Forteanism, Childhood & Curiosity

[Aydee_Aitchdee]

I grow more Fortean by the second, I could eventually implode.

Make sure you get it on video so Uncanny can debunk

 

[Sid]

I'm coming 'round to this myself, but the decline in my interest has more to do with the melodramatic and fake bullshit piling up faster and faster. I can't even watch ghost hunting shows any more, they've lost their allure.

And I'm annoyed.

As far as Ghost Hunting shows go. . . poor seems to be an understatement.

 

[Tunn11]

There seems to be a lack of curiosity prevalent in people of all ages. Aside from wondering about a footballer’s latest haircut or the size of a Kardashian’s arse they seem to have no desire to know anything. Occasionally a TV programme, good or bad will stimulate some interest but there seems little desire to find out more about anything that has momentarily captured their interest. Why is that?

I worked with someone who witnessed a total solar eclipse when on holiday. He was full of it, telling anyone who’d listen – but all he wanted to do was go on another eclipse holiday; no interest in astronomy, lunar eclipses, etc. I took solar observation “specs” to work during the transit of Venus, and a lot of people were interested (They came back asking to borrow the specs again during the transit) but when I took binoculars in one evening to look at the moon or Jupiter’s moons, the reaction was very “Meh”. I can only assume that the transit was widely known to be a once in a lifetime event, the others weren’t.

I don’t get this lack of curiosity. When I was a kid, we all seemed to be much more curious about things. Partworks like “Look and Learn” and “Finding Out” had articles about all sorts of things not taught in school and must have sold quite well as they were going for a while.

Interest, if any, on a wide variety of subjects seems confined to what is fed to us via the TV or Web. If a subject is “trending” it’s OK to show an interest.

I wonder whether it is due to the introspective, doom laden society we now belong to? I wonder whether people think that easy answers are there on the internet so it isn’t worth questioning them or finding out more about them?

Either way I’m still curious. I want to know if there is a planet 9 or 10 and 11. What bigfoot is, if Thylacines still exist, what happened at Fatima, If Perkin Warbeck was Richard of Shrewsbury, etc. etc.

Thankfully, posters on here are still curious about, well just about everything. If we stifle curiosity, I really think we’ve had it as a species.

 

[catseye]

I never believed that people could actually be 'stupid'. I thought they'd perhaps lacked advantages (although my young life wasn't exactly packed with advantages, we were encouraged to be curious and find things out). But now, having been exposed to some truly stupid people, I know that stupidity, with no desire to do anything about it, is a real thing. A lack of intellectual curiosity seems to be the defining characteristic, and I just cannot understand it.

Last guy I went out with used to regard museums as something to gallop through as fast as possible to get to the cafe. He wouldn't even slow down to read any information boards or look at any exhibits. I mean usually people can find one thing they like - guns or cars or bones or clothing - in a museum. He just had no interest and didn't want to find out. I was stumped as to how to deal with it.

 

[Yithian]

I think that's a personality thing - all of my kids would have been at the window in a flash if we'd had foxes on the lawn.

I teach students from, currently, ages seven to twenty-two.

If there's one thing I want to scream at un-ignorable volume to every parent I meet it is:

Under no circumstances give your child a smartphone or tablet to use unsupervised.

A minority of those who ignore this advice will dodge the bullet, but honestly, most children will quickly become addicted to a greater or lesser extent. What usually follows is that access to screen-time becomes the focus of all interest, alternative activities and tasks being viewed as odious to the exact degree that they obstruct access to the favoured device. Naturally, use of said device then becomes a bargaining chip in negotiations with exasperated parents (heard last week: 'My son has no interest in anything'), which only serves to reinforce the device's status as the fount of all joy.

I do not exaggerate when I say I regularly meet young people who visibly twitch when their screen lights up and obsessively check for notifications every minute; three-quarters of children I see dining with families in restaurants are using phones when not physically eating. More seriously, there are a good number among them who would rather watch something happening on their phone than watch that same thing happen directly before their eyes. Similarly, some would rather hear a voice on their phone than interact with the other children around them.

