Halloween is Coming

halloween cats

Happy Halloween everyone, this is Chief Science Officer Jennifer Sontag reporting from the bridge of the USS Tiburon currently in orbit around earth.

As anyone that has followed the USS Tiburon before knows this time of year is my favorite time of the year. I love the smell of freshly carved pumpkins, freshly made apples pies and espically this is the time of year when the ghost and goblins come out to play.

In the past I have written about the haunted places you can visit in the US and espicailly in my home state of Colorado but this time I would like to talk about some of the myths surrounding Halloween.

There are a lot of myths and legends that have roaming around for hundreds of years. One of them is the myth of the black cat. Black cats have always been the brunt of many stories and have labled as bad luck to anyone that might cross their path. It all got started back in the early 18th century when the country was going through the Salem Witch Craft trials. Black cats where thought to be associates with witches as their “familars”, which were companions to the many people thought to witches. They also were associated that if you came across a black cat you would have bad luck. Fornuately, these myths have been debunked and that the black cats makes an excellent companion for anyone. So I would suggest anyone looking for a cat go down to your local shelter and find black cat, they might even bring you good luck!

halloween-pumpkin-patterns

Another interesting legend about Halloween is that the pumpkin was the first vegetable to be carved into funny and sometime terrifying images. In my research I have found that back in the middle ages people used to carve turnips into images to scare away any demons and ghosts that might be lurking in the shadows. It wasn’t until the 19th century that it became popular for people to start carving pumpkins into jack o’lanterns and putting them on their porches to light the way for eager trick or treaters. The pumpkins carving business has blown up within the last few years, there are even people that carve pumpkins for a  living and some cities even hold pumpkin carving contests.

Well, I better sigHalloween-Ghostsn off for now, the tribbles are getting restless. I will have more in the coming weeks about ghost and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!