''Pictures or It Didn't Happen!'' - Oh, Really?

Originally posted by stumason
Unfortunately, making extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.

Merely asking us to believe anything merely on your say so is as bad as blindly believing what the Government or media might say, which is ironic as the type of person who would make an outlandish claim is also the type of person who would deride the "MSM" for peddling lies....

Yes, a famous quote.. always good to throw a little authority, it will make people think twice. Who decides what is extraordinary. There are people out there who have a very different view on that from what the MSM peddles.

Originally posted by radkrish
The first few replies here are what makes it look more like BS

Generally, some cannot let out their frustration in dealing with a positive, genuine(probably) sighting or unexplained phenomenon. So they always call 'Pics or it didn't happen' and they are never to be seen again

Yes - it's a simple psychological mechanism, ''how come THEY have it, but I DON'T!?'' PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN... but it's not meant to show anything, to substantiate anything, rather a knee-jerk reaction on a par with, ''I'LL SUE YOU!''

Originally posted by survivaloftheslickest
Yes, a famous quote.. always good to throw a little authority, it will make people think twice.

It is a good quote and pertinent to the discussion, hence why I threw it in there.

Originally posted by survivaloftheslickest
Who decides what is extraordinary. There are people out there who have a very different view on that from what the MSM peddles.

Common sense decides what is extraordinary, I suppose. For example, if I claimed that my cat just jumped over a 6ft fence, that isn't that special and I doubt many would disbelieve me and would take my word for it, but if I claimed my cat had been abducted by aliens, probed and then skinned alive before being left in my garden for the children to find, people would want at least some proof that it happened.

reply to post by survivaloftheslickest


haha.. Good point.. But a crazy skeptic would need the image of a cat scan to prove it was actually your brain chemicals firing off to prove it was you philosiphizing.. And I will need a pic of you getting into the cat scan, and an image of the dr. Who is processing the cat scan, and then 2 forms of id, and a dr. Signature. Im not asking for alot..

Originally posted by Myendica
reply to post by survivaloftheslickest

 

haha.. Good point.. But a crazy skeptic would need the image of a cat scan to prove it was actually your brain chemicals firing off to prove it was you philosiphizing.. And I will need a pic of you getting into the cat scan, and an image of the dr. Who is processing the cat scan, and then 2 forms of id, and a dr. Signature. Im not asking for alot..

Indeed, there is evidence, proof and there is overdoing it. Good examples The ''crazy skeptic'' is someone who won't change their mind - their worldview is set in stone.

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by survivaloftheslickest
Yes, a famous quote.. always good to throw a little authority, it will make people think twice.

It is a good quote and pertinent to the discussion, hence why I threw it in there.

Originally posted by survivaloftheslickest
Who decides what is extraordinary. There are people out there who have a very different view on that from what the MSM peddles.

Common sense decides what is extraordinary, I suppose. For example, if I claimed that my cat just jumped over a 6ft fence, that isn't that special and I doubt many would disbelieve me and would take my word for it, but if I claimed my cat had been abducted by aliens, probed and then skinned alive before being left in my garden for the children to find, people would want at least some proof that it happened.

Indeed - and here the question arises: how could this be proven? Would they accept it as proof? If not - why?

It's one thing to have a crazy story. Such as I was abducted by space aliens or saw fairies or Bigfoot. But to have the crazy story and physical evidence that it happened is a completely different level of crazy.

I got the picture. But tell the story? You couldn't handle it.

Originally posted by ntech
It's one thing to have a crazy story. Such as I was abducted by space aliens or saw fairies or Bigfoot. But to have the crazy story and physical evidence that it happened is a completely different level of crazy.

I got the picture. But tell the story? You couldn't handle it.

Try us.

Originally posted by survivaloftheslickest
(Some) people on ATS often proclaim they don't believe something is possible, or - in simpler terms - they call BS on something. One could contend it does not really matter, because a) their opinion whether it's BS or not is irrelevant to the facts at hand and b) they seem to empower their (fragile?) egos by putting their opinions on pedestals nobody often even reads. Let us not divagate, however.

Question remains: how do they construe something as that proverbial, figurative (thank God!), stinky piece of BS? What is the mental process behind such an assumption, and - unless we are dealing with an obvious fraud but you could of course argue about that one too, so let's not go there because too much analysis will undoubtedly lead to paralysis - why are people so quick to condemn certain claims, calling them LIES?

I am deliberately employing vagueness here, because the paradigm is being discusses, rather than specific scenarios.

The funny thing is, the so-called ''cries for evidence'' - the ''pictures or it didn't happen'' crowd - if you like, which ought to lead to the ultimate substantiation (proof), are often imprecise, i.e. the person virtually SCREAMING to see the proof, does not even know what constitutes proof! Yes, I know the burden of proof is on the side of the claimant, but surely you see how fallacious this is when the person in question does not even KNOW what would convince them! I contend the ''proof yelling'' is actually a defense tactic, and a poor one at that, meant to defend the yeller's belief system (which he/she acquired without even often realizing how).

