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Evaluating Evidence

gerhard1

gerhard1

Abominable Snowman
Joined
Apr 24, 2016
Messages
873
This is a fortean website, and as such it presents things for our perusal that are out of the ordinary, sometimes greatly so. Time slips, paranormal phenomena, cryptids, UFO's are some of the things that we look at on this website.

The two extremes in evaluating fortean events and objects are, one; the complete and unquestioning acceptance of all such reports, and two; the complete and unquestioning rejection of same.

From what I have seen, most of the posters here seem to be somewhere in between these two extremes. I know that I am.

So, what that in mind, I will ask how do the posters here evaluate reports that they see? What makes you accept or reject such reports as genuine or not?

I have a few ideas, but I'd like to hear how others here determine that something is fraudulent or the 'real deal'.
 
gerhard1 said:
So, what that in mind, I will ask how do the posters here evaluate reports that they see? What makes you accept or reject such reports as genuine or not?
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I think that one of the defining qualities of many forteans is becoming comfortable not needing to accept or reject reports. Not in all things; we each seem to have our pet subjects about which we feel strongly one way or another. But from what I've seen it's quite against human nature to not decide whether something is true or false.

With most fortean subjects, I tend to weigh it in terms of likelihood rather than rejecting or accepting. I suppose I look to science, even though I try to maintain a cautious approach to mainstream scientific dogma. I look for consistency of reports. Even if I accept there's a high probability of a phenomenon occurring more or less as reported, I tend not to accept an explanation that might seem obvious to some if it's not backed up by actual evidence. Not accepting is different from rejecting, though.
 
Personally, I usually start by taking something at face value - that is, I'll tend to initially believe that a person has witnessed a strange event. That doesn't mean I believe everything they say, or accept their beliefs about the event.
If I find any evidence that throws up an inconsistency, or if I can think of a mundane explanation for the experience, then that will cast doubt in my mind. Once the weight of evidence suggests that they are full of shit, then I will cease accepting what they say.
Every case is different.
I guess I'm on a quest to find a real phenomenon, and all I find is fakes - but I have never given up looking for the real deal.
Hot-Sale-Fashion-Home-Decoration-Custom-I-Want-To-Believe-Wallpaper-Stylish-PP-Gule-Poster-50x76cm.jpg
 
As a Fortean, I'm not that interested in proving if something is true or false. I just like reading and recording about strange things, talking and listening or reading about them and deciding for myself about the spin off factors about them ... I don't rush for answers, if someone saw a leprechaun a couple of hundred years ago, then in the 50's people were reporting little green men, then they became greys then I'm more interested in the cultural shift and how that happened for one example and if the three might be linked because of some fear of foreigners in each time era .. that's a Fortean approach for me ..

So far, I might have seen a real ghost and I know I've seen a real flying object that was unidentified after investigation with a fellow witness next to me .. I'm more interested in disproving both of those than proving them ..
 
I suppose I'm prone to accepting as likely objectively "real" things which are in accordance with or aren't much of a stretch from things which I've experienced for myself. So for example both experiments or anecdotes suggestive of telepathy or precognition will tend to have me siding withe those reporting them as I no longer see those things as out of the ordinary, let alone impossible.

When it comes to other people's experiences of which I've not shared- apparitions/NDEs/conivncing mediums etc...I suppose its about the persuasiveness and relative consistency (relative that is to other such reports) of the details in the particular account and of the individual telling/writing about it. Perhaps the individual is the most important aspect as I effectively never doubt anyting in the It Happened To Me forum is sincere and accurate. Which maybe naive, but I just inherently trust people by and large to not make this stuff up. ..people on here anyway.

Things I tend to instinctively doubt/question are most conspiracy theories as I usually percieve it to be a reflection of a certain paranoid mindset I don't recognise as my own; anything with an overtly religious flavour - perhaps because I don't want them to be true, so reflecting pure bias on my part; and friends - as opposed to written accounts of strangers - encounters with psychics and mediums.
 
