Superstitions from outer space

Why, despite all logic, and against all proven facts, do people continue to believe that green creatures are visiting us from space?

The article was published for the first time on the Idaan website on 25/4/2000. Unlike scientific articles, articles dealing (even if attacking) with pseudo-scientific arguments, hardly need to be renewed. Pleasant reading

Despite the fact that humans are great collectors of memorabilia, none of those who claimed to have been abducted aboard a flying saucer brought anything that was clearly extraterrestrial. Not an object, not a piece of metal and not even trash, will solve once and for all the claim of the existence of unidentified flying objects. This is how the writer Philip Klass is quoted, on the website "The Skeptic's Guide" - an encyclopedia on skepticism, edited by Robert Todd Carroll. One of the extensive chapters on the site deals with aspects of the UFO phenomenon.

One of the least skeptical programs created on television is "Unsolved Mysteries" hosted by Robert Stack with the deep baritone voice. Some of the episodes in this series dealt with abductions by extraterrestrials. In any case, the abductees claimed that they suffered terrible torture. One expert on abductions testified in the program that she examined several women who were subjected to various actions such as rotating the trumpets, and other strange things. Stack asked the question "did these extraterrestrials perform fertility surgeries on these women"?

Tabloids in England and the USA often bring stories of abductions by extraterrestrials, most of them familiar from the famous photos: small, bald, high forehead, slanted oriental eyes, and of course protruding ears, and gray, white or green skin.
Carroll suggests leaving the subject of these very human descriptions to psychologists and dream interpreters. In his opinion, the question that should be asked is what is more likely? That aliens are hovering around the Earth, occasionally abducting people to study and experiment on them, or it's a scam or a mistake. One woman said that she could prove, through actions done in her womb, that extraterrestrials abducted her and performed a sterilization operation on her. "It is more likely that she had an unsuccessful abortion in a human clinic, than to believe her story about the kidnapping. "If a person tells me that he went to the street corner to buy cigarettes, and was kidnapped from the parking lot, taken to the alien ship and there interrogated about life on Earth, then put to sleep and suddenly transported to his bedroom. The greater likelihood is that the man had a nightmare, and either he is lying or he believes his story to be true.
"If a farmer claims that his cows underwent special treatments, I believe there are other reasons for this, than aliens who needed blood or internal organs for an extraterrestrial purpose." Carroll says that he was surprised to read about a psychiatrist from Harvard who published a book in which he claims that he believes his patients' claim that they were abducted by extraterrestrials. In his opinion the psychiatrist is wrong.
And even after studying at Harvard Medical School, to make such a statement calls into question the continued membership of the doctor as a scientist who trusts scientific investigations. I understand Harvard's concern for academic freedom. I can understand why a professional might lie to a witness to protect the trust of his patients or to make money from the news-hungry public in this field. I can even understand that an intelligent psychiatrist fails to bring a better interpretation to the claims of his patients. It is a common mistake to think that being delusional means being either crazy or stupid. But until the good doctor or one of his patients is delusional or a crook. Of course, the doctor can alternately hide behind academic freedom and confidentiality in the doctor-patient relationship and then he can write what he wants, and even lie without being caught.

In the book "Communion - the real story" by Vitali Streiber, the author claims that extraterrestrials visited him, other books promise out-of-body experiences within 30 days. Should we take them for granted? Perhaps these claims should not be dismissed until all the evidence is examined. On the other hand, it is difficult to assess that the authors are either insane or crooks, but I prefer to believe that honest, normal people are delusional than to believe that they saw extraterrestrials on their roof or in a fire or that they were taken to a distant planet and returned from it in one night or that they alone can seeing the aliens and their spaceships while others see nothing. "I will admit that I have read some of Streiber's books, and I will admit that he seems like a very disturbed person, but a person who really believes that he saw and was abducted by extraterrestrials.

