UFO Mania Is Out of Control. Please Stop

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/08/11/stop-ufo-mania-no-evidence-of-aliens/

by bookofjoe • 5 years ago

18 13 5 years ago

bookofjoe• 5 years ago

dkersten3• 5 years ago

I'm reminded of an amusing thing that happened some time ago (either last year or the year before, I can't quite remember):

My brother was telling me that he was awoken at night by a very loud bang noise. He looked out of the window and didn't see anything, but he didn't go back to bed for whatever reason. A short time later, he heard it again and looked out again to also see a flash of light. Then he saw some kids run away from a nearby alley and he realized what had happened: they had set off fireworks in the alley, which greatly amplified the bang.

After he told me this, we wondered if anyone else had heard it and what they thought of it, since it was so loud. Did people think it was gunshots or an explosion or something? So we did a web search for the local newspapers and sure enough, people had written in and there was an online article about it! About... the UFO sightings with loud noise and flashing lights that night.. :-/

Some people, when they don't know the cause of something, let their imaginations take over and believe the most far fetched garbage. No wonder there's so many conspiracy believers out there these days!

partsKnown2• 5 years ago

Some people are just really stupid and a belief in aliens is the perfect litmus test.

badRNG• 5 years ago

I think we as people are predisposed to believing that unexplained phenomena are the actions of some sort of agent. Humans that more often associated rustling in the grass with a predator had a better shot at sharing their genes than ones that didn't (even if this belief is often irrational considering the circumstance.)

Across humanity, most cultures historically ascribed natural phenomena to agents; wind, fire, lightning, floods are caused by agents (either animal, spiritual, ancestral, or personal.) It makes sense then that if I see unexplained behavior in the sky, and I've been introduced to the idea of UFOs, I may be predisposed to believing that the unexplained behavior is the intentional acts of extraterrestrial actors.

I think most people can be perfectly rational in most aspects of their lives, but for certain beliefs and behaviors (the social, sexuality, and identifying agency) there's likely always going to be a degree of innate irrationality.

Galaxity• 5 years ago

Well you believed that story.

pyinstallwoes2• 5 years ago

That's a thing, exploding head syndrome. I had it for a few years. It was when I was particularly stressed.

It really sucks. Sounds like a gunshot in your ears. I actually had this happen to me about a week ago. It's been a few years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome

partsKnown2• 5 years ago

Only idiots and psychos "believe" aliens exist.

It's a great quick and easy way to ask someone if they are an idiot without having to ask them if they are an idiot.

dkersten3• 5 years ago

I think that's a bit too bunt. I believe that aliens might exist, somewhere out there. I do not believe they have ever visited earth if they do exist and I think the liklihood of us finding any, in our lifetimes, is also pretty close to zero.

The universe is a rather large place, to say that they definitely don't exist in any form anywhere out there is just as unwarranted as it is to say that they're installing anal probes in humans.

I do agree that it (asking if people believe in alien visitations) is a litmus test that they may be lacking in critical thinking and perhaps education.

ksaj• 5 years ago

What about religious experiences?

I've always thought that if nearly all religions have such experiences, they must be similar enough that they bely their true bias in their hatred towards each other.

Either they believe those experiences come from God (or aliens) or they do not. But they always seem to find an "obvious" way to explain it away ONLY IF there is an us-or-them relationship. It's like "My experience was authentic, even though all those other ones are not."

In either case, it's hard to not notice the similarities if you are observing from the outside. Especially when people who purportedly have witnessed UFO's have typically witnessed several of them throughout their lives.

perl4ever• 5 years ago

There are a lot of double standards that it's easy to glide over.

People are critical of belief in "alien visitations" who are not necessarily critical of more conventional religion.

In a lot of settings, belief in "fairies" would be treated differently from belief in "angels".

It is a real practical problem in psychiatry of how to evaluate someone who claims to have religious experiences such as hearing God.

The standard approach, if I recall correctly, is to consider it a mental disorder if it involves significant distress and/or interference with normal life, or if it involves angry and violent themes.

The problem with the intellectual consistency of that (from the perspective of Western culture) is, well, have you read the parts of the Christian Bible where Jesus is in a bad mood? Or accounts of various saints?

There has always been, and continues to be, a fair amount of prejudice based on how many people exist with a similar belief structure.

Belief in odd things is not a matter of education, at any rate.

pyinstallwoes2• 5 years ago

Only idiots and psychos make definitive decisions as if they had all the data in the universe when they don't.

krapp• 5 years ago

▲ every comment above this one is misinformation from a MAJESTIC-12 operative.

UFO Mania Is Out of Control. Please Stop

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