Sep 1, 2021 3 min read

They’re here! Well, OK, not here in Southwestern Pennsylvania (yet), but Washington state is close enough. I’m talking about those extremely creepy and downright scary creatures they’re calling the murder hornets. Have you heard about them? Asian giant hornets are two inches long and their sting can kill humans (about 40 people die from murder hornet stings each year in Japan). They’re native to eastern and Southeast Asia and have made their way to the western U.S. They’re nicknamed murder hornets because they conduct mass attacks on honeybee hives and destroy them by ripping off their heads. Great.

This reminds of the killer bees. Remember them? Make them mad and they’re known to chase humans up to a quarter of a mile! These southern African bees were brought to Brazil in the 1950s to mate with honeybees but spread through South and Central America when swarms escaped quarantine. We kept hearing they were creeping north into Mexico and made it to California by 1985. Next, they moved into Texas and now they’re found in Oklahoma, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and even Arkansas and Florida! I remember actually being afraid that killer bees were someday going to sting me to death.

Thinking of that made me remember all of the great and horrible stuff that used to scare me silly as a kid. Do you remember that show, “In Search Of …” that was narrated by Leonard Nimoy? I loved watching that! Or, rather, I loved scaring myself by watching it. And the fact that Mr. Spock was the narrator made things even more eerie. The episodes focused on the search for Bigfoot and Yeti across North America. I was convinced Bigfoot would kidnap me. Then came shows on the Loch Ness Monster with all of those terrific grainy photos and herky-jerky home movie clips of the beast rearing its head from the murky Scottish lake.

That show did episodes on the search for Amelia Earhart and UFOs. Those UFO shows really scared me. As an 8- or 10-year-old, I just knew that if Bigfoot didn’t get me the aliens would. And if they didn’t, I was sure to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle. Remember that? Whatever happened to the Bermuda Triangle? My guess is that advanced radar, sonar, navigation technology, GPS and satellite surveillance pretty much put an end to the mystery of disappearing planes and ships. In reading up on it, the whole notion of a Bermuda Triangle pretty much was bunk from the start. Still, back then they had me convinced there was some secret magnetic force in play that steered planes and ships off course and to their doom.

Hopefully the bug experts in Washington can corral and destroy those murder hornets before they start to migrate east and destroy the honeybees. I’m sure there will be a television special “in search of” them coming soon!

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.