Really, I want to believe

I have been a skeptic for most of my life. I became one because of my childhood obsession with aliens, time travel and anything paranormal. I loved "in search of", "x files" and even the lesser known "psi factor". I remember taping UFO specials off tv (I still have a few on old VHS tapes) and of course, there was the legendary alien autopsy! As I grew up, my fascination with all of these things remained, but none of the stories or ideas I was familiar with could ever hold any weight. I never saw a UFO. I never saw a ghost. I never slipped through time. I never experienced anything paranormal. So I became a skeptic. I'm still fascinated by the same things, I still collect stories and ideas, I just don't believe any of them.

I really do want to believe, in something, anything, but nothing holds up when I look too closely.

a reply to: wheresthebody

Some might suggest that you not look so closely. Know what I mean? Sometimes that magnifying glass can distort our vision by causing us to loose our more simple human perspective.

Others might suggest you go even farther and just let it all go, the chase. Go about happily with your life and just wait for whatever it is that might be looking for YOU, to find you. Just listen and watch and listen some more.

But I say that belief could be over rated. I find that belief can be a prison, the guards and the warden all rolled into one.

Do you want to believe, experience, or do both simultaneously?

a reply to: wheresthebody

Be happy that your intelligence and moral courage have met the test of reality.

The real world is a more fascinating, surprising and wonderful place than any fantasy dreamed up by the creative imagination. I speak as someone who makes a living out of his creative imagination.

a reply to: wheresthebody

My observation is that your focus has been on experiencing life from a vicarious standpoint by reading about the lives and experiences of others or viewing youtube videos which is even less reality engaged. Perhaps if you wish to experience the paranormal for yourself you will instead learn to quiet your mind long enough to detect abnormal factors in your environment from the noise around you. In this way you can form a baseline for normal and then can progress to forming opinions on what stands out as truly paranormal. Then you will have relevant data from your now clearer mind to analyze.

a reply to: wheresthebody

I share some of your feelings I have been reading on this site for a long time and although there have been many, many interesting findings there is nothing you can put your finger on. It feels like trying to scoop up sand with a tennis racket, like you almost have something but you can't quite capture anything on aliens.

I try to keep a open and accepting skeptical approach.

a reply to: wheresthebody

In regard to ghosts, I have seen 2, fully formed. One as a child and one on a ghost hunt in a closed-down mental hospital. I founded Buffalo Ghost Hunters and there was the one and only sighting of a fully formed ghost with the naked eye. I wish there had been more, but that was it. There was one caught singing on tape for about 10 minutes, but no visual.

In regard to UFOs, I saw what I think was one in about 1995. Could have been an advanced military plane, though.

Another time, about 1996, I was managing a motel way out in the country. Behind the motel was a massive dirt ditch between it and a condo construction site. One of my cats had got out. I went looking and something was hovering above the 'dirt ditch' that wasn't a government anything. It stayed there for about 20 minutes and then took off, at a slight angle and up, faster than any plane could have.

The next time time, what one may call a 'typical flying saucer', flew toward my home. I sat on my porch watching it. It stopped over my house and stayed there about 2 minutes. I tried for a pic but my phone is a few years old. It came out all dark. It was as wide as my house, at least. A 2 story, 4300 sq ft home. It took off , after at high rates nof speed and odd flight patterns.

My housemate suggested it may have been a millitary drone. I had no idea they could be that big, but aparently they can.

Maybe, one day, you will have your own experience. But as Terry said, maybe not look so close. The experiences I had, even if one was with a ghost hunting group, NONE were ever where I would have looked or expected. Especially in regard to ghosts, I was distracted by something else at the time and looked up to see....a ghost.

a reply to: wheresthebody

The crazy thing is, when you are not looking, that is when you find what you are searching for. You cannot answer a question when the answer is elusive. You find your answer through living and questioning. Being a skeptic is the same as being a believer in the paranormal, you set your beliefs and you find a way to believe in whatever you want to believe.

Example being, I have never had a broken bone, never been in a car accident, never seen a plane crash, never seen a tornado (and I live in Nebraska), have never witnessed a rape, have never witnessed a murder, and have never witnessed in person-animal beastiality. So do these things not exist to me? Are they real if I have never experienced them?

