Why do People See What They See?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Hi Arby,

Always nice to speak to a rational person with some science.
That said, the people I most want to communicate with are
still not posting in this thread.

originally posted by: mirageman
TLDR - There is no single UFO phenomenon. Every case is a separate event. People are the problem because because they tell lies, make mistakes and will often pursue a truth that may not exist.
That's one of the best posts on UFOlogy I've ever read!

Agreed!

Regarding your examples of misperception - absolutey!

I mostly agree with Bonez's excellent treatment of the Phoenix
Lights case.

and I concur with Jim O. quite often too..

the brain desperately wants to 'connect the dots', whether
there's something there or not.

I LOVE your feedback on Westall ... on it's face I thought it
to be nothing.. and with your feedback, I see my hunch
was probably correct.

You make a really good point on mythology

That's why I have no interest in those sorts of cases.

Let me give you one on mythology, from 'mysticism'.

Have you ever noticed that 'mystical people' and movies
and the like always obsess about the number 7.

I was part of a group that studied mythology, and what it
all seems to go back to, if you study carefully, is that there
are 7 stars in Ursa Major.

Folks were impressed by the big pretty lights in the sky
and built exotic systems of supposed correspondences
around what they saw.

Some of the most prestigious ancient mystical systems
all were crazed about 'astrology' for this reason.

Modern New Agers go on about 7 chakras. etc. etc.

Pretty stars in the sky.. and 10,000 years plus of people
looking at them, without understanding what they saw.

Kev

originally posted by: SecretKnowledge
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Hey man thanks for the explanation but i meant to say the Ariel encounter.

A lot of mythology you have fallen for in that case too. They didn't all draw the same thing and they didn't all describe the same thing. It's not even clear to me if it was actually a "UFO" case, since one of the discrepancies was that some students drew the silvery object on the ground, not in the air, but others thought it might be hovering, though it's not clear they could actually see any space between it and the ground. Did you hear Emily Trim's account? She's one of the students who was there, and if you think her account is believable I've got a bridge to sell you.

25th UFO congress

Vendittelli introduced Emily Trim, who in 1994 was one of the schoolchildren involved in the famous Ariel School 'UFO landing' incident in Zimbabwe. She spoke on "E.T. Contacts and the Ariel School Incident." Her talk was highly emotional. She was crying as she spoke of encountering ETs floating above the ground. She said that she fell to her knees before one such being, whose face kept changing between that of an alien, and that of a lion. She has also had a conversation with a magic butterfly.

The audience liked Ms. Trim's talk so much that they gave her a standing ovation. As for me, I'm too much like that super-villain on South Park, "Reality." I'm sorry, I'm sure that Ms. Trim really believes this rubbish, but there is no "reality" in this. You cannot take seriously the account of someone who is in such a highly emotional state, and relates an impossible story. Powerful emotions obviously override all critical thinking and judgement. Accounts like hers belong to religion, not to science.

There has been some research into improper interviewing procedures by John Mack and Cynthia Hind, which inappropriately may have influenced the children's accounts.

Viewing one of John Mack's interviews with a child, Lator writes,

The boy is coaxed to imagine a rationale, then transpose it into the real world in the next question. A manipulation that is hidden by the editing of short sequences in the video. John Mack is caught red-handed encouraging the child to confabulate, integrate imagination into reality. JM knew that there was no verbal communication, so why did he suggested so heavily a different type of communication? What else than telepathy could it have been? The children did not make up the telepathic message, JM did. It became a "compelling" element of the story, fully validated by the famous Harvard psychiatrist.

That link goes on to discuss a number of other problems with the way the children were intereviewed, but even if you just look at the drawings, have you even found all of them? I don't think they want us to see all of them, even the drawings we have seen don't look the same. Look at this video where the humanoid creatures aren't drawn the same at all:

Ariel School UFO landing 1994


This drawing by Tara from 1:16 in the video looks like a human man or woman with dreadlocks, and it's just one humanoid:

This other drawing from 2:02 in the video doesn't show any dreadlock-like hair, and it shows two humanoids instead of one. So no they did not all see the same thing when the number of humanoids drawn isn't even the same, and they don't look the same. By the way both these drawings look rather human to me.

