UnNews:Likeness of Virgin Mary seen in Renaissance painting

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23 October 2006

Can you spot the likeness of the Virgin Mary?

DRESDEN, Germany -- Reserve peacekeeping forces were called in to Dresden today to help disperse the crowds of people who have flocked to this town in the hopes of viewing a painting that allegedly contains the likeness of the Virgin Mary. As many as 40,000 have visited the site in the past week in hopes that the image will heal or bless them.

The painting, a renaissance work by the artist Raphael entitled Sistine Madonna, is located at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. Typically the venue for the Annual World Gurken Eating Championships, this place has been flooded with more visitors than it can handle, making it difficult to keep the peace.

"Is it really true?" asks devout Catholic Rachel Ellerson. "I can't really make it out." Others are just as skeptical, but those that have seen it swear that it is a sign from God. "It's a sign from God!" says local goat husbandry expert Josef Halberstendenvorklesterschrine.

The owner of the painting, a Mr. Stefan Owner von Painten, has considered selling it on eBay, as he has seen similar scams do rather well on the site. "I saw the likeness of a thinking man in a chunk of rock go for hundreds", claims Mr. Owner von Painten. "I'm sure I could get at least five hundred [units of some undetermined currency, possibly gurkens]".

As tens of thousands try to make it to the site, the most foreign visitors the city has seen since 1945, city officials struggle with how to accommodate them. "We're afraid they might eat all the gurkens", says City Commissioner Jon Jacob Jingle-Heimer Schmidt. "We may have to resort to telling them to go home in a strict tone." He then added, "By the way, go home."

The Roman Catholic Church has yet to make any official statement, but they have lit the Christ Symbol over the site, which calls ChristMan to the scene, thus beginning a formal inspection.

Sources

• JC Hammer "Virgin Mary is HOT" Some Stupid Magazine, September 14, 1776