Griffith, Indiana - Holy crap! The tears of a weeping madonna statue outside St Mary's Roamin Catlick Church have tested positive for avian post-digestive fecal matter, otherwise known as pigeon shit.
All week parishioners had been flocking to the Virgin's four foot plaster image in search of a miracle when a church worker's quick wipe of her soiled features revealed the ugly truth.
The finding has left local superstition peddlers with egg on their faces amid claims that praying to her statue had revealed 'lucky' lottery numbers, cures for terminal diseases and the secrets of shape-shifting teleportation - as predicted in the Bible.
One Griffith resident, Mrs Gladys Spliif, even claimed the statue had cured her bunions after she'd dabbed them with the holy 'tears'.
"It's a miracle alright," the retired podiatrist told reporters from the Griffith Evening Argus, "wanna see before-and-after pics of my fallen arches, gotta be worth a thousand dollars a shot?"
