Reports of the Paranormal in a Cold War Document

 In March 1978 there was published "a Department of Defense Intelligence Document prepared by the Foreign Technology Division, Air Force Systems Command and approved by Assistant Vice Directorate for Science and Technical Intelligence of the Defense Intelligence Agency."  The document was entitled "PARAPHYSICS R&D-WARSAW PACT." Paraphysics is a term similar to parapsychology. The R&D stands for Research and Development.  The Warsaw Pact refers to an alliance circa 1978 involving the Soviet Union (roughly corresponding to Russia) and its eastern European satellite countries such as Poland. Let us look at some remarkable statements made in the document (which can be read here and here).

On page 3 we read the following about a paranormal ability test that got a "one in a million" result:

"The early short-distance experiments may have been performed to verify some of the research· conducted by L. L. Vasil'yev in the 1920's and 1930's and used a hypnotic state as well as normal consciousness. Some experiments were also conducted in shielded rooms. Kogan was sufficiently satisfied that the results were far greater than expected by chance and that further research was warranted. For example, in one experiment involving selection of one of ten cards numbered one through ten, with 'inductor' (sender) in a separate room, the 'percipient' (subject, or receiver) selected 13 correct cards in 26 attempts (probability around 10^-6 )."

On page 4 we read about an ESP experiment that was vastly more impressive. The document states this:

 "Perhaps the most meaningful experiment in terms of ease of evaluation and apparent potential in a communication mode was performed in 1967. This involved attempts at transmission of randomly selected digits between 0 and 9. Distance between 'sender' and 'receiver' was varied from several meters to several kilometers. Reported results, as attested to by at least five members of the All-Union Technical Society of Radio Technology and Communications ...indicates 105 of 135 numbers were described (received) correctly by the receiver. The article states this to be 78% correct; however, this is a significant understatement since it does not reflect the overall probability of such an occurrence. In fact, in terms of probability, this would have to qualify as the most statiatically significant result ever reported· in psychic research literature; the probability of duplication via random occurrence would be about 10^-77."

The probability mentioned is a probability of about 1 in 10⁷⁷.  That is a probability of about 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Whoever wrote the document errs when he describes this result as "the most statistically significant result ever reported· in paychic research literature."  Such a result was not as impressive as the result once reported by Professor Bernard F. Riess in 1937, a professor at Hunter College in New York. The Riess experiment is discussed on page 167-168 of Rhine's book Extra-sensory Perception After Sixty Years ( see here or here).  Another discussion of the experiment is here. Riess conducted remote ESP card guessing experiments with a woman located in another room a quarter of a mile away. Guessing a total of 1850 cards (each of which had 5 possible values), the woman guessed with an accuracy of 73%. The probability of getting a result this high by chance has been estimated as 1 in 10 to the seven hundredth power, or 1 in 10⁷⁰⁰.

On page 5 we read about experiments in which certain people could tell what was inside sealed envelopes merely by touching them:

"The investigations reported by Larissa V. Vilenskaya are an example. She has been conducting research with E. K Naumov (who is not currently active) and now appears to be involved with a variety of her own investigations. One aspect is her study of a phenomena initially referred to as 'skin vision' or, more recently, 'dermo-optics.' This relates to an apparent ability of some people to identify colors of concealed 'targets' simply by touching the opaque outer covering."

No one who has studied the abundant nineteenth century evidence relating to clairvoyance under hypnosis should be surprised that such experiments were taken, or that they achieved an enormous success mentioned below. It was abundantly reported by reputable sources in the nineteenth century that under hypnosis certain people could tell what was in double-wrapped or triple-wrapped envelopes or sealed containers (read here and here for some examples).   The Didier brothers (Alexis and Adolphe) showed such an ability in public exhibitions countless times.  

We read on page 6 of the "PARAPHYSICS R&D-WARSAW PACT" paper about this success in twentieth century experiments of this type:

"In one recent experimental series, a subject with apparent psychic ability identified the correct target color in 113 out of 200 trials (probability of 10^-21 ). There were four color card possibilities, with 50 correlations being chance level."

Such a result had a chance likelihood of about 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (the same as 1 in 10²¹).

