Seeing is believing - not knowing

I did not imagine creating a thread on this site, but hopefully at least someone who is actually willing to deny ignorance will rethink their stance on the mysterious, paranormal or conspiratorial.

My wife left our daughter at daycare this morning, and I picked our daughter up in the other car after work.
When I arrived to pick her up, I was approached by one of the caretakers and was told there was another caretaker who wanted to discuss something with me.
I went over to the person in question who started with something along the lines of "...something happened today" and I became a bit worried about my daughter, however, it turned out that my wife had, after leaving our daughter, reversed out of the lot and hit the caretaker's car while she was just pulling in to the lot beside my wife's.
The hit was so light that the caretaker hadn't felt anything, only saw that it was a really close call, and saw my wife leaving without having a look - "probably because she didn't notice it".

When the caretaker got out of her car, she saw nothing, except that the car needed a wash.
However, another employee had seen the whole event and went to look at the caretaker's car, wiped some dust off and saw that the rear side/corner had a rather long (40cm) and wide (about 10cm) scratch-like mark that looked more like dirt than anything else.

He explained pretty much the same story (or it was probably here I understood what had happened), that the rears of the two cars seemed to hit eachother, and obviously did.
This person left the scene and I called my wife to tell that she had hit someone and she became quickly upset that that couldn't possibly be, and she agreed to come as soon as she could.
I stayed at the daycare for about an half an hour playing with my daughter.

As my wife pulled in, she started immediately telling that she is very sure that she parked further away near a fence [on the side where the other car was supposed to be] with a gate to the daycare, and since there were only 3 cars on the whole lot, she said she remembered vividly how she thought about parking close to the fence to have plenty of room to open doors and not need to walk far with our daughter.

The daycare lady dismissed it and said that it couldn't be because she saw my wife.
We started comparing time of arrival and the time to begin with was close enough for there to be a reason to confirm that they could indeed have parked around the same time. Also, the lady said that the other person had also seen my wife and that it was that exact car.
My wife then remembered the time of the clock on the car display (to check how soon she'd be at work) to be 07:06, which matched less well with the daycare lady's story, and she dismissed that this couldn't be.

I had started inspecting the damage on our car while this conversation took place, and could find nothing at all. I located the spot that had to be the part that had touched the daycare-lady's car (according to her and the other employee's comments on what had happened), and found a detail on our car that has the shape of a bumper, but isn't one (just a part of the bodywork). But it was completely without any marks at all.

When the discussion between the ladies ended, I started explaining to her what I tried to find, and explained what I expected had happened between the cars, but I just couldn't see any marks. I told that the "bumber" was the plausible part, but that it had to have some marks, because that would have been the part that caused the whole mark on her car, thus more wear on our car (same kind of bodywork). She seemed to have a hard time buying what I said, again, she had seen my wife just feet away.
She asked me again if I thought that both cars needed to have marks, and I could only reply to her that in this case, if our "bumper" really was one of rubbery material, then yes, maybe that wouldn't necessarily have left a mark on our car.
I then came to think to borrow a toy-broom and measure the actual height between our "bumper" and the scratch on her car and realized that I really suck at eyeballing / using a floating hand between two cars parked next to each other. I was quite a bit off, and our "bumper" did not match the height.
That made her realize that that couldn't have done the mark, but started then asking about other parts of the car, and I did my best to explain why the profile didn't match anywhere else except where I expected damage on our car, and she started to agree a bit. But again, if she's seen my wife do it..

One detail that I didn't mention properly was that, I obviously considered also that my wife remembered incorrectly/lied, that this event could have indeed taken place, but been a close call. Had there been a hit, shouldn't the dirt have been removed from the car with an obvious "clean scratch" to suggest that a hit had just occurred?
So, if it was dirty, then maybe an old scratch was exposed?
Unfortunately, that area had already been wiped clean to investigate the damage, and it was done by someone who wasn't there anymore... Setback for our case, but not that tough, because I'd really expect a mark on our car. But it wasn't there.

This went on for quite a while when a car of different brand pulled in, with a visible mark in the rear corner. Not only that, that model had also such a "bumper", but slightly lower. The mark was a lot worse than on the daycare-lady's car, exactly as I had told her about the expected wear on our car, and the width of the mark was slightly wider than I had told her that it should be.

The couple came out of the car and the woman immediately confessed of hitting the daycare-lady when confronted, she had also realized that something happened (or had seen the mark during the day).

So, what I'm saying?
I'm saying that I never accused the daycare lady of lying, nor did I doubt that she was lying, nor did I believe that my wife was lying either, yet all they had was word against word, both being completely honest. And both stories sounded sane.

Me, as a third part, who had nothing to do with the whole thing, managed to study exactly what had happened without relying on one of the most unreliable of things: Witnesses trying to explain what they saw.

