The Green Children

Originally posted by scienceguy94

Originally posted by SFRemmy
Oh well, if that's what you believe fine by me. It just doesn't make sense to me.

www.nlm.nih.gov...

maybe these kids have copper poisoning?

Its either something that they ate that made them green or that they were not fully human.
it is possible that these children were not human

I doubt it was copper poisoning - you really turn more of a yellow with that because it affects your liver.

My own bizzarre theory is that they were genetically engineered chlorophyll babies created in the future in a world where in an effort to conserve food you spent some of your childhood absorbing sunlight for food - and then somehow got caught in a wormhole and ended up in 9th Century France.
(It's a long shot, but honestly, what evidence can shoot it down, since we don't really know what's possible in the future?)

Really though, my guess is that they ate something that turned them green. I suspect this because I had an aunt once who ate too many carrots and turned orange. Seriously. So maybe they ate some kind of plant or mold or something to survive and it turned them green.

This one's a tough cookie. I don't really know.

My own bizzarre theory is that they were genetically engineered chlorophyll babies created in the future in a world where in an effort to conserve food you spent some of your childhood absorbing sunlight for food - and then somehow got caught in a wormhole and ended up in 9th Century France.
(It's a long shot, but honestly, what evidence can shoot it down, since we don't really know what's possible in the future?)

Really though, my guess is that they ate something that turned them green. I suspect this because I had an aunt once who ate too many carrots and turned orange. Seriously. So maybe they ate some kind of plant or mold or something to survive and it turned them green.

This one's a tough cookie. I don't really know.

There is one small problem with having photosynthetic people. we have to wear clothing all the time and any nutrients derived from the light would be so miniscule compared with the energy consumption of the human body.
we'll do a calculation
I found out that the human body uses 98 watts and that the maximum efficiency is 6% and there is an average of 1000 watts per square meter so there is 60 watts made per square meter. so your going to need 1.5 meters of green photosynthetic skin. Unless these photosynthetic kids were engineered to be more efficient but that would make them black like charcoal.
And unless You were naked all day. that photosynthetic skin would be useless. Do the have topless beaches in this future?

Originally posted by scienceguy94

My own bizzarre theory is that they were genetically engineered chlorophyll babies created in the future in a world where in an effort to conserve food you spent some of your childhood absorbing sunlight for food - and then somehow got caught in a wormhole and ended up in 9th Century France.
(It's a long shot, but honestly, what evidence can shoot it down, since we don't really know what's possible in the future?)

Really though, my guess is that they ate something that turned them green. I suspect this because I had an aunt once who ate too many carrots and turned orange. Seriously. So maybe they ate some kind of plant or mold or something to survive and it turned them green.

This one's a tough cookie. I don't really know.

There is one small problem with having photosynthetic people. we have to wear clothing all the time and any nutrients derived from the light would be so miniscule compared with the energy consumption of the human body.
we'll do a calculation
I found out that the human body uses 98 watts and that the maximum efficiency is 6% and there is an average of 1000 watts per square meter so there is 60 watts made per square meter. so your going to need 1.5 meters of green photosynthetic skin. Unless these photosynthetic kids were engineered to be more efficient but that would make them black like charcoal.
And unless You were naked all day. that photosynthetic skin would be useless. Do the have topless beaches in this future?

Nakedness may not neccesarily be an ordeal, assuming that their clothes were manufactured in such a way as to let sunlight through...or maybe even to amplify the light...like I said, the possibilities of the future are endless...
Though I will say that while I believe my chlorophyll people theory may be valid, it was more or less of a joke.
I believe the real hole in that theory would be the whole "travelling in time" part because the energy required for a wormhole big enough to enable a person to travel through it would have to be approximately the size of a planet. Unless future generations turn into planet-destroyers, I'm not sure where/how we would be able to produce something like that - we have trouble enough paying for the energy we use for heat and light already...

But that wouldn't explain why their color faded. usually a genetic change is permanent. Could it be that they were actually from underground? Maybe a race of humans that existed before adam?

Originally posted by scienceguy94
But that wouldn't explain why their color faded. usually a genetic change is permanent. Could it be that they were actually from underground? Maybe a race of humans that existed before adam?

Actually, on a much more serious note, I'd have to go with the theory of the children being Flemmish, getting lost in the woods, and somehow ending up in Woolwood, France - their journey through the woods, in effect, starving them, giving them the symptoms of a person with anorexia, including the groth of soft down hair all over their bodies, which occassionally takes on a greenish hue.
This was probably exaggerated as the story was passed through generations.


Of course, my counter-argument to this theory is that, hello, health care during that time period wasn't so great to begin with, wouldn't alot of people be starving anyway?

Maybe the green tone of skin has something to do with diet or even the amount of melanin in a person's skin tone, in which case the anorexia argument would still work. As I'm not a dietary expert, I can't really go too much farther into this.

this shows the spectral reflectance of a caucasian person. green straddles 510nm to 550nm. as you can see white people strongly absorb green color so it would be impossible for melanin to change spectral responses. All versions talk about the kids being full on green like grass. it seemed that it took about 5 years for the color to fade. what could possbly overwhelm the natural skin color for years at a time?
howcome nobody else has become green for not eating?