On page 6.1 of the "PARAPHYSICS R&D-WARSAW PACT" paper we read about experiments that will come as no surprise to any scholar of nineteenth century reports of clairvoyance under hypnosis. We read the following: "In other instances, a visitor to Leningrad in 1975 apparently observed an informal 'remote viewing' type demonstration with a hypnotized subject." In nineteenth century literature on hypnotism (often then called "Mesmerism" or "animal magnetism"), it was very often reported that hypnotized subjects could engage in a kind of clairvoyance similar to remote viewing, under which a subject would describe details of distant locations not visible to his eyes, typically locations he had not seen with his eyes. 

On page 8 of the "PARAPHYSICS R&D-WARSAW PACT" paper, we have a discussion of Nina Kulagina, who supposedly had a mind-over-matter ability that could be described as psychokinesis:

"In a recent demonstration, under informal conditions, an observer claimed Kulagina was able to cause small nonmagnetic objects, suspended from springs in a plexiglass container, to move. In another experiment she apparently caused a plastic object, in an inverted glass container, to move toward her. There have been many similar reports from other USSR investigators and visiting Western observers over the past decade....In one experimental series, frog hearts were placed in an appropriate solution, and Kulagina attempted to influence their activity. Sergeyev claims that normally frog hearts remain active in solution up to 1.5·2 hours after removal from the frog. In the first of the experiments the electrocardiogram (EKG) indicated activity ceased about 7 minutes after Kulagina began concentration on 'stopping the heart.' The heart had been in a ceramic container. In the second experiment, with the heart in a metallic container, heart activity ceased after 22 minutes. In both these experiments, Kulagina was 1.5 meters from the 'target' hearts....In another experiment, Kulagina attempted to increase the heart rate of a skeptical physician. Electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram, and other parameters were measured in both. Abrupt changes in these parameters were noted in both people within 1 minute after the experiment began. After 5 minutes, Sergeyev judged the heart activity of the physician had reached dangerous levels, and the experiment was terminated." 

On page 10 we have a discussion of what sounds like evidence for levitation:

"Pushkin has also studied other aspects of psychokinetic phenomena, particularly the alleged ability of B. Ermolayev, a Moscow resident, to cause small objects to remain suspended with no apparent support. Ermolayev apparently is very close to the objects during such tests, which is suggestive of Adamenko's view tbat electrostatic fields may somehow be involved." 

Also on page 10 we have a discussion of research into a kind of "Ted Serios" effect:

"Another type of investigation into paranormal energetic proceeses was reported at the Third International Psychotronics conference by G. P. Krokhalev, a psychiatrist from Perm. His experiments involve attempts to have 'mental images' appear on photographic film. He claims to have recorded the effect under controlled conditions. As an example, a person who could visualize images well, even to the point of hallucinating, was able to specify the image beforehand tbat was latar observed on the film." 

The document mentions how a J. Eisenbud had observed such a power in Ted Serios, and states the Eisenbud's work "appears to be valid." 

On page 10.1 we hear more of Nina Kulagina:

"Movement of small nonmetallic and metallic objects: Gulyayev, and other USSR Academy of Science members, have observed the apparent psychokinetic (PK) ability of Nina Kulagina to move (slide, rotate, roll) small objects a few meters removed from her. Gulyayev is oonvinced this phenomena is gennine and has observed these effects under tight control. He now plans to develop more tightly controlled experiments, with objects in sealed plastic boxes, and to further develop Kulagina's ability to 'focus' on objects at greater distance. During these experiments, Kulagina's blood pressure is typically 240/200, her pulse rate is 180-200 heats par minute, her blood sugar is five times normal, and her electroencephalogram (EEG) is similar to epileptic-type people."  

We also read these startling details about Nina Kulagina:

"Gulyayev claims Kulagina's most repeatable effect is to cause burn marks to appear on other people. During acts of intention, and with her hands plaoed near the desired burn area of willing observers, a burn-like welt appears, with accompanying pain. These 'welts' eventually heal, consistent with normal burn recovery times. Gulyayev has experienced this himself, and has attempted to put physical filters between Kulagina's hands and the subject's skin. Some filters (metal, rubber) appear to have no influence; but others (glass) appear to block the 'effects.' " 

On page 10.2 we read of a subject that seemed to have an ability to partially levitate objects: 

 "Another subject (the schizophrenic girl) appears to have the ability to cause material objects to become partially suspended. According to Gulyayev, she can cause a wooden object (ruler) to 'rise' to a 45° angle with only one end remaining in contact with the table or floor. The ruler usually remains in this position for several minutes and does not slide when placed on glass. This has been photographed, observed by other Academy members, and has been thoroughly checked for hidden strings. Gulyayev concludes it is a genuine phenomenon, and plans to pursue this type of experiment further."