This is the problem with today's society: people can't think clearly and it leads to absurd conclusions masquerading as sophisticated thought processes when - in actuality - they are mere sophistries.

On that philosophical, albeit pragmatic, note - Merry Christmas!

The propensity of people to state their personal beliefs as fact and write incredible personal experiences, many of them hoaxes, as caused the Internet in general to cry "pix or it didn't happen" but brave soul, submit a faked pic (as the BBC did of Osama's wife, and many other examples recently) do expect that your photo will be subject to intense examination, as it should be. WOULD that we treated all issues with such skepticism...but make a statement on fox news and suddenly it's true...

we are getting harder to fool, and for that all of you should be extremely happy. I could state my personal experience with UFOs, but I don't have pix (my mom was so shocked the camera lay useless around her neck)...and if I did submit photos I would expect them to be torn apart. Do people tear down authentic things..sure they do, but it is a system of checks and balances., I can, at any time, submit a RAW file of any photo I take to prove it is not altered,...for this increase in skepticism, I am truly glad, however I do wish it also applied to the MSM,

Of course the gazillion claims of UFO sightings that have either been explainable without requiring speculation as to alien existence---or proven to be outright hoaxes-- has warped the UFO discussion to little more than the analysis of images.

I think that is where the phrase seems to be most common.

An example-- I have known an elderly couple for decades-- since I was a child. I know them well. They have some fascinating stories of a haunting and one single Polaroid of what they believe is the poltergeist. I have seen that Polaroid and wish I had a scan of it to share.

However, the picture never convinced me. Knowing the couple, and hearing them tell of the stories and knowing what they went through to get help-- that is what convinced me. Not anonymous users of a web site telling a ghost story-- these are real people in my life.

So, from that perspective, "pictures or it didn't happen" has some merit in terms of credibility-- or even having anything to discuss-- otherwise we are just reading UFO stories, Ghost stories and turning this site into a blag.

Or, to put it another way.. What scary just wrote before I posted!

Originally posted by Hockenberry
reply to post by OrNaM3nT

 

Your mother is the woman who gave birth to you. Yet I have no proof.

but if I send you a picture of my mom will that make you believe she is the person who gave birth to me? no it won't, you could argue the picture till the end of time and call it hoax. Pics don't mean squat. it's the persons credibility that we count on. does the person in question have a reputable life style, is this person known to be honest with others, etc. etc. etc. Pics are a nice addition to evidence, but they stop their.

Originally posted by gunshooter

Originally posted by Hockenberry
reply to post by OrNaM3nT

 

Your mother is the woman who gave birth to you. Yet I have no proof.

but if I send you a picture of my mom will that make you believe she is the person who gave birth to me? no it won't, you could argue the picture till the end of time and call it hoax. Pics don't mean squat. it's the persons credibility that we count on. does the person in question have a reputable life style, is this person known to be honest with others, etc. etc. etc. Pics are a nice addition to evidence, but they stop their.

Exactly - it's more about the person who's TELLING us what's happened rather than proof itself. If Hitler didn't write Mein Kampf, hardly anyone would've bought it.

With photoshop, believe nothing what you hear, and now, nothing what you see. So the answer is to believe in nothing at all? This is why each individual must do the "gut work" themselves and find absolutes through the only means nothing or no one in spacetime can affect, your spirit entity. Your mind can be poisoned. Your senses can be fooled. Only the core spirit of life-force itself is untouchable.

Can't pass an infinitesimal, static instance of the Infinite Presence through finite means. It instantly becomes contaminated, distorted and attenuated.

I see all of you posting but I can't prove that any of you are real. D:

A lot of people here on ATS look to find out the facts.

I have good friends I would trust with my life. Can I say the same for ANYONE here on ATS? Maybe one, but I cannot say the same for everyone else. I am no scientist, but I do want to piece everything together to come up with a conclusion on what is and what is not the truth. I would expect the same from anyone else who were looking to find the truth from me. Now if I came out and told everyone I took a interdimensional ride in a saucer shaped UFO a couple hours back, would any of you honestly believe I were telling the truth?

Originally posted by ErroneousDylan
I see all of you posting but I can't prove that any of you are real. D:

There was a hypothesis put forward by someone on here we're all just bots

reply to post by survivaloftheslickest


my word is my proof i have no need to lie or mislead anyone
and i really dont like those words pics or it didnt happen
let me tell you when you see these things the last thing
on your or shall i say my mind is quick get a pic
i have been lucky to have had my family see the same thing
as me
almost as if they were letting my family know that my screws
arnt loose and that i still have my marbles

reply to post by maryhinge


In my opinion, bona fide eye witnesses are worth a damned site more to me than pictures, knowing how easily they can be faked these days.

