# So...How much of "the unknown" do you believe in? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 22, 2001, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633 "2001-08-22T23:57:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2001, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/1 "2001-08-22T23:57:43Z")
What of the preternatural and supernatural do you think might exist? I believe that these things may eventually be proven to exist: Ghosts Aliens Bigfoot (they discover new animal species all the time) Loch Ness Monster types (possibly leftover dinosaurs) ESP I don’t however believe in: vampires werewolves black magic rightious politicians dragons ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/2 "2001-08-23T00:19:28Z")
Ahem. Allow me to reply using two quotes from Rush. > [@](#): > > _From ‘Totem Pole’ off ‘Test For Echo’_ > I believe in what I see > I believe in what I hear > I believe that what I’m feeling changes how the world appears and > [@](#): > > _From ‘Ghost of a Chance’ off ‘Roll the Bones’_ > I don’t believe in destiny > Or the guiding hand of fate > I don’t believe in forever > Or love as a mystical state > I don’t believe in the stars or the planets > Or angels watching from above > But I believe there’s a ghost of a chance > We can find someone to love and make it last ---
**Author:** ![kasuo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@kasuo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kasuo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/3 "2001-08-23T00:20:57Z")
I believe in the following: - aliens (about 300 billion [?] stars in our galaxy alone, there has to be something else out there) - dragons (dinosaurs) - ESP (evolved brains and such – eventually) I don’t believe in: - bermuda triangle - bigfoot (crap) - crop circles (more crap) - witchcraft (eh, I just don’t buy it – the more you believe, the more it’ll affect you) ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/4 "2001-08-23T00:29:41Z")
I believe in witchcraft, heaven and hell, King Kong, reincarnation, fairies at the bottom of the garden, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfes, goblins, ghouls and meanies, things that go bump in the night, telepathy, eternal youth, Mickey Mouse, Father Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer … ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/5 "2001-08-23T00:33:38Z")
I believe many things are possible, but I think it’s far, far more likely that our pattern-searching brains leap to easy but illogical conclusions. The more you understand how humans think about and perceive the world, the more you scoff at stuff like ESP, dowsing, faith healing, and trickle-down economics. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/6 "2001-08-23T00:36:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eutychus55 \* > \*\*I believe in witchcraft, heaven and hell, King Kong, reincarnation, fairies at the bottom of the garden, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfes, goblins, ghouls and meanies, things that go bump in the night, telepathy, eternal youth, Mickey Mouse, Father Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer … \*\* King Kong was a fictional character. He wasn’t real like the others. ---
**Author:** ![Sultan\_Kinkari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/7 "2001-08-23T00:37:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > **Ghosts** Sometimes I do, but they don’t really fit into general philosophy on human existance. The idea is too unconventional for practical purposes. My current hypothesis is that the human being’s sole purpose is to procreate and eat. What would the ghosts be sticking around for? A booty call? One last Big Mac? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > **Aliens** I am 99% positive. I once saw some strange lights zip across the sky in an unearthly fashion, lending creedence to my beliefs. Plus, I feel it would be ignorant to assume that human beings are both the smartest and only “intelligent”(a chimpanzee has been taught over 150 different symbols in sign language) life the universe has to offer. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > **Bigfoot (they discover new animal species all the time)** Negative, over. The last large land mammal was discovered back in the 30’s(no cite, but I am fully prepared to be slammed for it), which AFAIK was the Tasmanian Devil. The only new species discovered after that have been birds, lizards, and insects. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > **Loch Ness Monster types (possibly leftover dinosaurs)** Sure. The [**megamouth**](http://www.elasmo.de/megamouth.jpg) was discovered relatively recently. I see no reason why other large aquatic animals havn’t yet been discovered. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > **ESP** Pretty damn sure. I have always been able to feel when I am being watched, even it is from a considerable distance. