Hauntings and jurisprudence

It's interesting to see what happens when people's beliefs in the paranormal bump into the legal system.

Last month, we had the story of a man in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin who told the sheriff that the injuries his wife had sustained had come from her being punched by a ghost.  (It didn't work, and the man was arrested for domestic assault.)  In Romania last year, legislators were officially cursed by a group of self-styled witches after they passed a law requiring the witches to pay taxes on money they collect from people for casting spells.  (You can read my post about this story here.)  In Britain, we have the Fraudulent Mediums Act, passed in 1951 and revised in 2008, which requires so-called mediums to state up front that their psychic readings, contacting of the dead, and so on were "for entertainment purposes only."

Now, we have a story out of Norway, courtesy of the wonderful blog Doubtful News, about some folks who had agreed to buy a house, and then tried to back out of the deal because the house was haunted.

According to the Gudbrandsdølen Dagningen, "The house owner accepted the buyer's bid and considered the house sold when the date for the takeover was set to happen... but in the meantime the buyer heard stories about unexplained phenomena and has refused to go through with the transaction.  Now the controversy around the house purchase in a village in Gudbrandsdalen has been going on for so long that the house owner has decided to sue the buyer."

How could courts settle such a case, when in order to establish that the seller was trying to cheat the buyer, the prosecutor would have to establish the existence of something that doesn't, technically, exist?

Interestingly, here in the US we have laws covering just such occurrences, and they're usually phrased in such a way that the court is not required to take a stand on the existence, or nonexistence, of ghosts.  In the case of Stambovsky vs. Ackley, which reached the New York State Supreme Court in 1991, a woman named Helen Ackley in Nyack, New York owned a house that she had repeatedly reported was haunted by poltergeists.  (She had even written a piece in Reader's Digest about it.)  When, in 1989, Ackley decided to sell the house, she didn't tell the prospective buyer, one Jeffrey Stambovsky, about the alleged haunting.  Stambovsky put a down payment on the house, signed the contract -- and only afterwards found out about the poltergeists.  When he tried to get the contract torn up, Ackley refused -- and Stambovsky sued.

Ultimately, the court ruled that since ghost activity would not show up in a typical home inspection, but that the reputation of a house's being haunted could reduce its property value, the buyer had the right to back out of the contract:

Where, as here, the seller not only takes unfair advantage of the buyer's ignorance but has created and perpetuated a condition about which he is unlikely to even inquire, enforcement of the contract (in whole or in part) is offensive to the court's sense of equity. Application of the remedy of rescission, within the bounds of the narrow exception to the doctrine of caveat emptor set forth herein, is entirely appropriate to relieve the unwitting purchaser from the consequences of a most unnatural bargain.

Note that the court didn't address the issue of whether the ghosts actually have to exist; it's merely the reputation of being haunted that is relevant.

One has to wonder if the courts in Norway will achieve such a delicately balanced solution.  But I also have to question how the legal system, with its ostensible emphasis on finding out the truth, can be entirely unconcerned as to whether the claims at the heart of a case are true or false.  I'm no lawyer, and I'd expect that the argument would be that the relevant issue was the potential loss of property value by the seller because of the claims, not whether or not the claims were themselves valid.  However, how can it not be relevant whether the ghosts in question actually existed?  At what point is it within the framework of the law to say, "Sorry, dude, ghosts aren't real?"  The sheriff in Wisconsin certainly had no problem with saying that to the guy who said that a ghost punched his wife. 

Tragedy, judgment, and shades of gray

One of my many faults is that I seem to see everything in shades of gray.  In the realm of science, okay, a lot of that is pretty black and white; but when it comes to people, I always see actions as a web of causes, effects, qualifications, and mitigating circumstances.

I've been thinking about this because of a tragedy that struck in our little village this Wednesday.  An 18-year-old former student of mine, at a little past eleven in the morning, apparently assaulted his father and injured him badly enough that the father had to be airlifted to a hospital in Syracuse.  The last I checked, the father's condition had been upgraded from "critical" to "fair," but informed sources have said "he's not doing well," and one of them even used the dreaded words "brain damage."

The son is now being held in jail, has been charged with felony assault, had his bail set at $100,000, and is facing a possible sentence of up to 25 years in prison.