I use my phone for both work and pleasure, but there are crucial distinctions: I didn't have one until I was nineteen--and that was a decidedly unsmart Nokia brick. More importantly, I have willpower of steel (allow me the brag; it's one of my few actual strengths) and I know when to turn off and walk, talk, see and do naturally.

Phones and devices can kill curiosity in children.

*This has been a public service announcement*

 

[Kondoru]

And not during my fucking museum presentation thank you.

(Doubly so for our museum puppet show...)

 

[charliebrown]

Skinny you said your daughter was 16 and loved drama.

My 15 year old granddaughter just loves dancing, singing, drama, and school plays.

But to get out of secondary school or high school, she knows she will have to take the sciences and also the histories.

 

[Steven]

Tunn's mention of Warbeck and, by extension, the whole mystery of the 'princes in the Tower' struck a chord with me, as the whole matter is one I'm very interested in. I happen to have always been fascinated by the past, by history - that captivating curiosity about past lives and times - and this is usually the underlying theme of my particular interests; but how to captivate others so that they too might be enraptured? That's the question, because rightly or wrongly I feel they are missing out on something wonderful. I have relatives who've literally said, about all manner of things both new and old, that these are of no interest to them because the events don't impact on their lives. It's an 'ignorance' that is truly wilful, as Tunn hinted; but, all personal bias aside, I feel that they're not only limiting their minds but also limiting their enjoyment of life. A curiosity about the past might actually help us appreciate and essentially expand our own lives.

I'm not sure that this wilful ignorance is purely self-absorption but am certain that it's a kind of limiting - the past, no matter how strange it can appear to us moderns, presents too connections and a sense of community. Despite the distance of centuries human behaviour changes little, I'd argue, and in a manner of speaking we can accordingly recognise ourselves and our lives there...and learn from this (and not only in a strictly educational way). To wilfully ignore this sense of community is to make oneself lonelier, and loneliness is a curse of this age. Ironically, that too is nothing especially new.

It's not important that people know, for example, the timeline and chief incidents of the Warbeck/Richard mystery, but I'd argue that what we can truly learn from are the human stories behind the facts: Warbeck's (possible) delusion and self-delusion, Henry VII's essential loneliness and insecurity, the indecision of Richard's mother - could she have dared to speak out if she'd recognised Warbeck as Richard, her son? - and, aside from the affairs of the elite, the feelings of the general public, those who had to live through turbulent times...as we all do. This is merely one of the stories which connect us all, regardless of time long gone by and the differing social status of individuals; they are human stories.

 

[catseye]

I teach students from, currently, ages seven to twenty-two.

If there's one thing I want to scream at un-ignorable volume to every parent I meet it is:

Under no circumstances give your child a smartphone or tablet to use unsupervised.

A minority of those who ignore this advice will dodge the bullet, but honestly, most children will quickly become addicted to a greater or lesser extent. What usually follows is that access to screen-time becomes the focus of all interest, alternative activities and tasks being viewed as odious to the exact degree that they obstruct access to the favoured device. Naturally, use of said device then becomes a bargaining chip in negotiations with exasperated parents (heard last week: 'My son has no interest in anything'), which only serves to reinforce the device's status as the fount of all joy.

I do not exaggerate when I say I regularly meet young people who visibly twitch when their screen lights up and obsessively check for notifications every minute; three-quarters of children I see dining with families in restaurants are using phones when not physically eating. More seriously, there are a good number among them who would rather watch something happening on their phone than watch that same thing happen directly before their eyes. Similarly, some would rather hear a voice on their phone than interact with the other children around them.

I use my phone for both work and pleasure, but there are crucial distinctions: I didn't have one until I was nineteen--and that was a decidedly unsmart Nokia brick. More importantly, I have willpower of steel (allow me the brag; it's one of my few actual strengths) and I know when to turn off and walk, talk, see and do naturally.

Phones and devices can kill curiosity in children.

*This has been a public service announcement*

Well yes, but my children were all born before smartphones were ubiquitous. So almost all the time they were growing up there WERE no smartphones, iPads, laptops etc. They had one computer in the house and that was on dial up internet. So they weren't paragons of fabulous curiosity - they just didn't have access to anything more interesting than foxes in the garden.

