A Sighting Debunked

It's a stretch putting this in Cryptozoology. I just want to make the point that sometimes we can be mistaken.

Looking down into the valley one morning I was surprised to see a man, bent at the waist, splashing his hands in the shallow floodwater at his feet. I watched for a while, concerned that he may be mentally disturbed. It was a sparsely populated area, I didn't like the idea of bumping into someone whose behaviour was so inexplicable.

I don't know how long I watched but the image of a man bent over was what I saw the whole time. Until 'he' changed his position. What I was actually watching was a pony snuffling around in shallow water.

That was over thirty years ago and I haven't seen any animal that I misinterpreted to such an extent since. As far as I'm aware.

Sometimes we may be fooled by an odd optical illusion. But not as often as the skeptics would prefer.

a reply to: Kester

The power of suggestion is always there, especially with previously influenced thoughts. E.g...Yesterday I was reading a thread where someone talked about how everything was scary and out of place in "haunted" forest but he already knew previously that they were going in "haunted" forest so the mind was stimulated for all sorts of things that are not there, including optical illusion

Agree with your last thought but it is important to know the difference between a healty skepticism and all knowing naysayers.

a reply to: Kester

The mind can play some very nasty tricks ,more than once i have woken up next to a woman who had transformed from being hot and beautiful the night before into something quite horrid .

Wait that was alcohol . =

Maybe this is where you got the inspiration for the thread or..?

a reply to: Op3nM1nd3d

Thank you for making me think about this. I guess I'm a bit jaded through over exposure to multiple all knowing naysayers. Particularly those who consider themselves educated. Introduce them to a subject their 'education' hasn't sanctified and it's dismissed with a glib ad hom comment.

I'll remind myself to make more room for healthy skepticism in the future.

a reply to: iziii3

I was just washing my feet after a long hike.

Cameras do not have minds that can misintepret what they capture. Undoubtedly, humans can misunderstood what their eyes present to them. But much of the evidence for UFOs is based upon film and photograph - it does not need uncertain human testomony. And the fact that photos taken by witnesses often match what they reported at the time is confirmation that they were accurately understanding what they saw.