What I've noticed about this whole sad mess is how quick people are to rush to judgment.  I read the "comments" section under one of the articles that appeared in our local newspaper's website, and saw ones that said, "This kid is a vicious criminal and should rot in jail," "I know the son and he wouldn't do something like this without provocation," and more than one that referenced an allegation that the son was using drugs at the time and that the real criminal was the one who supplied him with the drugs.

I find it a little appalling that people are so willing to pass judgment on a situation while knowing almost nothing in the way of facts.  It is, apparently, nearly certain that the son was the one who committed the assault; while the media has used the word "alleged," I strongly got the impression that it was being used in its formal legal sense only.  However, why did he assault his father?  Honestly, at this point, no one knows, except the son himself and perhaps his legal counsel.  Anything we say about it is speculation, and I have no idea why someone would want to commit him/herself to a statement of judgment based upon speculation.

As far as blame... let's say that the claims of drug use are correct, and the kid was high as a kite at the time.  Does this diminish responsibility?  Or increase it, as he was committing one crime (using illegal drugs) while he committed another?  Does his supplier bear some of the guilt?  We are all so interconnected, and our actions have so many causes, that it seems to me to be nearly impossible to sort it all out.

All I can say is that when I think of the son, I remember, a quiet, gentle, soft-spoken boy, who had a ready smile and a quick wit.  He didn't focus very hard on school work, but he was unfailingly well-behaved and respectful in my class, and after taking my Critical Thinking class last year he came up and thanked me and said it was one of the most interesting classes he'd ever had.  I think of him sitting in a prison cell for perhaps the next two decades -- as if somehow that will rectify what he has done.  I think of his father's life, damaged perhaps beyond repair.  I think of his younger brother, who is mentally disabled, and who now has effectively lost two family members. 

It's a situation where everyone has lost, and at this point nothing we can do will make any of it better.

And I also think: I would make a terrible juror.  In all but a few, clear-cut cases, I would hate to be put in a position of passing judgment.  And I sometimes wish I did see actions in simpler terms.  It would make life a great deal easier.

That's no moon. It's a space station.

The whole subject of "book reviews" has been much on my mind lately, because being (as well as a blogger) a fiction writer, with several titles to my name on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, I am constantly monitoring my links to see if I've gotten good reviews.  Or bad reviews.  Or any reviews.  Because, let's face it, Brendan Behan was on to something when he said, "There is no such thing as bad publicity."

On the other hand, you have to wonder how accurate reviews really are, and I mean no disrespect to the people who have reviewed my work.  Especially those who have given it five stars.

The subject comes up because I was doing some research for today's post, on a topic suggested by a student, to wit, the conjecture that the Moon is an artificial construct.  It seems like the first serious exploration of the claim was done by Christopher Knight in his 2007 book, Who Built The Moon?, but it has recently come back to light because the cause has been taken up by noted wingnut David Icke in his latest publication, Human Race, Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More.  And no, I'm not making that title up, and I wonder if you had the same reaction as I did when you read it, which is to hear deep voices in the background going, "A wimoweh, a wimoweh, a wimoweh."

Be that as it may, Icke is into the artificial-moon theory in a big way.  Here's a quote from his book:

I had that overwhelming feeling at my computer that the Moon was artificial and was being used to control life on this planet.  It is the Reptilians’ control system. The placement of the Moon dictates the speed of Earth’s rotation and the angle at which it rotates – 22.5 degrees from vertical.  This angle creates the four seasons because of the way planet faces the Sun during its annual orbit.  The Moon has a major influence on the tides – far more than the Sun – and with the human body consisting of some 70 per cent water it is bound to have a fantastic influence on us, even on that level alone.  The Moon also dictates so much of our relationship with time, and the term ‘month’ is really Moonth, a period based on the cycles of the Moon.  The realisation that the Moon is a gigantic spacecraft is the strand that connects all the rest, not just in relation to Moon anomalies, but also to life on Earth and the conspiracy to enslave humanity.  The fact is that the Reptilians in the Moon and in underground bases on Mars depend on humans and the Earth for food – their very survival.  This is one key reason why they are desperate not to be exposed.  Water and other resources are constantly being taken from this planet to the Moon and Mars and this is not a new phenomena, either.  Ancient Zulu stories say the same.

Well, far be it from me to rely on the findings of science when they're contradicted by "ancient Zulu stories."