So don't these drawings bust the myth they all saw the same thing? Why does one drawing show only one humanoid and the other drawing shows two humanoids? One is not the same as two, they can't tell the difference between one humanoid and two humanoids? This is the tip of the iceberg on the drawing discrepancies, some of the drawings of the alleged "UFO" look nothing alike.

If they were looking at the same thing, how does one person see one humanoid and another person see two humanoids standing so close they almost look like they are holding hands?
Here's one from 3:02 showing what looks like one big silvery object on the ground, and 4 other smaller silvery objects on the ground, all sort of saucer shaped.



So first, none of them look like they are flying, and 5 objects and one humanoid, is this what all the other children described? No, it's not, they did not all describe the same thing in their drawings though improper questioning methods may have poisoned the investigation when Cynthia Hind and John Mack showed up, but I think these drawings might have been made before those two researchers had a chance to poison the investigation with their bad methods.This only shows one craft on the ground, not 5 craft, not flying, and one humanoid, not two humanoids holding hands:


Which sort of reminds me of this, a silvery looking object one can see on the ground. I'm not saying this is what they saw, just that it doesn't look particularly alien to me since I've seen similar looking silvery objects on the ground.


See if you can find the rest of the drawings, they do not all show the same thing, it's a myth that they all described the same thing before Cynthia Hind and John Mack showed up, they didn't draw the same things.

As related to the topic of this thread, contrary to your assertion they all saw the same thing, which many sources cite but does not appear to be true, why are the drawings so much different? How much is what they actually saw and how much is imagination or interpretation, or misinterpretation? Another myth in this case is that they had no TVs and didn't know anything about UFOs. They did have televisions and they did watch UFO shows.

By the way, did anybody ever investigate Emily Bolton's claim? I'm as skeptical of this as anything else in the case, but I wondered if anybody followed up on this? I think people wouldn't want to talk to a witness who didn't support their religious beliefs, and at least in Emily Trim's case, her experience does seem to be more religious than real.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'm one of the kids in these photo's. I remember this well. We made it up - Sorry. By the way there was a documentary on UFO's the night before, more or less everyone had a TV at that stage and for those who didn't it was still a cool story to get in on
I'm in the last photo. You may email me if you like. [email protected]

The only thing in that statement my other research confirmed is they did have TVs and they did watch UFO shows, I can't confirm anything else, did anybody contact her?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Well there you go MM, another case like we were discussing:

She said that she fell to her knees before one such being, whose face kept changing between that of an alien, and that of a lion

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I REALLY appreciate your level of detailed analysis
on this.

I'm of the personal opinion, that some form of
'hysteria' can certainly, highly color perceptions..

on the other hand, non-hysterical personalities,
some cold dead disbelievers, hardened combat
veterans.. people like me, who have been all
around the world and seen about everything..
not terribly prone to hysteria.. I don't think
that's the total answer at all.

Kev

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

I see flashes of light out the corners of my eyes, I seen a comma rotate about 11 o'clock from my vision, these things catch my attention and they dissappear, among other things that have been happening recently, it's building uo to something, eeeee noises like electricity common. And two nights ago I managed to get into. A semi trance state and amongst the shadowy shapes passing in and out I seen some highly detailed versions of a joker character like a grant Morrison joker, fast transformations vet highly detailed and 8mpressive. Is what I thought, at the time.
The point being until we can rule out human consciousness when it comes to anything paranormal imo it should be the most likely reason.
And its power should never be underestimated

Cheers

a reply to: OutTheBox

I see flashes of light out the corners of my eyes

Sorry my friend.. but those are almost certainly
cosmic rays impacting your retina. It' a known
thing.. it's more obvious in orb or space.. but it
does happen on Earth too.

As to your other visions.. been there.. done that..
there are a variety of explanations.. most mundane,
some perhaps not.

Yes, human consciousness is the big stinking turd
in all of this sort of stuff.

Kev

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear
In Emily Trim's case, she may have actually perceived what she says, I don't know either way. But that doesn't mean it actually happened. I'm reasonably confident that what she says is not what actually happened, and as far as I know the other children didn't report what she did about the face morphing between that of an alien, and that of a lion.

