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seemingly unexplainable cases of the paranormal

Andyman409

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Here is an interesting thread I found about a poltergeist case, involving items flying around and an apparition. Interestingly enough, it was written by a skeptic, who wanted to disavow his experiences, rather than reinforce them.

Of course, the whole thing could have been a lie, with the intent of making us skeptics look gullible. Or the person may have been deceived by their GF. Or they may have a very, very malleable memory. But we don't know enough about this case to really make any judgement one way or the other. And such a feeling makes me uncomfortable, as it should make any skeptic of the paranormal. I think this exchange sums up the situation fairly well here:

KingMerv00 said:
This post is a little to wordy. The issue is far simpler. There are two possibilities here:

1) Witnesses to paranormal events were visually fooled, lying, misremembering, dreaming, or hallucinating. There are many documented cases of optical illusions, liars, false memories, dream states, and altered mental states.

2) Witnesses accurately describe what happened but their sightings cannot be independently analyzed or verified in any reliable way. The scientific concensus concerning the nature of matter, life, death, energy, and force are very imcomplete. There is no verified instance of matter passing through a solid surface, matter vanishing without a nuclear explosion, life after death, energy/force from "another dimension", or the existance of a "higher plane".

#1 is more likely because it makes the fewest number of assumptions.
Well, #2 is simply part of the set defined by #1, so I wouldn't count it as another possibility.
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baron said:
The problem with #1 is that it's not enough. I agree that most reports of ghostly happenings are mistakes or misinterpretations, in whatever form. People lie too, of course they do. But when the anecdotal evidence is examined properly there is a problem. The problem is that there remain a small percentage of accounts (although still a very significant number) that are so specific and unequivocal they must either represent
an outright lie, or
a genuine event that cannot be rationally accounted for
In this case #1 as posted by KingMerv00 allows only for the "lie" option, which for the ardent sceptic is enough. However, even if I shared that view that wouldn't be the end of it. I would want to know why ordinary, decent people would suddenly come forth with an outright lie and stand by that lie for no personal gain. Not to mention the substantial research that many would have to do in order to weave in the consistency with other reported events. That in itself would be a mystery worthy of investigation.

Let me illustrate. I knew an old gentleman (I won't elaborate as he never gave his permission for me to repeat his story) who was as down-to-earth as you could imagine, absolutely staunch and very dignified and well respected. He told a story that could only have been (a) the literal truth or (b) an outright lie. If it was the truth then it could not under any circumstances have been misinterpretation. I won't detail the story but it involved him seeing a transparent figure, walking up to it and putting his hand through it, feeling an intense chill and electrical charge. He told his story in a straightforward manner, quietly and seriously, and it obviously disturbed him deeply.

If KingMerv00's explanation is indeed the correct one then I invite him to post an explanation as to what exactly would cause this gentleman to fabricate an outlandish untruth for no personal gain and recount it to a few select people when it clearly caused him distress.

As I said, I don't believe the dead come back to haunt the living, but whichever way you look at it there's something going on, even if that "something" is purely psychological.
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So, what do we make of this "unexplainable phenomena" sample? Should we consider it the result of imperfect reporting and unknown natural variables? How about exotic psychological responses? Simultaneous tactile and visual hallucinations do occur, although very rarely. And of course, is it feasible to think that a small amount of unexplainable cases must be paranormal, since we cannot find a naturalistic explanation for them? This is a topic which educated paranormalists and skeptics should be discussing. Not the popular cases, but the ones with bite.

As a final note, I am not saying that the paranormal explanation wins by default. I am saying, however, that cases do exist, in which it appears that there is no naturalistic explanation. These are the cases that are the greatest evidence for the paranormal, and therefore the cases I think we should focus on the most.
 
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Andyman409 said:
So, what do we make of this "unexplainable phenomena" sample?
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I can make a hat!

Should we consider it the result of imperfect reporting and unknown natural variables?
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Given that we don't have names, dates, locations, or any other details whatsoever, and given that human senses and memory are not reliable, we should immediately discard it as nothing more than a story.