On page 19 we read this:

 "In 1966, Lozanov described one of his experiments at a parapsychology conference in Moscow. In this, a sender attempted to influence another person's selection of one of two telegraph keys. In nearly 2,000 trials, the appropriate key was selected about 70% of the time (probability of about l0^-6)." 

On the same page we claims that should come as no surprise to anyone who has read of countless similar claims about hypnotized persons in the nineteenth century:

"Investigations were also performed by several European researchers during the 1920's and 1930's on the abilities of Stefen Ossowiecki, a well-known Polish psychic. These investigations all concluded Ossowiecki displayed highly unusual abilities of a clairvoyant nature, including the ability to describe objects and written material sealed in lead containers and opaque envelopes."

On page 20 we read this interesting tidbit: "Stefanski believes hypnosis is necessary to develop and enhance paranormal perception, and apparently employs techniques similar to Kafka and Ryzl (the Czech researchers)."  It is true that reports of clairvoyance under a hypnotic trance seem to surpass reports of clairvoyance in a normal state of consciousness. American and European researchers in the past hundred years seem to have failed to follow up on this promising lead, as if they were neglecting to follow the rule of "use what has proven to work best." 

A table from the report

"Dinosaurs Swimming Between Continents" Is Their Latest Escalation of Commitment

There are many similarities between Old World monkeys and New World Monkeys.  Committed to the assumption that such similarities must be because of common descent, Darwinist professors maintain that the New World monkeys are descendants of the Old World monkeys, and that such an ancestry was able to occur because some Old World monkeys rafted across the Atlantic ocean something like 40 million years ago, arriving in the New World.  Such an idea is supremely unbelievable for several reasons: (1) the incredible improbability of a sea-worthy raft appearing accidentally from logs or vegetation; (2) the almost equally great improbability that any monkeys would ever swim out to sea and jump on such a raft; (3) the almost equally great improbability that such monkeys could ever survive a voyage across the Atlantic. 

You can make some rough estimates:

(1) Chance per year that a stable raft might accidentally form, one sea-worthy enough to take monkeys across the Atlantic: less than  in a trillion.

(2) Chance that monkeys would ever swim out and jump on such a raft, and stay on it as it floated out to sea: less than 1 in a billion.

(3) Chance that monkeys on such a raft would ever survive a voyage across the Atlantic: less than 1 in a thousand.

The overall likelihood of such a trans-Atlantic monkey voyage per year would be less than the product of all three of these independent probabilities multiplied together: 1 in a trillion times 1 in a billion times 1 in a thousand, which gives a probability of less than 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 per year.  The chance that such a thing would have occurred during a 10-million year window of opportunity is, according to such an estimation, less than 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000.

Now a new fossil discovery has caused Darwinist authorities to tell us another tall tale as silly as the story of monkeys rafting across the Atlantic ocean. We read in a CNN report, "The new dinosaur, Ajnabia odysseus, a member of the plant-eating duckbill dinosaur family, was discovered in rocks in a mine in Morocco, dating back some 66 million years to the end of the Cretaceous period."  The report tells us this: "Nicholas Longrich, a senior lecturer at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, who led the study, described the discovery of the fossil as 'about the last thing in the world you would expect.' " The report claims that duckbill dinosaurs originated in North America, and later spread to South America, Asia and Europe.  Another news account quotes a scientist as saying the discovery was "completely out of place, like finding a kangaroo in Scotland." 

At the time there existed a dinosaur corresponding to the fossil (about 66 million years ago), there was no land bridge between the Middle East and Africa, and Africa was completely isolated.  So how could one of these duckbill dinosaurs (called hadrosaurs) have got to an Africa surrounded by water? One of the scientists suggests an answer: that these dinosaurs swam or rafted between continents, raveling more than  250 miles.  In the Daily Mail we read, "Longrich told MailOnline that it would have had to swim about 250 miles or so, probably from somewhere in what is now Europe." 

