Skepticism (paranormal, miracles, Articles, witchcraft, cross)

[Mr Spinkles]

Do you believe in bigfoot, the yeti, the loch ness monster, UFO's/alien abductions, crop circles, clairvoyance, telepathy, magic, witchcraft, hauntings/ghosts, psychic readings, astrology, voodoo, demonic possession, channeling, the Bermuda Triangle, Holocaust revisionism, moonlanding conspiracies, miracles, syncronisity, John Edwards, or anything not listed here that is "paranormal"?

If you answered "yes" to any of these, you are probably not a skeptic. There is no evidence to support any of the above, and indeed most of them have been almost irrefutably debunked. In this thread, I will post on various hoaxes and paranormal claims, and try to show why they are not sound and provide references and articles. I encourage fellow skeptics to do the same, and anyone who wants to propose and defend a paranormal claim may do so as well (though I don't encourage anyone to defend John Edwards...)

[Ceridwen018]

Speaking of John Edwards....

[Ceridwen018]

Your mention of the Bermuda Triangle sparked my interest though--I thought there was a perfectly scientific explanation for that one--being that the weather patterns were screwy there for whatever reason.

[Mr Spinkles]

There are no greater number of accidents/shipwrecks in the Bermuda Triangle than there are in many other places in the world's oceans. In fact, many of the shipwrecks attributed to the Bermuda Triangle actually occurred well outside of it. I saw a show on the Discovery Channel about gases rising to the surface in the Bermuda Triangle and having the ability to sink ships, but I am naturally skeptical about it.

[Ceridwen018]

Haha, naturally.

That's a good point though. Although many ships and planes may have sunk and crashed in the Bermuda Triangle, that evidence cannot be separated from other surrounding and related evidence, lest an Old Wives Tale be created.

For instance, black cats are notoriously bad luck, but has anyone studied the affects of white cats? We could do an experiment where we'd have a white cat cross the path of 100 people, and a black cat cross the path of 100 others, and then documented the lucky/unlucky occurrences in these people's lives over the following few weeks or so. What if people who had been crossed by the white cat reported more instances of unluckiness than those of the black?

This mock experiment is ridiculous of course, but it gets the point accross.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Holocaust denial is not a "hoax" - it's an antisemitic agenda.

[Green Gaia]

Crop circles intrigue me. I know some were man made, but all of them? I don't think so....

[Ceridwen018]

Yes Maize, that's a good one. We can't just assume that some weren't made by men because that's what we think seems true, though....Is there some kind of evidence or observation which makes people think some were made by men and others not, such as evidence of highly advanced tools or craftsmanship? Oh mighty Spinkles, what say you?

[(Q)]

Crop Circles are a hoax, admittedly so by those who made them and provided design and documented evidence of their construction.

http://www.csicop.org/hoaxwatch/cropcircles.html

[painted wolf]

MR Spinkles (note the MR

The gas release is a fact, the gas is trapped methane ice deposits. They occur in many places on the ocean floor, like the other big ship trap the North Sea. When methane ice is heated enough it errupts violently and can not only cause the sinking of ships but leaves massive craters on the ocean floor.

some info on methane hydrate:
http://www.ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSrep...FTOKEN=3745987
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_..._9_96/bob1.htm

Speaking of another 'old wives tale' of the sea that has recently been verified by science.... The giant (100+ ft) rogue wave. Monster waves that appear out of calm seas to doom even super tankers. These waves were always thought to be rare and over exagerations of board/superstitious sailors. Oceanographers used satalites to look for these rogue waves and were surprized to find they were wrong about them. They are much more common than they thought. Hundreds of these waves happen all over the globe at any one time. They appear the be the result of smaller waves being over taken and magnified by a medium wave.
for more on the 'giant rogue wave' phenomena go to:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMOKQL26WD_index_0.html

Thus the 'mysterious' sinking of ships becomes less mysterious.

Nesse is most likely a Sturgeon a variety of large (up to 20+/- ft.) armored fish. They normally live in the ocean but migrate up rivers and into lakes to spawn. As Loch Ness is connected to the ocean it seems a likely answer.

Now about sea monsters, yes I believe in 'sea monsters' the Kraken turned out to be an exagerated form of giant squid and/or an exagerated form of 'colossal squid' an even more rare species only recently discovered.
Sea monsters are just un-described or mistakenly described species of still living animals.
Pliesosaurs? probably not, while the idea that a pleisosaur may have survived the K/T event is fun, they aren't suited to the modern open oceans of today. However, the survival of the Celocanth into the modern day does offer hope for the ancient lineages of the planet.

Cryptid animals are one of my passions. I'm always thrilled when new species are discovered, or re-discovered as the case may be.

Bigfoot/yeti? maybe once uppon a time they lived around humans, but I'm not sure they still do. Giant apes such as Giganthopithicus lived not far from the 'yeti' lands of today, and unfortunately there isn't enough fossil material to pinpoint its extinction. It may be possible that a few of these animals survived long enough to be encountered by mankind and made into legend. It may also be possible a few migrated across the Berring land bridge into North America and became the seed of legends here as well.
But until more and better evidence arrives I wont hold my breath.

Just because I believe in the possibility of a thing doesn't make me any less skeptical.

wa:do