Anyway, Icke goes on like this for 690 pages, talking about how the Moon must be hollow, that it's older than the Earth is, and has "anomalous quantities" of "metals such as brass and mica" (for the non-geologists in the studio audience, let me point out that mica isn't a metal), that particles of metallic iron on the Moon's surface are "mysteriously resistant to rusting" (not a surprise given that rusting is oxidation, a process that is unlikely to occur in a place with no atmosphere), and that the maria ("seas") are places where meteorite collisions resulted in damage, which had to be repaired by the Reptilians using "an artificial cement-like substance."

690 pages of this.  And it costs $23.00, plus shipping and handling, to purchase it from Amazon. 

So anyway, I'm wading through all of this, and just shaking my head, but then I saw the thing that made me shake my head so much I looked like I had a severe disorder of the central nervous system -- that this book has received 49 reviews, of which 37 gave it five stars.  Here are a few selected phrases from these reviews:

• Icke is one of the very few conspiracy whistleblowers who has developed a relatively advanced spiritual awareness from which he can provide a useful context and understanding of the material he has uncovered.
• If you are sick of all this government crap then you should read this book because it really opens your eyes to the truth and makes you realize how stupid and fake this world really is.
• This could be the most important book EVER written.  If you don't know where the world is headed, you need to find out and David Icke tells how we can return to freedom.
• Most informative book there is about what is happening in the world today and who is causing it.  It also tells you what you can do to change it. 

All of which makes me, as a teacher of critical thinking, want to weep softly and bang my head on my desk.  However, there is one thought that gives me hope.

Reviews are, by their very nature, a skewed sample.  People who review this book have (one would hope) read it, which means that the presumably huge number of people in this world who would read the book's description, see its price, and then laugh and say "no freakin' way" are already eliminated from the pool.  Only once you have forked over your $23.00 (plus shipping and handling) are you going to be able to review the book, and this speaks to a certain level of, shall we say, credulity right from the starting gate.

So, anyway, I'm trying to be positive, here, which is sometimes difficult.  Wingnuts will always be out there trumpeting their theories; that is, after all, what wingnuts do.  And there will always be a small group of people who think that their nutty ideas make total sense, and I emphasize the words "small group" with every hopeful thought of which I am capable.  For right now, I'll just try to put the whole thing out of my mind, if only to stop the voices in my head from singing, "A wimoweh, a wimoweh, a wimoweh," which is getting a little annoying.

Psychic surfers

Let me just say, up front, that I love my readers.

I read, and enjoy, every one of their comments.  I even like the ones who disagree with me.  The heart of skepticism is careful thought, and comments from people who think I'm wrong provoke me to think, reevaluate, reconsider. 

But every once in a while, a comment (or commenter) stands out as being especially wonderful, and that happened yesterday, and generated today's post.

If you read yesterday's post, you will no doubt remember that it was about some folks selling something called the "LifeIonizer."  I ended the post bemoaning the fact that due to my exploration of all things woo-woo, I tend to get bombarded by advertisements for things like crystals and Tarot card readings, and rarely see advertisements featuring scantily-clad surfers, and how much I would prefer the latter.

This prompted a comment from one of my frequent readers that consisted only of a link to a site, featuring a woman named Kristi Walsh, which is called...

...  Psychic Surfers.

After clicking the link, then attempting not to spray a mouthful of coffee all over my computer, and then spending the next five minutes laughing, I looked into it a little further, and went to Kristi Walsh's website (here).  Much to my disappointment, it seems as if she is using surfing as a metaphor:

Surfing is the perfect image for riding the ascension wave. This is the first time the earth, the solar system, and all beings on this planet have experienced ascension. Well, let me rephrase that, if we have experienced this before, it might have been 26,000 years ago. So most of us, jump into the NOW, or present time, and we have to figure out along the way, how to surf these psychic waves, or cosmic waves, or maverick waves.

Oh, okay!  I mean, my only question would be: what?  I don't know about you, but I didn't experience much of anything 26,000 years ago.  So I kept reading, hoping it would become clearer:

Many of us have been using psychic or spiritual tools, but we are always being called to the surf. Things are changing from a third or fourth dimensional world to something different, we are expanding our world from duality to a world where we are all one, and we are interested in new ways to create peace within ourselves and with others. Ascension means different things to different folks but there are similar stories, where one day you wake up remembering dreams and spiritual mystery school teachings, and then the next day its like its your first day on this planet.

