Possible scientific explanation for supernatural sightings

[Nanda]

I found this article that gives scientific reasons for why people believe that they see supernatural things, like UFO's or demons. Very intersting.

Science and UFO Sightings | Newsweek Science | Newsweek.com

Evolution provides a good starting place for explaining why people have paranormal experiences.
For all but the last 10,000 years of human history, man survived by hunting and gathering plants. To interpret a mysterious world, man projected his own fears and understandings onto his environment. In the "enchanted" view of the world, every part of nature—rocks, trees, hills, water—was alive and filled with spirit. Even in the age of science, the human brain still projects ideas and images on the world.

 

[Francine]

I found this article that gives scientific reasons for why people believe that they see supernatural things, like UFO's or demons.

Late in June 1947 a US Marine C-46 transport plane crashed in Mount Rainier National Park and when word got around, a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold volunteered to aid with the search. While he was circling the mountain on June 24 he spotted a cluster of nine brightly glowing meteors rushing past his plane toward remote Mt. Adams in the south.

Because they were pieces of a fireball in the process of breaking up, they seemed to be flying in formation, so Arnold assumed they were aircraft, and he interpreted their brightness to be the sun glinting off of polished metal. The pieces were tumbling and this made them appear to hop up and down in the airstream. Arnold told the press they flew like "a saucer skipping over water." This was the very first UFO sighting, and it sparked a national obsession with "Flying Saucers" that bordered on mass hysteria.

By July 7 there had been many more sightings. Some were ordinary mistakes but most were outright copycat hoaxes. It is interesting how Arnold's description of the actions of his nine meteors skipping like saucers somehow got garbled into the shape of the objects being like saucers, and once that got locked into the public's mind, all UFOs began to look like saucers.

 

[Nanda]

It makes me think of cases of stigmata. When it was originally thought that Christ was nailed through the hands, all stigmata appeared in the hands. But later, when popular opinion decided that Christ was nailed through the wrists, stigmata suddenly moved down to the wrists. Of course, still later, opinion changed once more, and went back to the hands theory, and what do you suppose happened then?

 

[Francine]

It makes me think of cases of stigmata. When it was originally thought that Christ was nailed through the hands, all stigmata appeared in the hands. But later, when popular opinion decided that Christ was nailed through the wrists, stigmata suddenly moved down to the wrists. Of course, still later, opinion changed once more, and went back to the hands theory, and what do you suppose happened then?

LOL! Right on!

 

[tomspug]

People want something to believe in. They want to believe there is more to life than what they see.
... I've been watching too much X-Files!

 

[doppelganger]

People want something to believe in. They want to believe there is more to life than what they see.

People feel and instinctively know there is more to life than what they see. We just forget that we won't find it looking outwards on the world.

By introspection is the supernatural located.

 

[tomspug]

People feel and instinctively know there is more to life than what they see. We just forget that we won't find it looking outwards on the world.

By introspection is the supernatural located.

Indeed. Although it is odd that something entirely natural could produce the supernatural.

 

[doppelganger]

Indeed. Although it is odd that something entirely natural could produce the supernatural.

Actually, I thing something supernatural created both the "natural" and the "supernatural".

 

[Mister Emu]

This was the very first UFO sighting,

First modern UFO sighting?

 

[Francine]

First modern UFO sighting?

The funny wheels of Ezekiel chapter one were Unidentified Rolling Objects.

 

[Mister Emu]

Unidentified flying object - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There were multiple before Arnold's sighting...