One of the more famous literary quotes comes from George Orwell’s novel, Animal Farm. It goes something like this: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”.
I suggest, that in terms of all things lumped together as ‘paranormal’ or the equivalent term ‘pseudoscience’, “All things paranormal are equal, but some paranormal things are more equal than others”.
Continued from yesterday’s blog…
SUMMARY:
The Paranormal - No Credibility – No Evidence - Full Stop!
+ Astrology, the ‘Mars Effect’, and numerology.
+ ESP (extrasensory perception) or telepathy; clairvoyance.
+ Reincarnation (remembering past lives).
+ Communication with the ‘spirit world’.
+ Talking to your plants.
+ Prayer & prayers answered; the power of prayer*.
+ Magic.
+ Psychic surgery.
+ Telekinesis
+ Teleportation.
+ Ley lines and mystical energy grids associated with megaliths, monuments, etc.
+ Religious and/or medical miracles: weeping statues, stigmata, Biblical codes, prophecy, and precognition.
+ Sightings of elves, fairies, the ‘wee folk’, leprechauns, angels, witches, goblins, demons, nymphs, bogeymen, etc.
+ Ghosts, spirits, poltergeist, phantoms, etc. **
+ Haunted houses; ghost ships; etc. **
The Paranormal - Some Credibility – Some Backing Evidence:
+ Alternative medicines and medical therapies.
+ Crop circles having a non-human origin.
+ The Bermuda Triangle and related regions where strange things happen to ships, airplanes and associated crew; various maritime and aviation mysteries that defy rational explanation.
The Paranormal - Highly Credible – Lots of Evidence and/or Theoretical Underpinning!
+ Cryptozoology – lake and sea serpents; unknown ape-like creatures (Yeti, Bigfoot, etc.).
+ UFOs as extraterrestrial vehicles.
+ Ancient astronauts’ artefacts/relics and/or mythology.
+ Mythological subjects like Atlantis, Noah’s flood, etc.
The Paranormal – These Phenomena Certainty Exist!
+ Ball lightning; transient lunar phenomena (TLP).
+ Mysterious falls of frogs or fish or ice or other unusual objects from out of a clear blue sky.
+ Fire-walking.
+ Spontaneous human combustion.
CONCLUSIONS:
What if someone forced me to pick THE pseudoscience/paranormal item that, if I had to stake my (fill in the blank) on, I would so bet? What’s the most credible of the lot apart from the certainties listed immediately above…
The answer is the UFO ETH (ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis) and associated sister topic, ancient astronauts (they are really two peas in a pod). Why? The answer is twofold. Firstly, there is the theoretical underpinning the two. Secondly, there is the observational evidence supporting the two. In turn…
Theoretical Underpinnings: I’d like to think that Planet Earth would be among the cosmic real estate of some interest to any advanced technological species of extraterrestrial being, especially since the Cambrian Explosion over 500 million years ago when complex (multi-cellular) life forms became noticeable. Like the Star Trek mantra says, ‘to seek out new life…’
Now in terms of cosmic real estate, comets and asteroids are pretty common, ditto airless rocky worlds; gas giants seem to be worth a dime-a-dozen, but real estate that has an atmosphere, and a hydrosphere, and a lithosphere, and a biosphere aren’t dime-a-dozen bodies. So, when one appears on an extraterrestrial’s ‘radar’, either through personally or robotically ‘boldly going’, or via remote sensing (our oxygen rich atmosphere is an obvious giveaway that just screams out as something that should be singled out for extra attention. That’s us! We have a biosphere. We have life. Well, that’s interesting.
Of course for most of our biosphere’s existence, we’ve been interesting in the same way as an ant hill is interesting to an entomologist or a bacterium is interesting to a microbiologist. Just like it doesn’t take all that much effort for an entomologist to seek out an ant hill or a microbiologist to find a bacterium, so, in the cosmic scheme of things, it doesn’t take all that much effort for an alien technological civilization to reach us. Many might dispute that statement, but the fact is, going from point A in our galaxy, to point B in our galaxy, violates no known laws or principles of physics. Once they have the desire and the ways and means of ‘boldly going’, the rest are details. And Planet Earth can no more hide from exploring alien eyes than an ant hill can hide from an inquisitive entomologist! Now you take local A, somewhere in our galaxy, home to an alien civilization. Now take place B – Planet Earth. What’s the distance between the two? It doesn’t matter. If the civilization can achieve 1% to 10% light speed interstellar travel – no violation of physics in that – calculate how long it would take them to get from A to B. Now, compare that with the overall age of our galaxy! You’ll find the ratio is somewhere in the same ballpark as how long it took humans to migrate and explore and colonize Planet Earth!
Observational Evidence: Well, for starters, regarding UFOs (as extraterrestrial vehicles), how about over six decades on, hundreds of thousands of sightings in all countries of the globe, by all walks of life - male & female; rich & poor; professional & illiterate; the young and the elderly, all religions; all races; all nationalities; no category has been left out. Then how about witnesses, passing lie detector exams all the while insisting “I know what I saw”? Then how about the fact that there are those experts in aerial phenomena who should be able to, but can’t explain all the sightings – the usual unexplained residue being between 5% and 10% - the hard core, bona-fide UFOs. Now throw in multiple and independent witness accounts! You don’t care for eyewitness testimony? Too unreliable you say? Well, chuck in a pot full of unexplained photographic and motion pictures, lots of unexplainable radar returns, ground traces, and all manner of other bits and pieces that instrumentation has detected or can do analysis on – no human brain entered into, just iron and silicon. Also, you have the undisputed fact that many countries have undertaken official investigations into the UFO issue – that in itself suggests that the issue has been taken seriously at the highest levels, unlike say, ghosts or stigmata!
Ancient astronauts are a slightly murkier kettle of fish because of the time separation between then and now. It’s easier to come to terms with what happened 20 years ago vis-à-vis 2000 years ago. Still, I’d maintain that there exists a reasonable amount of artistic and literary remnants from those long ago and far away places that are suggestive of otherworldly influences. As but one example, nearly every culture has legends, a mythology if you wish, of ‘sky beings’ who obviously, in most cases at least, were considered some sort of gods. Since of course nobody actually believes they were supernatural gods, that still leaves the pigeonhole of ‘sky beings’.
Now, is all of that proof? No! Is all of that evidence? Yes! It’s the sort of evidence that’s lacking in most of the other paranormal/supernatural bits and pieces that the sceptics love to collectively debunk and rubbish. But, that evidence makes my assertion that some paranormal claims are more equal than other paranormal claims more credible.
*Prayer as a paranormal phenomena gone poof, reminds me of an interesting observation someone else once made that every Christmas and Easter, the pope of the day publicly prays for world peace. But the next time Christmas and Easter roles around, nothing has happened – zero, zip, zilch, no progress towards peace on Earth. Surely God has the power to grant this prayer, and if the pope of the day can’t get results, who can? You’d think popes collectively would get tired of all this rejection by God and the resulting exercise in futility year after year; decade after decade. Prayers and prayers answered; the power of prayer? I think not.
** Ghosts, spirits, poltergeist, phantoms, haunted houses; ghost ships; etc. as taken to have some connection with an afterlife have no credibility, IMHO. However, other explanations are plausible. One such is that ghosts, etc. are manifestations of a simulated universe of which we’re a part.
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