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A new report released by University of Chicago sociologist Patrick Wessel revealed some surprising facts about the source of nighttime noises outside your home.
According to the study, roughly 85 percent of the sounds are made by criminals shooting directly at your home with a gun. 7 percent of the noises come from Molotov cocktails being thrown at your roof, 6 percent from felons tapping a sharp hunting knife against the gutter, and 2 percent from the sound of the sadists rhythmically drumming their knuckles on the smooth pane of your first floor window, just waiting, waiting.
Wessel’s results were somewhat unexpected, as he explained, “Most of the literature reports at least a 40 percent incidence of axe-murderers slowly creeping up your creaky back stairs. We don’t pick up any of that here.” Wessel attributes this decline to the success of your local police force at arresting that one axe-murderer, as well as the fact that the recent economic downturn has forced you to take apart and sell your own stairs.
Research is far from over. “In our line of work, we’re never done asking questions,” Wessel noted. “For instance, how many criminals are hiding in your back yard on an average evening? Are there many of them, or just that lunatic who escaped from county back in ’03 and was never heard from again?”
While he is currently enjoying prominence, Dr. Wessel is not the only scientist to break ground in this field. For example, a study run in parallel indicates that 96 percent of nighttime noises in war-torn Benghazi are caused by rummaging squirrels.