I am saying, however, that cases do exist, in which it appears that there is no naturalistic explaination.
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And I'm saying no.
 
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^
But a perfect one for the inevitable tale-telling session at our up-coming Halloween party!
Thanks, Andyman!
 
My family has a “ghost” story which everyone is adamant really happened. Unfortunately I was only two years old at the time, so I cannot attest to it personally.

My grandfather (on my mother’s side) was in hospital. In the middle of the night, my mother dreamt she saw her father standing in the room. She may have been dreaming, but she heard my brother calling out from the next room. (We shared the room; he was nearly four years of age.) He said he saw an angel standing at the foot of his bed, dressed in white and carrying some sort of stick. He also said there were birds sitting on the window curtain rods.

That morning, the family received a phone call saying that my grandfather had died, around the time my mother had been woken. At the hospital, the nurse who had been on duty said that my grandfather’s last words before he died were “Look at all the beautiful birds.”

A few days later, my mother was making her bed when she looked up and realized that where she would have seen her father if she hadn’t been dreaming, she was looking into a mirror. In the mirror, from her bed, she could see into the next room, to the foot of my brother’s bed where he said he saw the angel.

This was many years ago, and as a confirmed skeptic I am more inclined to believe that the story has been embellished than that something supernatural really did happen. On the other hand, I have never been able to shake my family’s conviction that the events took place exactly as described. (That in itself may be a clue. Over time, memories become fuzzy and “creative.” If the different versions remain consistent, that likely indicates some sort of reinforcement has taken place, probably on a subconscious level.)
 
amensae said:
My family has a “ghost” story which everyone is adamant really happened. Unfortunately I was only two years old at the time, so I cannot attest to it personally.

My grandfather (on my mother’s side) was in hospital. In the middle of the night, my mother dreamt she saw her father standing in the room. She may have been dreaming, but she heard my brother calling out from the next room. (We shared the room; he was nearly four years of age.) He said he saw an angel standing at the foot of his bed, dressed in white and carrying some sort of stick. He also said there were birds sitting on the window curtain rods.

That morning, the family received a phone call saying that my grandfather had died, around the time my mother had been woken. At the hospital, the nurse who had been on duty said that my grandfather’s last words before he died were “Look at all the beautiful birds.”

A few days later, my mother was making her bed when she looked up and realized that where she would have seen her father if she hadn’t been dreaming, she was looking into a mirror. In the mirror, from her bed, she could see into the next room, to the foot of my brother’s bed where he said he saw the angel.

This was many years ago, and as a confirmed skeptic I am more inclined to believe that the story has been embellished than that something supernatural really did happen. On the other hand, I have never been able to shake my family’s conviction that the events took place exactly as described. (That in itself may be a clue. Over time, memories become fuzzy and “creative.” If the different versions remain consistent, that likely indicates some sort of reinforcement has taken place, probably on a subconscious level.)
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Interesting story, though I found a few problems with it. Firstly, your mothers testimony seems contradictory. Did she see the angel through the mirror, or did she see your grandfather in the room? And was she actually awake or asleep? I think she'd remember waking up to your brothers call. Waking up does have a particular feeling to it. I also question how they knew the grandfather died at the same time as the angel/apparitional experience. Did your family feel the need to jot the time of the experience down? I hate to come off as overly skeptical, but thought I'd give my 2 cents
 
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The problem with Baron's response is that he dismisses all of the potential explanations described in #1 except that of outright lying when he is considering his old gentleman story. He doesnt consider that the chap could have misrembered, dreamt it, been visually fooled, hallucinated, false memories etc.

He then turns it into a false choice between an outright lie and a genuine event, rather than the myriad possibilities inbetween.
 
Thanks Graculus, I was going to mention that point and forgot.

Baron presents us with a false dichotomy. We could easily come up with dozens of possibilities other than the two he presents.

