Does the Canadian Meteor Disprove the Existance of UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Ghosts?

They Might Be Giants

Steve Novella of the Skeptiblog poses the idea that the recent videos of the Canadian Meteor suggest that paranormal phenomena does not exist.  Here’s the meat of his argument:

[The Canadian Meteor crash] was a completely sudden and unexpected event. No one could have prepared for it. It lasted only a matter of seconds. And yet multiple people happened to have cameras running and were able to catch the full event with reasonably high quality video.

It reminded me of this amateur video of a tornado in Miami. Actually, there are multiple such amateur videos – all descent quality. Just follow the links from YouTube.

In fact YouTube and other similar sights are filled with amateur video of all kinds of weird things and unexpected events. There are many videos along the theme of “What is this weird thing?”

The point is – we are entering an age of nearly ubiquitous video, and the quality and ease of use is getting better at a steady rate. Any phenomenon, even rare ones that strike with little warning, will eventually be captured on video of sufficient quality to allow for meaningful analysis.

And yet, no such video exists of bigfoot, chupacabras, any alien or their spacecraft, the Loch Ness monster, or Kevin Trudeau’s ethics – probably because none of these things exist. Of course, the absence of evidence does not constitute proof that something does not exist. But, absence of evidence becomes increasingly compelling the more thoroughly something has been looked for. As our world becomes increasingly blanketed in video recorders and cameras, the absence of convincing images of a phenomenon argues more and more strongly against its existence.

There are low-quality videos of most of the things I list above, and other things like ghosts (although the argument here is complicated by the fact that ghosts are purported to be insubstantial). But never high-enough quality to have a really good look – good enough to see sufficient details to tell whether or not the bigfoot is actually a guy in a costume, or if Nessy is actually a large floating log. Videos of such thing are usually little more than good enough to spark the imagination, but not useful as evidence.

Interesting notion as far as it goes.  Only problem:  We know meteors exist.  So if you show us video of a meteor, we believe it’s a meteor.  Same with a tornado, or a car accident, or Mentos in a Bottle of Diet Coke.

No one immediately tries to debunk them.

Video evidence of unexplained phenomena isn’t given such an easy ride.  In fact, the clearest evidence is often dismissed as fake because “it looks too real.”

We at the Ghost Radio blog are agnostic on the existence of all the unexplained phenomena we feature.  But we do feel self-proclaimed “skeptics” are often as silly as the most rampant believers.  And we rarely understand what they’re getting so worked up about.

Examining paranormal phenomena allows people to engage in wonderful moments of “what if?”  Maybe ghosts, UFOs and Bigfoot don’t exist.  But what if they do?  Thoughts like this can lead the mind to wonderful places.

Reminds us of the following exchange from the movie They Might Be Giants:

Dr. Mildred Watson: You’re just like Don Quixote. You think that everything is always something else.
Justin Playfair: Well, he had a point. ‘Course he carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. That’s insane. But, thinking that they might be, well… All the best minds used to think the world was flat. But what if it isn’t? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what might be, why we’d all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.

Out in the tall grass with the apes.  We think those tall grasses were crawling with “skeptics.”

You can read the rest of Steve’s comments here.

Just don’t get lost in the tall grass.