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‘Demons in the Dark’

 

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"People have been seeing things long before they ever had any ideas about UFOs," says Robert Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland. "In the Middle Ages we saw demons in the dark. At other times we see angels in the things we can't explain."

When people see something they cannot explain—which might happen more frequently in a "noisy environment," Park says—they use images stored in the brain to complete the picture and make sense of it. Because culture is full of images from "The Twilight Zone," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "The Matrix," and UFO documentaries on the Discovery Channel, people project those sci-fi images.

People seeing images also make precise assessments that defy easy explanation. A Stephenville businessman's estimate that a milelong spaceship was traveling 120,000 miles an hour—he says the ship moved as fast in four seconds as his Cessna jet travels in 20 minutes—exceeds the average person's ability to judge distances and speed.

The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein used the image of the "duck-rabbit" to explain how people construct ideas and images according to the language of their culture. The image could be viewed as either a duck or a rabbit. Studies show that some people are able to see one of the figures while others can see both. How each person interprets the image depends on both psychological and social factors.

Michael Persinger, a behavioral neuroscientist at Laurentian University, takes the analysis of brainwork even deeper. Working with 2,000 research subjects, Persinger has shown how magnetic stimulation of different parts of the brain can activate different feelings and emotions—such as oneness with God, feelings of love and lust, anger and anxiety, and even the feeling of being in the presence of a UFO.

Many UFO sightings come during a period of earthquakes, when shifts in the earth's plates alter the atmosphere's magnetic charges. So it's not surprising that people's brains could vividly experience what seems to be a UFO sighting or even an alien abduction.

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Member Comments

  • Posted By: Vanamali @ 03/28/2009 8:15:25 PM

    Back in time in some areas when the white man stepped off the boat the natives mistook them for gods, something similar might have happened that gave rise to Christianity. god in the image of man? Why would god have the need for a mouth, or ears or eyes? Does he need feet to walk the heavens? Does he need hands to hold something? Does he eat? He has male genetalia and he is having sex with whom? This does not make any sense. Obviously we have this shape because we live on this earth. Could it be that the ???god??? that the bible was talking about was actually an alien from another planet, a planet similar to ours so he looks like us? Are we no better than those natives who mistook a white man for god?

  • Posted By: carlosg @ 11/18/2008 11:45:52 AM

    Enter Your Commentthe haiti ufo was proven a fake.but there are ones that are defanately not fake my friend.

  • Posted By: carlosg @ 11/18/2008 9:05:32 AM

    excellent my friend.you summed it up perfecly.good man.

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