can someone explain this...

September 24, 2009 7:11 AM

would you consider this a miracle? or what??

This happened Christmas of '07 (yes it's taken awhile for me to post here - I'm the king of procrastinating!)

To make a long story short - my entire family (that's my mom, bro's and sis and spouses) were watching the Lakers play the Celtics on Xmas day. It's sort of been our tradition during the holidays. During the middle of the game, the telecast was interrupted with a picture of Jesus Christ!

It did not move and it did not speak. And it was on the TV long enough for my family to have a conversation about what was going on. It was the same image of Jesus Christ that my mom has over her fireplace in a picture frame. There were different explanations thrown out including " maybe it's your dad saying hi". My dad had passed away 8 years earlier.

The kicker is I was there too, but I fell asleep during the game and missed the whole thing!! nobody woke me up!!!

We checked the internet and google and did not see any reference of the NBA game being interrupted. My family is NOT playing a joke on me - we are not that type of family and my wife would definitely not be part of it. This happened in Carlsbad CA.

Does the hive mind have a logical explanation?

posted by armlock to religion & philosophy (50 comments total)

Too much eggnog?

More seriously, what was the angle between the tv and the top of the fireplace with the picture? Maybe the signal was interrupted so the screen went blank and some kind of reflection of the picture came into play.
posted by mikepop at 7:17 AM on September 24

My family is NOT playing a joke on me - we are not that type of family and my wife would definitely not be part of it.

Well, we don't know your family and thus can't be so sure. The most logical explanation is that they are either lying or mistaken in what they saw.

That said, where is this picture in relation to the TV? Could it all have been just a reflection?
posted by vacapinta at 7:17 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]

Also, was this broadcast tv? Maybe someone else was playing a joke on your family by locally interrupting the signal somehow. If it was cable tv, which carrier? Satellite?
posted by mikepop at 7:18 AM on September 24

The kicker is I was there too, but I fell asleep during the game and missed the whole thing!! nobody woke me up!!! It never happened.
posted by gerryblog at 7:18 AM on September 24 [21 favorites]

It is entirely possible that anyone between the broadcast booth of the game and the cable headend in your neighborhood (if it was cable, or the broadcast tower if you use OTA) inserted the picture. Pretty trivial to do so.

That, or y'alls were suffering from CO poisioning.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 7:19 AM on September 24

Consider: Would your family seriously not wake you up to witness a miraculous apparition on the television that (because of the connection to the fireplace portrait) was apparently directed at your family in particular? It's a (weird) joke.
posted by gerryblog at 7:20 AM on September 24 [9 favorites]

Yes. Some technical glitch or crispy technician briefly crossed the feeds at the cable company. If it were an accident, Easter is probably the only other day where you're more likely to see Jesus on TV. If it was deliberate, Christmas is probably second only to Easter as a day when you might do that-- actually Christmas ranks first because it's worse to be stuck at the cable company on Christmas when you're supposed to be home with your family.

As for it being the exact image that your mom has, coincidence. There are only a few really popular portraits of the guy who has come to visually represent Jesus to us.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:21 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]

It was Jesus' birthday. Could have been your local channel had some graphics done for either the local news or for a Merry Christmas message and it accidentally got fed briefly to the live channel. There's a few popular images of Jesus out there, so I'm not surprised that it matches one you already know.
posted by inturnaround at 7:21 AM on September 24 [3 favorites]

Were they by any chance at your mom's house? Is the tv across from the fireplace? The only thing I can think of is that the game temporarily went off air, leaving the tv screen black (a veritable blank canvas) and the Jesus picture was reflected in it. Obviously, the lighting in the room would have to be right (but this was during the day, right?) and the picture would have to be in just the right place. Admittedly, this is a bit of a long shot.
posted by brambory at 7:22 AM on September 24

It would be interesting to videotape interviews with each person that was there separately, asking them to recall the events of this day two years ago. My bet is you would get very different stories.
posted by mikepop at 7:23 AM on September 24

It's possible that something like what Mayor Curley is describing happened, but it wouldn't be hard to verify with neighbors if it did. If it was long enough the glitch might have even made the local paper (and some neighbors would likely have seen the same image, if other people were watching that game). But the most logical explanation for a miraculous event other people witnessed while you were sleeping is the unreliability of their reports (intentional/malicious or not).
posted by gerryblog at 7:24 AM on September 24

No logical explanation here. But if we grant that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, David Hume (the go-to skeptic info all things supernatural) argues that in order to justifiably believe the miracle occurred, we would need enough evidence to outweigh all of our sensory experience that confirms that natural laws are not broken.