And I'm glad I wasn't a witness, because, when I saw the woman who did it, I didn't think she looked anything like my wife (but my wife admitted she looked like her?), and when I was home 20 minutes later, I realized that I barely remembered how she looked.
What's more, when I told my wife "well, if you think that the other woman looked like you, and their car was of the same shape and black like ours..", my wife interrupted me and said "Their car wasn't black. It was grey/green").

This is why I stick to science, not belief. I can't trust my memory, I can't trust my eyes, I can't trust my wife's eyes, I can't trust a daycare-lady's eyes, no matter how honest any of these people try to be.

Summary?
* When you see something that cannot be explained - it probably can
* When you see something mysterious - it probably isn't
* When you see or hear a "second shooter" and there doesn't seem to be one - there probably isn't

reply to post by Nevertheless


what a hassle,,,,

i was observing an USO or a lake monster the other day...
these crazy bubbles started to come up to the surface, and moving very fast underwater, along the shore...
just glad i dropped the rock i was planning to toss in the water to see if it would cause a reaction,,,

those two scuba divers would not have been happy...

but in some rare occasions seeing can be knowing,, but still a good point you have there...

reply to post by Nevertheless


Interesting story. Kind of funny too.

But any detective will tell you that eye witnesses are the least useful piece of evidence in any investigation. 100 people could have watched that little fender bender, and you would have gotten 70 different stories and descriptions, especially with it being 8 or so hours after the fact.

I have a fender bender story that I think you might find interesting.

Last year, I was on my way to work and it was very foggy and wet out. Poor visibility. A guy on a motorcycle got whacked at an intersection about 10 - 15 cars ahead of me. Everyone mashed their breaks and I didn't get the memo in time. I skidded into a van in front of me. Unfortunately I no longer have the pictures. But the trailer hitch on the van went straight into my radiator. The entire front end of my car had to be replaced, hood, grille, quarter panels, radiator, and many brackets and mounts. Totaled about $8,000.

The van didn't have so much as a scuff on it.

You would think there should be a relatively equal amount of damage between two vehicles. Sometimes that's not the case though.

Originally posted by watchitburn
reply to post by Nevertheless

 

But any detective will tell you that eye witnesses are the least useful piece of evidence in any investigation.

Yes, this is exactly my point. I used this opportunity where the true reason is known to explain how what is seen and experienced can differ from what actually happened, without anyone having to lie.

How many "theories" on this site aren't based on "I know it sounds crazy but I know what I saw" or "The police says x, but why are there witnesses who..".

And when it comes to finding clues - I clearly demonstrated that even if I was standing between the cars and measuring without tools, eyeballing, I did a pretty bad job. I resulted in me believing that there was a part of the car that could have been the culprit, except that there had to be marks. When I then measured with a stick, I saw how horribly off I was.
The reason I mention this is that when the "experts" start to analyze pictures of a crime-scene, they:
* Assume that all pieces are at the location where they were when the crime was committed
* Assume that they can eyeball/measure what is possible from a photo from an arbitrary angle and focal length
* Assume that since it's a conspiracy (....), they'll find something they can't explain and think therefore that it doesn't add up, instead of realizing that they can't explain it because they don't have the information or competence or tools to do the job

100 people could have watched that little fender bender, and you would have gotten 70 different stories and descriptions, especially with it being 8 or so hours after the fact.

Yes, that's why I believed in the honesty of both parties. There was nothing strange with either story. It's just that... we're human.

I have a fender bender story that I think you might find interesting.

Last year, I was on my way to work and it was very foggy and wet out. Poor visibility. A guy on a motorcycle got whacked at an intersection about 10 - 15 cars ahead of me. Everyone mashed their breaks and I didn't get the memo in time. I skidded into a van in front of me. Unfortunately I no longer have the pictures. But the trailer hitch on the van went straight into my radiator. The entire front end of my car had to be replaced, hood, grille, quarter panels, radiator, and many brackets and mounts. Totaled about $8,000.

The van didn't have so much as a scuff on it.

You would think there should be a relatively equal amount of damage between two vehicles. Sometimes that's not the case though.

Yes, it is fascinating how damage can and cannot be distributed.
The trailer hitch is a very strong (obviously, you don't want it to snap) and piercing thing, and vans usually have quite heavy-duty bumpers, not to mention the broadness, which could swallow whole height of the front of another car. The absolute front of a car is also usually quite "soft", so minor collisions can look devastating.

I'd still be very impressed with not seeing a hitch on van.
But I guess it can happen when the hit comes "straight on", so that there's no scraping of the bodywork, unlike in the case of my wife where my "wife's" car had back out and turned and scraped a long scratch on the other car, only a real bumper might have made sure there were no marks, except a polished spot on the bumper.


Nevertheless, I find these things interesting for many reasons.