Oh.  Now I get it.  Well, not really, but maybe tomorrow I'll wake up remembering my "spiritual mystery school teachings," and it all will become clear.

After this, she goes on for some time about "raising our vibrations," which sounds fairly illicit to my ears, so we'll just pass over this part.  I did find out that she does psychic and astrological readings, however, which sounds promising.  And I will definitely plan on trying to catch her radio program, which is on at 9 AM Pacific Time on AlignRadio, a broadcast channel whose website describes it as being "designed energetically to address the energy of earth movements, the energy of ascension with the new and ancient universal information."  I can barely wait.

So, anyway, I have once again had my life enriched by my readers, whose growing numbers encourage me daily.  I've seen Skeptophilia grow from only one or two followers, and a handful of hits daily, to hundreds of regular readers and upwards of 300 hits every day, and a total number of lifetime hits since I began writing in October of 2010 that is currently nearing 50,000.  About which I can only say: thank you to everyone who reads what I write, and thank you especially to those who comment, send me links, and challenge me daily to think harder about the world around me.  It is a privilege to reach an audience this size, and I can only hope that my writing is forwarding the cause of skepticism and critical thinking in some small way.  Keep reading, keep recommending my posts to your skeptically-minded friends, and keep sending me links... even the ones that make me spit coffee all over my computer.  It's a small price to pay.

Water ionizers, alkalinity, and surfing

Are you unhealthy?  Stressed?  Overweight?  Perhaps you think that the solution to all of these is to seek medical care, find ways to reduce stress, eat smaller quantities of better quality food, exercise more.

Ha.  A lot you know.

All you really need is to drink alkaline water.

Due to my daily research for topics for this blog, and the website-tracking software that is ubiquitous these days, I am frequently bombarded with advertisements from the extreme end of the woo-woo spectrum.  It amuses me slightly that the tracking can get it so wrong; you have to wonder how long it will take for software designers to figure out that it's all well and good for their software to pick up on words like "psychics," "crystals," and "homeopathy," but it really doesn't work if it doesn't simultaneously pick up on words like "bogus," "nonsense," and "bullshit."

Be that as it may, there's one particular advertisement that has popped up about a dozen times lately, and I thought that such tenacity deserved at least a cursory look, so I clicked the link, which brought me here.

If you'd prefer not to give the tracking bots the impression you like this stuff by clicking the link yourself, let me give you the skinny on what they're claiming.

All of life's problems, the ad claims, are caused by the fact that the body is functioning at the wrong pH.  "The body prefers an alkaline balance," it says.  "Diet and stress causes acids to build up in the body, resulting in weight gain and contributing to health problems.  A healthy body produces enzymes that provide natural detoxification.  Toxins and oxidative acids break those enzymes down."  Furthermore, "acidic water" contains "water molecules in large clumps" that are hard for the body to absorb.  On the other hand, "alkaline ionized water is microclustered -- large molecule clusters are broken down -- (it is) easier to absorb, cells hydrate quickly, and it speeds athletic hydration and recovery."

Um... okay.  Now that I know that, what do I do?

You should clearly purchase a "water ionizer," which this company sells.  The first model I looked at sold for... $1,997.00.

Can't afford that?  They have LOTS of other products.  My favorite was "Dr. Life's Vortex Water Ionizer," which was, as far as I could see, a water pitcher, except that it was priced at $197.00.  However, if you can't afford anything better, "These pitchers will produce a moderate pH and moderate negative Oxidation Reduction Potential (-ORP) levels.  A negative ORP level means the water works as an antioxidant.  Regular water has a positive ORP, which means it is an oxidant which could create damaging free radicals in your body!"  Of course, "The Pitcher of Life and the Dr. Life Vortex Water Optimizer are great when you’re away from home, but they don’t match the pH, nor the high negative ORP levels recommended for optimal health results.  They also don’t micro-cluster water or filter it as well as home ionizers do."

So, if you're willing to skimp on your health, and possibly not detoxify the damaging free radicals that are currently trying to tear you limb from limb every time you drink a glass of water, then have it your way.

Except, of course, for the fact that this is the biggest load of nonsense I've seen since I read about the practice of sticking a lit candle in your ear to suck out the earwax.  (If you missed that post, you can read it here.)

