# The Phenomenon: What is it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2025, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583 "2025-05-20T13:19:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/261 "2025-05-28T20:37:45Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > I’m asking why, if it’s all explainable, we keep circling the same kinds of events again and again. Because the human brain is good at recognising patterns, because that is a useful skill for a social ape, but the human brain is so good at recognising patterns, it often identifies them when there are no patterns present. This is a demonstrable fact. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/262 "2025-05-28T20:42:13Z")
And, the more, for example, UFO movies and radio shows there are, the more UFO sightings there are. I’m sure the same thing happened after, say, the Amityville Horror, with ghosts. You become primed to see something, so you see that thing. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/263 "2025-05-28T20:51:18Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > it often identifies them when there are no patterns present. It is The Phenomenon: > **[Pareidolia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pareidolia&wprov=rarw1)** > > Pareidolia (/ˌpærɪˈdoʊliə, ˌpɛər-/; .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}also US: /ˌpɛəraɪ-/) is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one detects an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none. Pareidolia is a specific but common type of apophenia (the Com... ETA It is a key part of how our brains work. We take noisy input and match it to expected signal. It works most of time to our benefit but also causes a variety of perceptual illusions. Yes @RitterSport - prime for a signal and it will be seen in noise fairly often. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/264 "2025-05-28T21:00:01Z")
Thanks for the technical term. Between that map of sightings and the [relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/1235/), doesn’t that answer this thread? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/265 "2025-05-28T21:10:17Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > > [@Mangetout](#): > > > > …after the 1,000th unicorn turns out to just be a horse juxtaposed with some coincidental pointy background/foreground object, would you agree that it’s reasonable to scale down the search a bit, and maybe accept the default assumption that there probably aren’t unicorns and that the phenomenon causing us to see them is that our perception is not perfect? > > Substitute “vaccines cause autism” for “unicorns” and you get current HHS-sponsored “research” efforts. > > There are people who comprehend reality _but just can’t stand it_. When nothing and nobody can be trusted, do your own research! 😃 [![](https://i.imgur.com/iQlAVLs.jpeg) ](https://i.imgur.com/iQlAVLs.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/266 "2025-05-28T23:37:47Z")
Any “obsolete” Phenomena, things that used to be commonly reported but aren’t anymore? Mermaids and sea monsters for example seem to be out of vogue, despite the fact that in the first half of the 20th century more people were at sea in any given year than in all the centuries prior to the development of powered ships. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/267 "2025-05-29T00:54:18Z")
Off the topic of my head- sightings of Big Foot, Sasquatch, Chupacabra, the Jersey Devil and other cryptids are also way down. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/268 "2025-05-29T01:26:40Z")
A favorite theory of mine is that there **was** a Jersey Devil once, three hundred years ago, but it’s long dead now. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/269 "2025-05-29T05:31:10Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > What I’m pointing out is that the anomaly isn’t any single incident, it’s that events across decades, locations, and sensor systems keep almost breaching our frameworks of explanation, and then slipping just out of reach. What we are pointing out is that these events over decades, locations, and sensor systems bear little actual resemblance to each other. And in fact, they attract a lore of misinformation that makes them stay interesting long after they are actually explained. Not guessed at - explained. To take an unrelated mysteriousness, look at Bigfoot. The very best video ever attained is the Patterson video from back in 19… whatever. 70’s? Well, it had been proven to have been a hoax. One of the perpetrators admitted it. But there are still Bigfoot believers out there using that film as their cornerstone of belief. Or consider another weirdity - the Bermuda Triangle. This mysterious vague triangle connecting Florida, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. This zone is a powerful vortex of danger for ships and aircraft. It’s so powerful, it’s been purported to have caused the disappearance of ships thousands of miles away. