Full Moon

I know that, statistically, the claim that “things get wacky around a full moon” has been proven to be false, yet tonight is a full moon and there does seem to be an inordinate number of truly bizarre and whacked out posts on ATS today.

I suppose it’s like trying not to think about elephants. You start to make associations based solely on the fact that you are thinking about them.

So the number of weird posts on ATS is probably not really more than normal today, but how many of you are saying to yourself, “wow, that post about the Superbowl halftime show was started a day before a full moon!”

Where has that full moon thing been proven wrong? Things really do get wacky during full moons but I too think its probably because everyone is thinking about it and go and do wacky things just to contribute. If thats the case then well wacky things DO happen on full moons.

Drama alert is on. Threads have been closed, people are fighting...
Thanks for the full moon alert!

*Sits by the window and howls*

A classic Cecil Adams article

more studies

National Geographic article

Originally posted by HowardRoark
has been proven to be false

Where has it been proven wrong? Why wouldn't the moon effect the human body...we are mostly water!

EDIT: Sorry, I had only read the original post....Personally, I don't care what "studies" say.....I know my self and I know what I have experienced throughout life...

[edit on 2/23/2005 by LadyV]

Most of it is a self fufiling prophesy.

If you expect to see certain behavior on a full moon, then you will even if it is the same behavior you saw the week before.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Most of it is a self fufiling prophesy.

If you expect to see certain behavior on a full moon, then you will even if it is the same behavior you saw the week before.

Sorry, I can't agree with on this....while I do usually keep tract of full moons, I do not always.....and that logic also would mean that most people go about that self fulfilling prophesy. Talk to hospital workers, police, etc...they will tell you the same thing....it does effect people. We're not talking something supernatural here. I don't understand why people thinks it's such a big deal that it happens....

I do know every month when there is a fool moon and I never notice any lunacy. I do think that a full moon brings in out a lot of light and will affect many things out side. The moon light allows for more things to happen than usual.
Ask a nurse or a cop about their thought on full moons.

Originally posted by LadyV

EDIT: Sorry, I had only read the original post....Personally, I don't care what "studies" say.....I know my self and I know what I have experienced throughout life...

[edit on 2/23/2005 by LadyV]

Of course, because after all, isn't anecdotal evidence the most reliable of scientific data?

I'll take the statistics, thank you very much...

I used to work in a hospital and spent most of my time in the ER. Also I mostly worked nights. The full moon always made for a chaotic night. This wasnt something that was debated throughout the ER this was just fact. Everyone new it, the doctors nurses and all of the other staff.No conspiracy here.

Originally posted by csulli456
. Everyone new it, the doctors nurses and all of the other staff.

Ah, can’t you see the earmarks of an urban legend in this?


FWIW, My wife used to work in an ER. She used to say the same thing, but when I pointed out that the they had gotten the same types of patients in a week before, it became clear that there really wasn’t any special increase. Anytime a full moon falls on a weekend, everyone made a big deal of the fact that it was a full moon, yet invariably the weekends just before and after were just as busy, with the same sort of goofy nutcases.

If you expect it to be buisier, then you will percieve it as so, even if it really isn't.

Id never even heard of this until reading this thread, but have found some scary facts on murder etc during a full moon.

Check this out!

www.innerself.com...

I personally believe Full Moon has a greater affect on people than any other phase of the moon. From my experiences I have found that full moons trigger erractic behavior in people and intensifies emotions but I will not say that full moons only causes negative behavior, that I believe is part of the urban legend.

Has anybody heard of different behaviour during a total eclipse???

"Has anybody heard of different behaviour during a total eclipse???"
Yeah! Theres a lot more people on hills with binoculars.

Originally posted by MickeyDee
Id never even heard of this until reading this thread, but have found some scary facts on murder etc during a full moon.

Check this out!

www.innerself.com...

Here is a somewhat less flateering review of Lieber's works, cited in the above article.

I'd like to say I feel different but I don't really notice it usually.

I DO notice that the clear channel radio stations play a different type of music depending on the state of the moon. On and around the full moon I notice more subconsciously depressing songs being played. Or maybe they just affect me more at those times.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
I know that, statistically, the claim that “things get wacky around a full moon” has been proven to be false, yet tonight is a full moon and there does seem to be an inordinate number of truly bizarre and whacked out posts on ATS today.

Who says the claims have been proven false? To the best of my knowledge, which is hardly complete, but never mind that; the moon has a great effect on water. It supposedly is what causes the rise and fall of the tides in the oceans.

Therefore, if a person's body is made up of more water than anything else, wouldn't it make sense that the moon's pull upon the water in the human body would have something to do with how people act and feel during a full moon, when the pull is at it;s strongest?

[edit on 2/25/2005 by CyberKat]

Sorry about the cut and paste, but if you are not going to bother to read the links. . .

Misconceptions about such things as the moon's effect on tides have contributed to lunar mythology. Many people seem to think that since the moon affects the ocean's tides, it must be so powerful that it affects the human body as well. The lunar force is actually a very weak tidal force. A mother holding her child "will exert 12 million times as much tidal force on her child as the moon" (Kelly et al., 1996: 25). Astronomer George O. Abell claims that a mosquito would exert more gravitational pull on your arm than the moon would (Abell 1979). Despite these physical facts, there is still widespread belief that the moon can cause earthquakes.* It doesn't; nor does the sun, which exerts much less tidal force on the earth than the moon.

The fact that the human body is mostly water largely contributes to the notion that the moon should have a powerful effect on the human body and therefore an effect on behavior. It is claimed by many that the earth and the human body both are 80% water. This is false. Eighty percent of the surface of the earth is water. Furthermore, the moon only affects unbounded bodies of water, while the water in the human body is bounded.

Also, the tidal force of the moon on the earth depends on its distance from earth, not its phase. Whereas the synodic period is 29.53 days, it takes 27.5 days for the moon to move in its elliptical orbit from perigee to perigee (or apogee to apogee). Perigee (when the moon is closest to earth) "can occur at any phase of the synodic cycle" (Kelly et al. 1990: 989). Higher tides do occur at new and full moons, but not because the moon's gravitational pull is stronger at those times. Rather, the tides are higher then because "the sun, earth, and moon are in a line and the tidal force of the sun joins that of the moon at those times to produce higher tides" (ibid.: 989).

Many of the misconceptions about the moon's gravitational effect on the tides, as well as several other lunar misconceptions, seem to have been generated by Arnold Lieber in The Lunar Effect (1978), republished in 1996 as How the Moon Affects You. In The Lunar Effect, Lieber incorrectly predicted a catastrophic earthquake would hit California in 1982 due to the coincidental alignment of the moon and planets. Undeterred by the fact that no such earthquake had occurred, Lieber did not admit his error in the later book. In fact, he repeated his belief about the dangers of planet alignments and wrote that they "may trigger another great California earthquake." This time he didn't predict when.

[edit on 25-2-2005 by HowardRoark]

I have previously worked in a hospital for 15 years and most of the time in the emergency room. I can tell you that yes there were obviously more weird incicents and accidents at the full moon, also many more attempted suicides around Xmas.