When I was younger my dad got me several books on UFO's, one of which was more or less a compilation of eye witness and official reports on UFO sightings in the UK over 50 years, with extracts and photocopied images of the official documents.

This hardly had any pictures, save a few sketches drawn by the witnesses and it was far more convincing to me than any number of random, blurry JPEGS.

You need to first make the distinction between "proof" and "evidence". Nothing is provable, except "I exist", and that is only provable to yourself. So what you are left with, is evidence.

However, there is no amount of evidence that makes something proven. It is not proven that the Earth goes round the sun, but the amount of evidence for this makes it beyond reasonable doubt, which I believe is the phrase we are looking for here.

So one who wants to "prove" something can continue amassing evidence in support of their claim. There may also be evidence against their claim, and to deliberately not including this is known in scientific fields as "cherry picking".

At this point I will say that I absolutely agree that most of the members on ATS have no clue about what proof or evidence is, or what they would accept as proof or evidence. They are simply, as most people are whenever they open their mouths or type on a keyboard, just trying to have their say. What they care about is how many little stars they get for their comment, or perhaps an attempt to fortify their own beliefs by an attempt to destroy anything that contradicts it.

To actually determine whether something is BS or not can be achieved quite well by considering various elements of what is given. I wrote an article on this before, and so will only summarize below briefly.

The largest considerations for believability are (1) quality of documented evidence, (2) quantity of documented evidence, (3) the reputation of those who created the documented evidence, also, (4) style of writing, (5) Occam's Razor... I could go on and on, as wrote an article on this, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Sure, there must actually be evidence for a claim even to be considered. The question here being: how much evidence is necessary before something is worth believing? In practical terms the answer is: however much it takes to convince the jury. Different juries want different degrees and types of evidence.

As a final note, I have seen many "stories" on ATS and other forums about an incident that happened to a person. The Mysterious Universe podcast was also full of this, as is ATS. I'm sure you have all read stories such as these. The stories are all fake, and the reasoning is simple: the story is written as a story. To detect BS stories you only need to consider how memory works. You know what... I'll just copy & paste a small segment of this from my article instead of trying to retype it:

---

Some extremely talented storytellers amuse themselves by writing elaborate stories about supposedly true events about themselves or other people they have researched. This is seen everywhere from Internet forums to best-selling books. Many of these are entirely fictional and the most obvious sign is the level of detail both related and unrelated to the main statements.

When someone is describing something that actually happened to them they search for it in their memory. By understanding the way in which memory works we can more easily detect those who are spreading untruths.

Vasopressin is the chemical your body releases in extreme circumstances which enables you to remember these events for a long time in great detail. During extreme (good or bad) circumstances vasopressin is released and remains in our blood for about 2 hours. If you think back to a particularly memorial time in your life, you will notice that your memory of it starts only when the emotions began, the previous events being forgotten, but continues in high detail for some time after the event was over – which is the period that the Vasopressin is still in your blood.

We remember the most relevant and interesting detail the best, and irrelevant and uninteresting detail is completely forgotten within hours. Because of this it can be difficult to remember sequences of events clearly because some events will have a stronger memory and so will jump into your consciousness on request sooner than other events which may have happened earlier but did not seem to be so important at the time.

Therefore anyone who describes something that happened to them can only give high detail in very specific areas which are relevant to the interesting point they are communicating, or directly after the main event, as we have learned. The person will also remember thoughts and feelings that they had during these highly detailed relevant periods in excellent detail. Other periods, especially before the main event, will be generalized and lack any significant detail.

A comment like "pics or it didn't happen" is absolute 100% ignorance if anyone that states it actually believes what they are saying completely.

However since people started using the internet it has become easier to lie, be who you want to be and/or pretty much make up any story you want to with no consequences. No one online truely knows who you are, even if it is proven that you have been lying it will not affect anybodies day to day life. All someone would have to do is create a new account and continue business as usual if they want to continue pretending they are somethign they are not.

With that in mind I think a lot of people use that for a general cry for evidence because no one wishes to be duped by someone playing games online. Of course regardless of evidence people will believe what they will believe. That has been proven time and again on this site, pictures get used to justify many sides of people's belief systems regularly and for those that do not believe they find reasons (or make up reasons) that the picture or video is not what it seems or is fake.

For those that do not believe something no ammount of evidence will change their minds, in some cases it would take absolute proof for them to really change their minds which can only happen if a certain event happened to them. For others that may have witnessed something no ammount talk against that certain situation or event can sway their beliefs.

I do not like the comment but I understand why some people feel the need to use it or something like it. It may not make them sound intelligent although I do not believe it is supposed to be taken 100% literally.