 

[kesavaross]

There seems to be a lack of curiosity prevalent in people of all ages. Aside from wondering about a footballer’s latest haircut or the size of a Kardashian’s arse they seem to have no desire to know anything. Occasionally a TV programme, good or bad will stimulate some interest but there seems little desire to find out more about anything that has momentarily captured their interest. Why is that?

I worked with someone who witnessed a total solar eclipse when on holiday. He was full of it, telling anyone who’d listen – but all he wanted to do was go on another eclipse holiday; no interest in astronomy, lunar eclipses, etc. I took solar observation “specs” to work during the transit of Venus, and a lot of people were interested (They came back asking to borrow the specs again during the transit) but when I took binoculars in one evening to look at the moon or Jupiter’s moons, the reaction was very “Meh”. I can only assume that the transit was widely known to be a once in a lifetime event, the others weren’t.

I don’t get this lack of curiosity. When I was a kid, we all seemed to be much more curious about things. Partworks like “Look and Learn” and “Finding Out” had articles about all sorts of things not taught in school and must have sold quite well as they were going for a while.

Interest, if any, on a wide variety of subjects seems confined to what is fed to us via the TV or Web. If a subject is “trending” it’s OK to show an interest.

I wonder whether it is due to the introspective, doom laden society we now belong to? I wonder whether people think that easy answers are there on the internet so it isn’t worth questioning them or finding out more about them?

Either way I’m still curious. I want to know if there is a planet 9 or 10 and 11. What bigfoot is, if Thylacines still exist, what happened at Fatima, If Perkin Warbeck was Richard of Shrewsbury, etc. etc.

Thankfully, posters on here are still curious about, well just about everything. If we stifle curiosity, I really think we’ve had it as a species.

I was getting a coffee in a shop today and while the barista, or what ever fancy name they give themselves, was serving a person at the head of the queue with seemingly endless cups of this, that and the other, the girl in front of me when I joined the queue was scrolling through her phone. She was maybe 17 or 18, it's hard to tell their age when you hit 60+. Then she put her phone in her back pocket. Then, well less than a minute late she looked at her phone again and scrolled through various stuff. Then, repeat the same action again and again until she got to the front of the queue. Even then, while her flat 'what ever' was being made, she looked at her phone yet again.

FFS, put the fu*king phone away for 10 minutes.

I used to go out to work somedays and forget to take my phone with me. I was happy for the peace and quite until I got home and then all the text messages and voice mails from customers. I think mobile phones are 95% a curse and 5% a blessing.

 

[AnonyJ]

There seems to be a lack of curiosity prevalent in people of all ages. Aside from wondering about a footballer’s latest haircut or the size of a Kardashian’s arse they seem to have no desire to know anything. Occasionally a TV programme, good or bad will stimulate some interest but there seems little desire to find out more about anything that has momentarily captured their interest. Why is that?

I worked with someone who witnessed a total solar eclipse when on holiday. He was full of it, telling anyone who’d listen – but all he wanted to do was go on another eclipse holiday; no interest in astronomy, lunar eclipses, etc. I took solar observation “specs” to work during the transit of Venus, and a lot of people were interested (They came back asking to borrow the specs again during the transit) but when I took binoculars in one evening to look at the moon or Jupiter’s moons, the reaction was very “Meh”. I can only assume that the transit was widely known to be a once in a lifetime event, the others weren’t.

I don’t get this lack of curiosity. When I was a kid, we all seemed to be much more curious about things. Partworks like “Look and Learn” and “Finding Out” had articles about all sorts of things not taught in school and must have sold quite well as they were going for a while.

Interest, if any, on a wide variety of subjects seems confined to what is fed to us via the TV or Web. If a subject is “trending” it’s OK to show an interest.

I wonder whether it is due to the introspective, doom laden society we now belong to? I wonder whether people think that easy answers are there on the internet so it isn’t worth questioning them or finding out more about them?

