Evacuated from the Twilight Zone

The Creation Museum is a wonderful place during the day. Carefully designed, multimedia exhibits reveal what happens when the church and culture abandon the Bible, challenging Christians to holdfast to God’s unchanging word over what anybody else says. The scenes you encounter grow more and more exquisite as you walk through the displays, with waterfalls, life-scale depictions and even interactive animatronic characters around every bend.

 

 

But in the dark, with the displays dimmed and the screens paused, with recorded voices echoing and with alarm lights flashing, you can imagine that the museum experience grows considerably different. How would I know? Heh, heh.

It all started because the fire alarm sounded. Bright lights started flashing, sirens purred, and a voice ordered everyone to the nearest exit. A thunderstorm ranging outside set the stage for adventure as museum attendants handed umbrellas to us evacuees, urging us to escape to the safety of the parking lot.

The building having soon been declared safe again, I figured that now would be a good time to head back to photograph the exhibits before they filled up again with humanity. But something had changed…
 

 

Methuselah with the Lights On

The exhibits, save for pot lights glowing above the main path, were darkened. White alarm lights still flashed. The compelling videos that had been looping on screens throughout the tour were now frozen mid-frame. As I walked on through the displays, things only grew stranger. The voices of animatronic mannequins continued to rebound across dim walls, but the darkened figures themselves lay still. A dark figure appeared as I rounded a bend, but it was only an unlit Methuselah, perched in a recess in the wall.

Evacuated galleries of gray photos depicting the entrance of death and suffering after the fall did not look any brighter as I passed, despite the alarm lights that flashed across them. I navigated one last climatic passageway, a narrow, maze-like corridor with black-painted walls, and emerged into an empty Eden. “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden…” a commanding recorded voice echoed in the lifeless chamber.
 

Don't worry. Your visit will go much smoother.

 

Alarms, voices, corridors...it was like a Biblical Twilight Zone! I admit that I my heart rate had actually picked up a notch. Even if it was all in my head. Nevertheless, the museum quickly began to return to normal. Lights turned on over their exhibits one by one. Humanity returned. I paused beside a now relit Methuselah to regroup. That was fun!

Finding my family, we walked out of the back-to-normal museum together. We’re glad we went, and enjoyed our past two days here. I probably should have spent more time explaining the displays, describing the seminars we heard, and discussing scientific theory. But the black-out made for such a fun story!