Okay, where do I start?  Since evidently the whole market for "water ionizers" consists of the people who didn't pay attention in their high school chemistry class, let me do a brief chemistry lesson.

pH is a measure of the quantity of hydrogen ions in a solution.  For reasons that don't really matter for our discussion, pH is a logarithmic scale (i.e. one difference in pH amounts to a difference of a factor of ten in the concentration of hydrogen ions), and pHs above 7 are basic (alkaline), below 7 are acidic, and 7 is neutral (the pH of pure water).  Alkalinity is a measure of the capacity of a solution to neutralize an acid.

So, that's the basic idea (ba-dump-bump-kssssh).  Let's take our now vastly increased knowledge of chemistry, and analyze the claims made by the LifeIonizer people, okay?

If acidic fluids are toxic, how do we survive drinking orange juice and lemonade?  I drink orange juice every day, and typical orange juice has a pH of about 5.  This corresponds to a hundred-fold higher concentration of hydrogen ions than pure water has.  I am, surprisingly enough after all of that bodily abuse, still alive and kicking.  And how about stomach acid?  You have to wonder why, if acids are as bad as all that, your body deliberately produces a fluid with a pH of about 1.5, which is then mixed with every single item of food we eat.  So let's say you drink water that has somehow been "alkalinized," and its pH raised to 8 or so.  The alkalinity of the water you just drank will be overwhelmed by being mixed into an acidic fluid that is over a hundred thousand times higher in hydrogen concentration than it is.

Oh... well... okay.  Maybe we just need to make the water more alkaline, so that it neutralizes those toxic acids better.  The problem is, the higher you drive the pH, (1) the worse it will taste, and (2) the more caustic it becomes.  If their argument is correct -- that the more alkaline a solution is, the better it is for you -- they should demonstrate this for us by swigging Drano, which has a pH of about 13.  That'll neutralize those nasty acids, all right, not to mention cleaning out their pipes in a fairly spectacular fashion.

So, to sum up: yes, your body produces acids.  Yes, some of the foods you consume are acidic.  No, that doesn't mean you're gradually destroying your own tissue.  If you purchase a "water ionizer," all that will happen is that your pocketbook will be two grand lighter; you will have no positive health effects whatsoever, above and beyond the health effects that any of us would have by drinking more water.  And no, you won't lose weight unless you eat less and exercise more.  "Alkaline water" doesn't "melt off the pounds," it just tastes vaguely nasty.

And I won't even dignify the "large water molecule clusters" claim with a response.

Anyway, there you have it.  See the kind of thing I get subjected to on a daily basis?  Maybe I should start to blog on, say, surfing.  Okay, I know, I've only had one surfing lesson in my life, but given that the tracking software thinks that I believe in all of this woo-woo bullshit, I doubt that will matter, as long as I mention "surfing" enough.  And then, I'd get advertisements that would be nice to look at, featuring scantily clad women on beaches in Hawaii, instead of advertisements for "LifeIonizers."  So, toward that end: surfing surfing surfing bikinis surfing.

The psychic and the guru

A question I frequently am asked is why I care so much about whether people believe weird, irrational, counterfactual stuff.  What does it matter?  How is it harming anyone if someone believes in ______ (fill in the blank with your favorite from amongst the following: astrology, psychics, homeopathy, Bigfoot, aliens, crystal energies, or about a hundred others).

Rather than answer that question directly, let me tell you two stories.  (Sources: The Orlando Sentinel and JREF)

Priti Mahalanobis is a college-educated mother of two who managed her father's business, Shiv Shakti Enterprises, LLC of Orlando, Florida.  Due to the economic downturn, the business had not been doing very well for about two years.  Add this to the fact that Mahalanobis had been experiencing some health problems, and her brother, to whom she was very close, was having marital problems.  Mahalanobis was understandably depressed, anxious, and stressed.

It would not be out of the ordinary for someone in this situation to seek out counseling, and Mahalanobis went to the Meditation and Healing Center in Windermere when she received a coupon for a $20 introductory session with a "spiritual guide."

