Hey Joe - study casting doubt on abduction "memories"

Great topic!

Let's look at what this "experts" thoughts are...

Let me quote: " a psychology expert at London's Goldsmiths College says these experiences are proof of the frailty of the human memory, rather than evidence of life in other galaxies.

As we see, this "expert" doesn't even know what the word, 'evidence' means.
So called, "abductees" have had "experiences" certainly not 'evidence' ...

This debunker 'trick' is "expert manipulation" to make people with strange experiences look like idiots or fools.

The more the debunkers throw around catchy phrases, like "little green men", "martians", "spindly arms and big heads", etc... the more the whole issue becomes a joke. It's a play on words that misleads many from the real issue. The misuse of the word "evidence" works so well in this article.

Back to the article...

Quote: "Several thousand people worldwide claim to have had such close encounters, researchers say."

And you know what, most of them claim to have seen nearly the same "creatures".
Why is it they are not mostly abducted by their math teacher, or their dentist with all those evil probing tools? Why not 'anglerfish' abductees?


Great article!
Very misleading.
What a disappointment from London's Goldsmiths College...

;)
 
Last edited:
Careful - knit-picking the use of a commonplace word is a tactic employed with great fervor by those with nothing significant to use in countering opponents of their own beliefs. You're using a simple parlour trick to try and topple the credibility of your perceived opponent, and you don't even have an actual quote to work with. Regardless:

While the supposed similarites in these "experiences" could possibly be construed as evidence that they are real, it's just as likely that it is in fact the preconceived notion that this is what an alien experience is like from hearing of others' accounts. When I say "aliens", the image that comes to most people's minds is the classic "Grey" appearence - not because they've been abducted, but because subconsciously this is what we've been conditioned to think that extraterrestrial aliens look like through folk lore and media.

If I have a hallucination involving Santa Claus, I would imagine him with a large beard wearing red clothing with white trim - not because I've seen him - but because this is what I assume that he would look like if he did exist. This is the typical Santa Claus description, made popular through stories, movies, and advertisement.




The Easter Bunny!

(There, I'm sure that the majority of you pictured some sort of long-eared hairy individual, possibly with eggs in tow, in a basket of sorts; maybe even decked out in pastel. If we compared the physical description that enough of give for The Easter Bunny, we'll find a lot of similarities that may seem uncanny. Was it because you have seen The Easter Bunny? Was it because you've had a close encounter with it? Or was it, in fact, because we have a notion of what it would look like if it actually exists?)



My apologies to any kiddos under ten for the use of such analogies ;)
 
Raskolnikov said:
... ..and you don't even have an actual quote to work with. ...
Click to expand...
Careful, :) ..
I did quote, from an actual article, from an "expert".

Ok, that's cleared up nice and neat.

"..parlour trick.. .."
Funny, I just heard that in the DVD release of "Batman Begins" ..

..;)

--------------------

Easter Bunny.. ok..
Bozo the Clown..
Captain Kangaroo..
a salt shaker..

Sure.. we can get the mental picture.

Now, the issue is, why are thousands having basically the same type of 'abduction experience'? What ad, movie, etc. has so generously provided the abduction experience. Where does sleep paralysis come into play to give these people their experiences?

Are you saying "abductions and aliens" are one in the same due to what's taught, or watched? Why aren't thousands and thousands seeing the "monolith", or bad dreams of apes swinging bones around on 2001 a Space Odyssey?

I like SciFi... Guess that makes me soon to be an abductee?
I don't buy that scenario.. Nope it won't work, not for me.

How about all the shark movies? Why not a "shark paranoia" phenomena?

See how it doesn't work..?
 
Last edited:
Chill said:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051026...SrLLJGs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-

Of course 19 interviews is hardly an exhaustive study

.....
Click to expand...
I agree with that!

Here's another quote --yes, a quote
Quote ;) : "Many of the alien experiences could be explained by sleep paralysis, a condition in which a person is awake and aware of the surroundings but is unable to move.

Like I said before, why not huge sharks devouring them at night? A bad dentist trip? Noooo, it has to be the 'alien abuction' dream - nothing else.
That so called reasoning is laughable!


Also, many will always have a closed mind on this whole topic. Nothing will change that. But, there are so many "incidents" that have forever changed the minds of many people.

That's another topic... And maybe somewhere else. ;)

And another thing... LOL

It's late - maybe I'll dream some real good stuff!
 
Last edited:
125gJoe said:
Careful, :) ..
I did quote, from an actual article, from an "expert".

Ok, that's cleared up nice and neat.
Click to expand...

Not even remotely. You're quoting an article written by a 3rd person, not a quote from the party in question.

125gJoe said:
Now, the issue is, why are thousands having basically the same type of 'abduction experience'? What ad, movie, etc. has so generously provided the abduction experience.
Click to expand...
I'm not even sure where to begin, there are so many.
Books, Videogames, commercially produced costumes, clothing, art, television, etc...

125gJoe said:
Where does sleep paralysis come into play to give these people their experiences?
Click to expand...
I don't know how sleep paralysis works, nor do I claim to. I'm just trying to keep an open mind in all of this.