Once again we have a Darwinist authority telling a very unbelievable  story to try to explain a fossil discovery that does not fit in naturally with a theory's predictions.  In the CNN story, we read the following:

" 'Sherlock Holmes said, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,' said Longrich. 'It was impossible to walk to Africa. These dinosaurs evolved long after continental drift split the continents, and we have no evidence of land bridges. The geology tells us Africa was isolated by oceans. If so, the only way to get there is by water.' "

Be very suspicious whenever anyone quotes Sherlock Holmes saying once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. It is typically a strong indicator that you are about to be sold some incredibly implausible nonsense. Of course, the idea of dinosaurs swimming 250 miles across the open ocean is nonsense and bunk.  Large land animals have never been observed naturally swimming very many miles across very large bodies of water that did not have ice surfaces for resting.  

Reports of a polar bear that swam for hundreds of miles in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska typically fail to mention that almost certainly such an animal was able to rest on ice surfaces while making such a journey.  The post here clarifies the situation: 

"But check out this qualifier from the methods section of the newest study (Pilfold et al.2016: 3rd page):

'Following Pagano et al. (2012), we defined ‘long-distance’ as any swim > 50 km, and included instances when a polar bear may have rested briefly (≤ 16 h) on non-detectable ice floes during a swim as a single event.' my bold]

So, for all of these studies, a 16 hour rest was the same as no rest at all and it was known that there were likely ice floes large enough for a bear to rest on in the Beaufort Sea that could not be detected by satellites. Got it – stopping on ghost ice for half a day didn’t count as a rest. Those long swims were assumed to be ‘non-stop’ but there is no evidence that they actually were, since what was reported as open-water could have been filled with undetectable ice flows easily used by polar bears to rest between swims."

In a water area of 250 miles between Europe and Africa or the Middle East and Africa, there would not have been any such ice surfaces for a swimming animal to rest on, and there would have been no reason for an animal to make a very long swimming journey (unlike the global warming reasons why polar bears may make long swims).  So the idea of two duckbill dinosaurs making such a 250-mile swim to get to Africa is ridiculous.  No human has ever swum more than 139 miles in a single swim, and whoever did that had some "break a world record" motivation a dinosaur would never have. A dinosaur reference tells us this about the tail of the duck-billed dinosaur: "the stiff tail is not believed to have been used for swimming."  The body shape below looks like one best suited for running rather than swimming. 

Duckbill dinosaurs looked like this (not a great body for long-distance swimming)

Longrich claims that "ocean crossings are needed to explain how lemurs and hippos got to Madagascar, or how monkeys and rodents crossed from Africa to South America." This is not true, and such tall tales are needed only if you are wedded to Darwinist origin theories, and the claim that all animals have a common ancestor.  Thinking that lemurs swum to Madagascar (about 200 miles from Africa) is almost as silly as thinking dinosaurs swum 250 miles to Africa. 

The type of duckbill dinosaurs which Longrich would have us believe traveled across 250 miles of water are called hadrosaurs. An article written years ago explains reasons why such hadrosaurs could not have been very good swimmers.  The article is entitled "Why Hadrosaurs Could Not Swim Well." The article explains reasons such as "hadrosaurs could not paddle with their feet," and  "hadrosaurs' tails weren't strong enough to propel them through water," and concludes, "hadrosaurs were one of the worst swimmers among the dinosaurs."  Since the fossils found in Morocco correspond to an organism three meters long,  weighing much more more than a human, there is no credible rafting theory than can explain such a 250-mile sea journey to Africa by two such organisms (some "raft of vegetation" being insufficient to hold animals of such a weight). 

In the willingness of some to accept these very absurd tales such as trans-Atlantic rafting monkeys, and poorly-swimming dinosaurs swimming 250 miles to Africa, we see what seems to be an example of what is called escalation of commitment.  Escalation of commitment is when someone makes more and more of a commitment to some decision or investment or theory, despite mounting evidence that the original decision to support such a  decision or investment or theory was in error.  The people engaging in escalation of commitment rather seem to have a motto of "keep throwing dollars where you've thrown a dime," or "if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging" or "believe anything required to back up what you previously maintained." 

Escalation of commitment can occur when a person devotes more and more dollars or time to a failing project.  Escalation of commitment can occur when someone responds to a stock investment loss by investing more and more money in the stock with a dropping value. Escalation of commitment can occur in a company when some executive is unable to admit that he hired the wrong person when an employee performs poorly, and kind of "proves to himself" that he hired the right person by promoting the bungling employee.  

