And I Want To Believe

Hello again, everyone. I've been gone for awhile, and you deserve an explanation as to why. Which you will receive. Tomorrow.

Instead, since today is Halloween and the one year anniversary of this blog, I'd like to dedicate this post to the purpose of this blog: the unexplained.

Today's article deals with the very nature of belief.



Supernatural science: Why we want to believe

Monsters are everywhere these days, and belief in them is as strong as ever. What's harder to believe is why so many people buy into hazy evidence, shady schemes and downright false reports that perpetuate myths that often have just one ultimate truth: They put money in the pockets of their purveyors.

The bottom line, according to several interviews with people who study these things: People want to believe, and most simply can't help it.

"Many people quite simply just want to believe," said Brian Cronk, a professor of psychology at Missouri Western State University. "The human brain is always trying to determine why things happen, and when the reason is not clear, we tend to make up some pretty bizarre explanations."

The answer to that question is decidedly nuanced, but studies point to an interesting conclusion: People who practice religion are typically encouraged not to believe in the paranormal, but rather to put their faith in one deity, whereas those who aren't particularly active in religion are more free to believe in Bigfoot or consult a psychic.

"Christians and New Agers, paranormalists, etc. all have one thing in common: a spiritual orientation to the world," said sociology Professor Carson Mencken of Baylor University.

A tale last week by three men who said they have remains of Bigfoot in a freezer was reported by many Web sites as anywhere from final proof of the creature to at least a very compelling case to keep the fantasy ball rolling and cash registers ringing for Bigfoot trinkets and tourism (all three men involved make money off the belief in this creature). Even mainstream media treated a Friday press conference about the "finding" as news.

Reactions by the public ranged from skeptical curiosity to blind faith.

"I believe they do exist but I'm not sure about this," said one reader reacting to a story on LiveScience that cast doubt the claim. "I guess we will find out ... if this is on the up and up," wrote another. "However, that said, I know they exist."

A subsequent test on the supposed Bigfoot found nothing but the DNA of humans and an opossum, a small, cat-like creature.

Also last week, in Texas there was yet another sensational yet debunkable sighting of chupacabra, a beast of Latin-American folklore. The name means "goat sucker." In this case, law enforcement bought into the hooey with an apparent wink and nod.

Ellie Carter, a patrol trainee with the DeWitt County sheriff’s office, saw the beast and was, of course, widely quoted. "It was this — thing, looking right at us," she said. "I think that’s a chupacabra!" After watching a video of the beast taken by a sheriff's deputy, biologist Scott Henke of Texas A&M University said, "It's a dog for sure," according to a story on Scientific American's Web site.

Meanwhile, the sheriff did nothing to tamp down rampant speculation, expressing delight that he might have a monster on his hands. "I love this for DeWitt County," said Sheriff Jode Zavesky, who would presumably be just as thrilled to let Dracula or a werewolf run free.

With that kind of endorsement and the human propensity to believe in just about anything, it's clear that Bigfoot and chupacabra are just two members in a cast of mythical characters and dubious legends and ideas will likely never go away.

In a 2006 study, researchers found a surprising number of college students believe in psychics, witches, telepathy, channeling and a host of other questionable ideas. A full 40 percent said they believe houses can be haunted.

Why are people so eager to accept flimsy and fabricated evidence in support of unlikely and even outlandish creatures and ideas? Why is the paranormal realm, from psychic predictions to UFO sightings, so alluring to so many?

Since people have been people, experts figure, they have believed in the supernatural, from gods to ghosts and now every sort of monster in between.

"While it is difficult to know for certain, the tendency to believe in the paranormal appears to be there from the beginning," explained Christopher Bader, a Baylor sociologist and colleague of Mencken. "What changes is the content of the paranormal. For example, very few people believe in faeries and elves these days. But as belief in faeries faded, other beliefs, such as belief in UFOs, emerged to take their place."

Figuring out why people are this way is a little trickier.

"It is an artifact of our brain's desire to find cause and effect," Cronk, the psychology professor, said in an email interview. "That ability to predict the future is what makes humans 'smart' but it also has side effects like superstitions [and] belief in the paranormal."

"Humans first started believing in the supernatural because they were trying to understand things they couldn't explain," says Benjamin Radford, a book author, paranormal investigator and managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine. "It's basically the same process as mythology: At one point people didn't understand why the sun rose and set each day, so they suggested that a chariot pulled the sun across the heavens."

