April Fools 101

Over the course of our six-year conversation, I’ve shared some far-fetched stories. I told you that a meteor once fell in the Madeline Regan Preserve (The Sky Was Falling) and that earthquakes were increasing in our locale, the big one due soon (Shake, Rattle, and Roll). I swore I heard the ghostly cry of Elizabeth Shaw’s baby (Some Hidden Hemphill History) and that timber rattlesnakes had been secretly released in a Joshua’s Trust Preserve (Unverified Stories of Local Interest). Like I hoped, some of you were briefly fooled by some of those blogs.

But none of my April Fools or Halloween fables conned as many folks as last year’s personal bigfoot tale, Forest Dwellers. “Why was that?”, I asked myself, more than casually interested considering the current difficulty we have determining the truth of anything we encounter. Here’s what I came up with:

First, we have confirmation bias: if the untruth agrees with our view of the world, supports our pre-existing opinions, we are much more likely to buy it. Membership in our community is deeply valuable to all, crucial to some. You read my description of my turmoil after the Vietnam War and Watergate, and many could relate. “It was a struggle to fit into America after my emotions and ethics had been put through the ringer by LBJ and Nixon.” I wrote that early in the story, and it drew you in.

Secondly, as Robert Sapolsky explains in Behave, our “default state is to trust, and what the amygdala does is learn vigilance and distrust.” God bless us, most start out as genuinely open and decent human beings. We hear or read or see something and assume it’s true…our “wait a sec” response may or may not kick in afterward. So, while you may not have believed that Sasquatch lived in Chaplin, you believed I believed it. And so, because your default state is to trust me, you may have – just for a minute – wondered if such an impossible thing was possible. We all want to live in a more exciting world than our everyday one.

Third, persuading people is easier when you include your own aroused state of mind in the lie.“My hair stood on end, my adrenaline roared. This was a quality of fear well beyond my previous experience.”  We respond automatically with our own emotional response, overriding evidence, knowledge, and logic. My abject terror alone in my tent filled the bill, evoking empathy, making your body remember when YOU were similarly freaked out about something. Lies are far more affecting than truth. Ask a novelist.

 In addition, I backed up my story with corroborating research. You can Google this, I did: The very first recorded Bigfoot sighting occurred in 1765 in the Great Barrington area. And the most recent nearby report was in Woodstock, CT in February 2009. Finally, we’re lazy. No-one likes thinking hard 24/7, and our media culture doubles down with casual descriptions of serious events, serving frivolous bullshit or magical thinking instead of clarity and facts.

We love a scary story. Even more when it’s told dramatically with a human voice, in a play or movie. Or a political speech. Now I (and you too) know some tradecraft, techniques that might be used by a manipulative sociopath. You can imagine what others might do with this skill. Maybe you don’t have to imagine.

I recommend easing that worry by going outside: Spring is here! Take a walk today at one of our tranquil conservation properties. In fact, while there you can look successfully in nature for con artists; they are all through the plant and animal kingdoms. I’m pretty sure no lies are being told by the ever-changing sky and the warm spring breeze. What do you think?

And have I ruined my chance to kid you again next time?

George Jacobi

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Con artist #1: Timber rattler, photo by Jim Brown

Con artist #2: Lady’s slipper, photo by Charlie Jacobi

Con artist #3: Walking stick, photo by Kathy Hauswirth

Con artist #4: Pitcher plant, photo by Charlie Jacobi