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The Fortean/paranormal/conspiracy thread


Astro Hollywood

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Continuing my reading on underground London, it kind of blew my mind to find there were at least 22 tunnels under the Thames.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnels_under...he_River_Thames

 

Including quite a few that are disused or sealed up.

Sometimes I think it's odd that London hasn't collapsed in on itself. There was a program quite a few years ago on the old sewage system. As they were going through the ornate brick tunnels, they were showing remains of buildings and streets that were simply built on top of. What were open streams had arches built over the top of them and they became underground tunnels.

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Dr. Ketchum is full of shit. She's been talking up this CONCLUSIVE DNA EVIDENCE for ages. She published them earlier in the year -- in a self-pubbed journal you had to pay $30 to read. It wasn't peer reviewed, and scientists who read it thought it was laughable, with the DNA coming from an opossum.

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Dr. Ketchum is full of shit. She's been talking up this CONCLUSIVE DNA EVIDENCE for ages. She published them earlier in the year -- in a self-pubbed journal you had to pay $30 to read. It wasn't peer reviewed, and scientists who read it thought it was laughable, with the DNA coming from an opossum.

 

She just wants to catch them all, anyways.

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Seeing as it's Halloween season, I always try to turn this thread into UKFFer's TRUE TALES, so if anyone ever experienced any weird shit, let's do this. Note: Any story that begins "It was the middle of the night, I just woke up, and..." and basically describes a dream you had, even though it definitely wasn't a dream, will almost definitely be dismissed as the ravings of a fool.

 

Also, I figured I'd do a few seasonal blog posts. Way too long to post here (what a shame!), but if you want to read a thing about the werewolf trials of Medieval Europe, then click here.

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You're probably the best person to ask but how common was werewolf mythology in Britain at that time? Was it mainly focused around Europe?

 

It didn't seem to make it over here, from what I've read. King James I didn't believe in it, other than as a delusion, so it was kept out of the English witch trials.

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No such story of my own, but here's an oddly spectral shaped smoke stain left on a church wall from some candles this weekend. It was amusing enough that the smoke was making the classic Ghostbusters/Willow the Wisp shape anyway, but to leave the mark on the wall - complete with fingers reaching for the crucifix - topped it off nicely.

 

ghostly-outline_zps3b4143ee.jpg

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So, I'm reading this book:

 

KeansBook.jpg

 

Ostensibly, it's a really significant book on the subject of UFOs. The journalist who's written it has worked only with published government source material, and first-hand accounts from airline pilots/airforce pilots - people who should be pretty reliable witnesses.

 

Some of the encounters described, usually by the pilots in their own words, are extraordinary and together they build a very compelling case for something that is both intelligent and beyond our current technology, zooming about in our atmosphere.

 

.......

 

But here's a thing, and it's quite hard to put down in words, so bear with me. The author, Leslie Kean, started from a premise of discounting all UFO sightings/encounters that can be explained conventionally, only focussing on the ones that defy any plausible explanation. She portrays this as eliminating all the guff and being rigorously scientific.

 

But surely that creates a set of data that is really... unnatural? If you wanted to argue for the existence of extra-terrestrials, if 99.9% of all observational data can be explained away, that suggests that most of the elements that go into a UFO sighting are explainable.

 

So the reduced set that she can't explain, apart from ALIENS.... isn't it highly probably that there IS a real-world explanation, it's just we haven't found it, or it's something she's discounting? The first thing I'd look at is.. how reliable ARE pilots? Long hours, stress, difficult working conditions, sleep deprivation... the difficulties of accurately estimating distance at high altitude... The witnesses could be the most honest and experience people, but they could also be wrong, and that's a much more conceivable explanation than aliens. You've already eliminated tens of thousands of UFO sightings... it only takes a handful more people to have made a mistake, and you're down to 0% evidence.

 

Also... it's ALL observational. There's no concrete physical evidence, not after 60 years. That's not just something you can discount in your intro and then not mention for the rest of the argument!

 

I did a bit of research on 2 of the cases she mentioned, which is military fighter pilots dogfighting with unknown object in the sky. There are also a fair few very similar reports that have turned out on further research to have actually been pilots mistaking weather balloons for something else - hard data on weather balloon flight times, etc, make it beyond doubt.

 

So she just chooses the two where that likely scenario hasn't been proved... and uses it as convincing evidence of extra-terrestrials.

 

 

-----

 

I really want to believe, I'm a child of Mulder. But as an adult, I need proper proof, properly argued. This book gave me real chills until I actually sat down and thought it through. No wonder so many people believe in UFOs, it's essentially impossible to disprove them. There will always be fringe data that defies current explanation, that will be touted as absolute proof until such time as it's debunked.

 

 

Thank you for listening.

Edited by Loki
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That sounds pretty fascinating. I was mad into UFOs as a kid, but as an adult, they (along with ghosts) are by far the least interesting aspect of Fortean stuff, due mostly to the complete lack of any nuts and bolts evidence after decades of research. I couldn't imagine what it would take for me to read a UFO book again, but that does look interesting.

 

In plugging myself in this thread again news, I've posted another super lengthy Halloween themed piece on my blog. If you're one of those who finds my stuff over-long and pretentious, you'll love this one.

 

Remember the BBC's Ghostwatch? WRONG. You only think you do. Parkinson's betrayal, the Enfield poltergeist, and banging in the dark; or why Ghostwatch, Britain's cultural Candyman, is scary only as a fuzzy analogue sense memory.

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That sounds pretty fascinating. I was mad into UFOs as a kid, but as an adult, they (along with ghosts) are by far the least interesting aspect of Fortean stuff, due mostly to the complete lack of any nuts and bolts evidence after decades of research. I couldn't imagine what it would take for me to read a UFO book again, but that does look interesting.

 

In plugging myself in this thread again news, I've posted another super lengthy Halloween themed piece on my blog. If you're one of those who finds my stuff over-long and pretentious, you'll love this one.

 

Remember the BBC's Ghostwatch? WRONG. You only think you do. Parkinson's betrayal, the Enfield poltergeist, and banging in the dark; or why Ghostwatch, Britain's cultural Candyman, is scary only as a fuzzy analogue sense memory.

 

One of your best ever blog entries my friend. Utterly brilliant read.

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Seeing as it's Halloween season, I always try to turn this thread into UKFFer's TRUE TALES, so if anyone ever experienced any weird shit, let's do this. Note: Any story that begins "It was the middle of the night, I just woke up, and..." and basically describes a dream you had, even though it definitely wasn't a dream, will almost definitely be dismissed as the ravings of a fool.

Before I go into detail on what happened to me, what are the general opinions on time slipping?

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Cheers, guys.

 

Seeing as it's Halloween season, I always try to turn this thread into UKFFer's TRUE TALES, so if anyone ever experienced any weird shit, let's do this. Note: Any story that begins "It was the middle of the night, I just woke up, and..." and basically describes a dream you had, even though it definitely wasn't a dream, will almost definitely be dismissed as the ravings of a fool.

Before I go into detail on what happened to me, what are the general opinions on time slipping?

 

I love, love, love time-slip stories. The Versailles Incident is one of my favourite things ever. Out with it!

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