Either way I’m still curious. I want to know if there is a planet 9 or 10 and 11. What bigfoot is, if Thylacines still exist, what happened at Fatima, If Perkin Warbeck was Richard of Shrewsbury, etc. etc.

Thankfully, posters on here are still curious about, well just about everything. If we stifle curiosity, I really think we’ve had it as a species.

I absolutely agree.

If ever lose my sense of curiosity about various things, then I really would cease to be 'me' I think. But the subjects and ideas I'm curious about and wish to learn about and/or share is why I am here on FMB. Very few people of my RL acquaintance have even heard of Fortean Times.

Conversely, curiosity about things that many people are interested in eg., 'has the man at number 23 got a new car?' 'is the lady down the bookies having an affair with him at the pub?' - all of that nonsense leaves me cold so I save time and simply don't pay any attention to that stuff.

I am very lucky that many dear people I know have rather specialised knowledge of quite niche topics [eg., astronomy, medieval music, teaching and grading theory] so I always like to hear about the latest in their interest field - it's hard to explain but even if it's not 'my' zone of interest it's a pleasure to hear and take on board from someone with new knowledge. Facets of my thinking/reasoning have AS/Aspergers traits and maybe people with similar 'wiring' like to listen and learn to each other.

My niche areas are rather diverse, but if you'd like to know all about organic composting and the benefits to soil structure and health just ask!

 

[skinny]

Very few people of my RL acquaintance have even heard of Fortean Times.

That is true of many of us. At least the Northern wildlings have the Uncon. Wish there were a Fortean group around here. I’d be in like Flynn.

My bestie is so hard science that he can’t even listen to anomolousness. He’s not a bore, he just shuts out anything that isn’t Darwin empirical. Poor guy is really in the cult as far as sciencism goes.

 

[skinny]

There is nothing more interesting than your own imagination. A device like an iPhone is a convenience and a thief. It robs people of their imagination. That’s what I see disappearing. Curiosity is definitely waning as a result, but when it is not paired with imagination, curiosity seems like annoyance and frustration, which left unchecked ends in destructive behaviour. That said, I don’t think removing the convenience would be of any help by this stage. Hm.

 

[Yithian]

Well yes, but my children were all born before smartphones were ubiquitous. So almost all the time they were growing up there WERE no smartphones, iPads, laptops etc. They had one computer in the house and that was on dial up internet. So they weren't paragons of fabulous curiosity - they just didn't have access to anything more interesting than foxes in the garden.

A fox is mystery incarnate.

Sleek, nocturnal and intelligent, abroad in pursuit of unknown schemes while children slumber, but not a total unknown to a child with sharp eyes owing to the dual overlap in our cycles of sleep.

The street I grew up in had 'fox' in the name and they'd frequently pass through our back garden. Having had a curious cub pointed out to me by my father one night, I went through a spell of standing on the toilet to peek out of the only non-frosted window in the bathroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of another if I woke in the night.

 

[Salmonellus]

I teach students from, currently, ages seven to twenty-two.

If there's one thing I want to scream at un-ignorable volume to every parent I meet it is:

Under no circumstances give your child a smartphone or tablet to use unsupervised.

A minority of those who ignore this advice will dodge the bullet, but honestly, most children will quickly become addicted to a greater or lesser extent. What usually follows is that access to screen-time becomes the focus of all interest, alternative activities and tasks being viewed as odious to the exact degree that they obstruct access to the favoured device. Naturally, use of said device then becomes a bargaining chip in negotiations with exasperated parents (heard last week: 'My son has no interest in anything'), which only serves to reinforce the device's status as the fount of all joy.

I do not exaggerate when I say I regularly meet young people who visibly twitch when their screen lights up and obsessively check for notifications every minute; three-quarters of children I see dining with families in restaurants are using phones when not physically eating. More seriously, there are a good number among them who would rather watch something happening on their phone than watch that same thing happen directly before their eyes. Similarly, some would rather hear a voice on their phone than interact with the other children around them.