Yes, I have seen a person break a bone, just saying that if it never happened to me...is it a real thing if I hear about it from someone else or see it on the tube, well I am highloy skeptical. That's like saying "If I didn't see thousands of people die in hurricane katrina, it never happened, where's the proof." Well, this guy said his nephews and sister died in the hurricane/flood but there was no body found, so where is the proof...The funeral...your beliefs in the truth...What is realistic... What is real? What do you know about anything that gives you the right to question or believe anything?

I am just questioning your logic here, please lay into me. Why do billions of people believe in a singular god when less than a fraction of a percent believe they have spoke to the god they believe in? Well let me rephrase that, by praying to a god, they believe they are talking to god, and if one of their 1000 prayers get's answered it is designated towards god's doing, so maybe every religious person has talked to god.

But then again you are a skeptic so god is out of the question, I understand, it is illogical. But to be a skeptic about something you have never experienced eventhough you wanted to experience those things is, well, understandable I suppose. So keep being a skeptic and let it take you were it allows itself to do so.

a reply to: reldra

No proof equals just an elaborate story that has been fictionailzed. How big was the fish you caught and have no picture of, oh so it was half that size or didn't happen. That is a skeptic's POV.

I have witnessed a ghost in a house I rented, it literally came out from under the table I was sitting at, A full shaped human head with a hand on my thigh. I didn;t sleep for nearly 3 days. Before that I saw legs coming down my basement stairs and even hear footsteps which was why I looked and all I saw were calves and feet and then mid stair they were gone.

3 years ago I was taking out the trash and saw a bright low flying orange light gliding through the air almost above my house that went from 100 mph to 500mph in a few seconds ( it was pitch black out in dead of winter so the altitude and speed was hard to discern when all that emitted was a bright orange kit kat colored globe of light) and a minute afterward their were helicopters heard.

Do I know exactly what they were? Nope, do I think it was a normal experience? Nope. Am I crazy? Big Pharma wants me on Px's

a reply to: wheresthebody

As long as "the other" ( god, aliens, ancestor spirits, fairies, angels, demons, ghosts,...) has your attention, there is no need to "blow your mind".
It's not necessary to "believe" they feed on your thought-energy.

a reply to: wheresthebody

PSI-FACTOR was a amazingly good show!

Graham Green reprising his role as "Arthur" in it was just fantastic! I'm still trying to find the actual place they "called" Anderson Provincial Park in another episode.

What a delightfully diverse and insightful set of comments, thank you.

originally posted by: wheresthebody
I have been a skeptic for most of my life. I became one because of my childhood obsession with aliens, time travel and anything paranormal. I loved "in search of", "x files" and even the lesser known "psi factor". I remember taping UFO specials off tv (I still have a few on old VHS tapes) and of course, there was the legendary alien autopsy! As I grew up, my fascination with all of these things remained, but none of the stories or ideas I was familiar with could ever hold any weight. I never saw a UFO. I never saw a ghost. I never slipped through time. I never experienced anything paranormal. So I became a skeptic. I'm still fascinated by the same things, I still collect stories and ideas, I just don't believe any of them.

I really do want to believe, in something, anything, but nothing holds up when I look too closely.

Yep, I echo your sentiments. Was and still am a huge x-files fan, even this past winter's 6-part mini series and the two motion pictures. I've seen every episode. And now "I Still Want To Believe" and "The Truth Is Still Out There" statements makes me smile.

Like you, I am captive to most UFO specials and I'll even watch repeats.....LOL.

I go to the 'Openminds' and Mufon websites every now and then. But, my feelings have diminished a bit. We seem to get told that 'Disclosure' is coming, but the decades pass.

I love Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg was inspired by J.Hyneck a UFO researcher originally paid by the government, but believed they were trying to stifle him. He made a small guest appearance near the very end of the movie.

Another cool movie is called "The Fourth Kind" supposedly based upon a true story.....but then, I heard differently, but it is a great movie to watch.

Nice thread.....Thanks

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: wheresthebody

Be happy that your intelligence and moral courage have met the test of reality.

The real world is a more fascinating, surprising and wonderful place than any fantasy dreamed up by the creative imagination. I speak as someone who makes a living out of his creative imagination.

Bingo. The real world and the universe as a whole in every respect is so suprising and fascinating that I never understand why people feel the need to fly off into what I believe to be make believe land.

To quote Tim Minchin from his brilliant comic Storm


Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, natural world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: wheresthebody

Be happy that your intelligence and moral courage have met the test of reality.