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > \*\*I don’t however believe in: > vampires > werewolves > dragons \*\* Me neither. Rightious Politicians are a dime a dozen here in Wash State. Mostly the kids of uper middle class waspy families that went to Reed or Evergreen State. They are for the most part exceptionally morally responsible but I doubt that any of them have had to work an honest day in their whole life. Black magic would be really neat if it worked. I have not explored it enough to make an informed decision. A girl I know from Jamaica swears by it…well, she says she has seen it in action. She says Ms. Cleo is the laughingstock of Jamaicans worldwide. ---
**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/8 "2001-08-23T00:56:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wishbone \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > > **Bigfoot (they discover new animal species all the time)** > > Negative, over. The last large land mammal was discovered back in the 30’s(no cite, but I am fully prepared to be slammed for it), which AFAIK was the Tasmanian Devil. The only new species discovered after that have been birds, lizards, and insects. \*\* Hey **wishbone** , a [deer](http://forests.org/archive/asia/newdeer.htm) was discovered in VietNam in the 90’s. Here’s a [picture](http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/species.html). And [this site](http://www.msu.edu/user/leonejay/newmammal.htm) mentions 2 others discovered in the early to mid 90’s. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/9 "2001-08-23T01:02:24Z")
Me, I’m a simple guy. Bung me some evidence, and I’m all yours. I’ve seen a duck-billed platypus (tiny thing). I watched a man walk on the Moon. I’ve seen the price of computers come down, while the performance went up. OK, what’s the evidence for your list? 1. Ghosts No chance. Claims for them have been popping up for thousands of years. In all that time, no physical evidence anywhere on the planet. Nothing. 2. Aliens 99.9%+ to be somewhere in the Universe. We know life exists on one planet. We know there are vast numbers of stars with planets. So the maths is with you. But the aliens don’t have to be close (I am talking astronomical distances). They could have died out by now (it’s been billions of years). There is no evidence they are here now. 3. Bigfoot No. It’s true they found some fish (coelanth?) that was believed extinct. But the oceans are not easy to search. You can find a new type of insect in the Amazon jungle. OK, insects are small and the jungle is a hostile environment. But a huge biped wandering around America? Why no corpses? Why no sightings of young? 4. Loch Ness Monster types No chance. What evidence is there to even think there’s any large animal in the Loch? Just some pathetic blurry photos. There is a healthy tourist industry based on Loch Ness (like Roswell), so the stories will continue. “Just you keep your eye on the Loch, young Sir. Oh, and would you like a dram of whisky, or a postcard?” 5. ESP Still no I’m afraid (but you knew I was going to say that, didn’t you?). You can test for ESP. They have. It didn’t show up. You didn’t mention dowsing, fortune-telling and speaking with spirits. [http://www.randi.org](http://www.randi.org) offers $1,000,000 to the first psychic to show supernatural abilities. Strangely enough, none have ever succeeded. Don’t they want the money? Personally I (reluctantly) admire the chutzpah of the guy who made money selling a book on the Philadelphia Experiment. You can find pages and pages of this on the Web. Apparently, during WW2, a ship was teleported. Wow! Of course the Men in Black on the grassy gnoll\* doing the alien autopsy hushed it up. \*a little pun on (dungeons and) dragons ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/10 "2001-08-23T01:24:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by glee \* > \*\* > > 1. Bigfoot > No. It’s true they found some fish (coelanth?) that was believed extinct. But the oceans are not easy to search. > You can find a new type of insect in the Amazon jungle. OK, insects are small and the jungle is a hostile environment. > But a huge biped wandering around America? > Why no corpses? Why no sightings of young? > \*\* Uh…According to Time Life some of the animals discovered within the last 15-20 years have been large mammals. I can’t remember what the name is(sorry, it’s been about 8 years since I read it) shy cloud something or other, is a member of the antalope family(so it’s rather large) and there were no signs of it whatsoever until the discovery of live ones in the 80’s. People have at least claimed to see bigfoot and its young. As for dead ones, unless it chooses to die on a hiking trail, it’d probaby rot or be eaten long before a human stumbled across it. ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/11 "2001-08-23T01:30:15Z")