Originally posted by scienceguy94


this shows the spectral reflectance of a caucasian person. green straddles 510nm to 550nm. as you can see white people strongly absorb green color so it would be impossible for melanin to change spectral responses. All versions talk about the kids being full on green like grass. it seemed that it took about 5 years for the color to fade. what could possbly overwhelm the natural skin color for years at a time?
howcome nobody else has become green for not eating?

I doubt it had anything to do with spectral responses. As white as those kids may have been, people in France are pretty white too, so reflecting foliage off skin tones would be noticed in everyone. Which wasn't the case.

As I mentioned, anorexia would seem a cause - though that has more to do with keeping oneself on the brink of starvation. And I still can't really account for no one else getting the same symptoms other than maybe different foods creating different tones in skin (not via reflection, but via absorption). Sticking with the idea that these kids were Flemmish, maybe they were used to a particular diet, and didn't change over to the French diet for a good 5 years - that might explain the difference. Like I said though, I'm no dietary expert, so I'm not sure how relevant an argument that is.

you mean this
en.wikipedia.org...

this still doesn't explain why it took some time for the color to fade. SInce starvation and bad diet was common in this time period. why aren't there more reports green people and why does this girl give an account of her making some kind of space warp from her country to this world? I think they are from a parallel dimension.

Originally posted by scienceguy94
you mean this
en.wikipedia.org...

this still doesn't explain why it took some time for the color to fade. SInce starvation and bad diet was common in this time period. why aren't there more reports green people and why does this girl give an account of her making some kind of space warp from her country to this world? I think they are from a parallel dimension.

As I said before, different diets (albeit, bad ones) may have produced different forms of the disease. Maybe France's diet gave their people a form that didn't involve dramatic skin tone alterations, while Flemmish people's diets provided nutriets that made such pigmentation flourish.
I didn't hear the part about this girl giving an account of any time warp, but assuming she did, it's probably due to the disease making her lose energy so she probably slept alot, dreampt alot, and maybe had a weird dream that she thought was real. She was pretty young, afterall. And kids do things like that.

SO what kind of diet could change a person skin color?
why don't you look that up instead of posting conjecture. atleast i did a cursory google search.

Originally posted by scienceguy94
SO what kind of diet could change a person skin color?
why don't you look that up instead of posting conjecture. atleast i did a cursory google search.

I'm not saying that it would be diet alone - I'm saying it would be a combination of diet and malnutrition particularly the kind of malnutrition you get with anorexia or anemia. This would probably be a diet based on a vegetarian diet, which makes sense since I doubt that the kids would be able to hunt for meat. Since most available flora is full of chloryphyll, is it not possible that these children in effect ingested more than is natural and their skin took on greenish hues - much in the same way that people who eat too many carrots can develop carotenosis (I'm not kidding - that's the name of the affliction) and their skin takes on orange hues.

But greens do not migrate. ask any vegetarian if they ever got green skin form eating spinach. spinach has alot of chlorophyll.
carotene is a lot different that the green stuff.

there is one strong flaw with them being flemmish is that how far can two children walk without eating? you can't go no more than three days without drinking. and there should have been enough

Originally posted by scienceguy94

there is one strong flaw with them being flemmish is that how far can two children walk without eating? you can't go no more than three days without drinking. and there should have been enough

I never said they didn't eat, the point is that they didn't eat ENOUGH. By burning more calories than they were consuming, they were still effectively starving themselves. And they probably found places to drink as well - forests tend to have streams and whatnot. Plus it probably rained alot as it tends to do in that area.

Part of a dream I had last night that I looked through the newspaper and they had a photo of a dead green skinned girl killed in iraq. She wasn't dressed in muslim garb but had a brown robe on.

Heh, heh.... what the hecks going on here?
The tale of the Green Children of The Woolpit is a tale that has been 'floating' around
England and certain parts of France for hundreds of years.
The tale is just that... a tale, there were many problems in Europe at that time and of course, the usual one was poverty. There are many stories that indicate a connection with the fairie world and I believe this assisted in teaching the young certain disciplines.

Think about it... it's a racial tale, except in those times it would have been a tribal story.
The story shows many social facets, which may have been added onto through the years, but still, it shows that regardless of ones own difficulties, there's always someone worse of than yourself. A typical peasant view.
Enjoy the yarn, but don't believe it.

lets hope so.

It was very interesting that about three days before that announcment about the green puppies being born. I was thinking about this thread, being someone who believes in God, I asked God; "If these green people exist please give me a sign"
but of course that was probably coincidence.

Originally posted by scienceguy94
lets hope so.

It was very interesting that about three days before that announcment about the green puppies being born. I was thinking about this thread, being someone who believes in God, I asked God; "If these green people exist please give me a sign"
but of course that was probably coincidence.

Weird indeed!
It always makes me laugh when a simple yarn such as the one about Lucy Lighfoot and the Green Children is taken as a literal fact.
People in yesteryear feared everything and a small event of some children appearing that didn't speak the same language as the villagers who found them, would 'roll' through the years and gather more and more weird connections as it was told from one person to another.
Think about it... a story of an accident or a strange event now becomes a weird/conspirital thread here at A.T.S!
So you see, we can't help ourselves.

I think it was the only time I have gotten a clear sign anytime I prayed. Most of the time i ask for a million dollars or something. what do you think it means?

Originally posted by scienceguy94
I think it was the only time I have gotten a clear sign anytime I prayed. Most of the time i ask for a million dollars or something. what do you think it means?

That god doesn't want us to be millionaires.

I'm surprised this thread is still alive.