When Pigs Flew

Time Magazine reported several months ago that a homeowner in Ft. Lauderdale was trying to determine how 15 pounds of frozen pork landed on the roof of his home one sunny day in mid-July.  This piqued my interest, not just for the obvious mystery---how and why did the pork end up on the guy’s roof, but also because, having lived in South Florida, I recall how unlikely it was to find anything frozen outside in July (or, come to think of it, in any other month). 

But because Wry Bread connoisseurs (yes, I had to spell-check it) have learned to look here for answers to life’s mysteries, such as, “Who in his right mind would get within ten yards of a wild bear just for a better photo?” Answer:  No one in his right mind; and, “What idiot would conclude that dropping campaign materials from a plane onto his high school campus would persuade his classmates to elect him their president?” Answer: Just one idiot I know of; the idiot in question will here propose explanations for what shall now (and never again) be called the Porcine Parapet Predicament.  (No, technically a parapet is not a roof, but it’s close enough.) 

How did 15 pounds of frozen pork end up on this fellow’s roof?

Explanation 1: A south Florida Congressman, returning from a DC budget battle with his carry-on luggage filled with pork for a major donor, spotted Scott Pelley of CBS’s Sixty Minutes on the plane, and jettisoned the pork. (No, I don’t know how he got the pork off the plane, but then neither does Scott Pelley.)
                                                                                                                                                                    Explanation 2: A Ft. Lauderdale High School student was running for class president.  The school’s rivals were the Bradenton Wild Boars.  He thought he might create some buzz and win some votes if he dropped a frozen pig from a plane onto the campus.  Unfortunately, not only did he miss the campus, he missed the start of the school year by about six weeks.  His political life came to a swift and sudden end, not unlike that of the pig. (No, I don’t know what office the pig was running for.  I can’t solve ALL the mysteries for you).

Explanation 3: A barbecue restaurant was preparing for its grand opening. The manager explained the big promotion to the new employees, several of whom were not fluent in English.  We would call them a-fluent, but surprisingly, a-fluent does not mean, “not fluent,” although a-political” means not political.  This highlights the problem of the new employees, for whom English must have been “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” (Thank you, Mr. Churchill.  Please stand by in case we need you again.)

Here is what the manager said, speaking quickly in his excitement:

“It’s going to be a big promotion.  We’re going to pound the streets distribute fliers-----about fifteen thousand, all about our barbeque pork restaurant.  I want to be at the top of the list for barbeque for every home.  Does everyone understand?  Comprende?”

“Si. Yes.”  

Here is what the employees heard: 

“Big Promotion.  I want 15 pounds of pork on top of each home, understand?” 

But as someone (let’s say it was Churchill, since he’s standing by).  Excuse me for a moment, “No, I’m sorry. I have nothing here to drink, Sir Winston.” As someone wisely said, “the simplest explanation is probably the correct one,” so we come to…

Explanation 4: This was the long-anticipated day when pigs could fly, and one---I believe his name was Ica-Pig, flew too high and froze to death. (No, Johnny, I would NOT say he flew too high because he was “hamming it up.”) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………No doubt there’s a rational explanation for fifteen pounds of frozen pork ending up on someone’s roof (and I think we can be confident that the explanation is not one of the above).  I suppose by now that Ft. Lauderdale homeowner has solved the mystery.  We live in a rational world, governed by natural laws; it’s a world in which material things don’t magically appear on roofs.  

If you are a rational person (and surely one or two of our readers must be) and you found 15 pounds of frozen pork (or frozen wildebeest) on your roof, you would seek a satisfying explanation.  You would not conclude that your fairy godmother put it there, or that on her way to Neverland with Peter, Wendy dropped the pork she intended to roast for the Lost Boys. You would not assume it fell out of Santa’s sleigh on Christmas morning and remained frozen on your Florida roof for over six months; and you most certainly would not shrug and accept the proposition that it appeared on your roof without any cause at all.  You would not say to your wife, 

“Honey, I finally solved the pork mystery.  It’s obvious when you think about it.  With an incalculable number of roofs in the world, and an unlimited period of time, frozen pork is bound to appear on someone’s roof eventually. We just happened to be the beneficiaries of time and chance.”   

Your wife would rightly conclude that like Wendy’s grandfather, you had lost your marbles.  And yet here is the wonder.  Many who would never be persuaded that a package of frozen pork could appear on their roof without the assistance of a sow, a farmer, a butcher, a freezer, and some means of transportation, will glibly accept the proposition that life on this planet (and this planet itself) arose out of nothing, with no preexistent intelligent, powerful creator.  

The late Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle put it this way in his book, The Intelligent Universe.  The chance of the random emergence of even the simplest cell was the same as the likelihood that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein." He also said that believing that a single functioning protein could develop "by chance" is like believing that given a number of blind men sufficient to fill the solar system, all of them solved the Rubik's Cube simultaneously.   

Yet sadly, even he could not accept the obvious conclusion, and he embraced instead a hypothesis of "Panspermia," the idea that life exists in the universe because it is distributed by meteoroids, asteroids, comets and space dust.  I do not believe he ever satisfactorily explained how life arose on the meteoroids and asteroids.  How many blind men solving Rubik’s cubes would that take?  I suppose one has to think of Panspermia as “Peter Panspermia.” If I may paraphrase what Peter said to Wendy when she couldn’t get the hang of flying: “All you need is faith and trust----Oh, and something I forgot---a little pinch of space dust.”

“…the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”  (Romans 1:18-20)