Was it a miracle? A rare but explainable phenomenon? An out and out fraud? In the absence of any evidence, it really became a matter of belief.
But what about Dr Griswold?
Griswold was the only doctor to have examined Parker before and after the appearance of the crucifixion scene. Did this unique opportunity give him a greater insight into the mystery?
No. Not at all.
Griswold was as perplexed as everyone else. He didn’t believe in miracles – but he also couldn’t explain what he had seen.
“There are so many mysterious factors in the case that one can only assess facts as having occurred and admit that the explanation of them is beyond him,” he said. “The lightning is responsible, but how it wrought this miracle is another matter entirely and one which I shall not attempt to explain.”
iow
Recommended Reading
If you enjoyed this post and would like to know more about unexplained phenomena, you might enjoy the following book:
Unexplained Phenomena: A Rough Guide Special – by Bob Rickard & John Michell
Close your eyes. I want you to imagine a world where dogs can talk, horses can count and cats have wings. A world where it sometimes rains fish and frogs and other animals. A world you can travel across in an instant. Now, open your eyes. You’re already there.
Rickard and Michell’s Unexplained Phenomena is probably the best introduction to our impossibly strange planet – being as it covers an incredibly diverse range of strange phenomena from around the globe. It’s been out of print for a few years – but can be bought quite cheaply wherever you normally get your secondhand books.