The guide she met called herself Mrs. Starr, but her real name is Peaches Stevens.  Stevens, after a brief "psychic reading," told Mahalanobis that there was a curse on her family, which could only be lifted with her assistance.  Over the next few months, Mahalanobis went to Stevens repeatedly, purchased a variety of items from her including seven "tabernacles" that were intended to help lift the curse, and performed a variety of rituals under Stevens' direction.  Stevens reportedly told Mahalanobis that the cure for the curse would be costly, but that the price of leaving it in place would be a dreadful toll on herself and her family.

Mahalanobis opened several new credit cards, sold as many personal items as she could manage without her husband knowing (including a reported $65,000 worth of jewelry), and all told ended up giving over $135,000 to Stevens for her curse-removal services.  By this time, she had put herself into hock up to her eyeballs, her father's business had folded, and she had to find work part time in a school cafeteria to make enough to live on.

She did, however, finally recognize that something was amiss, and hired a private investigator to look into Stevens.  With the information from the investigation, police were finally able to arrest Stevens for fraud last week.

"I learned a lot," said Mahalanobis.  "Not to let fear or guilt control you or your actions.  Also, listen to your gut, your instinct, that little voice in the back of your head.  Because your mind can fool you."


Someone should have given that same advice to Chantale Lavigne, a Québecois woman who followed a self-help guru named Gabrielle Frechette.  Frechette runs seminars and gives advice on life, health, and spirituality, and claims to be able to channel the biblical figure Melchisedek.  According to sources, Frechette has quite a commanding presence and an "air of authority."

Last week, Frechette was running a session called "Dying in Consciousness," and Chantale Lavigne was one of her "students."  As part of the session, the participants were supposed to allow themselves to be covered with mud, wrapped in plastic, and have their heads placed inside cardboard boxes with instructions to hyperventilate.  They were told that they had to remain motionless in this situation...

... for nine hours.

When Lavigne was removed from her mud and plastic cocoon, she was unconscious, and only at that point did Frechette call 911.  When paramedics arrived, her body temperature was 40.5 C (105 F).  She died soon afterwards at a hospital in Drummondville.  Frechette has "denied all responsibility for Lavigne's death."

This is not the first such death from hyperthermia during a quack cure or woo-woo ritual.  Sweat lodges, and overheating to "remove toxins," have become commonplace, and just last year James Arthur Ray was convicted of negligent homicide in the deaths of three participants in his New Age "spiritual warrior" retreat, in which he had encouraged dozens of people (who had paid Ray big bucks for the privilege) to spend hours in an overheated, smoky room in the Arizona desert without drinking any water.  So despite Frechette's denial of responsibility, there is precedent for "gurus" to be found culpable for their followers' deaths -- in the US, at least, and it's to be hoped that Canada will follow suit.


It's easy to say that in both the case of Mahalanobis and Lavigne, they "should have known better."  And in one sense, that's true.  But we live in a culture that celebrates, even encourages, ridiculous beliefs, and in many cases turns them into big business.  Skeptics like James Randi and Michael Shermer are accused of being "narrow-minded" when they call these beliefs what they are -- unscientific, irrational, bogus, potentially dangerous nonsense. 

The question is, why should we handle such beliefs with kid gloves?  Why should we look the other way when psychics are allowed to bilk the public for millions of dollars annually?  Why should homeopathic "cures" be allowed on pharmacy shelves?  Why should the so-called mediums and channelers of the spirits of the dead be on television, raking in money from people made vulnerable by their grief?

Except in a few cases -- such as Ray's case, where deaths occurred and were directly attributable to the influence of a "guru" -- our government has been reluctant to step in.  The only answer that remains, then, is education -- teaching people how to think, giving them a sound backing in the principles of scientific rationality and skepticism.  I'll end with a quote from Carl Sagan, from his wonderful book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (which should be required reading in every high school in the world):

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.  But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us.  In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights.  With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit.  In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.

UFO vs. bird

Yesterday, we looked at what I consider to be a typical ghost report; today we'll look at a recent report of a UFO that, similarly, has features in common with most such claims.

According to a story released last Thursday, a man filming two odd, glowing orbs in the sky also caught on video a collision between one of the orbs and a bird.  The bird, which we would presume would have been killed on impact, goes hurtling off toward the right and is soon lost to view.  UFO aficionados have hailed this video as convincing -- stating that it would be "difficult to fake" (one site said "impossible," which I think is a serious overstatement), "evidence of surveillance by a highly advanced species," and "one of the best pieces of video evidence in the past few months."

