Baby Discovered in Cowshed

Underage mother detained pending investigation

Bethlehem. – Early this morning, social workers (following an anonymous telephone call) discovered a new-born baby in a cowshed just outside the city boundaries. The boy had been wrapped up in strips of cloth and placed in a manger – presumably by his fourteen year-old mother Mary (family name unknown), who also seems to have spent the night there.
When trying to convey mother and child to the local hospital facilities, the social workers met with considerable resistence from a middle-aged man called Joseph (family name unknown, allegedly a carpenter from the city of Nazareth), a group of local shepherds and three suspicious foreigners, who said they were magicians from a non-specified country in the East. All these people seemed to be in high spirits, though they had spent the night out in the cold.
The social workers preferred to call in the police, who presently ascertained that the three foreigners, besides being without passport, visa or other documents, were carrying a large amount of 24-carat gold as well as some other, very likely illegal substances. The strangers’ claim that God had ordered them to travel in secrecy, without reporting to the proper authorities, did nothing to allay suspicion.
Mary, when questioned, asserted that she was a virgin and the child was supernaturally begotten by a deity. She is at present undergoing physical and psychological examination at the Bethlehem District Hospital, under police supervision. Joseph, who emphatically denies being the father of the child, is facing prosecution for seduction of minors.
As to the shepherds’ assertion that a young man in a nightgown with golden wings had appeared to them – “He said we should go to that old deserted cowshed at once and congratulate the young woman on the birth of her first” – Police Commissioner Yehoshua comment: “As far as my experience goes, that’s just about the lamest excuse ever dreamed up by a bunch of stoned junkies.”