It can also be about how thorough and detailed the reports are. There was a case a few hundred years ago, with these girls that seemed to attract flying stones. A lot of investigation seems to have been done at the time and it's difficult to dismiss it as a tall tale.
 
What I would look for, among other things, are the number and the reliability of witnesses, the availability of physical evidence, and the account itself. I'd exhaust conventional explanations before I resort to calling some thing or event paranormal.

Let's look at the first one:witnesses. Is your witness a small child? Or is he or she an independent, responsible adult? Small children tend to let their imaginations run away with them, so that has to be taken into account. If the witness was an adult, were drugs involved? Is the person a trained observer, such as a policeman, or health care provider? Such persons tend to be reliable witnesses, and are (in some cases, unfairly) much more credible that the town drunk.

If one witness sees something out of the ordinary it might or might not be believed. If two or more witnesses see the same thing, the credibility factor goes up. Has the witness previously expressed great interest in things fortean, or is there no prior history of this type? My point here is that the person might want to see something anomalous so much, that a case might be made among the skeptics that the person was engaged in wish-fulfillment.

Also, is there a personal gain? Does the witness have anything to gain from the story? Is the person involved a practical joker? Or a writer in the paranormal looking to 'hype' a book?

These are some of the factors involving witnesses.

What are others that I haven't mentioned?
 
gerhard1 said:
..Also, is there a personal gain? Does the witness have anything to gain from the story? Is the person involved a practical joker? Or a writer in the paranormal looking to 'hype' a book?

These are some of the factors involving witnesses.

What are others that I haven't mentioned?
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The inverse of which being "what does the witness have to lose?" If they're in a high-status or responsible role "fringe" interests or opinions can be very damaging to a career.

For my own part, I'm sort of agnostic. I tend to accept but tempered with a degree of scepticism. The issue with phenomena from the scientific standpoint is that by their very nature phenomena aren't predictable, and scientists in general (as opposed to science itself) aren't keen on that which they can't reliably observe. Even once someone in a white coat has seen it, they will be reticent to talk about it until they can consistently do so. Unfortunately with many of the things in our field of interest there will be little serious research as there is a prevailing academic attitude of "Until we've seen it and catalogued it, it doesn't exist, and therefore it's pointless us investigating it, QED." The fact that lots of people who don't have white coats have seen / heard / experienced it doesn't apparently count.

For this site, we relatively often get new members with a proselytising zeal about something they've seen or discovered, and eagerly court opinion. We then examine their evidence and suggest alternative explanations - this frequently leads to a hissy fit and flounce as we're all clearly skeptical disbelievers. Somewhat less frequently we get those who believe nothing, on the basis that X doesn't exist therefore you can't have seen X (see above). Both are equally intransigent mind-sets. That we get equal opprobrium from each tells me that we're on the right axis.
 
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As an atheist and fortean I am skeptical about anything supposedly supernatural, but I can't dismiss it.
As the poster above says, I want to believe. We just need to find some evidence first.
As for something like ghosts, I do not dismiss that either.

The problem with a lot of the fortean is that it can't be neither disproved nor proven.
 
There are some things which have happened which puzzle me and I like to post to see what others think.
I know that there are rational explanations for many things although not all yet.
I was visiting a friend the other day where many strange things have happened and happened to say that possums were making a lot of noise at night and waking me up.
She immediately said " I don't think it was possums" so I asked her what she thought it was.
She said " ghosts" but I told her I could hear their little feet and found my parsley chewed the next day.
I don't think she believed me though.
 
Another very important thing to consider is this: is the story a first-hand account, or is it a relay of a relay? Why is this important? There are two reasons. One is that quite often when an account of an event is relayed, small details can change, and then changed some more, and very often the original story is often greatly changed by the time the fortean investigator hears it.