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about it affecting a disappearance in the Pacific - the _South_ Pacific. The results that emerge if you study the field is that time and again the stories of incidents are distorted or just plain fabricated, but still circulating over 100 years later as if still relevant. The events are mysteriafied and then pass into the collective pop culture without further scrutiny by the masses. Because the mystery is so much more interesting than the truth. You say examinine the psychology, this is psychology. Human, repeatable, documented. Whether it’s cryptids like Nessie and Bigfoot, or UFOs and alien abductions, or the Bermuda Triangle, or the Oak Island Pirate Treasure. The same forces are at work - human patterns of thought. > [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > But the fact that these patterns persist, especially around sensitive military or nuclear sites, is worth asking questions about. I’m not preaching. I’m not asking for belief. I’m asking why, if it’s all explainable, we keep circling the same kinds of events again and again. First of all, you think it’s weird that the places that we are trying to pay closer attention for security purposes are the areas that data from the sensor edges are being scrutinized? That’s not a prediliction for some phenomenon to attract to those areas, it’s a case of trying harder to make sense of limited data and collection more data in those areas. As an example, look at tracking great white sharks off the coast of New England. The last couple of decades has shown improvement in radiotracker technology which has created a drive to tag and track great whites. Well, suddenly the scientists observed large great whites were hanging around in shallow water just off the beaches and coastline. Is this a new behavior for the sharks? Undoubtedly there has been some increase in shark activity as the native seal population has rebounded. But the thing is that the water is real murky, so there’s no way to see the sharks unless they surface. Before the transmitters we had no way of knowing where they were, now we do. That doesn’t mean sharks are suddenly going into shallow water when they never have before. When talking about low signal image data at the edge of detection ability, you are playing in the noise zone. Science very reasonably is cautious in the noise zone. With mathematics, you can compute numbers out to umpteen decimal places. But when it comes to real measurements, there’s a limit to what is actual and what is too fine to mean anything. That’s why science uses significant digits. If you add 5 to a million, mathematics says you have a million and five. But if you only approximated the count of a million within a thousand, adding five still leaves you with only a million, because five is noise to a thousand. Suppose I have a bathroom scale and wish to track my weight. My scale isn’t particularly expensive and is only accurate to within a half a pound, but the manufacturers gave it a digital display that reads tenths of a pound. So I read one time at 223.4lbs and another at 223.6 lbs and another at 223.2 lbs and another at 223.7 lbs. OMG look at how my weight is jumping around. Except I probably weigh a steady 223 1/2 lbs. The variation is false precision. A better scale might be able to weigh me to a tenth of a pound. Those numbers would then be meaningful. Except that display for some reason reads two decimal places. Again, false precision. Saying we have to keep looking at that second decimal place to see if a pattern to my weight emerges is ridiculous. The sensor isn’t repeatable in that range. It’s noise. > [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > I’m here because a persistent cluster of credible reports keeps nudging at the edges of what we understand. You have yet to show one credible unexplainable report, much less a cluster, and completely short of a _persistent_ cluster. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/270 "2025-05-29T10:25:52Z")
I’m not saying we should throw out science, I’m saying we should remember where science begins: curiosity. Wonder. The feeling that something doesn’t quite add up, and the willingness to sit with that discomfort long enough to learn something new. You’re right that science involves proposing explanations and testing them. But what I’m defending isn’t a claim. It’s the impulse to ask, especially when the available tools can’t yet measure or resolve what’s being observed. Dismissing every anomaly just because each one isn’t airtight is like ignoring static on a radio because it isn’t a song. Sometimes patterns precede understanding. And yeah, maybe most of it is noise. But what if part of it isn’t? Real progress often starts by refusing to shut the door just because the evidence isn’t polished yet. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/271 "2025-05-29T10:33:33Z")
You’ve done a good job laying out how false patterns emerge, and how easy it is for myth and folklore to overtake truth. I’m not arguing with any of that. But here’s what I am saying: There’s a difference between folklore and a dataset that keeps generating anomalies, even when scrutiny improves. If the phenomenon were just about blurry photos or culture driven myth making, I’d agree it’s psychological. But radar returns, multi-sensor confirmations, and trained military witnesses don’t fall neatly into the same bin as Bigfoot tracks or pirate treasure. And the moment we pretend they do, we risk blinding ourselves to potentially novel physics or mischaracterized atmospheric phenomena or yes, something even stranger. You say “you’re at the edge of detection, and that’s just noise.” Fair. But what if the signal keeps reappearing in the noise different places, different sensors, different decades? Is that just coincidence? Is every radar operator from Belgium to Tehran to San Diego mistaking Venus or birds? And if so, then let’s document and explain them all systematically, not pick off one example and declare victory. I’m not asking you to believe. I’m asking you to be precise in your skepticism, not dismissive. The phenomenon deserves better than to be filed away under “just more ghosts and fairies” because some of it is unexplained, and unexplained doesn’t mean made up. Science isn’t threatened by curiosity. It’s powered by it. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/272 "2025-05-29T10:36:12Z")