Escalation of commitment can occur to a theorist when he adds more and more belief requirements to try and salvage some theory that is failing observational tests, or seeming more and more implausible as time goes on.  A theory that seemed "clean and simple and beautiful" at the beginning may turn into something "dirty and byzantine and ugly," as more and more belief requirements are added to the theory to try to explain its failure to predict reality correctly. Below is a typical scenario, in which a theory becomes more and more implausible, as more and more "epicycles" are added to it to try to fix its observational failures, with E, F, G and H all being far-fetched claims:

Starting date	Version 1 of theory: requires belief in A and B.
Later date	Some observation seems to conflict with the theory.
Later date	Version 2 of theory: requires belief in A, B, and C.
Later date	Some observation seems to conflict with the theory.
Later date	Version 3 of theory: requires belief in A, B, C and D.
Later date	Some observation seems to conflict with the theory.
Later date	Version 4 of theory: requires belief in A, B, C, D and E.
Later date	Some observation seems to conflict with the theory.
Later date	Version 5 of theory: requires belief in A, B, C, D, E  and F.
Later date	Some observation seems to conflict with the theory.
Later date	Version 6 of theory: requires belief in A, B, C, D E, F and G.
Later date	Some observation seems to conflict with the theory.
Later date	Version 7 of theory: requires belief in A, B, C, D E, F, G and H.

For biology professors, the most dramatic escalations of commitment have occurred as ever-more-organized and ever-more-fine-tuned biological units have been discovered, and as the professors have kept saying each time, "Even these wonders of organization arose accidentally."  Gradually, over a long period, it was discovered that there are some 20,000 complex inventions inside each of us (the 20,000 different types of protein molecules in our bodies), and also 200 different types of cells in us (each gradually found to be as functionally complex as cities or factories).  When units so fine-tuned and organized were claimed to be explicable under the prevailing theory,  gigantic escalations of commitment were taking place. And when it was discovered that eukaryotic cells were just too complex to have arose through any gradual process, and there arose a weird legend of eukaryogenesis by endosymbiosis (cells suddenly becoming vastly more complex and organized by gulping up other cells), this very strange belief requirement also was a huge escalation of commitment. 

Having wedded themselves to the notion of a purposeless origin of biological organisms, certain people will seemingly accept many an absurdity that follows from such an idea, following partisan professors down any rabbit hole, no matter how deep.  At no point does it ever occur to such people to ask whether credulity has been strained too much. Innumerable weighty straw-bundles are heaped upon the camel's back, each a new belief requirement required by the original assumption; and such people will never ask whether the latest one has broken the camel's back, requiring one to finally look for alternatives to the original assumption. Faced with evidence of extremely precise fine-tuning in the universe's fundamental constants, which dramatically subverts their "purposeless nature" assumptions, such people will not hesitate to postulate a multiverse of innumerable universes, which is like piling a million additional straw bundles on the camel's back.  And when some fossils are found that seem to defy their beloved theory, such people will not hestitate to believe in  poorly-swimming dinosaurs swimming across 250 miles to Africa, and also monkeys rafting across the Atlantic, and also lemurs swimming across 200 miles to Madagascar.   If you told such people that to preserve their cherished worldview they must believe in a thousand land mammals swimming 10,000 miles across the Pacific, from Peru to China, very many would probably say something like, "Well, whatever it takes." 

In my US state there was an interesting example of escalation of commitment. Decades ago a corporation started to build a nuclear power plant, the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, originally planned to cost 70 million dollars. As time went on, the cost of the plant grew higher and higher and higher, eventually reaching 5 billion dollars. No one would have ever started the project if they had known it would cost that much. But having committed so many resources to the project, and having their prestige so tied to the success of the project, the corporation executives just couldn't bear to "pull the plug" and admit they had made a mistake.  The Shoreham plant was eventually sold for the price of $1, and never even went into operation. 

We can compare this result to the escalation of commitment during the Vietnam War. It started out as a fairly reasonable proposition: just send a few advisors to a tiny Asian country. But the commitments kept escalating, as more and more billions were spent, more and more bombs were dropped, and more and more American soldiers died. The final result was that the US ended up spending 168 billion dollars (about a trillion in today's dollars), and losing 58,000 soldiers in a war that ended in defeat for the United States. 

The lesson of all these cases is that intelligent men can bring about end products that are extremely absurd, through a very gradual process of escalation of commitment. Similarly, a man wishing to drive from St. Louis to New York may end up driving halfway to Los Angeles, if he starts down the wrong road and stubbornly keeps saying to himself, "I've driven too far down this road to turn back now." Such a person may imaginatively explain away all kinds of evidence that he is traveling in the wrong direction. So when he sees a setting sun in front of him in the evening (contrary to his belief that he is driving to the east), he may explain away this sight as some slowly falling glowing meteor or a defect in his vision or a hallucination, like those explaining away unexpected "out-of-place" fossils by telling tall tales of miracle-swimmer dinosaurs or trans-Atlantic rafting monkeys. 