However, the more important reason is the researcher may have questions that only the original witness is able to answer. Suppose your uncle tells you all about his encounter with a UFO, and many years later, you decide to report it to a UFO group. In the interim, Uncle has died, so the group has to settle for a second-hand account and they might (in fact, it is very likely) have questions that only the original witness can answer. But they can't ask the original witness because he is dead.

For this reason, many groups investigating UFO's and other unusual phenomena don't accept second (or remoter) hand accounts.

Is the witness sensorily impaired? Here, I am primarily concerned with eyesight and hearing. At my age, (I am 65) my hearing is very poor. So my credibility in reporting sounds or voices would be adversely affected. But my eyesight is excellent at a distance.

Is the person susceptible to suggestion? In the thread on time-slips, I told of the cryptid sightings near my present home. There were reports of such in the local newspaper, and some railroad workers saw one of these creatures and there were reports of it in a town nearby. There was also one reported about half to three-quarters of a mile away from where I am typing this. That one was made by my cousin.

What would argue against the notion that my cousin heard or read about these other sightings and and his imagination simply took over? Very fair question. My cousin cannot read and he is also mentally retarded. I asked my uncle with whom my cousin lives, if he had said anything to the son, and he said that he had not.

If my cousin had been the only one to have seen something, the I would tend to discount what he said, but his sighting, coupled with the other reports, makes me think he saw something. In this case, his mental retardation would most likely diminish his credibility, were his the only such report that I heard. It could go either way in this case.

Is there anything else?
 
Memory is rarely reliable. As an example, I must have seen every episode of the TV series Dads Army, most of them more than once. But they still make laugh, so I'll normally watch another repeat when it's on.

But I'm always surprised at some details which I'd completely forgotten. The TV guide gives a brief description of an episode, and I think, "Ah yes, seen that before!", but although I might remember brief highlights, I sometimes find that the episode doesn't begin as I expected, and it might be that it's half way through before it begins to converge with my memory of it.

It might be an interesting psychology experiment to investigate how well people actually do remember things they think they know quite well!
 
rynner2 said:
It might be an interesting psychology experiment to investigate how well people actually do remember things they think they know quite well!
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Probably been done. There's a whole lexicon of work on the unreliability of memory. In the USA they've discovered that in identity parades, even suggesting that the perpetrator is in the line-up will 'force' an identification. Once it's made, the witness will, having reinforced his own recall, back-fill and believe the person picked out really was the perp and swear to it and 100% believe it himself. Trouble is, this has been wrong more than once.

The brain uses a series of schemes or frames to interpret an object in the 'frame'. So for example, the brain identifies a tool bench and start to categorise objects on it as tools. Something which looks like a tool (but isn't) is likely to be mis-categorized. The example I saw recent was a hair-drier on a tool bench, 'seen' as a drill.

In the end the brain interprets the information from the eyes based on context (where you are, what general frame are you looking at) and stored information on previous examples or similar examples. Which you might have seen in book or pictures.

In short the brain interprets what it 'sees' based on these factors and the trouble is, this leads to people tending to see what they expect or want and believing 100% it's true and that they really saw it. Subsequent 'rememberings' only serves to reinforce the original memory, oft-times in error - a memory is reconstructed every time it is recalled and the content 'drifts'.

For myself, I use a number of metrics for evaluation of 'Fortean' things:

(1) Is it a first hand account or is there one available? If not, I seldom follow it up at all. Hearsay in effect.
(2) Does the first hand account sound like the witness is credible. Is it matter of fact. Does the witness have a vested interest is seeing what they saw?
(3) Is there any other evidence or corroboration? I'm wary of 100 people all saying they saw a UFO. This is NOT evidence for UFO's, this is evidence 100 people thought they saw a UFO and 99 of them might have been disposed to interpret the flying thing as a UFO after the first one saw it.
(4) Is there photograph and video? Every bu88er and his wife has a phone now. It follows that there should be tons of credible pictures and videos that are unmistakeably untampered with, quite amateur in appearance and defying reconstruction.
(5) How does the reporter react to any suggestion there is an alternative explanation? As soon as there is 'huff' I lose all interest.
(6) If it feels like a con, it's a con.