Before modern scientific explanations of germ theory, explained Radford, who writes the "Bad Science" column for LiveScience, people didn't understand how diseases could travel from one person to another. "They didn't understand why a child was stillborn, or why a drought occurred, so they came to believe that such events had supernatural causes," he said.

"All societies have invoked the supernatural to explain things beyond their control and understanding, especially good and bad events," Radford said. "In many places — even today — people believe that disasters or bad luck is caused by witches or curses."

Which raises the bigger question: With science having answered so many questions in the past couple centuries, why do paranormal beliefs remain so strong?

Sometimes the belief in curses crosses paths with religion, as was the case in 2005 when televangelist John Hagee (whose endorsement was solicited and received by presidential hopeful John McCain) blamed Hurricane Katrina on God's wrath for a gay parade that had been scheduled for the Monday of the storm's arrival.

"I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that," Hagee said at the time, reiterating the belief in 2006.

That might lead one to assume religion and paranormal beliefs are intertwined.

But in a 2004 survey, at the researchers at Baylor found just the opposite.

"Paranormal beliefs are very strongly negatively related to religious belief," study team member Rod Stark said this week.

Another study, of 391 U.S. college students done in 2000, found that participants who did not believe in Protestant doctrine were most likely to believe in reincarnation, contact with the dead, UFOs, telepathy, prophecy, psychokinesis, or healing. Believers were the least likely to buy into the paranormal. "This may partly reflect opinions of Christians in the samples who take biblical sanctions against many 'paranormal' activities seriously," the Wheaton College researchers wrote.

Cronk, the psychologist, did a small survey of 80 college students and found no connection between religiosity and paranormal belief.

But a 2002 study in Canada did find a correlation between religious beliefs and paranormal beliefs, Cronk notes. He figures that among other explanations, Canadians may not have the same belief systems as U.S. residents.

"My guess is that religiosity has a lot to do with how you were raised, and less to do with genetics," Cronk said. "Those people who may have a high genetic susceptibility to 'faith-based knowledge' may end up being highly religious or may end up having belief in the paranormal depending on how they were raised. Those people less susceptible to that method of forming beliefs may still end up being highly religious if they were raised in a religious family."

Religion vs. paranormal
Mencken, the Baylor sociologist, says sacrifice and stigma (for holding ideas outside the group norm) keep the paranormal at bay among the highly religious. He has two papers forthcoming that are based on a national survey of 1,700 people.

The first, to be published in the journal Sociology of Religion in 2009, reveals this:

"Among Christians, those who attend church very often (and are exposed to stigma and sacrifice within their congregations) are least likely to believe in the paranormal," Mencken told LiveScience. "Conversely, those Christians who do not attend church very often (maybe once or twice a year) are the most likely to hold paranormal beliefs."
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A third group, which he calls naturalists, do not hold supernatural views, Christian or paranormal.

Another study to published in December in the Review of Religious Research, shows that those who go to church "are much less likely to consult horoscopes, visit psychics, purchase New Age items," and so on, Mencken said. "However, among those Christians who do not attend church, there is a much higher level of participation in these phenomena."

Profiling the typical Bigfoot believer turns out to be as challenging as determining the scientific methodology of a psychic, however.

The 2006 study of college students, done by Bryan Farha at Oklahoma City University and Gary Steward Jr. of the University of Central Oklahoma, reached a similar conclusion. Belief in the paranormal — from astrology to communicating with the dead — increases during college, rising from 23 percent among freshmen to 31 percent in seniors and 34 percent among graduate students.

Bader, the sociologist at Baylor, and his colleagues teamed up with the Gallup organization to conduct a national survey of 1,721 people in 2005 and found nearly 30 percent think it is possible to influence the physical world through the mind alone (another 30 percent were undecided on that point). More than 20 percent figure it's possible to communicate with the dead. Nearly 40 percent believe in haunted houses.

Asked if "creatures such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster will one day be discovered by science," 18.8 percent agreed while 25.9 percent were undecided.

In a remote Himalayan village, on the other hand, belief in Bigfoot's cousin, the yeti, is seen by some as a sign of ignorance.

Media madness
Today's ubiquitous and often one-sided, promotional coverage of the paranormal, both on the Internet and TV, perpetuate myths and folklore as well or better than any ancient storyteller. Fiction and belief masquerade as fact and news, feeding the 24/7 appetite of the easily swayed.

Scientists are left with an impossible task: proving something does not exist. You can prove a rock is there. You can't prove that Bigfoot or a ghost or the god of thunder is not there. Bigfoot paraphernalia purveyors and cash-cow psychics know this well.