Postscript: If you do a Google image search for "oceanic dispersal," you can find maps depicting claims that plants or animals somehow crossed oceans long before there were any boats. The page here has one of those maps, which appeared in a scientific paper.  The arrows in the map tell us a large set of vastly improbable tall tales of oceanic movements before the existence of boats, such as (1) the claim that eons ago monkeys and cotton plants traveled from Africa to South America; (2) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from South America to Africa; (3) the claim that eons ago gecko lizards traveled from Africa to Cuba; (4) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from North America and Africa to Australia; (5) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from Australia to Hawaii;  (6) the claim that eons ago chameleons and frogs traveled 200 miles between  Madagascar and Africa; (7) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from New Zealand to South America; (8) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from India to New Zealand; and (9) the claim that eons ago some trees traveled between Africa and Australia.  

Child From the Sky: A Science Fiction Story

August 1

For Angie Torella, it was a night like no other night. She was out on a drive with her brother Joe. They parked at a remote spot, and got out to gaze up at a clear sky filled with stars. Suddenly Joe saw a strange bright light in the sky. Joe and Angie looked up with awe at the amazing sight. The light grew brighter and brighter in the sky, until it seemed larger than a full moon. 

Suddenly, a beam of light came out from the UFO, towards Angie. What happened next caused Joe to scream. Angie floated up into the air, as if the beam of light had some strange power of levitation. She rose up higher and higher, rising toward the UFO. Joe kept calling her name, as he watched the strange dazzling light in the sky.  The UFO remained motionless in the sky for twenty minutes. 

Then the inexplicable levitation was reversed. Joe saw Angie floating down from the UFO. She landed on the ground safely.  As soon as she had touched the ground, the UFO darted off, disappearing from the sky at amazing speeds. 

Joe asked Angie what had happened up at the UFO, but Angie didn't remember anything. The last thing she remembered was looking up at some bright light in the sky. 

Joe drove Angie back to her  apartment.  He wanted to take her immediately to a doctor, but she said she just wanted to get a good night's sleep.

August 2

The next day Angie woke up and felt enormously hungry. She ate the biggest breakfast she had ever had.  This was followed two hours later by a lunch bigger than any she had ever had. 

Joe arrived and drove Angie to the doctor. He insisted on the doctor giving her a full medical examination. Neither Joe nor Angie said anything about the UFO incident. They thought the doctor might claim both of them had lost their minds.  

Eventually the doctor asked Angie, "How long have you been pregnant?"

"Pregnant?" said Angie. "That's impossible.  I haven't dated anyone for six months."

"Having some problem with your memory?" asked the doctor. "Not only are you pregnant, but your pregnancy is almost half-way through."

Joe and Angie staggered out of the doctor's office. "Let's go get dinner," said Angie. 

"Dinner?" said Joe. "It's only three o'clock."

The 3 PM dinner was followed by another dinner at 6 PM and another dinner at 9 PM.  Angie's belly grew bigger and bigger. 

At one of the dinners, Angie and Joe tried to figure out what was happening. 

"That light you saw in the sky was a UFO," said Joe. "It levitated you up from the ground. Something weird happened up there. Somehow you got pregnant."

"But how could I be halfway through a pregnancy?" asked Angie. "I wasn't even pregnant yesterday."

"I don't know," said Joe. "Maybe this is the result of some weird power of extraterrestrial visitors we don't understand." 

August 3

The next day Angie had a huge breakfast, a gigantic 11:30 lunch, and then another enormous lunch at 2 PM. Angie wolfed down a great variety of foods. Her belly kept growing bigger and bigger. 

Joe stayed with her and kept shaking his head at the strange transformation.  After a very large 5:00 dinner, Angie made a sudden announcement:

"My water has broken," said Angie. "Drive me to the hospital!" 

Joe drove her quickly to the hospital. Very shortly thereafter, Angie gave birth to a son. 

Joe came into Angie's hospital room, and saw her holding the baby.  The baby looked like a normal human, except for a rather strange color of the skin, and eyes that seemed larger than any baby eyes Joe had seen. 