> [@](#): > > So…How much of “the unknown” do you believe in? What ever happened to healthy skepticism? The definition of ‘unknown’ you are using would also seem to mean ‘unproven’, in which case of course I don’t believe. Is this just a survey or do you want to see some debunking? I’ve got Occam’s razor in my back pocket… ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/12 "2001-08-23T01:33:12Z")
Ghosts Aliens ESP Everything else…eh. ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/13 "2001-08-23T01:50:10Z")
Predictably, not only do I buy the whole Jesus Christ/born again/heaven and hell thing, but I subscribe to the newsletter. Further… Ghosts exist but not in the way we think they do. They’re not the dead: that’s an extension of our fears and a lie about the afterlife. Aliens most likely exist but, as Woody Allen’s mum put it, “What is that your business?” We’ve plenty to sort out here. If they can teach us stuff, hey, groovy. Were I in charge I’d designate 1 million of the earth’s population to learn astrowossnames and etc, and get on with finding them. The rest of us would focus on… well, not drug-induced versions of scientific potentials, at any rate. The Loch Ness monster totally exists. My father proved it during his time at the Sunday Post. Send me ten American dollars and I’ll let you have indisputable evidence. ESP? Meaning everything we can sense but not in a scientifically proveable way? Heck yeah. As for those who try to prove it… well… ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/14 "2001-08-23T01:55:33Z")
This thread gives me the willies; that so many believe in so much on so little evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Crunchy\_Frog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ebca7d/32.png) [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/15 "2001-08-23T01:56:49Z")
I put up that stuff about Vietnamese deer and forgot to answer the OP: **Bigfoot (they discover new animal species all the time)** Gotta say no here too. I don’t think there’s anything that large to be discovered in this part of the world. Those links to the Vietnamese deer even explain they’ve only recently been discovered because all the political struggles in that part of the world have hampered discovery. **Loch Ness Monster types** Nope again. Local legend. Think about this thing. The legnd has been around for damn near ever. How old is Nessie by now? I’m thinking Nessie has to be somewhat advanced in age, so there need to be two in order to procreate and keep the sightings going. If there’s at least two, and they’re breeding, and assuming they have no natural enemies in the Loch (considering their alleged size, I find that to be a safe assumption, unless there’s something else in the Loch that’s avoided Nessie’s spotlight) they’d breed themselves right out of food and room to swim. So what do I believe in? I’m halfway on the ghost issue. I haven’t ruled out the possibility, but I wouldn’t go so far as saying I believe in their existance until some proof is offered up. Aliens - sure, in the same way as other people have said. The universe is too large for us to be the only life form in it. But I don’t think they’ve been to earth and made crop circles as some sort of interstellar shop class field trip. ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/16 "2001-08-23T02:12:45Z")
If it is the unknown, how come we know about it? We don’t know…[list]- Craig Ferguson ---
**Author:** ![Juniper200](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@Juniper200](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juniper200)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/17 "2001-08-23T04:02:05Z")
Put me down for some of what Cervaise said. Well, all of it, actually. Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out. (BTW: does anyone know the true originator of that saying? A google search attributes it to about 15 different people.) ---
**Author:** ![Tedster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@Tedster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tedster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/18 "2001-08-23T04:12:27Z")
We’ll just keep it our little secret… heh ---
**Author:** ![Drastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Drastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drastic)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/19 "2001-08-23T04:20:28Z")
“If there’s a steady paycheck in it, I’ll believe anything you tell me.” ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2001, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633/20 "2001-08-23T04:24:55Z")
I’ll certainly grant that there’s unknown stuff, but nothing on either of the OP’s lists seems credible to me (evidence?). But, of course, I don’t know it all. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-how-much-of-the-unknown-do-you-believe-in/77633.md?page=2)