The real world is a more fascinating, surprising and wonderful place than any fantasy dreamed up by the creative imagination. I speak as someone who makes a living out of his creative imagination.

Bingo. The real world and the universe as a whole in every respect is so suprising and fascinating that I never understand why people feel the need to fly off into what I believe to be make believe land.

To quote Tim Minchin from his brilliant comic Storm


Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, natural world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?

I get what you both are saying. However I think our innate nature is to be explorers. To look under the bed, in the closet, to cross a lake, sea, ocean...to see what is there that we can't see from our current vantage point. Imagination and dreams are wonderful things......so for many of us, when we look up into the seemingly endless night sky or for that matter the beautiful day sky.......we wonder, we wonder what else may be out there that we cannot see. It's not escapism, it is our desire to learn and explore, imagine, wonder and say "What if?" Peace

originally posted by: thenightisours

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: wheresthebody

Be happy that your intelligence and moral courage have met the test of reality.

The real world is a more fascinating, surprising and wonderful place than any fantasy dreamed up by the creative imagination. I speak as someone who makes a living out of his creative imagination.

Bingo. The real world and the universe as a whole in every respect is so suprising and fascinating that I never understand why people feel the need to fly off into what I believe to be make believe land.

To quote Tim Minchin from his brilliant comic Storm


Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, natural world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?

I get what you both are saying. However I think our innate nature is to be explorers. To look under the bed, in the closet, to cross a lake, sea, ocean...to see what is there that we can't see from our current vantage point. Imagination and dreams are wonderful things......so for many of us, when we look up into the seemingly endless night sky or for that matter the beautiful day sky.......we wonder, we wonder what else may be out there that we cannot see. It's not escapism, it is our desire to learn and explore, imagine, wonder and say "What if?" Peace

I dont disagree. Lets explore. Lets look under the bed. And doing that has given us incredible technology and incredible insight into how the universe works.

No need to make things up

originally posted by: thenightisours

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: wheresthebody

Be happy that your intelligence and moral courage have met the test of reality.

The real world is a more fascinating, surprising and wonderful place than any fantasy dreamed up by the creative imagination. I speak as someone who makes a living out of his creative imagination.

Bingo. The real world and the universe as a whole in every respect is so suprising and fascinating that I never understand why people feel the need to fly off into what I believe to be make believe land.

To quote Tim Minchin from his brilliant comic Storm


Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, natural world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?

I get what you both are saying. However I think our innate nature is to be explorers. To look under the bed, in the closet, to cross a lake, sea, ocean...to see what is there that we can't see from our current vantage point. Imagination and dreams are wonderful things......so for many of us, when we look up into the seemingly endless night sky or for that matter the beautiful day sky.......we wonder, we wonder what else may be out there that we cannot see. It's not escapism, it is our desire to learn and explore, imagine, wonder and say "What if?" Peace

By the way...i also look up at the sky and wonder what else is out there. I often star gaze and try to imagine all the other planets with other civilizations on them. What they must look like. Makes my head hurt with wonder.

a reply to: wheresthebody

I am a skeptic also. I have also seen a UFO twice in my life, once as a child with my parents, and once with my Darlin' as an adult. I didn't so much want to believe, as I wanted to know.

When I was 14, I saw an image of my cousin Kurt, and then found out two days later that he had died in a motorcycle accident.

I've done quite a lot of research. I tend to think that there's a hell of lot more than we don't know than that we do. I remain open to discussion of "woo", but skeptical of much of it. One thing I've learned from the tons of research is that there have always been fakers. This digital age has created many, many more ways to fake things, and more moonbats that get their jollies out of producing those frauds.

Still, I firmly believe in "others" that are not human visiting (or perhaps being here before us) the Earth. Temporal/dimensional, I don't know. I believe that a person's essence survives the body. I have no direct evidence of it, however I believe that a human ancestor is probably alive around the world than is called Bigfoot/Yeti.

I don't believe in rods or orbs, but remain open toward the introduction of amazing evidence.

I'm like Scully.

I could be abducted by aliens and still come out a skeptic.

For me, seeing isn't always believing.

Nice OP. ^5.

a reply to: geezlouise

I'm like Scully.
I could be abducted by aliens and still come out a skeptic.

Well, you know how she ended up, right?