So, in order for this image of Jesus to be a miracle, in a nutshell, the burden of proof is on you to establish that Jesus (or some other supernatural entity) interfered with your television reception. Hume's opinion is that it is practically impossible to collect enough evidence to justify this belief given the amount of counterweighted evidence in common experience that laws of television reception are not prone to supernatural usurpation.

Me? I suspect the universe operates according to deeply entrenched habits, not laws. So I don't have this problem. =)
posted by reverend cuttle at 7:27 AM on September 24 [8 favorites]

There are only a few really popular portraits of the guy who has come to visually represent Jesus to us.

I am skeptical of this claim
posted by reverend cuttle at 7:29 AM on September 24

Your local affiliate was having technical difficulties and inserted a picture of Jesus until they came back online. This would be a pretty lame miracle. Why use a static artist's rendition of Jesus when there are burning bushes and angels at one's disposal?
posted by Wordwoman at 7:30 AM on September 24

Considering all miracles and claims on the paranormal that have been properly been investigated turn out to have natural explanations or are just subjective (a stain on the wall is a stain on the wall) then the likelyhood of you being part of something that violates the laws of nature is ziltch. This is no more miraculous than Spaghetti Cat.

Most likely its a technical flaw, little else. Ive seen so many of these random cuts and production problems on live tv, its really not even that unsual. Not to mention that according to Littlewood's Law, we experience things that are one-in-a-million about once a month.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:33 AM on September 24

This is what I would call either 1) a shared delusion, 2) a reflection in the TV, or 3) a technical issue at the broadcaster.

A miracle would be 1) Jesus turning water into wine; 2) Jesus curing lepers and the blind; 3) Jesus rising from the dead.

A miracle is not: 1) an image of Jesus on a Dorito; 2) a cloud that kinda sorta looks like Mary; or 3) an image of Jesus appearing on the television during a basketball game.

Sorry!
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:38 AM on September 24 [9 favorites]

[few comments removed - please keep your comments to the question at hand, not your opinions about Christianity. I can not believe I even have to say this.]
posted by jessamyn at 7:42 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]

If this happened to me I would ask myself a few questions:

1. If God, Jesus or my father, (or all 3) were trying to communicate with me and my family why would they do so using such an indirect and ambiguous manner? If either of the three aforementioned possible suspects are responsible they are acting within the realm of supernatural behaviour, (i.e. outside the realm of what most people would agree is the natural and real world). Why would they need to use the TV? Why not just appear to me?

2. Is there any other explanation for what happened that doesn't involve a miraculous explanation? (reading the above responses regarding possible reflections from the Jesus picture on to the TV are something to consider in this regard).

3. What is the most likely explanation, one involving super natural agents or one involving explainable natural phenomenon?
posted by hector horace at 7:45 AM on September 24

I love Jesus, believe in miracles, and think this is a most likely a technical glitch, like inturnaround suggests.
posted by monkeymadness at 7:45 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]

In my house, I push a button on a black box, and people appear there. There are lots of good stories, and many really stupid stories on the box. I have a toy that makes the box tell different stories when I press buttons on it. The box is either magic or miraculous. Once, a picture of a dead holy man appeared. That was inexplicable, but kind of cool.

Teevee uses science to work. If a picture traditionally assumed to depict your religion's God appeared, it was put there by a person, using science/technology. It's kind of interesting and cool. It's nice that your family had a warm experience viewing it, and peculiar that they did not wake you to share it. If there is a God, I genuinely hope God would not use supreme powers to make a popular picture appear on teevee, but my mind would certainly be too small to comprehend God's.

I'm not trying to be a jerk. I think technology and science and medicine are magic, and if I believed in God, I would think that the eradication smallpox was a freaking miracle. If God inspired the scientists and medical workers who did that, then may they be blessed forever. The scientists who invented antibiotics, anti-depressant medications and the Internet are pretty popular with me, too.
posted by theora55 at 7:46 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]

Sorry Hive Mind - I forgot to mention that we were not at my mom's house - we were at my sister's house - 90 miles away. My bad.

