Paranormal Poll

[Silas]

Huh? The chance of winning the lottery is based on picking 6 numbers from 49.

Six different numbers from 1 to 49 are going to come out. The number of machines they pick from is irrelevant. The chance would not change if they used Lancelot every week.

 

[kazbadan]

Silas, i think that it was you that in the previous page of this same thread said that there are no evidences that ufos are aliens. YOu know what? you are correct.

First, when i say "ufos" i am speaking about the phenomenon that everybody knows, the strange flying objects that sciences does not explain (the 5% of ufos that are really strange indeed). So, "ufos" in this acception does not refer to an asteroide that was mistaken by an "ufo", etc,etc.

In my country (Portugal....the reason for wich my english its so bad...we speak portuguese) there are some interesting and old books (70s) about ufos. These scientists are very serious about their job and you can see that they use a scientific aproach to ufo study. They dont take any thing for granted and they give some interesting information or "hints" on how we shoucld see the phenomenon.

One of the first things that they say its that the word "ufo" its "charged" of mysticism and induces people in mistakes. They prefer to speak about (next its my translation to english) "unknow aerial phenomenons" (uap).

In the very beggining they say that UAPs must have, possibly, one of the fowllowing origins:
1) It comes from this universe. Its an alien origin (the most typical aproach) or its a terrestrial one. In the last case we can have two possibilitys: they came from a secret part of our planet and maybe they are different beings OR they are just human made.
2) It comes from another universe/dimension, whatever you call it. In that case, "dimension" here includes "time" dimensions. So, maybe (just maybe) the UAPs come from the future. For example, they could be "humans" (or aliens) coming from the future.
3) They are spiritual entitys.
4) Dont remember what they say in point four but i think that its an open point to another not explored possibility.

You m ay argue that some of these possibilitys are stupid, but at least they (the scientists) have explored something. At least they gave some ideas, since there none of them.

Another thing thet they speak about, its the fact that UAPs (or ufos if you prefer) are inteligent. In all things that they do (the movements in the sky, etc) seems to be from inteligent entitys (they call entitys, because we dont know what they are: aliens, humans, spirits, robots, whatever). It seems that its not a natural phenomenon (atmospheric, etc).

Another thing, they think that possibily the UAPS are not american, russian, japanese, whatever, secret technology, because there are many documents and evidences that UAPs are more ancient than we think. At least they are before 1900 (XIX century or less).

For example, in another book, one of the authors give many strong evidences that the Fatima Aparition* (read above) its an UAP apparition. They give so many clues, proofs, evidences and testmonies that you will see the case with different eyes.

All of these its just to say that there are people studying the UAPs with a nice aproach, leaving back all the "mystic" stuff. There are good works out there and we should keep analysing it.


*Pope John Paulo II was an adept of that phenomenon. Do you remember the 3 little shepards (it was in Portugal that occured this case) that had a vision of Maria (Jesus Mother) saying things to them? Do tou remember the "third secret of Fatima"? Thats the phenomenon that i am speaking about: "Fatima Apparitions". There were some of apparitions in different ocasions. Dont remember the details of the case.

 

[Silas]

My position is:

There are aliens. The Universe is so vast and filled with unimaginable numbers of stars that it is inconceivable that we are the only sapient beings.

There are UFOs. Most of the supposedly mysterious video footage of UFOs are of course simply aeroplanes. What even the UFO chasers don't recognise is that the reason that all UFO video footage is out of focus and too far to really capture, is that if you're close enough to see it clearly, you can see that it's a conventional aircraft, and therefore not worth videoing (if you believe in UFOs). The one other UAP as you term it, "mysterious hovering lights in the sky", seems to be particularly associated with earth tremor activity, which has led to speculation that what is going on is a piezo-electric effect (same thing that powers your gas cooker lighter), though it's very hard to pin down and investigate scientifically. (Ball lightning is another such effect.) Alien abduction stories are a mixture between hallucinatory experiences from schizophrenics, people who just want publicity, and sleep paralysis sufferers. (I suffer from sleep paralysis myself, so I know whereof I speak).