"Many paranormalists claim that their powers only work sometimes, or that they don't work if there is a 'non-believer' in the room," Cronk points out.

Or, in the case of the unsupportive DNA testing on Bigfoot last week, the top proponent, Tom Biscardi (who recently produced a film about Bigfoot and might be said to have an interest in garnering press coverage), simply dodged the mythbusting bullet by claiming the DNA samples might have been contaminated.

Money motivates even the law to look the other way.

Regarding the chupacabra "sighting" last week in Cuero, Texas: "It's amazing," said Zavesky, DeWitt County sheriff. "We still don't know what it is."

Of course his county, specifically the town of Cuero, has been dubbed the Chupacabra Capital of the World and benefits by monster tourism.

So while a sheriff might well be concerned if he thinks there's a goat-sucking, menace in town, Zavesky is in no hurry to catch the beast and debunk the myth. "It has brought a lot of attention to us," he said. "We're not near ready to put this one to bed yet."

While this article does not support the idea of the bizarre, I think it's message is important: Look for rational explanations. Sure, it's more fun to think that creaking floor you just heard was a ghost, but it's more likely that it's old wood making noise.

So don't be quick to jump to the unexplained as a conclusion. But don't be quick rule it out. Judge the facts as the are, and determine the most likely conclusion. Always remember two things:

1) Occam's Razor: All things being equal, the simplest solution is usually he best.

2) When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remain, no matter how unlikely, must be the truth.

Good night, and good luck.

The Night Stalker

The Night Stalker: The Return

It's been nearly two months. In that, time my power cord for my laptop died, moved out of my dorm, started my job, got fired after three days for not bringing in enough money, helped my mom pack for her move, went on a road trip, came back and ended up helping my dad babysit.

I rarely get to use the family picture, and honestly, the world hasn't been terribly bizarre.

But here's a mystery worth pondering: Lincoln's missing head:



Good night and good luck.

The Night Stalker

On Conspiracy Theories

I try to post relavent and interesting articles, but it's rare that I find one that truly excites me. As a result, I'm posting the whole article, instead of just the traditional link.

The absurd Princess Diana conspiracy theories have now had their day in court and been dismissed. So here are a number of other preposterous conspiracy theories.

Can you work out what it is that connects these ridiculous allegations?

1. Harold Wilson's political secretary, Marcia Falkender, made his life such a misery that the Prime Minister's doctor, Joe Stone, hatched a plot to murder her. He told other Wilson aides repeatedly that his plan was foolproof and would not be detected. He dropped it only when they refused to co-operate.

2. In 1959, when Francois Mitterrand was already a famous politician, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt outside the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. His car was riddled with bullets but he leapt to safety.

When the gunman and the organiser of the attempt were arrested they were able to prove that the whole thing was a fake organised by Mitterrand to win favourable headlines and implicate General de Gaulle. Charges against the "assassins" were dropped. Mitterrand was later elected President of France.

3. John F. Kennedy shared a mistress with a notorious Mafia boss and used her as a courier to bring him Mob money from her other boyfriend. Frank Sinatra disbursed the cash which was used to bribe election officials to fix the outcome of the West Virginia primary.

4. A future member of the Cabinet, Peter Hain, was charged with bank robbery after a man snatched money from Barclays in Putney. He was acquitted and now believes, with good reason, that Boss, the South African secret police, arranged for a Hain double to carry out the crime in order to discredit him.

5. The leader of the Liberal Party, Jeremy Thorpe, was charged with conspiracy to murder after the shooting of a dog belonging to a man who claimed to have been his homosexual lover. This man was also threatened with a chisel hidden in a bunch of flowers. The allegation was that money for the "plot" came from a donation made, entirely innocently, by a future owner of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

6. Jacques Chirac claims that there was nothing suspicious about his financial accounts while he was Mayor of Paris. He and his wife really did consume, personally, more than £100 worth of fruit every day, quite separately from money spent on official entertainment.

7. After World War Two communist cell was established connecting a number of officials with senior roles in the US government and stealing top secret documents. These documents were then photographed and passed on to Soviet agents. Eventually one of the communists defected, shopping the others and revealing that he had secreted incriminating evidence in his pumpkin patch.

8. Presidential candidate Edmund Muskie was forced out of the 1972 race for the White House by a series of documents that later turned out to have been forged.

