The Butterfly People of Joplin, Missouri

**Dom Bettinelli** (0:00)
Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World is brought to you by the StarQuest Production Network, and is made possible by our many generous patrons. If you'd like to support the podcast, please visit givemysterious.fm.
You're listening to episode 427 of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, where we look at mysteries from the twin perspectives of faith and reason. In this episode, we're talking about the Butterfly People of Joplin, Missouri. I'm Dom Bettinelli, and joining me today is Jimmy Akin. Hey, Jimmy.

**Jimmy Akin** (0:33)
Howdy, Dom.

**Dom Bettinelli** (0:35)
Be sure to stick around for the end of the episode, as we'll have your feedback on our recent episode number 416, Jesus's Most Misunderstood Prophecy, The All of It Discourse. But first, on May 22nd, 2011, an EF5 tornado, the strongest category there is, cut the city of Joplin, Missouri nearly in half. It killed more people than any single American tornado since the 1940s. In the weeks that followed, the children of Joplin began telling their parents and counselors an almost identical story. As the storm closed in, they said, tall, shining, winged figures stood over them, and they were not afraid. The children called them The Butterfly People. So what happened in Joplin that Sunday evening? What did the children of the city report seeing inside the storm? And were the Butterfly People guardian angels sent in a moment of mortal danger?
That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World.
So Jimmy, today's mystery comes from Joplin, Missouri, a city of about 50,000 people in the far southwest corner of the state. Before we get into what happened there, how close is this one to home for you?

**Jimmy Akin** (1:52)
Well, this one is practically in my backyard. I live here in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in northwest Arkansas, and Joplin is about 75 miles or 120 kilometers north of me as the crow flies. By road, it's about 90 miles or 150 kilometers just straight up the I-49 interstate. When I was born, Fayetteville didn't yet have a TV station, and as a kid, there were only three or four channels we could pick up with our old school antenna. This was long before we had cable.
One of the stations we could kind of sort of pick up, if you pointed the antenna just right, was KODE TV from Joplin. When I was small, I remember watching Miss Judy on the local version of Romper Room and the other programs they aired. Now, I wouldn't live in here when today's mystery happened. Back in 2011, I was living in California, but I've driven through Joplin a number of times since moving back home. In fact, I was driving through Joplin just weekend before last to go to an event in southern Missouri. So Joplin is a place that's close to my heart.

**Dom Bettinelli** (3:05)
The National Weather Service rates tornadoes on what's called the Enhanced Fujita Scale, or EF scale. Before we get to the storm itself, how does that scale work?

**Jimmy Akin** (3:15)
The original scale was developed in 1971 by Ted Fujita, a meteorologist at the University of Chicago. It rated tornadoes from F0 to F5 based on the damage they caused. In 2007, the US switched to a revised version called the Enhanced Fujita Scale. So today's ratings run from EF0 to EF5.
An EF0 produces light damage with winds from 65 to 85 miles an hour. That's 105 to 137 kilometers an hour. And that's enough to peel shingles off a roof and snap tree branches. Each step up the scale dramatically increases the amount of destruction, and EF5 is at the top of the scale. It means winds over 200 miles an hour or 320 kilometers an hour. And at that street, well-built houses aren't just damaged, they're swept off their foundations entirely.
The official damage descriptor for an EF5 is the word incredible.

**Dom Bettinelli** (4:26)
Then things would have been very dramatic on Sunday, May 22, 2011 What was that day like in Joplin before the storm hit?

**Jimmy Akin** (4:34)
Well, it was a warm, humid Sunday at the end of the school year. Joplin High School had just held its graduation ceremony that afternoon, and families were driving home from it when the storm formed. Severe weather had been forecast, and a tornado watch was in effect for the region. Now, I always hate this terminology because watch and warning are confusing.
They really ought to revise it so that it's less confusing, but a watch means we're watching to see if a tornado develops, and a warning means we're warning you there is a tornado, but they could still do a lot better. In any event, a supercell thunderstorm developed in southeast Kansas and moved towards the Missouri line. The National Weather Service then issued a tornado warning, we're warning you there is a tornado for the Joplin area at 517 p.m., and that was 17 minutes before the funnel touched down. One thing made this storm especially dangerous, it was what meteorologists call a high precipitation supercell. So the tornado, if there was one, would be wrapped in curtains of rain, and as a result, you couldn't see the tornado coming, making it all the more dangerous.