UFOs are not visiting aliens. The distances and energy requirements for insterstellar travel are so incredibly huge that it is beyond all reason to think that they've come all this way just to pick up midwestern farmers and stick probes in their asses, turn cows inside out and make pretty pictures in wheat fields.

 

[Stryder]

Silas,
I don't want to go off topic with this thread but the numbers of machines that can be picked from increases marginally a random seed.

namely how I would work out the numbers is this:
49*48*47*46*45*44 = 10,068,347,520

which is the total of 6 number combinations between 1 and 49 where no two numbers are the same.

However my suggestion is that having 3 machines to choose from adds a random seed of a multiple of 3, ergo:
49*48*47*46*45*44*3 = 30,205,042,560

Since the machines are different from one another and will cause the balls to fall differently they are actually a factor, However you can get to the point of some really hideously silly calculations when attempting to weigh up chaos, for instance the guy that starts the balls rolling might take a different route to work from normal on a bank holiday when the traffic has conjested the road, however these factors would not alter the actual "roll of the dice" per say, but when the die rolls.

On a note of phenomona:
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
- Abraham Lincoln

My point here is that some people can be out to trick those that will listen for either a slide of coin or just the prestige from being heard. Others that are less fortune are more likely to be "Fooled" by the previously mentioned people, either by hearing a story they tell or having a tricked pulled on them.

Quite frankly the tricks I'm talking about don't have to be straight forward "Magician/Illusionist" magic, but can involve a great deal of specialist equipment found in some notibly (Military, Academic and Corporate alike) laboratories around the world.
For instance it's possible to insert Sound or Visual apparitions into a persons head through the use of Radiological equipment, however it's not exactly cost effective.

It's possible to manipulate matter at it's molecular level, this is proven through the genetic manipulation of corn in certain corncircles (Gene-Resequencing).

[I could explain the potential conspiracies of "Mass Eugenic systems for Viral Outbreak Control" or "Resequencing smokers genes so they live longer and continue buying cigarettes for both the corporations profit and the governments taxation" or perhaps its all just a rehash of the lead up to the second world war with some underlining evil movement waiting in the shadows. These however would be best left for the conspiracy thread.]

Quite simply my take is that Paranormal activity or phenomona is likely to be a hoax created in one of many different ways, it's just a question of how guilible the audience is.

 

[Silas]

I was reminded from another thread I found what the correct formula is for picking 6 number out of 49:

ⁿC_r = n!/((n-r)!r!) = 49!/(43! * 6!) = 13,983,816.

However my suggestion is that having 3 machines to choose from adds a random seed of a multiple of 3, ergo:
49*48*47*46*45*44*3 = 30,205,042,560

Since the machines are different from one another and will cause the balls to fall differently they are actually a factor

That doesn't make any sense, Stryder. Only one machine is used to make the draw itself. The reason for having three machines is so that if one machine has a bias in it, that will be eliminated by another machine not having a bias in it. In case you try to cheat the system by always picking 38 because Lancelot picks more 38s, the machine is not chosen until after the cut off for the lottery. But there are still 14 million combinations of numbers, only one of which can appear.

 

[Arquibus]

When the paranormal is completely discounted because of a lack of evidence, it shows that the person discounting it has no desire to make new discovery. A person that is skeptical in the extreme of refusing to see possibility is doing so because of a conscious or subconscious fear of change or desire for order. People were labeled as witches or demons because of psychological disorders, and after discovery of these disorders, people were labeled as crazy because they tried to buid aircraft. Thomas Edison was called the Wizard of Menlo Park by people initially because he was doing things that they couldn't understand and therefore they could attribute to magic. By refusing to even allow for this you distinctly show that you have no respect for the unknown. My advice to anyone that feels this way is to be careful and watch yourself. Maybe you are right, but what if you're not?