Skeptics of the paranormal made believers are always noteworthy as they demonstrate that belief in the paranormal does not necessarily precede experiences of it. In this case, the skeptic still struggles between belief and doubt, finding no explanation for the events that he and his wife experienced.
These people also demonstrate, in presenting their skepticism, a presupposed willingness to believe. This, of course, leads to a larger question of what skepticism actually is. To wit, I recall telling a story about my hollowcore bedroom door making weird noises,
noting↗:
But, yeah, it's kind of ironic. Not only is it temporally close to your much more entertainingly curious experience, but also I enjoy the irony of never once, when I cared about such things enough to spend nights out with friends chasing ghosts, having an experience requiring me to dig for an answer like that. We did, actually, solve a couple folklore mysteries; the bloody sink at the church, for instance―the rust stains, a leaking faucet, and yeah, in the right moonlight it looked absolutely terrifying. That was about as tough as it got, though.
In any given moment, is my skepticism trying to convince that an event is
not fortean? Why should it? When I want to know what sound my door just made, I start with the scientific, including the proposition that the more I learn the more I realize I do not know. Notice, for instance, that no skeptic called out the lack of scientific evidence:
Most likely, a very slight drop in air pressure compelled the door to swing inward, but in the end was insufficient to create smooth motion, resulting in the door repeatedly exceeding a certain threshold, overcoming friction and thus allowing it to move slightly, resulting in a rare sound from the hinges that resonates slightly through the door. I mean, that's the explanation I'm going with, but scientifically, I can't tell you how it works―I only know it's possible.
The reason scientific arguments don't object to my speculation of scientific explanation is that it falls within the range of possibility, is pretty damn simple in contexts we might describe by invoking the names Ockham and LaPlace, and anyone wishing to be more precise or correct will pretty much have to cross the boundary where I stopped and start writing down all the math.
Furthermore, if we consider my tone in describing the episode to a friend, it's because we were considering something about a ufo, but then she told me about one of those creepy, scary, not ghostly, who the hell moments that turned out to be a gecko, its prey, and a window screen. For people going through the processes of discovery we were, well, if I think of ghosts, it's, "No wonder people once thought of ghosts and such." There comes a point when my friend knows this sound, and that it isn't actually an intruder stalking the outside of the house, but the question remains what it actually is, and it turns out to be a small reptile killing its prey on a window screen. Between opportunity of witness and finding the solution can take a long, long time; at some point, no wonder people wondered about ghosts and demons and such.
Compared to older beliefs, our skepticism turns, once immediate known factors of agency are ruled out—
e.g., no other humans in the house, and the cat is where the cat is, and thus didn't do it without having behaved extraordiarily extraordinarily. Yes, really, squared.
At that point, we turn to unknown natural agency. In my friend's case, a gecko. In my case, a known phenomenon of air pressure in this particular house; thinking back, the timing is even right for significant temperature shifts in air volumes adjacent to the phenomenon.
Prescott's tale, by comparison, includes testimony showing a predisposition toward belief. This tendency would functionally alter the form of addressing skepticism. For some, skepticism is like a ritual obligation.
Look at the language: "Mom was gone. The house seemed
preternaturally empty"
(qtd. in Prescott↱; italic accent added).
The tale reads like it's written for Encyclopedia Brown fans, riddled throughout with antiskeptical clues:
Why is the intercom monitor still on? Is the system entirely wireless, or is there a part attached by wire to a power pack and sending unit? When was this, by the way, compared to "radio" signals and does the thing use Bluetooth? Where are which electrical lines compared to the nightstand that is probably not particularly distant from a wall? How does the furnace heat the house? Where are what water pipes? How is the home built? Where is the home located, and what is the profile of temperature differences 'twixt sunset and midnight in July?
The answer is wrapped up in those questions. We just don't have the information, and some of it we probably would never be able to reproduce without mindbogglingly extraordinary evidence
Beyond that, we live in a world when people easily mishear song lyrics and even lines of spoken dialogue in film and television, or even in simple conversation. Again, Ockham is pretty straightforward: A person under emotional stress perceiving precisely what they want to hear, a prioritized signal one's brain is actually conditioned to send under certain circumstances, and is also well known to falsely send. It's the same reason we can hear our name spoken in a crowded, noisy room, even if whoever said it is talking to someone else; and it's the reason we think we might have heard our name when, in fact, it was a different word somewhat similar in its sound, or a simple combination of sounds. Neurotic expectation is extraordinarily powerful.
The bursts of static have many potential causes. Cooperative and reinforcing neurotic expectations seeking relief from stress
will affect perception and memory. And while the particulars are lost to history inasmuch as we cannot have a record of their brain chemistry in the moment, Ockham and LaPlace alike will both fall in with the mysteries of known behavior than unknown physics perpetually causing reported results that cannot be verified or reproduced.
What doubt the witness expresses toward the end relies entirely
wanting to believe. The witness quotes Dean Radin, and grants it credibility; this is
not the sort of skepticism that is part of rational discourse, but, rather, checklist skepticism, a pretense undertaken as ritual obligation when believers or those desirous of a reason to believe try to put on a pantomime of credible skepticism. That is to say, the author's inner skeptic, as presented, is pretty weak.
Thus: "Interesting events experienced by a skeptic", as you have it, is a description that only barely qualifies, at best, and according to a quasiritualistic checklist assertion of skepticism in service of belief; it's not a matter of "struggling with his own skepticism", as Prescott put it. As the
would-be "skeptic"↱put it, he hopes for the outcome that defies skepticism. That context colors his entire report of events regarding the "message from Mom".
Or maybe I'm missing a bit about skepticism as an identifier, if not identity. Are the declared skeptics—like atheists and agnostics, for instance—identifying as such because they think it matters to do so?
Think of it this way: It's not about convincing that it isn't fortean; rather, I'll worry about the fortean when the evidence says so, and here's the thing about that: If the fortean is real, then I must prove it; to prove it, I must provide evidence that can be tested and measured. At the point we can test and measure it, it is not supernatural, but, rather, natural, and we're not engaging anything "para", but, rather, science.
What you've brought us is a tale not of skepticism, but, rather, ego defense.
