OK, it’s time to come clean. Despite the fact that I am a very skeptical person, in fact so much so that I started writing Fact or Fiction, I have still fallen for a couple of doozies in my time.
When I was a young scout I was actually taken on a snipe hunt. I can honestly say that I was extremely skeptical about the whole thing, as were many of the others. But, we were assured that snipes existed, and we were even shown a picture of a "Wilson Snipe" in a book about birds. Some of the scouts were convinced, and nearly all of us, including myself, did end up spending some time in a dark forest holding large plastic garbage bags as wide open between our feet and hands as we possibly could. No one caught a snipe that night.
In college, I took a ride with some friends of mine to watch a bunch of cows. My friends claimed to know people who had actually been "cow tipping," and they wanted to check out a pasture. For those of you who may not have heard, cow tipping is the act of sneaking up on a standing (but sleeping) cow and pushing it over during its slumber. I suppose the first clue that this couldn’t possibly happen was the fact that most of the cows were awake. Another clue might have been the fact that the few cows that did seem to be resting, were laying on the ground, not standing upright. No cows were tipped that night.
I have since become skeptical about cow tipping too. I don’t know anyone who has actually been cow tipping or even witnessed it. There has never been any video made of cow tipping. So, I looked it up, and, yes, cow tipping, like catching snipes, is fiction. Here are some reasons why cow tipping just isn’t possible:
- First of all, it is fiction that cows sleep standing up. (Horses do, but cows don’t.)
- Also, cows can weigh up to three fourths or even almost a full ton, and they have a fairly low center of gravity. It is, therefore, extremely unlikely that one or two people could budge a cow at all, even if it were just standing there waiting to be tipped. (A study on the physics of cow-tipping was actually performed at the University of British Columbia.)
- Cows are light sleepers, and at any given time, some members of the herd are going to be awake.
- Cows have great vision, hearing, and smell. If even a single cow figures out that something is awry, then it will quickly and loudly alert the rest of the herd.
- And, after the herd has been alerted, you better watch out. You better run. Apparently, cows are pretty dangerous when they’re pissed off.
I read that some places have, nevertheless, specifically outlawed cow tipping and that some have even made it a felony offense. That’s some pretty significant legislation for a fictional activity.
On the other hand, I can assure you that a snipe hunt, while quite possibly never a success, is at least a real activity. So, maybe snipe hunts should be outlawed. On second thought, if we had to go through one as scouts, then maybe so should the next generation. Isn’t that, after all, why our own fathers and scout leaders would have subjected us to such embarrassment? And, isn’t chasing a fictional bird around safer than being chased down by a real bull? I suppose so.
Some Sources:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1858246,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tipping
http://www.mycattle.com/features/dsp_humor_article.cfm?storyid=9215
