It’s the opposite of those accounts of stone statues crying real tears. The husband of a woman in China says he’s upset with that country’s medical system (sound familiar?) because it can’t diagnose why his wife has been crying tears of stone for seven years (this sounds familiar too). Is it true? Could this be related to the famous case of the Lebanese girl who cried crystals? Are you rubbing your eyes yet?

Ding Aihua, a farmer’s wife in Lufang village in Heze City, Shandong, China, says she first felt a sharp pain in her eye seven years ago. Her husband, Liang Xinchun, says he looked in her eye and saw a hard, silvery white stone the size of a soybean under her eyelid, which he removed with a wire. Ewww!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj8feXsEWk8

Liang says he’s been removing stones and taking them and his wife to doctors ever since but no one believes him so he did what everyone with a strange medical condition does – he got the media involved. Reporters confronted Dr. Cui Yinchun at the Aier Eye Hospital in Heze City who would only say that the woman is suffering from conjunctivitis (pink eye) and trachoma – a form of conjunctivitis that causes bumps under the eyelids … hmm.

Perhaps the doctors should look up the case of Hasnah Mohamed Meselman. In 1997, a video appeared of the 12 year-old Lebanese girl pulling sharp crystals from her eyes at a rate of seven a day. The girl’s father claimed he took her to an ophthalmologist who witnessed the phenomenon and had no explanation other than “an act of God.” This was followed by stories of a government cover-up to keep the “miracle” quiet. All appeared to be resolved years later when paranormal skeptic Joe Nickell demonstrated how to perform the ‘crystals in the eye’ trick on himself.

Hasnah Mohamed Meselman and her tear of crystal

Ding Aihua might prefer they check the story of Saadiya Saleh. In 2014, it was reported that this 12-year-old Yemeni girl cried a box full of stones, including some in the presence of doctors who, while disagreeing with locals that she was “possessed by the devil,” had no medical explanation for her condition. While Hasnah’s stone tears stopped after a few months, there’s no other news on Saadiya.

Why would three women in different parts of the world have the same strange condition or pull the same con? Is this the start of an epidemic, mass hysteria or a social media hoax?

Wouldn’t “She Cried Tears of Stone” be a great name for a country-western song? Now stop rubbing your eyes or you may need scratch-proof contacts.