(Take a look at the video here; the alleged bird collision occurs at 3:30.)

Okay, let's look at the points in favor of the video being authentic.

First, it's otherwise just kind of... boring.  One thing I've noticed, after watching lots of supposed UFO videos, is that fakers go out of their way to make the video cool -- hearing people react, having the UFO do amazing things.  (Remember the Jerusalem UFO video?)  Here, all we have is some guy with a hand-held video recorder tracking some lights in the sky.  The guy himself seems to be stoned; he doesn't even act like it's odd to be watching a pair of pulsating lights in the sky.  (All he says is, "Thar's one" and "Thar's two of 'em now" about five times each.)  When the alleged bird collision comes, he still doesn't even say, "Whoa" -- he tracks the falling object for a little bit, then goes back to the lights and saying "Thar's one."

Another positive point is the way the lights move relative to a jet contrail.  The movement of the objects looked realistic to me -- as far as that goes.

Now, some negatives.

Like with the ghost photograph from yesterday -- what do we actually have?  A video of some lights in the sky.  The lights have no detail at all -- nothing to indicate what they might be.  Even the alleged bird is just a bright point falling across the sky; we're too far away to see anything more.  So, even if we accept for the moment the possibility that the video itself isn't a fake, we're left with emphasizing the "U" in "UFO," and must rule out as an overconclusion that statement that we're under surveillance by a highly advanced bunch of aliens.

Now, could it be a fake?  Of course it could.  To say that I'm no expert in video editing is an understatement of mammoth proportions, but I have been assured by people who do know a bit about the topic that adding a couple of featureless lights to a video of the sky would be pretty simple.  (To quote Neil deGrasse Tyson, "Photoshop probably has an 'Add UFO' function.")  Now, to be sure, most of the fakers get caught because it's nearly impossible to get everything right, and to fool folks who know what to look for.  Real objects have shadows, reflections, and other features that behave in known ways, and your average "Let's Make A UFO Video" hoaxer would have to be awfully smart to get all of that stuff exactly right.  (One of the strongest bits of evidence that the Jerusalem video was a fake was that the UFO, brilliant light source though it was, didn't seem to create a reflection from the gold-covered top of the nearby Al Aqsa Mosque.)

Interestingly, it's the simple videos that are harder to debunk.  Here, we have nothing but a pair of lights in a sky that's featureless except for the jet contrail, so there's nothing in the way of reflections or shadows that might clue us in.  However, there is one thing that crossed my mind while watching the video -- something that probably wouldn't occur to you if you hadn't already been primed to think that the glowing objects were what was moving.

What I noticed was that the two orbs aren't moving relative to each other.  Try watching the video again, and this time tell yourself that the jet contrail is what is moving, against a backdrop of a sky (with stars or planets) that is stationary.  Changes your perception of the whole thing, doesn't it?  Contrails move, just as clouds do, and the apparent motion of the orbs could easily be explained as motion of the only reference point we have -- the contrail.  And as for the bird -- well, it could be a bird, but I see nothing about its motion that convinces me that it struck one of the orbs.  It could just as easily be a bird flying past, who escaped the whole non-encounter without injury.

My vote: it's a video of two stationary bright lights in the sky, possibly Venus and Jupiter, which were quite close together in the sky on that date.  The jet contrail is what was moving, and the guys filming the lights were in a self-induced mental state that resulted in their thinking that four minutes of video of two motionless bright lights in the sky would be interesting.

And relative to UFO claims in general -- if I may conclude by quoting Tyson again:

I'm not saying we haven't been visited.  I'm saying that the evidence thus far brought forth does not satisfy the standards of evidence that any scientist would require for any other claim that you're going to walk into the lab with.  So next time you get abducted... you're there, you're on the slab, because you know how they always do the sex experiments on you when you're on the flying saucer, and so they're poking at you... here's what you do: you say to the alien that's poking you, "Hey!  Look over there!"  And when he looks over there, you quickly snatch something off the shelf.  You put it in your pocket, and then you lay back.  Then, when you're done, you come back, you say, "Hey!  Look what I got!  I stole the ashtray off a spaceship!"  And you bring that to the lab.  And then it's not about eyewitness testimony at that point, because you'll have something of alien manufacture.  And anything you pull off a flying saucer that crossed the galaxy is gonna be interesting.