Pensacola, FL — A massive traffic pile-up on Interstate 10 is being blamed on an “unauthorized rapture” of a Gonzalez, Florida man. The 42 automobile traffic jam began to form late Saturday afternoon when Aaron Bastille’s (44) 1992 Toyota Corolla suddenly started swearing into the center divider just after crossing the Escambia Bay Bridge, according to eyewitnesses.
“I had just left the Dairy Queen was headed home,” said Pensacola resident Gay Hill who witnessed the crash. “There was this flash in the sky, and then this light beam. Ahead of me, this car started weaving all over the road with it’s left blinker on. And I was telling myself, ‘Oh Lord, we’ve got another drunk,’ and then it smashed into the divider. Everyone pulled over to help, but when we approached the car, there was just a pile of clothes in the driver’s seat.”
The Rapture is a concept of certain Christians, particularly within branches of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, will rise “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” Over the years, many evangelical Christian leaders have claimed that the Rapture was imminent.
After speculation of Mr. Bastille Rapture, area pastor of Covenant Fire Calvary Church in nearby Milton, FL claimed the incident might not be fake.
“We know nothing of this Aaron person,” said Reverend Kenton Kont, who’s been preaching Christian prosperity theology and the Rapture for decades now. “For all, we know he faked it. Maybe he was a homosexual or a Buddhist. And what about the rest of us who’ve been praying for years to join the Lord before the Great Tribulation? This has to be an unauthorized Rapture. So excuse me for being skeptical.”
The Pensacola Police Department reported no other ‘Rapture initiated’ events in the greater metropolitan area, leading many to believe that Mr. Bastille was the only one “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.”
“Aaron was a good man, although I don’t recall him ever going to church. He never bragged and was the most giving person I’ve ever met,” said neighbor Kathy Davies. “We all remember him hopping into his Corolla and driving 8 hours to help the people of [Hurricane] Katrina. He told us he got fired from his job for that stunt. He told us that it was the right thing to do. He said something like, ‘why not make a difference instead of sitting around worrying all day?'”
