I think we went beyond the realm of Poe about a dozen threads ago.
Magical Realists Magical Reality
- Thread starter Magical Realist
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Perhaps the best known facet of the skinwalker lore is the so-called Skinwalker Ranch in Utah. To understand Skinwalker Ranch, you have to know Robert Bigelow, the wealthy hotel entrepreneur who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain. .... But in 1995, Bigelow himself was more interested in spending his vast fortune on paranormal research.
There was a 480-acre ranch owned by the Sherman family in Utah's largely barren Uintah County which was popularly believed to have a long history of unusual UFO sightings, cattle mutilations, strange creatures, and other assorted colorful tales. Its story was brought to the popular consciousness by journalist and Coast to Coast AM co-host George Knapp, the same guy who introduced fellow Las Vegas resident Bob Lazar to the world. Bob Lazar was a hoaxster who, for a time, convinced a lot of UFOlogists that he had been an engineer working for the military at Area 51, reverse engineering alien spacecraft. So Knapp was the perfect man to publicize the Sherman ranch under his nickname for it, UFO Ranch. Knapp published a few articles in local Utah papers and in Knapp's own weekly column in Las Vegas, telling about the UFOs said to fly around the ranch. Knapp's publicity caught the attention of Robert Bigelow, who purchased the ranch in 1995 and then hired molecular biologist Colm Kelleher to head up his science team, which included a handful of PhDs in various disciplines. Bigelow called his enterprise the National Institute for Discovery Science.
For the better part of a decade, Bigelow and Kelleher's group set up shop on the ranch and, with an assortment of paranormal researchers and working scientists who had interests in the paranormal, made observations. They called it Skinwalker Ranch. With a small portable building as a command post, they kept the ranch manned 24 hours a day to record any phenomena with remote cameras, and Knapp reported on any sightings they collected. They never found anything Kelleher would describe as physical evidence of anything, in fact the only real phenomena anyone ever experienced there were occasional cattle mutilations and floating lights. From my read of Knapp's reporting, none of it sounded outside the realm of normal cattle carcass predation and the various types of ghost lights we've discussed here on Skeptoid. Skinwalker Ranch seemed to have little or nothing to do with skinwalkers.
Knapp and Kelleher eventually published all of this in a book called Hunt for the Skinwalker, which, paradoxically, was mostly about hunting UFOs on the ranch instead.
There was a 480-acre ranch owned by the Sherman family in Utah's largely barren Uintah County which was popularly believed to have a long history of unusual UFO sightings, cattle mutilations, strange creatures, and other assorted colorful tales. Its story was brought to the popular consciousness by journalist and Coast to Coast AM co-host George Knapp, the same guy who introduced fellow Las Vegas resident Bob Lazar to the world. Bob Lazar was a hoaxster who, for a time, convinced a lot of UFOlogists that he had been an engineer working for the military at Area 51, reverse engineering alien spacecraft. So Knapp was the perfect man to publicize the Sherman ranch under his nickname for it, UFO Ranch. Knapp published a few articles in local Utah papers and in Knapp's own weekly column in Las Vegas, telling about the UFOs said to fly around the ranch. Knapp's publicity caught the attention of Robert Bigelow, who purchased the ranch in 1995 and then hired molecular biologist Colm Kelleher to head up his science team, which included a handful of PhDs in various disciplines. Bigelow called his enterprise the National Institute for Discovery Science.
For the better part of a decade, Bigelow and Kelleher's group set up shop on the ranch and, with an assortment of paranormal researchers and working scientists who had interests in the paranormal, made observations. They called it Skinwalker Ranch. With a small portable building as a command post, they kept the ranch manned 24 hours a day to record any phenomena with remote cameras, and Knapp reported on any sightings they collected. They never found anything Kelleher would describe as physical evidence of anything, in fact the only real phenomena anyone ever experienced there were occasional cattle mutilations and floating lights. From my read of Knapp's reporting, none of it sounded outside the realm of normal cattle carcass predation and the various types of ghost lights we've discussed here on Skeptoid. Skinwalker Ranch seemed to have little or nothing to do with skinwalkers.
Knapp and Kelleher eventually published all of this in a book called Hunt for the Skinwalker, which, paradoxically, was mostly about hunting UFOs on the ranch instead.
source: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4321
I believe! Aliens, or their robots, are actually running around looking superficially like human beings (although with easily-spotted flaws, which means that the disguise is a bit pointless, but never mind that).
The MiB movies are FACT not fiction!
I believe!
The MiB movies are FACT not fiction!
I believe!
Why youtube? The entire video is just a series of still photos and a voiceover.
Each photograph no doubt has its own explanation. At a brief glance, we have the usual kinds of "orb" photos (reflections from dust particles in the air), some blurred photos where the camera was moved while photographing a light source, and so on. Some are no doubt faked.
Next.
Each photograph no doubt has its own explanation. At a brief glance, we have the usual kinds of "orb" photos (reflections from dust particles in the air), some blurred photos where the camera was moved while photographing a light source, and so on. Some are no doubt faked.
Next.
Magical Realist:
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
And yes, history is suspect, and so is the news. Do you believe everything you see on TV? On Fox News? Do you believe everything you read in every history book? You must live your life like a wide-eyed bunny in the headlights. Do you believe everything anybody tells you?
Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. But apparently your video contains nothing from eyewitnesses anyway - just second hand stories. According to my cousin's former girlfriend's roommate, Bigfoot exists. There you go: proof.
Surely we should be careful to eliminate the mundane before jumping to the extraordinary and paranormal? Don't you think?
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
It's a possibility, though unlikely on the face of it. But if it was as common as you would have us believe, then surely somebody would have provided some kind of solid evidence by now, rather than the kinds of cousin's roommate stuff you keep serving up.
When I was younger, I thought it would be GREAT if the paranormal existed. What fun! Special powers. Ghosts. ESP. Mind reading and mind control. If you think about it, there would be some down sides, too, but if it was real we'd have to put up with that. The problem is that nobody - ever - has demonstrated any convincing special powers, ESP, telepathy, telekinetic power, x-ray vision or any of those other cool superpowers that superheros have. And the evidence put forward for ghosts and aliens is weak, circumstantial or faked.
Have you ever been on a jury in a criminal trial? If you ever get the chance, do it. You'll quickly find that eyewitness testimony is suspect and that some people even tell lies. I honestly don't know how you'd go on a jury. I think you'd flip-flop with every new witness, credulously believing that whatever they were saying at the time must be true, I guess. You'd be a useless loose cannon, blowing in the wind of the contradictory evidence and completely unequipped to sort the truth from the contradictory stories being told to you.
And yes, history is suspect, and so is the news. Do you believe everything you see on TV? On Fox News? Do you believe everything you read in every history book? You must live your life like a wide-eyed bunny in the headlights. Do you believe everything anybody tells you?
Apart from their 15 minutes of fame on the internet and so on. And maybe they've been payed for their performances. How do you know they have no agenda? You don't know these people. You just blindly trust them because they are saying the kind of things you like to hear.
The consistency of all this points to a consensus among the "believers" about the kinds of things that happen with ghosts and hauntings. These people are primed to say all the right things about their hauntings - by movies, by other people, by their credulous friends etc.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Nothing wrong with that. (Other than wealthy benefactors, who else is going to fund it?)
I don't know Bigelow, but from what I've heard at second hand, I think that I like the guy.
Good for them. Claims like these should be investigated.
My understanding is that the NIDS organization was eventually disbanded.
Robert Bigelow's latest brainstorm is Bigelow Aerospace, the inflatable space habitat people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Aerospace
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Seems that there should be tracks made by whatever that thing is in the photos above. Why weren't those tracks ever shown to anyone perhaps because there were no tracks because there was nothing there to begin with. So many sightings of things and animals mutilated but no tracks of anything ever shown how can this be? Because there wasn't any weird UFO or other worldly things happening due to the fact humans did all the mutilating so no other footprints could be seen.
So much bullshit about things that humans make up to earn money from books and photo shopped photos of things humans created. So much time allocated to something that is a complete lie and people keep falling for this shit, stupid people .
So much bullshit about things that humans make up to earn money from books and photo shopped photos of things humans created. So much time allocated to something that is a complete lie and people keep falling for this shit, stupid people .
Special effects have come a very long way MR as if you didn't know that. Here we have more special effects so that people, like you, have something to talk about even if everyone else knows it is just a special effect of some kind. How they do it is unimportant because most everyone knows it is made up. I do hope you will one day catch up to the rest of the human race and see this nonsense for what it is.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Most these places have been well known for their phenomena for many years. Many people have seen them and continue to see them. I hardly think a youtube video of alleged fake orbs accounts for this. But then you knew that.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
LOL! Right..this alleged fake youtube video accounts for the history of the Hessdalen lights, Brown Mountain, Marfa lights, etc. Do you actually believe they are just making up the accounts they describe at those locations?
It's all made up by some very creative people who can make you believe all the nonsense that you seem to believe is true but isn't.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Right..Everybody wants fame as the office worker who saw a ghost in their building. lol! Or else as the lying hoaxter that was only in it for the money. Do you have some evidence for this alleged scam? No you don't. You attack an innocent person because they experienced something that conflicts with your personal belief system.
Except for the fact that these people weren't just paranormal believers trying to find paranormal phenomena. They were just everyday office workers going about their business. No...they didn't consult movies and books to decide what was going on their own office. That's a silly and frankly paranoid claim that has absolutely no evidence to back it up.
You should probably watch the video instead of dismissing it. Half of the accounts given were from the man describing them. His OWN eyewitness experience. Also, someone's account of an eyewitness account doesn't discredit the account. It's still an eyewitness account. The news does this all the time.
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Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Do you have some evidence it was all made up? Who made it up? Who submitted the fake historical articles of these places to Wikipedia?
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Really? The ranchers mutilated their own cattle? Why? What was their motivation?
The boogie man made them up, you believe in him don't you?
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
So mutilated cattle and eyewitness accounts of floating lights isn't evidence of the phenomenon?
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
So iow you're just making this up--this story about someone making these accounts up. How scientific of you...lol!
WOW! You don't believe in the boogie man, I thought you believe in most things that can't be proven guess I was wrong.
So where are the tracks that the thing made when attacking the cows? Oh that's right none were ever found, I wonder why not?
Cattle can be mutilated by literally hundreds of various (not to mention COMPLETELY TERRAN) animals, including humans...
And, as has already been pointed out to you dozens of times now, "eyewitness accounts" are all but useless in general.
You are too desperate for evidence; so much so that you will accept almost anything, no matter how ridiculous or insane.
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