There you go. I want to believe, but am increasingly interested in why people see what they think they see and how social and environmental factors (or even the zietgiest) change what folk are disposed to see. Irish people see Leprechauns. In the Uk in the 20's and 30's people saw faeries. The Vikings of Iceland saw Elves (and still do). They all saw something, it's down to interpretation.
 
It's not just memory. Taking witness statements an hour after an event can already give some rather differing accounts.
 
Xanatic* said:
It's not just memory. Taking witness statements an hour after an event can already give some rather differing accounts.
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That's the 'different people interpreting the same thing different ways according to their own stored information' thing.

I seem to recall a study where the language used in describing a road accident (staged) caused wildly different estimates of speed and driver behaviour. E.g. How fast was the car going? vs "Was the car going really fast?" and the study then going on to show how people later recalled the RTA was changed as well.
 
Coal said:
(4) Is there photograph and video? Every bu88er and his wife has a phone now. It follows that there should be tons of credible pictures and videos that are unmistakeably untampered with, quite amateur in appearance and defying reconstruction.
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Thing is though, it's very difficult to capture anything on a modern smart phone camera.

A few years ago someone buzzed my village with a drone. I knew what was, but decided to try and film it as an experiment. What I learned was that even if you're quite calm, once you've swiped the thing on, flipped through the phone's menu, switched from still to video setting, you're unlikely to succeed in capturing anything.

The only clear image I managed was of the pavement, and by the time I did manage to get the video running and film the thing, it wasn't visible on playback because it was too faint for the phone to register against the sky. Although it was still clearly visible to the naked eye.
 
Iris said:
There are some things which have happened which puzzle me and I like to post to see what others think.
I know that there are rational explanations for many things although not all yet.
I was visiting a friend the other day where many strange things have happened and happened to say that possums were making a lot of noise at night and waking me up.
She immediately said " I don't think it was possums" so I asked her what she thought it was.
She said " ghosts" but I told her I could hear their little feet and found my parsley chewed the next day.
I don't think she believed me though.
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Laughed out loud! I do believe in possums and armadillos. And Pete Byrdie is right "we each seem to have our pet subjects." I check lots of these forum pages; general Forteana to keep in the know, Ghosts, because I want to believe, Urban Legends, because they explain it all, and Chat for late night fun. I do visit other pages--less often.
I guess I am looking for evidence, but that's not the only thing I'm looking for--amusement, camaraderie, and occasional chills & thrills are my top reasons for checking this forum.
 
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GerdaWordyer said:
I guess I am looking for evidence, but that's not the only thing I'm looking for--amusement, camaraderie, and occasional chills & thrills are my top reasons for checking this forum.
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Apart from the usual shipwrecks, drownings, falling off cliffs that are the regular fare on the Lone Coastguard thread, there was even a murder reported yesterday! (Come to think of it, that was probably not the first...)
 
stuneville said:
The inverse of which being "what does the witness have to lose?" If they're in a high-status or responsible role "fringe" interests or opinions can be very damaging to a career.

For my own part, I'm sort of agnostic. I tend to accept but tempered with a degree of scepticism. The issue with phenomena from the scientific standpoint is that by their very nature phenomena aren't predictable, and scientists in general (as opposed to science itself) aren't keen on that which they can't reliably observe. Even once someone in a white coat has seen it, they will be reticent to talk about it until they can consistently do so. Unfortunately with many of the things in our field of interest there will be little serious research as there is a prevailing academic attitude of "Until we've seen it and catalogued it, it doesn't exist, and therefore it's pointless us investigating it, QED." The fact that lots of people who don't have white coats have seen / heard / experienced it doesn't apparently count.