Andyman, print these Wikipedia articles out and keep them under your pillow. They will prove invaluable if you want to discuss ghosts and poltergeists and other such things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memory_biases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
 
Andyman409 said:
I am saying, however, that cases do exist, in which it appears that there is no naturalistic explanation. These are the cases that are the greatest evidence for the paranormal, and therefore the cases I think we should focus on the most.
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Which cases?
 
In my experience, believers like to pretend to be skeptics, then post made-up stories on skeptic boards to get them to debunk the experience, which is obviously impossible because the story is complete fiction.

If you cannot verify that the story is real, there is little point in debating possible causes.

We might as well discuss how Jesus managed to walk on water.
 
One night, me and a dozen of my close friends came home to find a dragon in my garage. He was clearly real, huge, and breathed fire. Some of the fire scorched the wall in our garage, which I can show anyone who is interested.

After a few moments, the dragon vanished into thin air, never to be seen again.

Assuming I am telling the truth, how can skeptics debunk this case?

That's basically what you're asking here, and you're suggesting that skeptics should feel uncomfortable about not being able to debunk it, and that they should take it seriously and investigate it thoroughly.

I think this is nonsense, there is absolutely no good reason to think my story is not made up, and until it can be verified (which most cases cannot), there is little reason for spending any time on it. The same goes for the story you cited in the OP.
 
Andyman409 said:
I hate to come off as overly skeptical,
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Yes, we've noticed.


Humphreys has made a good point very well. Skeptics don't have to debunk everything. "We don't know", or "There is not enough evidence" are the answers that we have to live with much of the time. This does not = OMG! Poltergeists!

Many years ago I read an article that claimed that every Christmas Eve in the USA, the police and other officials get hundreds of calls from people claiming to have seen Santa. A skeptic would say "probably drunks, nutters, hoaxers". Andyman would say "evidence!"
 
Andyman409 said:
Here is an interesting thread I found about a poltergeist case, involving items flying around and an apparition. Interestingly enough, it was written by a skeptic, who wanted to disavow his experiences, rather than reinforce them.

Of course, the whole thing could have been a lie, with the intent of making us skeptics look gullible. Or the person may have been deceived by their GF. Or they may have a very, very malleable memory. But we don't know enough about this case to really make any judgement one way or the other. And such a feeling makes me uncomfortable, as it should make any skeptic of the paranormal. I think this exchange sums up the situation fairly well here:


Originally Posted by KingMerv00
This post is a little to wordy. The issue is far simpler. There are two possibilities here:

1) Witnesses to paranormal events were visually fooled, lying, misremembering, dreaming, or hallucinating. There are many documented cases of optical illusions, liars, false memories, dream states, and altered mental states.

2) Witnesses accurately describe what happened but their sightings cannot be independently analyzed or verified in any reliable way. The scientific concensus concerning the nature of matter, life, death, energy, and force are very imcomplete. There is no verified instance of matter passing through a solid surface, matter vanishing without a nuclear explosion, life after death, energy/force from "another dimension", or the existance of a "higher plane".

#1 is more likely because it makes the fewest number of assumptions.
Click to expand...
Well, #2 is simply part of the set defined by #1, so I wouldn't count it as another possibility.
Click to expand...

(Having checked the original post, I think you mixed up the quote a bit. I hope I've edited correctly to reattribute the last remark to you.)

I don't agree that #2 is part of #1. #1 is the set of mundane explanations which do not require the assumption of any effect which has never been verifiably observed in nature. Indeed I believe that was his point.
 
baron said:
The problem is that there remain a small percentage of accounts (although still a very significant number) that are so specific and unequivocal they must either represent
an outright lie, or
a genuine event that cannot be rationally accounted for
Click to expand...
It's not really a problem. Firstly, people do lie - blatantly and often. This alone probably accounts for many of those 'sticky' cases.

Secondly, 'specific and unequivocal' does not mean true. Unless there is strong supporting evidence, you cannot assume that the account is accurate, no matter how precise and unambiguous the details appear to be.

Finally, just because something is 'a genuine event that cannot be rationally accounted for' does not mean that it isn't natural. Knowing that everything that happens in the universe has a natural cause is not enough to explain any specific event.