"No one will ever believe us if we tell what happened," said Joe. "No one will ever believe that three days ago you weren't even pregnant."

"Let's just keep it secret," said Angie.

"What should we call the kid?" asked Joe.

"Let's call him Tony," said Angie.

"Tony," said the newborn baby.

Joe put his hands over his mouth when he heard that. 

"This is insane," said Angie. "How can a newborn baby be speaking?"

August 4

Early in the morning Joe went to see Angie and her baby in the hospital. He couldn't believe what he saw. The baby was no longer even a baby, but a toddler. He was crawling around on the ground, and speaking in sentences. 

"We better get out of here as soon as possible, before the doctors hit us with a thousand questions," said Joe. Joe drove Angie and the child back to Angie's apartment. 

Angie's appetite had gone back to normal. But now it was the young Tony who seemed to have the appetite of three men. Joe spent much of his time making one meal after another for the child. It seemed that not long after Tony finished one meal, he was asking for another. 

By the evening Tony had grown to the size of a four-year-old boy. His mind took equally great leaps. Soon Tony began talking as if he knew very many things his mother knew. 

"How did he learn all those things?" said Joe.

"It's so weird," said Angie. "He says that if he just holds my hand, all things that I've learned flow from my mind to his mind."

August 5

"We'll have to register him for school pretty soon," said Angie. "I'm sure he'll have no trouble keeping up with the other kids."

After eating a gigantic breakfast and an enormous early lunch followed two hours later by a very large late lunch, young Tony asked to hold Joe's hand.  Later Tony seemed to know everything Joe  had ever learned. 

August 6

Tony kept eating enormous meals throughout the day. By 2 PM Tony had grown to the size of a ten-year-old boy. 

"I think we should go to the library," said Tony. Joe and Angie drove him to the local library. 

Tony started with simple books. His hands rapidly turned the pages. After turning all the pages of a book, Tony would say, "I've learned all that." He went very rapidly through book after book. Quickly he passed through first-grade books, then second-grade books, then third-grade books. He was up to the seventh-grade books when the library had to close. 

Angie and Joe drove Tony to a restaurant for an enormous meal, in which he ate more than two men would eat for dinner. 

August 7

After eating an enormous breakfast, Tony insisted that he be driven back to the library. He picked up where he left off before. Turning the pages of the books very rapidly, he passed through the textbooks of the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades. After pausing for a huge lunch at a nearby restaurant, Tony quickly scanned the pages of senior high school textbooks. 

"There must be a quicker way to learn," said Tony. "I should find a crowd. Let's go to the mall."

Angie and Joe drove Tony to a crowded shopping mall. By the time they all get out of the car, Joe noticed that Tony was now almost six feet tall. 

Tony walked through the mall, shaking the hands of strangers. Whenver he shook hands with a stranger, he paused, as he instantly soaked up everything each person had learned.  By the time Tony was finished he had shook hands with sixty adults from a large variety of professions.

"You're so big, I guess there's no point in applying to the local high school," said Angie. "I guess you're ready for college."

"Why waste years going to college?" said Tony. "In another few weeks, I'll know enough to take over this planet." 

Halloween Masquerade of the Skeptics

Tonight is Halloween, a night for masquerades.  There will be less trick-or-treating this year because of  the COVID-19 problem, but there will still be many masquerades. Little girls are dressing up as princesses and little boys are dressing up as superheroes. We also see the masquerade of skeptics that always appears around Halloween, when we see a bunch of stories online with titles such as "Why Your Brain Causes You to Believe in Ghosts" and "How Your Brain Causes You to Hallucinate a Ghost."  When they author such stories, skeptics masquerade as apparition scholars, and they masquerade as people who understand some neural basis for belief or some neural basis for hallucinations in normal people. 

In general, our skeptics are not apparition scholars, and are not scholars of human observations of the paranormal or human reports of the anomalous. The literature on human reports of the paranormal is a vast body of literature consisting of so many books you would need a small library to hold all the books.  In general our skeptics show no sign of having read any such books, other than a few books written by fellow skeptics. They do not busy themselves reading the classic observational reports of apparition sightings. They do not study the countless volumes of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research or the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, even though such volumes can be very conveniently obtained online at sites such as www.archive.org or this site.  

But in their Halloween articles attempting to debunk apparition sightings, our skeptics try to masquerade as scholars of the paranormal.  We can tell they are no such thing by their lack of references to the relevant scholarly and observational literature. We can also tell their lack of scholarship on such topics by their incorrect generalizations about apparition sightings. 

