DO YOU KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS? MUTANTS IN YOUR BACKYARD NORTH MUSKEGON (December 10) - Do you truly know your neighbors? Linda Apperson felt confident that she knew hers. After all, she had shared a fence with them for close to five years. So when her son came home one day claiming the neighbor's kids could blast objects with their minds, she wrote it off as the product of an overactive imagination. It wasn't until she unwittingly witnessed the phenomenon for herself that Linda began to suspect her neighbors might be genetically enhanced. "Here all along I thought Justin was just making this stuff up. Then I saw it with my own two eyes. The kids next door that I had been waving to all these years were exploding plates with what looked like lightening bolts or possibly buckshot. But then I looked again and saw that there were no firearms laying around and that the weather was just fine." Immediately after local authorities were summoned to investigate the unexplained explosions, the family in question quickly packed up and vanished. "That's proof positive right there," claims Apperson. "If they weren't doing anything wrong," why would they just up and move like that in the night?" Apperson isn't alone in her experience. Many other tales have surfaced recently involving neighborhood kids who began exhibiting strange or unexplained behavior. "Once upon a time, parents would worry that their neighbors might be terrorists, communists, or child molesters," claims Dr. Rajik, a professor of Cultural Studies at Underwood University. "Now they worry that their neighbors might be mutants." But the growing number of reported incidents is compelling. Many local authorities are beginning to consider the possibility that dangerous mutants may exist in their own communities. Taking a cue from Megan's Law, the highly publicized and hotly contested sex offender measure, many concerned parents are pressuring local authorities to publish a registry of suspected mutants in their own neighborhood. "It boils down to a question of community rights versus individual rights," says one agitated parent. "But if I had to choose between the Constitution and the safety of my children, I'm going to take a stand for my kids." The groundswell movement to expose individuals suspected of mutant activity is gaining speed. Senator Kelly (R - Florida), a long-time proponent of mutant registration, has already drafted a bill that resembles Megan's Law in both spirit and scope. Congress is expected to vote on the measure in July. BACK

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