I am a Sceptic when it comes to anything supernatural and as a scientist I find it frustrating sometimes that I can't just say everything supernatural is a load of old rope. Belief leads me to that conclusion but it is
not a scientist place to believe it is a scientist's job to prove.
I follow the evidence and as the evidence goes it leads me to scepticism – but not quite total denial.
This morning something very peculiar happened. It made me think and I mean think incredibly big style. Think yes, but reconsider no.
So let's get onto the story. Every morning I wake up at about 5:50 and leave the house at around 6:30 or so. This particular day (yesterday as I write this) I walked past a house that I walk past every morning. It was number 13 but let's not get into that.
I stopped at the end of the drive. Staring. There was what looked like a little ‘creature' with pointed ears. If we note the time it was pretty dark so it could have just been me. So the sceptic in me led me forward towards this thing. I walked very slowly with my gaze transfixed on it.
Then suddenly a motion activated light turned on and I was confronted by this hideous, indescribable and above all remarkable hoover. A bloody Dyson hoover wrapped in a bin bag. That was what all the fuss was about.
There is a moral to this story. Imagine for one moment if I were to have run away without a second glance? Would I have lived my life believing I had seen something
Perhaps but I know that the human brain, in all its complexity, does not always give an accurate representation of the world. It runs a sort of simulation: if the eye picks up recognisable points that have a correlation to facial features then it can generate an image of a face based on its calculations.
This, I believe, is what happened this morning. Possibly due to the low light levels and the way the back puffed out in the wind my brain wrongly interpreted this as a face.
Rational thinking is a wonderful thing. I wish to refer back to the 9/11 (or 11/9 as we in the UK say) attacks and the satins face episode. Now I can't speak for you, but I don't think Mr Satan and I have ever met. How would I know what the hell he looks like?
There may have been real encounters but how would I know? Simply because someone said it happened is not in any way conclusive evidence and photographs can be edited. The makers of Dr Who or Star Trek or StarGate or Star Wars or any Sci-fi for that matter; don't travel the world in search of aliens or weird creatures to use as characters. They cheat and make their own – be it a rubber suit or a computer animation.
What I want to show with this story is that many of these ghost stories may be just the brain misinterpreting data. I can't say with total certainty that every story is bogus but I'm sorry but science is against you at the moment.
(Note: this article does not relate to God)
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