One, produced on Muskie's letterhead falsely alleged that U.S. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a fellow Democrat, had had an illegitimate child with a 17-year-old. Another letter alleged that Muskie had made disparaging comments about French Canadians. These letters were in fact the work of paid agents of the campaign to re-elect President Richard Nixon.

9. The first British Labour government lost the 1924 election after only a few months in office. In the final days of the campaign, a letter appeared in the Daily Mail that appeared to have originated from Grigori Zinoviev, president of the presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (Comintern) and been sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

The letter advocated intensified Communist agitation in Britain, not least in the armed forces. It suggested that a deal between the Soviets and Britain, as proposed by Labour Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald, would help such agitation. The letter damaged Labour profoundly, but was, in fact, a fake. It had been concocted by mebers of the SIS (MI6) based in Riga, Latvia deliberately to undermine Labour.

10. In November 1974, the papers ran obituaries of a Labour MP and former minister after he disappeared on a Miami beach, leaving behind a pile of clothes. In fact he wasn't dead at all. Realising he was about to be arrested for fraud, he had made his way to Australia to start a new life with his mistress. Quite by accident he was discovered by police who thought they had finally found Lord Lucan. He returned to the UK and resumed life as a Labour MP. The party did not expel him. Eventually he went to jail.

What do these all have in common?

They're all true.

So, the next time, someone tells you their theory, instead of automatically dismissing it, remind yourself that, every once in a while, the theories are on the money.

The Night Stalker

If This Computer Is Really "The One", Then Something Should Be Stopping Me Right About Now...

I'm good!

Before we begin, it is with great sadness that I must report the death of Charlton Heston. The actor, who starred in such Scifi classics as Planet of the Apes (a few sequels and the remake) and Soylent Green died at the age of 84. You will be missed.

We've had some big news regarding computers.

First, we may looking at a future were computers and humans are one. We already carry computers every where we go, so it is not inconceivable that computers may inserted directly into our minds (You will be assimilated!)

I would highly recommend my readers looking into the novel The Last Book in the Universe for one authors vision of such a future.

See the below link for full details.



Next, scientists are trying to create virtual world similar to the villians of the Matrix series.

See the below link for full details.



On related note, I'm looking for a BAD IDEA! picture to post every time I read articles like this...

So, the next time you find yourself buying that new high-tech computer for your home office, ask yourself this chilling question: one you turn it on, will it let you turn it off again?

The Night Stalker

I'm About To Get *A Lot* More Annoying

1) Dring my break, I had my birthday. I'm still not 21, meaning I have to leave the country or go to Idaho to drink legally.

2) I got a summer job. I'll be spending all summer raising awareness for the environment. Particularly keeping the Great Lakes clean.

And now the top story:



Researchers now believe that an ancient tablet tells the story of Sodom, one of the two cities that, according to the Bible, were destroyed by God due to their sins.

The tablet says, the researchers claim, a asteroid hit the earth and took out the cities. This would exclaim the "fire from the Heavens" part of the story.

This would be really impressive if scientist hadn't already material in the region that could have only come from space.

The Night Stalker

The Amount The US House of Representatives SUCK Right Now Is Too Great For Words

Yep. They failed. Epically.

On a lighter note, the highest court of apeal in Italy has made it legal for women to lie about having a lover to protect her honor. Even in a criminal investigation.

I don't know why, but this makes me strangely happy...

Also, two towns in Vermon (Brattleboro and Marlboro (yes, like the cigarette)) have voted to give their police the authority to arrest Bush and Cheney for "crimes against the Constitution."

Guess what my new favorite state is. Go ahead. Guess...


I went back to sight of the ghost hunt my friends and I went on. I got a couple of interesting pictures, but you don't get to see them until tomorrow.

Cliffhanger!

The Night Stalker

A Call To (Political) Arms

I typing this from Area 51. I managed to sneak in and you won't believe the things I'm seeing!

...

Right, so I had some essays and video games that required my undivided attention.

If you haven't been living under a rock for past few days, you'll know that President Bush vetoed a bill the would outlaw torture, specifically waterboarding (simulating drowning). Tomorrow the U.S. House Repersentatives, in unbelievable speed, will vote to overturn that veto.

I don't think there are enough votes to overturn the veto, but that's no excuse not to try. It's probably too late, butt if you can contact your repersentatives in time, please tell them to vote to overturn the veto. I've been searching for my repersentatives' e-mail addresses, but no luck there.

You can bet I'll have my eyes on C-Span tommorrow.

The Night Stalker