A skeptic describing an apparition sighting will tell us all kinds of imaginative narratives that do not match the observational characteristics of apparition sightings.  He may say that you went to some spooky house and got scared, and that fear caused you to hallucinate seeing a ghost. Or he may say that you were filled with grief, so your brain caused you to see the ghost of some person you wanted to believe has survived.  He will not typically provide narrative examples of such cases, because there are so few of them. 

What our skeptic will not tell you about is a type of apparition sighting far more common, that he cannot explain.  In this type of apparition sighting, a person who is in a completely normal state of mind will suddenly be surprised to see an apparition of someone he did not know was dead or even close to death; and will then soon learn that the same person died about the same time the apparition was seen.  There are hundreds of cases of such apparitions, which you can read about here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.  Our skeptic will typically not know about such cases, because he is not actually a scholar of human reports of the paranormal, but merely masquerades as such a thing. 

Another very common type of apparition sighting is when the same apparition is seen by multiple observers.  Examples can be found here, here, here, here, here and here. Our skeptic will conveniently ignore all such cases. 

Because he has not actually made a scholarly study of apparition reports, our skeptic will continue to advance his lame "fear or grief causes hallucinations" theory, even though such a theory totally fails to explain any of the more interesting reports of apparition sightings,  which occur to people when they are not afraid or grieving, and often involves more than one observer seeing the same apparition, which could never happen from brain hallucinations.  Our skeptic will not cite any scientific experiments supporting his theory, because it is a fantasy without experimental support. 

If there was some tendency for people to hallucinate when they were afraid or grieving, it would be very easy to prove such a thing with experiments. For example, you could test 100 subjects with an experiment in which you told them something terrifying, such as that a tornado or earthquake will soon strike the building they are in.  Then ask such people to describe what they saw, to see how many of them hallucinated. Or you could tell 100 subjects a lie that some beloved figure or one of their relatives had died.  Then ask about their observations, to see how many of them hallucinated from grief. Of course, there are no experiments supporting the fanciful notion that fear or grief causes hallucinations of apparitions. 

Besides masquerading as scholars of the paranormal, our skeptical writers of Halloween stories about apparitions will engage in other types of masquerades.  They will masquerade as people who understand some neural basis for hallucinations in normal people. No one understands any neural basis of why normal people would report seeing dramatic things in front of them that are not there.  Or, our skeptic may masquerade as someone who understands some neural basis for belief.  No one has any real understanding of how a brain could create an idea or form a belief or store a belief.  Just as no one can give a credible explanation of how a brain or neurons could either store a memory or remember something for decades or instantly retrieve a memory,  no one can give a credible explanation of how a brain or neurons could derive or deduce a belief or preserve a belief or store a belief.  So when skeptics write articles with titles such as "Why Your Brain Causes You to Believe in the Paranormal," they are masquerading as people who know something they do not know.  No one can explain why your neurons or your brain could ever handle any such thing as forming a belief or neurally representing a belief or preserving a belief, but we do know a little about why some people may think they understand things that are a hundred miles over their heads.  It has to do with the fact that the mind can take pleasure from such intoxicating but groundless conceits.

When someone imagines that there are memory traces in your brain of the sensations you had years ago, he is at least suggesting an idea based a little bit on reality (the reality of you having such sensations long ago); but it is an idea ignoring the neural reality of short protein lifetimes that should prevent any such traces from surviving for more than a few months (the brain replaces its proteins at a rate of about 3% per day).  But the idea of beliefs stored in brains is not based on any neural reality. If I one day think to myself, "If there came to our planet lizard men from outer space, they would be evil," and then that thought becomes a belief in my mind, this is nothing based on any neural reality, since I have never even had a sensation of lizard men. If there were any neuroscience understanding of how a belief could be stored in a brain, we would sometimes read very concerned writers talking about the grave danger of some government or neurologist changing your beliefs or political views or religion by doing something to your brain or giving you some pill.  We read no such stories.  

The complete lack of any understanding of how a brain could store a belief is shown by the fact that there is not even a word for the concept of a place where a brain stores a belief. There is a word ("engram") for the dubious claim of a neural storage place of a memory, but there is not even a word in neuroscience literature for an alleged neural storage place for a belief.  The lack of such a word is Exhibit A that there is no real scientific basis for the claim that brains store beliefs.