A question I often get from researchers is: do I have any unusual marks or scars on your body?
At first I just answered no, and later I realized I have a scar on my nose (click HERE for more info). And recently I found an odd scratch on my torso (click HERE).
There are only two dots that remain distinct, the third has almost completely faded away. I can still see the third dot in certain light, but it is very indistinct. I drew in a red circle where it appears on my arm.
I realized that I have a funny triangle shaped set of three pock-marks below my wrist on my left arm. I have had these since (as best as I can recall) elementary school, and that means about 1974 or so. I just turned 48, so these marks have been on my arm for about 36 years (and that is a rough guess). As a boy, I would marvel at how perfection of the triangular shape. I have no memory of getting any sort of medical inoculation. If this is simply a vaccine scar, someone PLEASE tell me. I did a quick search for "vaccine scars" and "inoculation scars" and saw a lot of gruesome images, but none that even remotely matched what I have on my arm.
I took photos today, after shaving the hair off the small area. I put a little vegetable oil on the area to help see the dots and took macro photos with a digital point and shoot in the bright sunshine next to a window. I also increased the contrast on the digital photo (using photoshop) and this helped bring the image out a little more clearly. Please note, I included an un-altered photo at the end of this post, as well as a photoshop recreation as to how they appeared in my youth. The dots are all 3/8 inch apart from each other.
This is a photoshop recreation. This is how I remember it looked in my youth, I was fascinated by the curious symmetry of the dots.
The red lines show the location of the triangular dot pattern on my arm. The tiny dots themselves are difficult to see in this wide view. |
Digital image without any contrast change. This is how the dots presently appear. You can see how the lower left dot has faded, but it still visible. |
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ADDED TEXT June 2011:
There is a follow up to this post. This essay has been one of the most popular on this blog, here's a LINK where I speculate why that might be.
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