For this site, we relatively often get new members with a proselytising zeal about something they've seen or discovered, and eagerly court opinion. We then examine their evidence and suggest alternative explanations - this frequently leads to a hissy fit and flounce as we're all clearly skeptical disbelievers. Somewhat less frequently we get those who believe nothing, on the basis that X doesn't exist therefore you can't have seen X (see above). Both are equally intransigent mind-sets. That we get equal opprobrium from each tells me that we're on the right axis.
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Hopefully, this is not how I'm seen here! Open-mindedness is important, as I try to evaluate each event or item on its' own merits. Is there a likely conventional explanation? If there is, then I would probably accept that unless there is a compelling reason not to.

We need to be careful in weighing any physical evidence, including photographs. Why this is important is demonstrated by the following example. Some time back there was an episode of the American PBS science program NOVA, that dealt with UFO's and ancient astronauts. They presented an example of what I'm talking about here. A series of photographs were shown that were purported to be a extra-terrestrial aircraft that were taken within seconds of each other. These photographs were shown to various UFO advocates and these advocates regarded the pictures as solid evidence of an ET craft. They went on about the type of craft, its' possible origins, etc.

The UFO advocates were quite positive that the photos were genuine, but they were fakes put out by the scientists themselves. Several obvious things in the background should have given the pictures away as fakes, such as different lights and other things that an objective observer should have been able to spot very quickly. Yet in spite of their being total fakes, the UFO advocates accepted the pictures as authentic. Why? The scientists who did the fakery said (and I agree with him here) that the UFO advocates very likely wanted to believe that the pictures depicted actual UFO's so much that they did not notice the discrepancies.

This is something that we must guard against. I believe that that there are objects and events that defy conventional explanation. But great care must be taken in determining what these are.
 
oldrover said:
Thing is though, it's very difficult to capture anything on a modern smart phone camera.

A few years ago someone buzzed my village with a drone. I knew what was, but decided to try and film it as an experiment. What I learned was that even if you're quite calm, once you've swiped the thing on, flipped through the phone's menu, switched from still to video setting, you're unlikely to succeed in capturing anything.

The only clear image I managed was of the pavement, and by the time I did manage to get the video running and film the thing, it wasn't visible on playback because it was too faint for the phone to register against the sky. Although it was still clearly visible to the naked eye.
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This is true, and sometimes other cameras fail as well.

One afternoon I saw what must have been an oddly-shaped balloon in the sky, and felt lucky to have my camera at hand. I took a video of the object, but when I loaded it on the computer, what showed up was zip, zilch, nada. It was disappointing, but since then I've been aware of the limitations of cameras when it comes to such things.
 
How do I assess real or not? Take all the evidence, think about it, then invariably think "it's most likely bullshit. But hey you never know....."

What I can't abide are skeptics who poo poo everything. It's a safe rock to stand on because if you're wrong you can just say that you were merely being scientific by questioning; if you turn out to be right you get to look like a clever arse. Win-win. On the other hand if you invest 'belief' into anything you always risk looking a fool which for some arrogant types is a fate worse than death.

I'd love to see some hard evidence for these things, but I've come to the conclusion over the years that the majority of 'phenomenon' have more to do with the human brain and the power of belief than anything external. But that's fine by me because I'm just as interested in that. Belief, suggestibility, general kookiness and all the other glorious quirks of the human mind are just as interesting as a 'real' ghost or UFO.
 
I'm not sure I'm the best to answer this question. As PeteByrdie said, I think Fortism, ideally, means not having to make a judgment and, as my name (a rather pompous title from when I was younger, but still fairly accurate in mindset), I like to disect things and come the conclusion. However...

I think you have to be skeptically minded. I don't mean being a skeptic, because that's often just as bad as a "true believer", but with enough inclination to not accept everything as gospel. I do tend to trust people's accounts-I'm a trusting person, after all-but I keep in mind they may be mistaken, if nothing else.