I use my phone for both work and pleasure, but there are crucial distinctions: I didn't have one until I was nineteen--and that was a decidedly unsmart Nokia brick. More importantly, I have willpower of steel (allow me the brag; it's one of my few actual strengths) and I know when to turn off and walk, talk, see and do naturally.

Phones and devices can kill curiosity in children.

*This has been a public service announcement*

Age and gender are important variables here.

I have a group of friends who often go out to dinner together. A while ago we were happily chatting in a restaurant - mostly about science news. I guess we're basically University science nerds who've gone on to become grey haired armchair science nerds, but it gives us a shared interest to talk about.

Anyway, a bunch of attractive young women came into the restaurant and took the adjacent table. Did we notice them? Of course we did. We're guys. What do you expect?

Within minutes all of them had their phones out. Any chatter on that table died away. They all sat in silence thumbing their screens. No actual interactions with one another.

I don't think it was always that way. Groups of young women used to be noisy and cheerful as they all talked at once. But it doesn't seem to be happening as much these days.

So - old guys versus young women. I know which of the two was having the more social experience.

 

[gordonrutter]

That is true of many of us. At least the Northern wildlings have the Uncon. Wish there were a Fortean group around here. I’d be in like Flynn.

My bestie is so hard science that he can’t even listen to anomolousness. He’s not a bore, he just shuts out anything that isn’t Darwin empirical. Poor guy is really in the cult as far as sciencism goes.

Set one up! It's what I did 25 years ago here in Edinburgh.

 

[maximus otter]

Under no circumstances give your child a smartphone or tablet to use unsupervised.

I went for a walk in some nearby woods yesterday wearing dull-coloured clothing, and with my binoculars in their harness around my neck.

I walked slowly and quietly, stopping frequently to look and listen: A dunnock exploring piles of dead leaves; the derisive cackle of a woodpecker; a robin following me, waiting for me to disturb the earth so that he could investigate my footprints for edible bugs; the chatter of a distant magpie…

A young woman passed me, wearing garish clothing and talking loudly on her phone. In the time it took me to cover 50 yards she had walked the length of the 200-yard ride we were on, turned at the far end and walked back past me again in the opposite direction. At no time did she look left or right; not once did she stop BLETHERING NONSENSE ON HER PHONE.

Where is the wonder? Where is the curiosity? Where is the delight in being part of something larger and more mysterious than oneself? Bugger that nonsense: SUZY HAS CHANGED HER NAIL VARNISH! BRIAN FANCIES MOLLY FROM PAY AND ACCOUNTS!



maximus otter

 

[Tempest63]

I think the stand out Fortean story of my childhood was ”The Moving Coffins of Barbados” that I first encountered in a school library book titled ”You Be The Judge”.
This story epitomised for me the very real nature of life after death and how the dead could come back and influence the living world. I later read online that the story was never covered in the local press of the time and likely never happened at all. Unfortunately I have not since been able to track down that particular web site. Most seem to suggest the mystery continues to this day.
https://barbados.org/chase-vault.htm
As mentioned on here before, I was lucky enough to visit Barbados back in 2008 and stayed with friends for a holiday on the island. I took that opportunity to visit the Chase Vault.
The picture was taken at the vault, some years before the Crohn’s disease struck me down and I was a very happy fat bastard enjoying all the food and wine that life could throw at me.

 

[skinny]

Set one up! It's what I did 25 years ago here in Edinburgh.

I’m no organiser/leader. But if it was just a small group, maybe. Public library perhaps. Might think about that proposal.

 

[Tempest63]

Set one up! It's what I did 25 years ago here in Edinburgh.

I would love to do something similar here in Witham, not a ghost hunting group, more a study and debating group, but there doesn’t seem much of an appetite for it nowadays. I don’t think I could attract enough people who would study it seriously.
Chances are, if people were interested, it would be those who want to run around screaming and giggling, ie., the spawn of Most Haunted.

 

[Floyd]

I wonder whether people think that easy answers are there on the internet so it isn’t worth questioning them or finding out more about them?

I think this is a major factor.

 

[catseye]

I think this is a major factor.

I think you have it. Why waste time being curious when you can just Google it?