We thought it might be someone interfering with the signal - but wouldn't there be complaints and a response from direct tv (I think that's what she has). plus we figure something would have shown up on google. I mean this was a nationally telecast basketball game during a major holiday - a lot of people were watching it.

And if there were technical difficulties - why such a religious image and not a more secular image like that of a christmas tree/ xmas stocking / reindeer / snow / etc...

And why dfriedman would you question this as being a serious question?

Wordwoman - yeah I agree it would be a lame miracle. Maybe 'miracle' is the wrong word. but we really can't think of an explanation. I'd like to think my family is pretty analytical about things - they are all college educated (engineer, doctor, teacher, nurse, etc..) so we definitely look for logical explanations first.
posted by armlock at 7:47 AM on September 24

but wouldn't there be complaints and a response from direct tv (I think that's what she has). plus we figure something would have shown up on google.

Not everything gets blogged about. Seriously, if "the lack of google hits" is your only proof then you are only fooling yourself. Accept that its a technical glitch and move on.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:48 AM on September 24

reverend cuttle: Jesus (or some other supernatural entity) interfered with your television reception.

I vote for this. What's the harm? Maybe Jesus wants you to watch less TV.
posted by mkultra at 7:49 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]

Is it possible that a signal from a different (maybe local) channel got briefly crossed with the channel you were watching?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:50 AM on September 24

I am skeptical of this claim

Please note the qualifier of "really popular." In the US I tend to see the same 3 or 4 representations of Jesus.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:53 AM on September 24

but we really can't think of an explanation

If you hadn't thought of them, then many have been presented here (technical glitch, bored technician, someone hacking your local signal, family playing a joke even though you really don't think so, mass delusion). Some of them might seem unlikely, but take any one of them and compare its degree of unlikeliness with the degree of unlikeliness of the "miracle" explanation.
posted by mikepop at 7:53 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]

Does the hive mind have a logical explanation?

Something unexplainable happened, there may never be a definitive answer as to what it is, but the family is trying to provide one based on their religious framework.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:56 AM on September 24

Also, try posting in the forums on a site like thelakersnation.com to see if anyone else saw this.
posted by mikepop at 7:56 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]

In my area Comcast accidentally showed about 30 seconds of porn during the Super Bowl.

Was that a miracle?
posted by miyabo at 7:59 AM on September 24 [7 favorites]

And if there were technical difficulties - why such a religious image and not a more secular image like that of a christmas tree/ xmas stocking / reindeer / snow / etc...

So you've basically come here to have you bias confirmed. Why not a rhinocerous or a Swiffer mop? Assuming it's due to error, it could have been ANYTHING that was being fed from 300 channels or whatever. That time it happened to be Jesus. Next time you won't be so lucky and it will be Nancy Grace, but you're not going to make an AskMe about Nancy Grace trying to contact you.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:09 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]

This happened Christmas of '07

According to this page, the Lakers did not play the Celtics on December 25th 2007 (they played the Suns). They did, however, play them on the 25th in 2008, and the whole game is on YouTube.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:12 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]

Has this incident caused anyone who witnessed it to change their lives or behavior in any way? This seems like a key feature of miracles-- that they cause the person or people who experience them to become better people, to donate to charity, to become more religious, etc. If you guys all just saw something weird on tv and have spent a couple of years talking about it and telling it as a funny/weird story, then no, it was not a miracle. It either didn't happen at all or it has a logical explanation that you will never know. If someone who was there has changed their lives because of it, or if your repeating the story has helped someone change his life, then it doesn't matter what the explanation is, that makes it a miracle.

The whole damn world is a miracle. TV is a miracle. Your existence is a miracle. If you believe it is a miracle, good enough. Do something with it.
posted by nax at 8:16 AM on September 24 [5 favorites]

According to this page, the Lakers did not play the Celtics on December 25th 2007

Now if you saw an entire game that didn't happen and the picture of Jesus was the halftime show, maybe you have something.
posted by mikepop at 8:26 AM on September 24 [3 favorites]

Proof we are living in the Omega Point - a crossed circuit in the simulation?
posted by A189Nut at 8:28 AM on September 24