From then on, I try to gather as much details as possible. I look for the original account as well as follow up investigation reports. If there weren't multiple witnesses (or even if there was really) I look for corroborating evidence from third party sources.

Finally, I try to faslify it. Do the witnesses have something to gain or lose. Are they known liars or pranksters? Are the reports consistent? Are there any other explanations? Do the people in story behave realistically? (For example, in last month's issue of Fortean Times, it reported on a couple of women who claimed to have had children with aliens. I found their story hard to believe, because they said they enjoyed the experience. Not only is this inconsistent with other abductees in similar situations, it's inconsistent with how the majority of people would react to getting kidnapped and forced into sex). Does it read to much like fiction? It reads like a Hollywood script, I tend to doubt it.

But above all else, I try to accept that 1) I could be wrong and 2) I don't know everything.
 
When I was left home, the last thing my father said to me was. 'Never trust anyone.' I have taken this to heart. I doubt everything I read, Fortean or otherwise.
 
Coal said:
That's the 'different people interpreting the same thing different ways according to their own stored information' thing.

I seem to recall a study where the language used in describing a road accident (staged) caused wildly different estimates of speed and driver behaviour. E.g. How fast was the car going? vs "Was the car going really fast?" and the study then going on to show how people later recalled the RTA was changed as well.
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On my way to work this morning a collision occurred directly in front of me. No more than 20 metres away - or so I estimate, and Lo! We are already in trouble...

I would have been travelling at around 40kph, on a twist-and-go scooter. I'd left myself plenty of reaction time, and was able to come to a stop before colliding with the two downed bikes. Another rider was not so cautious, and hit one of the original two bikes, which, unsurprisingly, brought her down, as well.

The relevant point is that, although I saw the initial incident unfolding in front of me in real time, and was aware enough to think "this won't end well" and take appropriate action, I simply cannot tell you what actually happened. The only thing I remember is praying that the folk behind me had equally good reactions, *before* the third bike entered the picture from behind and to my right. Oh, and that the bike on the floor that she hit was white...

It took me an embarrassingly long time to click there was still someone trapped underneath that bike, and by the time I'd got to him, it had been lifted off and he was picking himself up. All involved were up and moving, so - having no Vietnamese - I continued on my way.

TL;DR - I make a terrible eyewitness. There wasn't even any real strangeness involved, although I imagine I will have had increased stress levels. I have quite a good visual memory, and can often revisit/recreate scenes in my head. But this is an absolute blank.
 
It's interesting isn't it? In the US they changed line-up protocols because of biases caused by simply suggesting the perpetrator was in the line-up. Mis-identifications were higher, as the witnesses identified someone, rather than no-one. The same is true of presenting photographs of potential perpetrators, 'none of them' has to be an explicit option.

In both cases the witness believes they have identified the right perpetrator and their memory includes the identified person. In other words they believe it implicitly, having re-consolidated their memory including the image of the perpetrator they chose.
 
I do a photography evening class where we discuss classic photographers, Magnum... that sort of thing. What I’ve found interesting is the amount of people who can’t read a photograph. There’s confusion over where the light is coming from or elements like props, especially in more symbolic works.
Blurry pictures must surely add to the confusion.

Stu mentioned new posters who invite comment on a picture and then frantically try to justify their belief it is a genuinely strange phenomena and not, to bring up recent examples, a Loch Ness Duck or an orb.

Over the years, I’ve thought that better evidence would appear if only everyone carried a decent camera at all times and now they do. Yet all we see are more blurry photos and proof of nothing. Without much in the way of new material, old pictures turn up quite regularly and we go through the whole rigmarole again.

But just because one pic shows a Loch Ness Duck, does that mean all anomolies on the water are ducks? Well no, as we tend to look at a wider range of possibilities than the person who presents the picture as proof of a monster. So why would someone present ‘evidence’ of something truly fantastic when the odds are it’s one of thousands of other normal possibilities?