Bill Ellis compared Streiber to people who have been indoctrinated, or converted. The first process such people experience is an overactivity of the nervous system, both naturally due to the stressful environment and artificially by the agents and missionaries trying to re-educate or convert it. Often, because of the intensity of the pressure, the object does not sleep well, or sometimes the man undergoing re-education in which he is forbidden to sleep in order to increase the influence of the missionaries. Streiber describes his feelings with enough detail to make it clear that he did not believe he was in an agitated psychological state before the aliens visited him. A person in such a high state of anxiety may reach hysteria and be particularly vulnerable to drastic changes or belief patterns. The man may suddenly quit his job or shave his head, get his ears pierced and buy a motorcycle.

When Streiber experienced an anxiety attack, he consulted Bud Hopkins, a UFO abduction investigator and an analyst working for him, Robert Klein. So, under hypnosis, Streiber recreates the horrifying aliens and their visit. I don't see how any reasonable person could believe that Streiber actually experienced a visit from extraterrestrials. Assuming that his report is indeed a true report and is not an attempt to deceive others, a reasonable person can come to the conclusion that Schreiber is delusional. I estimate that it will be difficult to convince Streiber and his believers that he is mistaken in illusions just as it is difficult to convince Christian believers who saw the Virgin Mary, that it is only a reflection of light and not the Virgin herself. In his opinion, it is highly probable that there is life somewhere in the universe, and that some of it is even highly intelligent. I believe this because from a mathematical point of view the probability that among the billions of stars in the billions of galaxies that exist, it is quite likely that there are billions of planets that are close to Earth's age and orbit planets similar to our Sun. The odds look pretty good that some of these planets have evolved life. I believe that until recently there was no evidence of the existence of planets outside the solar system, but since the beginning of '96 about twenty such planets have been discovered (as of today the number has already exceeded the 125 known planets outside the solar system, AB 17/4/2004) .

"I have read enough of Stephen J. Gould's books to understand that if such life exists the chances of it being similar to those on Earth are even remotely slim. There is good reason why, even if the initial conditions were the same, evolution would never be exactly the same as that which took place on Earth. Still, the chances of the existence of intelligent life in the universe are high, but there is still the possibility that we are unique. I also believe that the nearest star (other than our Sun) is so far from Earth that a one-way trip would take longer than a human lifetime. The fact is that it takes our sun 200 million years to orbit the center of our galaxy, and this clarifies the perspective in which we take the journey through space.
It is likely that there is intelligent life in the universe, the chances are extremely slim that space travelers who can travel in any direction they want, will actually harm us and not one of the millions of uninhabited planets. Such travelers need a lot of time to succeed, and two things are required for this: 1. These people need to live for hundreds or thousands of years without aging significantly or alternatively stay in a kind of hibernation for most of the time, and secondly their equipment can exist for hundreds or thousands of years and can undergo repairs or be replaced in deep space. I'm not saying these conditions aren't impossible conditions, but they seem significant enough to cause an obstacle to interstellar, let alone intergalactic, space travel where, with low odds.

The only thing that I think is essential for such a journey, which would not be difficult to produce, would be people who would agree to go on the journey. It wouldn't be hard to find people who believe they can go into a deep sleep for several hundred or even thousands of years, only to wake up and observe life form on an alien planet. They even believe that they can gather information and return to a victory parade in what is left of New York or London or Tel Aviv in the period when they return.

Belief or disbelief in aliens and abductions is based on two things: the existence of extraterrestrials moving from billions of miles to Earth and the availability of eyewitnesses. In my opinion, both of these things are unlikely, as is the likelihood that space travel will bring intelligent or other living beings from one solar system to another. Therefore, I will limit my comments only to those relating to the credibility of eyewitnesses to UFOs and extraterrestrial abductions.