And yes, there is too much phone addiction now. I hate it. You can't talk to someone for more than a minute without them whipping out their phone to check the screen. It's the old 'looking over your head to see if there's someone more interesting to talk to', but without having to have the bother of moving away.

 

[Tunn11]

I think this is a major factor.

When I used to work in pre internet reference libraries a good proportion of people showed an interest in where I'd found the information. By extension this gave them some idea of validity. If the answer wasn't clear cut then they they were given several sources. They would be curious about the method of finding what they wanted and sometimes what else they could find using those sources.

They now seem to regard Google as gospel -or at least the first answer provided. I wonder what the pre internetters would have thought if I'd told them. "Most people accepted this answer, sponsored by x corporation."

 

[Paul_Exeter]

I still consider myself a Fortean but my way of thinking has changed over 40 plus years and I look at it all differently.
I am a hell of a lot more sceptical now than the “dyed in the wool” out and out believer that I was. And Fortean topics have greatly changed over the years. Cryptids and UFO’s seem to be the go to subjects now as opposed to a lot more of the subjects that manifested from the self; precognition, ESP, telepathy etc, which I was much more at home with.
If there is someone on the train in the morning who constantly sniffs, coughs openly or makes horrible personal noises, I still try to make their heads explode (think scanners) but have had little success. Similarly I am still trying to levitate the cars of people who fail to observe the rules of the road and try and run me and my pack down.

I was thinking of starting a Fortean Fashions thread for just this reason, so many fringe aspects of Forteana seem to have fallen from favour. I'm sure the internet is to blame and perhaps also affordable long haul flights to places that were once far away, mysterious and full of monsters. Ufology is very much in fashion in the 21st Century but is tying itself in knots over military disinformation whilst ignoring the fact that all anyone sees nowadays is lights in the sky or triangles. Where have all those landed craft and humanoids gone?

 

[Paul_Exeter]

I get that. After probably four decades of interest in the unexplained, I can't say I care any longer. I've been thinking lately I'm not actually a fortean anymore. I even considered starting a thread about it. I wondered how many others have had that realisation. Even in terms of being sceptical of science; I still am, but I've realised so are scientists. That's part of the process. And, time and again, when people deny the scientific consensus, when I delved in and looked at all the data I could, the consensus is by far the best supported. Yes, there are things science has relatively little to say about (even if some scientists say too much); ghosts, fae, mystery animals reported here and there, mysterious lights and alien abductions. But, in forty years, nobody else seems to have got very far with that stuff, either.

I'm sure when a flying saucer crashes into Big Ben, or bigfoot gets hit by a car and taken to hospital, I'll see it on the news, and be thrilled. Until then, it leaves me cold.

It has certainly been a journey for all of us who were around in 1970s and all that high strangeness, Nessie still a relic plesiosaur and seemingly imminent first contact with those extraterrestrials visiting us in their metallic craft with those flashing lights. Ufology had a revival in the 1990s with the X Files, Bonybridge and flying triangles etc but it is now more of a history project than active research. I respect those who dedicate their lives to cryptozoology, but the internet, air travel and globalisation have 'shrunk' the planet and now I can watch Simon Reeves streaming live from the Congo when I used to read about that dark, distant continent in a Heuvelmans's book. Also, to be blunt, there are those who will say cryptozoology is long overdue an actual significant discovery.

But, there is still so much high strangeness being reported and I am grateful for the Uncanny podcast for tapping into this and bringing witnesses out from behind their computer screens and onto the airwaves. It does seem that ghosts, poltergeists and time-slips are experiencing a renaissance right now and yes, some of it is explainable, but then that is half the fun. What has changed in the 21st Century is the way people report these things (or don't) and that has thrown up new challenges for those of us who once belonged to BUFORA and/or our local paranormal/UFO group as those networks are redundant now.

 

[AnonyJ]

Age and gender are important variables here.

I have a group of friends who often go out to dinner together. A while ago we were happily chatting in a restaurant - mostly about science news. I guess we're basically University science nerds who've gone on to become grey haired armchair science nerds, but it gives us a shared interest to talk about.