There's something to be said for those who feel they have no control over their lives constructing a fantasy element to their lives as a form of escapism or to prove that “They’ don’t know everything or “They” are sinisterly more in control than we know so there’s really no point.

Personally, I think the most fascinating thing is how the mind can mislead us or even the possibility our bacteria can affect the workings of the brain.
I haven’t given up on the idea that some evidence will appear and regenerate my belief in something truly fantastic but if the past few decades are anything to go by, I won’t be holding my breath.
 
Analogue Boy said:
Personally, I think the most fascinating thing is how the mind can mislead us or even the possibility our bacteria can affect the workings of the brain.
I haven’t given up on the idea that some evidence will appear and regenerate my belief in something truly fantastic but if the past few decades are anything to go by, I won’t be holding my breath.
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I think that the fact that these things could be the from the mind is the most fascinating thing! (Not misleading us, as this implies your brain is joshing with you). I don't want to go into details (having posted these events elsewhere on this board) but having experienced 'visions' (or hallucinations, or whatever) which I have proven to myself are (at least mostly) projected unconsciously by me onto the outside world, I find it fascinating. However, I have also experienced things which may be considered paranormal, which have been seen / heard by others at the same time. The fact that if you consciously ignore them, these things fade away, also indicates to me that they are connected with our mind's focus or attention. This may mean that our minds can interconnect in some way, which in itself is extremely fascinating.

I don't have a mental illness, at least not diagnosed! I live a very normal life, but also have had my worldview changed to accept there are things which happen which are outside of our comprehension at this current time.

We are human with a set of human senses and can't perceive things outside of this range. I just don't think that we know a) what the range of our human senses is and b) even if we do, our senses can detect things which appear anomalous because we don't have the senses to detect where the phenomena originates. I think that we are looking at shadows on the cave wall.

The fact that we are on a message board dealing with forteana is a way of looking for evidence that we are not the only ones to have experienced something and also looking for explanations. The evidence is in finding others who have experienced the same thing who are also open minded as to what caused it, then comparing notes and theories.

Don't hold your breath, evolution of the senses takes a long time!
 
Analogue Boy said:
Over the years, I’ve thought that better evidence would appear if only everyone carried a decent camera at all times and now they do. Yet all we see are more blurry photos and proof of nothing. Without much in the way of new material, old pictures turn up quite regularly and we go through the whole rigmarole again.
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I posted elsewhere, that the reason we only ever get blurry pictures, is that the witness reaches for the camera only when something sufficiently vague to be misinterpreted by the brain is seen. The witness is convinced they've seen a UFO/bigfoot/Nessie, the camera shows a disappointing blob.

That the witness may see the camera's blob as they 'saw' the original might add to the confusion, as the witness is convinced they've photographed (e.g.) a lake monster and can see it in the picture, all the picture viewer can see is a blurry blob.

The original sighting, with all manner of details, becomes part of a false memory, the witness recalls the event with a clarity not shown in the picture (because it was never there). That the (genuine) witness can't tell this false memory from a 'real' memory is part of the illusion. It gets worse if a genuine witness then reads around the subject, sees some artists' impressions etc, then the 'monster memory' becomes ever more real and ever more false.

The 'genuine' witness will seem plausible and have the 'feel' of a good witness, as they can't tell they have a false memory and we can't either. This leads to the 'witness seemed genuine so they must have seen something' type of situation.

Which is true, but this assumes what the witness saw was actually there, or as seems likely, a product of the brains top-down processing at the limit of its ability to resolve information received from the eyes, biased by belief and/or expectation, then further altered by memory re-consolidation errors.

melon24 said:
I think that the fact that these things could be the from the mind is the most fascinating thing! (Not misleading us, as this implies your brain is joshing with you).
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Absolutely ^this^.
 
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