I don't think that there has to be any hysteria involved at all for hallucinations to occur. This video is about a scientist Oliver Sacks who researched hallucinations in his patients and had them himself and there is not connection to hysteria in his description of hallucinations, though in other cases there could be a connection:

What hallucination reveals about our minds

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Rather than post a seemingly long and winding response and reasons for, I'll keep my by no means correct opinion short;

Biology, Perception, Delusion and Deception

a reply to: pigsy2400

Sure.

I'd annotate it thus:

Quantum Biology, Perception, Delusion and Deception

We also need to postulate whether 'external beings'
exist and are involved at times.. but that's a very
long topic, more fraught with peril than even
perception and misperception.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

I"m a fan of Oliver Sacks.

As for what was reported:

Most people are not willing to be forthright about what
they think they saw. They self-censor. I had a long discussion
with JV and other famous researchers about this known thing.

Saying you 'saw a UFO' is bat sheiss crazy enough.. most
people hide under the 'nuts and bolts' cover story, so as
to minimize how crazy they appear... it's more socially
acceptable.

I'd wager many people saw dueling
simultaneous perceptions... it's so common.

As you know, for my own encounter, not only did I see
up to 5 images at once superimposed sorta on top of
each other, I also saw that 'flipping effect' and even
more bat sheiss crazy, I requested shape changing
and it happened upon request.

now of course, one might easily surmise that it was
all generated by my unconscious mind, and I was
deluding the entire thing. Sure.

I was also paralyzed for 10-15 minutes... now..
that's also possible with a 'simple' explanation
(predator/prey fear response DNA thing)
but that's one hella of a convincing effect.

For some things, if you are blind and have never
experienced fire, there's no amount of word-smithing
that can replace not only seeing it, but sticking your
hand in it.

At least of course, that's how such powerful experiences
are perceived.

Drawing correct conclusions from such experiences is
difficult at best.

Kev

a reply to: OutTheBox

The point being until we can rule out human consciousness when it comes to anything paranormal imo it should be the most likely reason. And its power should never be underestimated

Definition of consciousness - "sentience or awareness of internal or external existence"

And the latest UFO buzzword that's been banded around for a few years now. Yet no one can really explain how consciousness makes people unable to identify things in the sky and why it's even an explanation. Everyone who wants UFOs to be something more than explainable with prosaic explanations keeps trying this angle. Hence another case of explaining away a mystery by applying another undefinable mystery as a solution.

if you lose consciousness then you probably won't see a UFO. Well unless you dream about one. Although Bob Taylor's case comes to mind.

But it's a cop out for people who don't want to do the hard work and research.

So Roswell was 'consciousness', Travis Walton was abducted by his "consciousness" that hid him away for a week. Rendlesham was a bunch of lights caused by "consciousness". The sonic booms and UFOs over the Peak District in the 1997 were "consciousness".

Sorry I'm not buying it.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Yeah Kev it's the "perhaps not" one's I'm interested in, and cosmic rays is pretty cool I thought it was just my imagination, of which I am trying to improve on, you being shamanic what would be your advice to someone to perhaps gain something more tangible than the shadowy impressive shapes in the darkness. Cheers.

a reply to: OutTheBox

Learn all fields of science, then look to see what's
still possibly anomalous.

In many old mystical traditions, the rational mind is
first strengthened and clarified, to become an expert
bull#-detector.

Few ever complete that step.

That's called 'purification'.

There's another sort of purification .. a biological
gathering of forces inside one.. teaching your
brain to more consciously control nerves and
organs, etc. Hatha Yoga things.

Thats' decades of work too.

Most people jump into 'quick and easy' crap,
I won't tell you how to do it.

If perchance you learn to rewrite part of your
nervous system, and perhaps something else..
but your mind and body are not ready, you
go insane and then die. You die if you are
lucky.

there may have been times and places where
it was much safer to do such things.. but the
art is mostly lost.. and even then, say in Kashmir
area in the 1500's, you might learn some of the
adhoc psychology and biology of it.. but it was
still infused with religion and not science.

Our civilization will be replacing our grandkids
with machine intelligences.. to use a metaphor
I like, in the Analog Digital war, the Digital has
won..

the art of mastering your existing biology and
mental processes has lost.

That's my input.

Kev

a reply to: mirageman

I don't buy it either MM.

Not one tiny bit.

Common cop-outs:

God, Divine, Consciousness, Quantum (anything).