Anyway, a bunch of attractive young women came into the restaurant and took the adjacent table. Did we notice them? Of course we did. We're guys. What do you expect?

Within minutes all of them had their phones out. Any chatter on that table died away. They all sat in silence thumbing their screens. No actual interactions with one another.

I don't think it was always that way. Groups of young women used to be noisy and cheerful as they all talked at once. But it doesn't seem to be happening as much these days.

So - old guys versus young women. I know which of the two was having the more social experience.

This perplexes me, too. I'm middle-aged, so of the first generation of children to have used PCs, and the first generation of adults to commonly have a digital camera and a mobile phone.

I find touch-screen smartphones a general PITA although occasionally useful due to their Internet capabilities and superb when used as a phone. Mr J & I were in a casual restaurant a couple of weeks ago enjoying some extra-hot piri-piri and a group of young adults came in for their dinner. Until their food arrived, all 5 of them were looking down into their phones on the table, silently scrolling and tapping.

He and I looked at each other and he knew exactly what I meant! We held hands for a bit then ate our chicken.

They did put them down to actually eat and began to interact so I hope all is not lost. However I've seen people of all ages and backgrounds becoming lost in the screen. We like to go sea fishing from some of the local piers and beaches, and last year one lady completely missed the great time her children were having with their father, dangling off the pier and catching tiddlers as she sat on a bench for 3 solid hours, just absorbed in the smartphone...

 

[catseye]

Has the whole rise of the mobile phone made people more sceptical? Practically every thread on here has at least one post which says some variation on 'if XXXXX (whatever the topic of the thread is) really did exist, where are the photos, now everyone has a camera in their pocket?' And with it being so easy to create fakes with new technology - has it all made us a bit quicker to go 'hmmm, yeah, right',?

 

[charliebrown]

I don’t know if you have seen Steven Spielberg’s “ Ready Player One “ where everyone in the world seemed to be on their cell phone or digital games.

 

[Analogue Boy]

It has certainly been a journey for all of us who were around in 1970s and all that high strangeness, Nessie still a relic plesiosaur and seemingly imminent first contact with those extraterrestrials visiting us in their metallic craft with those flashing lights. Ufology had a revival in the 1990s with the X Files, Bonybridge and flying triangles etc but it is now more of a history project than active research. I respect those who dedicate their lives to cryptozoology, but the internet, air travel and globalisation have 'shrunk' the planet and now I can watch Simon Reeves streaming live from the Congo when I used to read about that dark, distant continent in a Heuvelmans's book. Also, to be blunt, there are those who will say cryptozoology is long overdue an actual significant discovery.

But, there is still so much high strangeness being reported and I am grateful for the Uncanny podcast for tapping into this and bringing witnesses out from behind their computer screens and onto the airwaves. It does seem that ghosts, poltergeists and time-slips are experiencing a renaissance right now and yes, some of it is explainable, but then that is half the fun. What has changed in the 21st Century is the way people report these things (or don't) and that has thrown up new challenges for those of us who once belonged to BUFORA and/or our local paranormal/UFO group as those networks are redundant now.

And yet, just like the early days of UFO reports of airships lassooing cattle, the phenomenae are explained away as just being out of reach.
Little Green Men from Mars are now Us, time travelling from the future Bigfoot is a shapeshifting creature that can disappear into another dimension. Just out of reach.
I would suggest the answer to all this lies in our own heads. To anyone who has woken up from a nightmare and a terrifying experience, ask ‘Why did my own mind do this to me?’

 

[Paul_Exeter]

And yet, just like the early days of UFO reports of airships lassooing cattle, the phenomenae are explained away as just being out of reach.
Little Green Men from Mars are now Us, time travelling from the future Bigfoot is a shapeshifting creature that can disappear into another dimension. Just out of reach.
I would suggest the answer to all this lies in our own heads. To anyone who has woken up from a nightmare and a terrifying experience, ask ‘Why did my own mind do this to me?’

I personally don't agree with your stance but it is a good debate to have. For me, there is an external agent involved although this could be some sort of Earth energy rather than an intelligence (but my leanings are towards the latter).