Ambiguity

[Robbrent]

Has anyone else noticed the degree of Ambiguity in Fortean phenomena?

I was thinking about this on the past lives regression thread, often the stories are just nearly right, and so it seems with channelled material as the late Joe Fisher found out, but it goes further even communication from so called aliens tends to be the same.

Keel said many had gone quite insane when trying to research UFO's as soon as it looked like they were getting close it seemed to disappear or the material that someone saw dumped out of a flying saucer was of human origin, the same for alien big cats

Could this be because we are not really meant to know or there is a great trickster having a right old laugh at out expense

 

[SimonBurchell]

I think ambiguity is absolutely intrinsic to the paranormal... To the point that I don't bother looking at the latest UFO/bigfoot/ghost photos, on the basis that if there is a decent photo, it's probably not genuine (which is not to say paranormal phenomena are not genuine, but I think it is, by its very nature, unproveable).

 

[charliebrown]

I personally are not ambiguous about the paranormal, but I have to be careful of what I say not to turn people off.

I know what I have experienced.

I know UFOs, spirits, ghosts, other realities are very real, and I have experienced all of it.

Do I have proof, no I do not, so I am stuck in a never ending “ rabbit hole “.

 

[Vardoger]

There are a few very clear photos and videos of presumed ufos, ghosts and other entities out there, but people automatically think it's fake and manipulated (because it's very good footage). If it's paranormal it will probably never be proven.

 

[Mikefule]

Ambiguous: capable of being interpreted in two or more different ways. Expressed in a manner that is open to more than one interpretation.

There is an important difference between "evidence" and "proof".

Evidence tends to support a statement or conclusion, or tends to negate it, but it is not necessarily conclusive.

Proof establishes that something definitely is, or is not, the case.

Lipstick on his collar is evidence that your boyfriend may be having an affair.

Catching him in bed with another woman is proof.

If there was unambiguous evidence of a phenomenon it would no longer be Fortean. It would be a proven phenomenon: maybe an interesting one, but no longer Fortean.

Ambiguous "evidence" of a UFO, for example, might be capable of interpretation as an actual sighting, or of a meteorological event, or a conventional aircraft seen from an unfamiliar angle, or a hoax.

Proof of a UFO might be if one chose to land in a crowded place rather than in front of a lone hillbilly in the back of beyond. Proof of Bigfoot would be if one were captured or killed, rather than glimpsed in the distance and filmed in shaky low resolution.

The fascination with Fortean phenomena is that the limited amount of evidence, much of which is anecdotal, is open to interpretation according to your own whim: there may be something in it, however unlikely it seems, but it is unproven.

 

[charliebrown]

You see, for example, an original astronaut, Gordon Cooper, campaigned for the truth about UFOs from his early days as a jet fighter pilot.

His jet’s camera film of a UFO was taken away from him and never returned.

Gordon even tried to talk to the UN about UFOs.

What is ambiguous about the Gordon Cooper story ?

 

[SimonBurchell]

For starters, the film has disappeared into Fortean space...

 

[Robbrent]

I personally are not ambiguous about the paranormal, but I have to be careful of what I say not to turn people off.

I know what I have experienced.

I know UFOs, spirits, ghosts, other realities are very real, and I have experienced all of it.

Do I have proof, no I do not, so I am stuck in a never ending “ rabbit hole “.

But like has been said many things can be interoperated as one thing or another , and I guess that's where the fun and frustration comes in, also that's why having a Fortean mindset is the best way to deal with it

 

[EnolaGaia]

There's no single type or focus of ambiguity in play with Fortean phenomena, yet ambiguity (in general) is intrinsic to Forteana.

Last point first ... In a certain sense all Forteana is ambiguous by virtue of insinuating an interpretation at odds with conventional / mainstream beliefs or accepted knowledge. As Mikefule pointed out, "ambiguous" means "capable of interpretation in two or more different ways." If an observation or event isn't interpretable as something other than the presumptive "normal" or "ordinary" state of affairs (i.e., something "para-normal"; "extra-ordinary") it's not going to be treated as Fortean. Fort was always looking for reports of exceptions to normality.

Next ... There are two aspects or dimensions to almost every Fortean report - an observation / experience and an interpretation. In some cases there is a third aspect of evidence directly associated with or indirectly attributed to the observation / experience. Each of these three aspects is subject to some degree of ambiguity, and there may be ambiguities related to how any two of these aspects correlate or connect.

Classic Fortean phenomena are overwhelmingly reported based on visual sightings. Visual perception is the most complicated of our basic senses, and its results are subject to more interpolation / parsing during processing than is the case for any other perceptual channel. This adds a measure of potential ambiguity to the very basis for Fortean reports - i.e., the observation itself.

 

[Nosmo King]

(i.e., something "para-normal"; "extra-ordinary")

Ive always had an issue with the word 'extraordinary', to me is should mean more ordinary than usual, but it means the opposite, weird.