125gJoe said:
Are you saying "abductions and aliens" are one in the same due to what's taught, or watched? Why aren't thousands and thousands seeing the "monolith", or bad dreams of apes swinging bones around on 2001 a Space Odyssey?
Click to expand...
I'm not implying that these so-called "abductions" have any correlation to the possibility that life (possibly advanced life) exists elsewhere in the universe. The presence of absence of other-worldly life forms is not what I am questioning (nor did I get the impression that the article was) - it is the validity of these "close encounters" that are suspect.
Furthermore, the examples that you've given (Planet of the Apes, Space Oddyssey...) are movies, yes, but the concepts therein are specific only to the movies themselves. They are not a combination of folk lore, media attention, etc...that the alien phenomenon is, and thus irrelevant to the cultural examples that I brought up earlier.


125gJoe said:
I like SciFi... Guess that makes me soon to be an abductee?
Click to expand...
No clue where you got that from.

125gJoe said:
How about all the shark movies? Why not a "shark paranoia" phenomena?
Click to expand...
In fact, following the release of perhaps the most famous shark movie of them all (Jaws), there was in fact a massive shark paranoia. These creatures were slaughtered en mass out of fear due to the suggestions of a movie/book. Benchley himself has spoken out on the subject (I wish I could link something for you, but I saw him on television when he was speaking about the after effects of his work.)
 
125gJoe said:
Here's another quote --yes, a quote
Quote ;) : "Many of the alien experiences could be explained by sleep paralysis, a condition in which a person is awake and aware of the surroundings but is unable to move.

Like I said before, why not huge sharks devouring them at night? A bad dentist trip? Noooo, it has to be the 'alien abuction' dream - nothing else.
That so called reasoning is laughable!
Click to expand...

There's a quote. Not laughable, however. Let's assume that more people fall asleep in their beds or vehicles than in say...the ocean. I'm sure we can agree on that, right? Thus, the individual is "awake and aware of their surroundings", surroundings that are not condusive to shark attack, nor sharks. The dentist? Maybe if the individual gets regular house-calls from their dentist, otherwise these surroundings wouldn't be linked very much with the dentist. These surroundings are much more condusive to a classic "abduction" scenario, though, where an alien presence invisibly subdues a victim, and may or may not reveal themselves as well.
Parallels could be drawn to the conviction in which young children may claim to see the boogey-man. In most adults' psyche, the boogey-man isn't a viable entity, but something else unexplained and potentially ominous (extraterrestrial life forms...?) may serve the same purpose.

I'm not trying to say that alien abductions are completely concocted (whether conciously, subconciously, or both). That being said, I'm also unconvinced that they may indeed be real. Slamming the new views presented in that article outright because they disagree with a preconceived notion seems extraordinarily biased, though.

125gJoe said:
Also, many will always have a closed mind on this whole topic.
Click to expand...

Absolutely...and some may have started with an open mind, but the door swung shut, quietly and unnoticed. I get the impression sometimes that you've convinced yourself so thoroughly of your open-mindedness regarding alien abductions that the potential for the phenomenon to be explained in a fashion unrelated to extraterrestrials has become an impossibility to you.
I thought that you could use someone to play a little devil's advocate with you tonight - keep you fresh. ;)
 
Sleep paralysis is used to explain the "Old Hag" a widespread Newfoundland tradition of being attacked in your sleep by maleovent presence often an Old Witch or Hag that sits on your chest and cuts off your breath. The antropologists have limited the tradition of the old hag to sleep paralysis type events but local beliefs involved other sleeping events as well. I experinced night terrors as a child and my father referred to these experiences as the old hag.

Around here you are much more likley to be abducted by the fairies than aliens. No not maurading gangs of homosexuals but the supernatural kind. There is a strong cultural attachment to the fairy here and there are plenty of stories of fairy abductions. More so in my parents generation but everyone has heard the stories. It's intersting how a more isolated culture maintained a stronger link to the old myths, but it makes a point for the cultural imprint as explanation for commonalities in abduction stoires.

I'm not saying I don't belive in aliens. I find it best not only to keep an open mind but to also to have a healthy respect for many things I don't necessarily believe in.

Just to keep the debate rolling here's another link to a study on alien abductions and the possible link to sleep paralysis:


http://www.csicop.org/si/9805/abduction.html
 
Last edited:
Raskolnikov said:
Not even remotely. You're quoting an article written by a 3rd person, not a quote from the party in question.
Click to expand...
So -- your "rules" are, you cannot quote an article??

I had know idea... But just to start off by arguing. :D Got it....
Talk about knitpicking.. LOL
I'll quote what's relevant.

----
Raskolnikov said:
I don't know how sleep paralysis works, nor do I claim to. I'm just trying to keep an open mind in all of this.
Click to expand...
That's where you are missing the whole issue. The "expert" in the article claims sleep paralysis is the reason for the alien abduction experience. And that shows this "expert" does indeed have a closed mind.

Sleep paralysis = Alien abductions?
That is so funny! Glad this "expert" is not makin more 'astounding' ridiculous assumptions! It makes debunkers look silly... :D

Rask, if you were trying to be open minded on the subjuect, you wouldn't be so negative. :hi:

I guess the people in 3rd world countries that don't have TV, video games, and the "adbuction producing" machines don't count when they have the same type of abduction experience?

Someone should come up with a better reason to debunk these people rather than a 'sleep paralysis' problem....
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom