Click here to view the embedded video.

(via Open Culture)

On the night of September 19-20, 1961, Portsmouth, NH couple Betty and Barney Hill experienced a close encounter with an unidentified flying object and two hours of “lost” time while driving south on Rte 3 near Lincoln. They filed an official Air Force Project Blue Book report of a brightly-lit cigar-shaped craft the next day, but were not public with their story until it was leaked in the Boston Traveler in 1965. This was the first widely-reported UFO abduction report in the United States.

While the UFO craze is an interesting trend in modern history and worthy of some mention, this is a troubling marker. Despite the careful writing, it’s still an unskeptical presentation of the facts. The brevity of the marker allows them to skirt over issues of timing, which Brian Dunning mentions in his version of events.

There’s also the fact that the abduction story was brought out by a session of “regressive hypnosis,” which is unreliable at best, completely fraudulent at worst. It played a large role in the “satanic panic” of the 80s and 90s, and I’d hoped that people would realize that stories produced by this technique are not acceptable as evidence.

But as Colavito points out, the real problem is that the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources signed off on this. While they did not draft the text, they were responsible for reviewing it and accepting it. According to the author, the DHR asked for revisions, so they at least read and proofed it.

I really hate to see public historians participate in this kind of thing. It doesn’t make us look good. My personal pet peeve are historic houses that bring in “ghost hunters,” but even this kind of minimal backing for pseudo-history and pseudo-science leaves a mark.

A Bosnian man insists he is being targeted by extra-terrestrials after his house was hit by meteorites six times in three years.

Radivoje Lajic, 50, who lives in the northern village of Gornji Lajici, believes aliens are responsible for the meteor strikes.

“I am obviously being targeted by extra-terrestrials,” he insists. “I don’t know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense. The chance of being hit by a meteorite is so small that getting hit six times has to be deliberate.”

I’m not entirely sure why he’s so pissed about this considering that the selling price of ONE of the meteorites was enough to steel-reinforce his roof!

James Randi exposes psychic fraud at a TED event:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Can you tell the difference between Aliens and Demons?  If you were visited in the night by an intelligent, non-human entity, could you really distinguish between them?  (In a sidenote I’m not addressing right now, how would you know the voice in your head is God and not a tricky demon?  How do you know devils can’t impersonate voices?)

Although nobody would know it in an age with laptops and cell phones, I’m in New York City right now. I hopped on a bus to go see my sister Julia Galef give a presentation on rationality – my first post was written while on the BoltBus, actually. The talk was entitled “Aliens, Psychics and Ghosts, Oh My! Or, How Our Brains Fool Us Into Believing Strange Things.” I thoroughly enjoyed it.

John Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting “The Nightmare” is now seen as a classic account of sleep paralysis accredited to a demon

One interesting point was that while reports of alien abductions are a relatively new phenomenon, the psychological reasons behind such hallucinations are not.  However, instead of blaming aliens, people used to blame the bad boys of the supernatural world: Demons.

In “alien abductions”, people tend to report waking up, feeling pinned down and unable to move, seeing visions of visitors, and often experiencing sexual stimulation. These are the familiar symptoms of sleep paralysis and hypnopompic hallucinations.

During sleep, the brain stops controlling the muscles – that’s why we don’t flail around in our sleep as we act out our dreams. Sometimes when woken from a deep sleep, the brain doesn’t immediately retake control, leaving the poor person both awake and unable to move (This has happened to me, and I was lucid enough to recognize what was happening.  It was a fascinating experience.)   It can be particularly difficult to breathe.   When woken up from a deep sleep, a person is also prone to vivid hallucinations. This combination explains the commonly heard reports of alien abductions.

But before aliens, people interpreted those perceptions as demons – same symptoms, different supernatural explanation.  Online Etymology says the term “Nightmare” originally meant “an evil female spirit afflicting sleepers with a feeling of suffocation”.  Sound familiar?

John Henry Fuseli’s painting “The Nightmare” shows an evil-looking imp sitting on a woman’s chest while she lies in bed. Psychologists now believe it to be an early representation of sleep paralysis.  It’s telling that the same evidence can fit seamlessly into countless supernatural  theories.

How cool is it that we can look at ancient experiences people thought were supernatural and explain them in scientific ways?  Epilepsy, schizophrenia, sleep paralysis, oxygen/sensory/nutritional deprivation… The gaps keep getting smaller and there’s less and less room for God.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sigh.

I disagree strongly with this. Through my rigorous testing and analysis, I measured 43.5% accessibility of Divine Consciousness frequencies, and 12.97% of Divine Consciousness frequencies transmitted outside the body.

I dare them to show evidence against my claims!

(via)

CNN has a profile on a psychic fraud (except they call her a “medium” instead of the more accurate term “fraud”):

“It’s more types of people I have never seen before,” says [psychic] Roxanne Usleman. “Men in the business world, high-powered jobs, stock market, Wall Street.”

Since last fall, she says she began to see a new type of client — a “logical, [A-type] of personality.” Many of them are “just completely lost,” says Usleman.

Wait, logical personalities are going to a psychic? They must really be lost, because there’s nothing logical about going to a psychic.

Relationship advice, typically the bread and butter of the psychic business, has been supplanted by something new.

“Should I merge with this company? Should I bring in a partner to my company,” are the kind of questions Usleman gets from her clients….

Not the kind of question I’d want a person who doesn’t know anything about my business or circumstances answering.

For a typical reading, she grips a client’s photograph or set of keys and consults “the angels.”

How depressing.

Business is good, she says. Usleman sees five or six clients a day and charges up to $135 a pop for sessions that usually last more than an hour.

She is profiting because of people’s confusion and desperation. This wouldn’t bother me if she was honest and said she was just a counselor who excels at cold reading.

But she’s a fraud. She pretends to have paranormal insight into issues. She pretends to talk to angels. And people, desperate in hard times, believe her and pay her money that could go to paying their mortgage. It’s just sad.

Oh, and be sure to check out “Why Be Blinded by Science and Materialism.” I’m sure you’ll all be convinced that scientific materialism just doesn’t cut it compared to, uh, “Greater Reality.”