You’ve misunderstood me, I’m not claiming a conclusion, I’m resisting one. The consistent anomaly isn’t proof of anything, but it is worth noting when patterns keep surfacing across credible domains. Dismissing them all as noise is also a kind of belief just one that wraps itself in certainty. I’m not defending fantasy I’m defending the space to keep asking when the answers don’t quite fit. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/273 "2025-05-29T10:38:48Z")
Is this whole thread really only about alien sightings? From your description, “The Phenomenon” seems to be broader than that, but your examples all seem to be about aliens. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/274 "2025-05-29T10:48:03Z")
The extradimensional theory is something can never be disproved, so is pseudoscientific. Vallee is responsible for leading the study of unexplained phenomena down a blind alley. Unfortunately he is leading a small but significant number of people in the Pentagon and the US Congress down this blind alley. Together with other pseudoscientists like Hal Puthoff, Eric Davies and Travis Taylor, and publicists like Luis Elizondo, he is propagating the myth that the US holds reserves of alien material, which no-one actually knows the location of, but all they have is second- or third-hand accounts. AARO has tried to get to the bottom of these myths, but every so-called first-hand witness turns out to be repeating hearsay from another source, invariably untraceable. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/275 "2025-05-29T11:00:29Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Is this whole thread really only about alien sightings? From your description, “The Phenomenon” seems to be broader than that, but your examples all seem to be about aliens. Vallee also bangs on about Ancient Aliens, and has written on the subject of ‘patterns’ in history’ that show that a phenomenon’ has been occuring for thousands of years. He is not a historian or an expert in mythological beliefs, so his conclusions are garbage. Here’s an analysis by Jason Colavito of Vallee’s book Wonders in the Sky, which gives numerous examples of strange events recorded in ancient texts; > **[Blunders in the Sky](https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blunders-in-the-sky.html)** > > S  P  E  C  I  A  L    C  O  L  L  E  C  T  I  O  N Colavito goes through these texts line by line, and shows that Vallee has cherry-picked the texts to highlight anything associated with ‘portents in the sky’; even if Vallee uses an accurate translation (which is not always the case) he ignores all the other ‘portents’ that accompany these events, such as bleeding statues, bleeding crops and rivers running red. Livy in particular seems to have been a great enthusiast for recounting plagues of blood, which have nothing to do with UAPs/UFOs but everything to do with the wrath of imaginary gods. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/276 "2025-05-29T11:11:14Z")
OK, thanks. I had never heard of the Phenomenon before this thread, and still wish I hadn’t. What a load. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/277 "2025-05-29T11:12:02Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > If the phenomenon were just about blurry photos or culture driven myth making, I’d agree it’s psychological. But radar returns, multi-sensor confirmations, and trained military witnesses don’t fall neatly into the same bin as Bigfoot tracks or pirate treasure. And the moment we pretend they do, we risk blinding ourselves to potentially novel physics or mischaracterized atmospheric phenomena or yes, something even stranger. > > You say “you’re at the edge of detection, and that’s just noise.” Fair. But what if the signal keeps reappearing in the noise different places, different sensors, different decades? Is that just coincidence? Is every radar operator from Belgium to Tehran to San Diego mistaking Venus or birds? And if so, then let’s document and explain them all systematically, not pick off one example and declare victory. Can you just provide ONE example where it isn’t noise or some other mundanely explainable phenomenon? If there are literally no credible examples of pieces of the pattern, there is no patttern. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/278 "2025-05-29T11:27:50Z")
You’re basically asking us to assemble a jigsaw puzzle where none of the pieces resemble any part of the image you have pasted on the front of the box. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/279 "2025-05-29T11:28:25Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > radar returns, multi-sensor confirmations, and trained military witnesses don’t fall neatly into the same bin as Bigfoot tracks You’re right, machines that produce results that require interpretation and fallible witnesses are not as good as actual physical evidence . . . not that that physical evidence does not also require interpretation. And with Bigfoot tracks that physical evidence has never matched what a real track of an animal as described should look like. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583/280 "2025-05-29T11:45:58Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > but it is worth noting when patterns keep surfacing across credible domains. Except for consistant human fallibility, the only patterns are ones that people like Vallee are creating in their minds. You’re demonstrating the problem precisely, seeing patterns where none exists. It’s essentially a Rorschach test - you see what you want to see. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-phenomenon-what-is-it/1018583.md?page=15)