Some things will remain mysterious forever simply because we didn't gather sufficient information about them at the time. Other mysteries may be solved (or at least a plausible explanation found) in the future, as we gain more knowledge about things in general. Just because we don't currently have a specific rational explanation for something, doesn't mean that there isn't one.
 
Andyman409 said:
As a final note, I am not saying that the paranormal explanation wins by default. I am saying, however, that cases do exist, in which it appears that there is no naturalistic explanation.
Click to expand...
Not only is there no "naturalistic" explanation, there is no explanation full stop.
This is because there is not enough information to be able to give an explanation. The null Hypothesis hasn't been falsified.

Andyman409 said:
These are the cases that are the greatest evidence for the paranormal, and therefore the cases I think we should focus on the most.
Click to expand...
If the "greatest evidence for the paranormal" is no evidence at all... it's not a good start to an investigation.

In the story in the thread you linked to, those events occurred over a number of years and yet no one collected any sort of evidence, no one even thought to investigate the events at the time to attempt to find mundane causes. Even the poster who claimed to be a sceptic didn't make any attempt at the time, to get to the bottom of it.

A story told years after the event and not backed up by anything other than the story is totally useless as material to make any sort of conclusion from.
 
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Humphreys said:
In my experience, believers like to pretend to be skeptics, then post made-up stories on skeptic boards to get them to debunk the experience, which is obviously impossible because the story is complete fiction.

If you cannot verify that the story is real, there is little point in debating possible causes.

We might as well discuss how Jesus managed to walk on water.
Click to expand...

I do doubt the sincerity of this guy. I mean, he was being HIT with objects, yet just tolerated it as if they were nothing. Look, hypothetically speaking, if his entire family all saw an angel, which preceded to cook them dinner we'd hardly expect video footage of the event. After all, it was a one in a lifetime, unrepeatable event. But flying objects? This sounds like the account of a kid who just watched "the entity" and wanted to make skeptics look dumb.

Although I'm not saying this is the only explanation.

GraculusTheGreenBird said:
The problem with Baron's response is that he dismisses all of the potential explanations described in #1 except that of outright lying when he is considering his old gentleman story. He doesnt consider that the chap could have misrembered, dreamt it, been visually fooled, hallucinated, false memories etc.

He then turns it into a false choice between an outright lie and a genuine event, rather than the myriad possibilities inbetween.
Click to expand...

I dont get the old gentleman story either. It seems fairly simple to explain as a tactile hallucination with some memory distortion. Dewi Rees found that, amogst widows, about 2-3% experienced tactile experiences of their deceased loved ones. If there are any details that would rule this possibility out, they haven't been presented (although I doubt it'd matter, since one could question the accuracy of the details).

Personally, I dont have a problem saying "I don't know" from time to time. But I never say "I dont know" without having at least a possible eplaination for the said event regardless of how implausible it is.

Stray Cat said:
Not only is there no "naturalistic" explanation, there is no explanation full stop.
This is because there is not enough information to be able to give an explanation. The null Hypothesis hasn't been falsified.

If the "greatest evidence for the paranormal" is no evidence at all... it's not a good start to an investigation.

In the story in the thread you linked to, those events occurred over a number of years and yet no one collected any sort of evidence, no one even thought to investigate the events at the time to attempt to find mundane causes. Even the poster who claimed to be a sceptic didn't make any attempt at the time, to get to the bottom of it.

A story told years after the event and not backed up by anything other than the story is totally useless as material to make any sort of conclusion from.
Click to expand...

I also found the "skeptical poltergeist" extremely suspicious. Who in their right mind would actually put up with that kind of activity? Why didn't they call a ghost hunter or (better yet) a skeptic? Apparantly, ghosts run like hell at the sight of one. That person may very well have lied, although the fact that he had other posts looks really odd. They may have also had their expectations molded like a piece of clay by movies like "the entity" or "poltergeist". Either explanation works, but the whole thing just feels weird.
 
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