I have a slightly different take on these type of things that most here. It roughly corresponds to my faith being similar to the that alluded to in this humorous story of a religious person awaiting rescue from a flood.
The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that some technician working Christmas day decided to make a personal statement and insert a picture of Jesus during a portion of the broadcast.
However, what are the chances that the picture that technician chose to use was relevant to you and your family? Of course, you can make the statistical argument that regardless of the image he chose, *somebody* would have that image as well. But this wasn't somebody else, this was your family. It's up to you to choose how to interpret it.
Myself, my family, and some very close friends have all had "incidents". My mom received an email from my grandmother shortly after she passed away for example. Each of these incidents can be brushed aside with rational explanations. Except that those incidents had special meaning to those affected. That to me is the critical piece, those incidents had a special meaning. The practical realist in me points out that events such as these happen, and since they happen they have to happen to somebody, and so it's just a fluke if it happens to be you or somebody you know. However, that approach totally discounts that the event had a profound and sometimes spiritual meaning. The very fact that it had a profound and specific meaning to me is in itself enough to brush aside the practical realist inside me arguing it's nothing special. Because, it *was* special.
posted by forforf at 8:39 AM on September 24

on after post preview, what nax said.
posted by forforf at 8:40 AM on September 24

Hume is a hero to me, but here's another point of view.

Let's define miracles not as interruptions to the natural order, but as divine interventions - God is subtle and powerful enough to pull off the latter without requiring the former. The question then is not whether there are 'rational' explanations (of course there are, dozens of them - the maddest things that never happened can easily be given 'rational' explanations). The question is, what was the significance of the event? Did it open doors in your mind? Was it a miracle for you?
posted by Phanx at 8:52 AM on September 24

There are only a few really popular portraits of the guy who has come to visually represent Jesus to us.

Reverand Cuttle: I am skeptical of this claim

True, but was it this picture? Because that's the one I saw in almost every protestant home when I was growing up.
posted by Evangeline at 9:08 AM on September 24

I always have the same reaction whenever I see reports of people encountering "miraculous" images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary - how the heck would any of the witnesses know what Jesus or Mary looked like?

In your family's case, they claim to have seen an image matching the painting at your Mom's house. In other words, they saw an image of some artist's model who almost certainly looked nothing at all like the actual historical Jesus. Even if you postulate the existence of a god who is inclined to occasionally suspend the workings of the natural laws which normally govern the cosmos, that seems like a pretty pointless occasion to do so.

As far as likely explanations - I'll agree with the others that it may have been a technical glitch at the station. Odds are, it wasn't really the exact picture that your Mom has at her house. Portraits of Jesus that you would typically find in a modern house tend to share a number of common features - long-haired caucasian guy in a beard, wearing robes, posing in one of a handful of standard poses*. Your family would not have had the two images next to each other to compare so it would be very easy for them to think "that looks like the picture at Mom's house", and then convince themselves that they were certain of it in later retellings of the story.

*(reverend cuttle's link includes a lot of renaissance paintings of various events from Jesus's life, but you are much more likely to find those in a museum than in a home.)
posted by tdismukes at 9:08 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]

If it was the Lakers and the Suns, Phoenix has a player, Amare Stoudemire, who is nicknamed "black jesus"... this could possibly have something to do with the image.
posted by taz at 9:12 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]

We forget unusual incidents that don't resonate with us, and remember those that do. If the flashed picture had been of, say, Aristotle, your family response would probably have been "What the heck?" but then likely forgotten about once the game was over. Because the picture happened to be the same (or similar) to one the family is familiar with, a connection is made and it resonates as something "special."

Some things are just coincidence, and they seem miraculous or highly improbable to the person to whom they happen. But the fact is, "one in a million" coincidences happen pretty frequently.
posted by The Deej at 9:26 AM on September 24 [1 favorite]

I think the most obvious and likely explanation, given you were wrong about even the fact that you were watching the Lakers play the Celtics, is that this never happened. The second most likely explanation is that it was a technical glitch related to the fact that it was Christmas day. The third most likely explanation is that it was some sort of reflection.

Even if God exists he's obviously got better things to do with his time than appear in slices of toast, cheese pizza, and your television screen.
posted by Justinian at 10:39 AM on September 24 [2 favorites]

Let's define miracles not as interruptions to the natural order, but as divine interventions - God is subtle and powerful enough to pull off the latter without requiring the former.
-Phanx

Just a point about how to understand what we mean by "miracles":
You say God can divinely intervene without interrupting the natural order. What does this mean? That God can intervene in the natural world to produce the same results that would have followed from the laws of nature in their normal course? Well, if there is a God this is surely true, but this isn't what we mean by miracles, is it?

I mean, this could be going on at every moment, this could be the whole explanation of all cause and effect -- every case of cause-and-effect could have God as middleman. (A few thinkers have through this, over the years.) But this kind of divine intervention isn't normally what we mean by miracles. Miracles are surprising, departures from the normal course of events. Interruptions to the natural order which are best explainable by appealing to divine interference.

(None of this affects whether armlock should think of this tv Jesus event as a miracle, and none of this takes a stand on whether miracles as defined ever actually occur. Just wanted to clarify the concept.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 4:12 PM on September 24

No LobsterMitten, it means God can intervene in the natural world and it will *appear* as if it was just the laws of nature following their normal course.
posted by forforf at 7:58 PM on September 24

What I'm saying is, of course an omnipotent God could do what you're describing, but that's not normally what we mean by "miracle". Normally by "miracle" we mean something unexpected, out of the ordinary, water into wine, etc.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:43 PM on September 24

Oh, I think I see... you're saying that the immediate, physical-world explanation was that a technician inserted the Jesus image for whatever reason, but that behind that was the direct intervention of God (ie, God made him do that), and that's the miracle even though there is a physical-world explanation.

So the view of miracles we're considering here is one where God sometimes intervenes in a way that's obvious and has no physical explanation (say, water into wine), and sometimes intervenes in a way that's not obvious and does have a physical explanation. Both types of interference count as miracles?

(And also I assume there are times, most of the time, when he's not interfering and the physical world is just going along in its normal course?)
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:51 PM on September 24

My vote:

Jesus on TV during Christmas season - normal

Porn on TV during Superbowl - miracle
posted by P.o.B. at 10:10 PM on September 24 [1 favorite]

A miracle is when something quite unusual appears to have happened and people attribute it to God's direct action because it doesn't seem like something that would have happened in the normal course of events. And God presumably doesn't fuck around -- if he's going to pull a miracle, it's for a reason, right? And it's going to be effective, right?

If God wanted to show you a miracle, would he waste his time and yours with a simple still image of an old painting of what some guy figured Jesus might have looked like? Something so bland that you just about forgot about it? If God is God, God could have appeared in three (or more!) dimensions right in your living room and made you all feel bad for sitting around watching basketball when there are hungry people to feed. God could have made you and everyone else watching the game see the basketball turn into the weeping head of Jesus and made you all run out the door to church. God as God could have transported your entire family (including your revivified father) back in time to witness the actual crucifixion from an invisible box floating above the hill and shocked you all into devoting every remaining minute of your lives to helping the poor and hungry. Only God as ineffectual nerdy AV club member would have interrupted a basketball broadcast to show you a simple video image of a painting and then, before he got into trouble, quickly returned you to the game so you could continue munching Doritos and watching freakishly tall millionaires throw a ball around.

If you saw what you think you saw, don't you think it more likely that something a little more normal happened? For instance, that a local television station employee--maybe a Christian, maybe a prankster--popped the image up on the screen because it was Christmas day? And whether believer or prankster, wouldn't that person then be careful to deny everything because that kind of stuff could get you fired?
posted by pracowity at 4:03 AM on September 25

they are all college educated (engineer, doctor, teacher, nurse, etc..) so we definitely look for logical explanations first.

It's logical that your father is communicating with you through the television set eight years after his death? And he decided to wait until you were asleep to do it?

Riiiiiight.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:27 AM on September 25

So the view of miracles we're considering here is one where God sometimes intervenes in a way that's obvious and has no physical explanation (say, water into wine), and sometimes intervenes in a way that's not obvious and does have a physical explanation. Both types of interference count as miracles?

The answer to the above depends on an individuals faith. Personally, I'm actually less likely to believe an 'overt' miracle. After all David Copperfield made planes and the Statue of Liberty disappear, yet I don't consider those miracles. But, not everybody feels the same way I do, nor am I a good individual to use as a guide to mainstream Christianity. I believe in Jesus had divine inspiration, but I also think the same about Mohamed, Buddha, Gandhi, MLK, etc. So the specific answer to your question will vary by individual, and the general answer should come from someone with more mainstream views than myself.
posted by forforf at 4:30 AM on September 25