The studies showed that some of the eyewitnesses were crooks, and some others were crazy, but most of them were normal human beings. Even if most of them don't seem like greedy people, using their crazy experience to get on TV or sell their story as the basis for a movie. In other words, the testimony is sometimes, if not mostly, given by normal, well-intentioned people. If their claims weren't outlandish, it would be unfair not to believe them. But the fact is that their claims are unbelievable on their face. The sides of the existence and belief in extraterrestrial abductions point to the fact that not all cases can be dismissed outright, and that there are similarities in the facts between the various stories told through hypnosis. As for the first part, hypnosis is sometimes used to access memories of abductions, but this is an unreliable and unsuccessful method for accessing real memories.

Furthermore, it is most likely that some so-called eyewitness accounts are nothing more than mere platitudes. Having fantasies does not make a person abnormal, if abnormality is defined in terms of the beliefs or behavior of a minority. Most people experience fantasies, otherwise it would be impossible to ever believe in God, spirits, eternal life, demons, intercourse with the spirits of the dead, the fountain of youth, Big Foot, etc. Abduction by extraterrestrials seems to be an abnormality on Earth, because we all potentially believe in fantasies, even if things are impossible.

Hypnosis is a tool that is widely used to discover forgotten details in life, such as abductions by extraterrestrials, and the reliability of hypnosis - regardless of the testimony of the witness - is in question. There is no evidence that the memory floating under hypnosis is more reliable than that floating in a normal state of alertness. There is evidence that fantasies are a more real thing under Pinoza. But even if hypnosis is not used to recover the memory of abductions by extraterrestrials the cases should be considered as if they are reliable, just because the witness is not crazy or led by the hypnotist. I am willing to accept, for the purpose of the argument, that all the witnesses who saw ghosts or were abducted by extraterrestrials are sane, honest, and at least of average intelligence. Therefore why not believe them? After all, their credentials are so similar. This fact, if it is a fact, is not sufficient. They all saw objects in the shape of a plate or a cigar that floated, flashed with lights, and contained gray or green creatures, with protruding ears, almond eyes, without eyelashes and eyebrows. Everyone experienced one or another loss of time, roughly around two or three hours, during which they were in the company of aliens. Believers believe that this similarity indicates not only identical experiences, but also that the experiences were real, not fantasy. My feeling is that the reason for the similarity between the testimonies is that they saw the same movies, read the same books, watched the same TV shows and bought the same children's games.

This is similar to people who have had near-death experiences seeing a dark tunnel with a bright light at the end, or seeing angels approaching them. Such a shared experience does not prove that it is not a fantasy. They arise from similar experiences in life and similar expectations of death than real death, which leads to another world, and back to the world of life. The common experience of mysticism around the world does not prove that they actually experienced real contact with God. Mistakes under ectasia. Thus the point is that similar evidence of experiences does not prove that those experiences were not illusory.

Because of the nature of the allegations, a reasonable person would need more than honest, intelligent, and sane witnesses before they would believe that extraterrestrials caused cars to get stuck in remote locations, kidnapped people for two hours, tortured them physically or psychologically, lectured them on world peace or disarmament, and then made them to amnesia Physical evidence is needed before accusing the extraterrestrials of exploiting, abducting, physically harming and causing the loss of sanity to normal people.

In conclusion, it should be noted that abductions and visits by beings from other worlds have not yet been proven. Most religions are full of legends about people being taken to heaven or hell, being visited by an angel, or meeting God, Jesus or the Virgin Mother. Until recently, thousands of people crowded around a Catholic church in Colfax, near Sacramento, California.

The TV crews were there to see people who claimed to have experienced an apparition by the Virgin Mary. These people will believe it to the grave and take comfort in their hearts that others saw it as well. Skeptics charge that the appearance was caused by the reflection of sunlight in the clouds. The skeptics were attacked by the believers, but the first day was cloudy and rainy, the Virgin did not appear. The skeptics took this as proof of the validity of their claim. The believers claimed that the Virgin did not appear because of the negative vibrations caused by the presence of the skeptics in the area.