It's fantasy wish fulfillment, not to dig down for
real details.

That's why I spent decades learning science, learning
body-based yoga, why I attempted some truly BS things,
to see if I could learn from it and extract valid clues.

The jury is still out.

Kev

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Well dang, that just sucks.

This is the good and bad of ATS.

Good because you get the truth and bad because your cosy belief of all things alien just died a bit more.

Thanks for the reply and ive learnt i should do more digging before coming out with such statements. Which is a good thing.

a reply to: SecretKnowledge

Love your honesty and willingness to change.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear


Hey, im here to learn and to deny ignorance

originally posted by: KellyPrettyBear
a reply to: Arbitrageur
I'd wager many people saw dueling
simultaneous perceptions... it's so common.

In the video I posted, you can hear the children telling Cynthia Hines that their parents didn't believe their stories already even without the morphing lion/alien face, so it's not like their parents believed them even without that, at least the children who speak up in the video say their parents didn't believe them. Maybe some did. If there was some way to prove that wager I might take you up on it, but I don't think there is.

a reply to: SecretKnowledge
There are so many sources saying "they all saw the same thing" that it's completely understandable how you would pick that up and repeat it. I think we've all been there and done that, got a superficial impression of a case from limited research, which we found out later wasn't accurate.

Good because you get the truth and bad because your cosy belief of all things alien just died a bit more.

That's how it seems to go when you dig into UFO research. The thing that was so unexpected to me before I got into UFO research was how many "UFO researchers" aren't really after the truth, they have an agenda to promote UFOlogy. With 20-20 hindsight, that makes sense now, but UFOlogists want to promote their own field and to the extent the truth will have negative consequences for them and their field, they want to actually avoid the truth.

originally posted by: SecretKnowledge
a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Hey, im here to learn and to deny ignorance

I too am impressed with that, it should be the motivation for all of us to seek the truth, but unfortunately not everyone has that goal. I always appreciate the people that do have truth as their goal.

originally posted by: KellyPrettyBear

Would humans build 7 billion different types of spacecraft,
some purple, some as large as the moon, some that look like
horses, some that look like a tuna sandwich?

Just trying to add 1 small argument.

This is a very interesting discussion and probably it's something we can't grasp. But the variety of "ships" that are being seen means nothing imho.
Let's do a second thought experiment. An isolated Amazon tribe sends out people to different places. When they come back, they are shaken and report what they have seen.

One has seen a green moving object on 4 wheels and apparently people inside.
The second saw a blue vehicle on 2 wheels with someone sitting on top.
The third saw a huge white floating thing with hundreds of windows blowing out smoke.
Another one reported a flying machine moving incredibly fast through the air with a deafening noise, moving so fast that he couldn't see the color.
The next one saw something blue floating with people on top and some kind of bedsheets strung up in the air.
Still another one saw a string of boxes with dozens of wheels and hundreds of windows rolling over steel bars.
No, another one said, what I saw was a very large colorful thing with a basket beneath it, hanging still without any sound.
No, said the next one, I also saw something hanging still but it looked like a dragonfly and really made a lot of noise, how could you miss that?
And so on ... we can add at least ten more to the list.

When everyone has finished their story the village chief says: "You're all wrong, if there was a civilization outside the Amazon and they would find a new means of transportation, why would they build so many models?"

In the end, if it were ships, we might not understand the purpose. I don't say they are, just that this argument could simply mean that we're an ignorant tribe.

a reply to: nononsense35

Not bad feedback.

There HAS been studies done on Amazon tribes and
what they perceive. (I leave no stone unturned).

And, you just flipped my thought experiment on it's
head, substituting the aliens for us, and conflating
in the amazon tribes. Very very subtle strawman
and hand waving. But well done.

That aside.. yes.. of course... we are not advanced
enough to know whether infinite dimensions of
rocket ships are bleeding over to our reality,
etc.

That said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
(Freud).

It would make a world of sense for a simple mental
craft, nothing spectacular, to come visit us, and
more than once.. that in general, if that were
happening, we wouldn't get 7 billion different
shapes/sizes/weird effects.

This tells me that there's a 99% chance that classic
space aliens have NEVER visited us.. we've never
had that one simple craft, we've had elves offering
pancakes instead.

Kev