A mix of cold reading, hot reading, barnum statements, the forer effect, combined with judicious editing, selective memory, and perhaps a dose of deliberate fakery.
In theory, that is what Fact or Faked: The Paranormal Files on the SyFy Channel does. They scrutinize the suggested videos and stories, they call fake on a number, they discount anything that looks obviously fake and try to pick the best examples that could conceivable be true, or at least aren’t immediately obvious. They then go investigate them, and attempt to replicate the stories or video.
They have managed to successfully debunk some incidents. Like one UFO that was seen during the day in a metropolitan area. They not only deduced it might be a large balloon, replicated the balloon and demonstrated that it looked the same and the location, but they actually idenfied someone who confirmed it was a balloon on that date and time being used for some sort of publicity stunt/commercial/movie something or other (my memory isn’t precise). They also demonstrated one where a car “magically” teleported through a chainlink fence. The demonstrated that if you run a car through a chainlink fence, the fence tears loose from the posts, folds out of the way, and then springs back into position afterwards and looks like nothing happened. (I have seen a similar situation, a buddy at work had a car accident and witnessed it happen.)
However, I find I cannot watch the show because of a couple of factors. First, the staging of the show still uses too much “let’s go out in the woods where this monster that is attacking sheep was spotted and try to find it in the dark, by ourselves, with only cameras and thermal imagers”. Second, the “dramatic music” used over such segments grates on my nerves and ears, and makes the show intolerable. Also, while they attempt to be skeptical, some of them are a little too credulous in their results when they don’t solve the case. There was one, for example, where they attempted to replicate a string of lights in the sky. They tried three or four methods of replication, including bouncing lights off a glass sheet and lighted balloons. When none of their methods successfully replicated the results in the video, they drew the conclusion that there might be something to that claim. No, the proper conclusion is “we were unable to replicate the effect and explain what it was”. But I give them points for trying.
Spinster that I am, I control the remote at my house. Perusal of the TV schedules & advertising have informed me of numerous shows that *might *drive me batshit insane.
It’s the fact that they are on the SyFy Channel that bugs the hell out of me. Hey, I’m a big fan of fantasy and science fiction, and the thing is I KNOW it’s fiction! I like science too, the REAL thing, not that woo-woo shit they keep putting on the SyFy Channel. Woo has got NOTHING to do with science fiction and fantasy, so long as they are maintaining that on some level the shit they are doing is for real. That should be on ANOTHER channel, the IDIOT channel.
First or second? Beth 1 isn’t in the contest, having never been married. I’ll put my money on Marie Antoinette. A bit long odds, I know. But I bet when it comes down to the blood and bruised knuckles, she’s a scrapper.
I find it amazing how many people in Detroit an dPhilly have no freaking clue what a “No Standing” zone means.
My problem with this show is that they are getting a little too desparate for video and try too hard to see paranormal things in ones that are obviously not. Like the video of the Alien walking behind the Argentine (I think) reporter that was OBVIOUSLY a bad CGI added later. It took them an expensive trip to <whatever SA country it was from> and THREE failed experiment to notice that the video looked totally wrong and had the shadows going the wrong way. Something I noticed the first time they showed the clip.
I just watched a couple minutes of a Jack Van Impe video on YouTube. You’re right, he’s creepy too. But not as creepy as Pat.
I know it’s not cool to make fun of people for their looks, but Pat doesn’t even look human. He looks like a space alien wearing a human suit…badly. Combine that with his message (I agree, Jack is every bit as creepy message-wise) and it’s just…<shudder>
I totally loathe and despise the shows, usually “talent” shows, but including Big Brother, where thicko couch potatos can feel important by voting off some completely forgettable nonentity each week.
And in between, swoon and gush over fake spats between the talentless nobodys, aided and abetted by “celebrities” who play good cop/bad cop with them.
After the artificial assistance promotionwise finishes, the winners of these tend to fade into obscurity in a short while, or end up appearing as the panel/judges on equally dire crap fests.
God I hate them !
But apart from that I have no strong views on the subject.
I have seen an episode or two of this, I think. I wanted to give it a chance, but when they went to debunk a case of “ghost children push a car off the train tracks, saving the occupants” it took them till the end of the segment to “realize” that the section of road wasn’t flat, and if you put your car in neutral, it tends to roll by itself off the tracks. They had to investigate all the woo-woo shit first, including researching if a busload of kids ever really died there, and dusting the back of the car with powder to see if any ghostly children’s handprints showed up. The whole time they’re doing that stuff I’m sitting there yelling at the TV, “For pete’s sake, drop a handful of marbles and see what they do! That’s the EASY PART!”
I meant Mystery Option #3, actually, Bertie’s wife Elizabeth the Queen Consort who vexed Mr. Hilter so much. Plump, energetic country gal who could roll w/ the punches and hold her liquor; not like your wan, simple-minded Austrian teen, hardly worth a pence. Would get your back either, I’d wager.
Ya know, Prince Andrew served in the Falklands War, can we count Fergie as a War Wife?
OTOH, if no living person knows the answer to the question, the medium can say any damn thing.
The trick is to come up with a question for which no answer is currently known, but for which any asserted answer can be easily tested and found either true or false (e.g. “what sequence of left and right turns will get me to a given point in an unexplored maze?”).
Any show that has a laugh track should just be put out of it’s misery. I catch my kids watching this inane crap and tell them they are getting dumber just by watching it. Disney and Nickelodeon are guilty here. I am OK with those filmed before a live audience with real laughing, but the ones with the canned laughter are just stupid - if we have to be cued as to when to laugh it is not funny. At. All.
I’m getting a bit bored with the genealogy/ancestry shows where the descendants of slaves and slaveowners act like they knew nothing about the practice. “Human beings were packed on ships, chained together? And sold? Do people know about this?”