Rev. Skarekroe: It's a scary experience. Not the fu-king "boogeyman". I thought I was in a coma for awhile there.

Agreed. The worst bit of it is knowing there ain't no boodyman, and the the problem is that there is something wrong with YOU.

Hey I enjoyed the Alien Autopsy show. You knew it had to be fake, but it was fun to believe for even a few minutes.
The so called fx guy is full of crap. He offers no proof that he was involved in the project.
There is a cool movie comeing out about it. I can't remember the name, but the preview looks good.

/needs some help here

Begs to differ

Aliens are the most likely explanation for the mysterious circles and other designs that occasionally appear in farmers' fields. They are some sort of sign or message that humans have not yet deciphered. "flap."

flap?
FLAP?
What the fark is "flap."?

Rather than subject myself to that sucky web page, I decided to take the toilet paper survey instead (lower right side of page) - it was well worth the click.


/ I scrunch

I always figured alien abduction memories were misinterpreted flashes of memory from early childhood.

You're safe in your warm bed. Then you feel a funny sensation. Strange beings with distorted features appear in the dark and levitate you out of your bed to a cold platform and begin poking around your poopshoot. Then you're either levitated back to bed or you conk out mid-probe and wake up the next morning.

Doesn't that sound like a middle-of-the-night diaper change to you?

Hang On Voltaire: What about Fire in the Sky?

It just leads to Smoke on the Water

fireclown on sleep paralysis:

It does not logically follow that just because your unusual night-time experiences can be explained by sleep paralysis, that EVERYONE ELSE'S unusual night-time experiences can consequently be explained away the same way. Just saying.

Anyway this "site" did not "do" a lot of "debunking". Putting tin-foil-hat "assertions" in "quotes" to devalue them, coupled with essentially saying something wasn't true, is not a debunking. A debunking would take the best possible evidence from the other side, and dissect it and the conclusions.

The problem with debunking is that people who have a natural interest in these topics (and thus the best evidence) tend to believe them, while debunkers actively pick and choose the worst examples and are awfully dismissive at the same time right from the get-go.

What can be said for sure is that people (both tin-foil-hatters and debunkers) are very resistant to evidence that would change their precious world-view, even if it's right in front of their face, and that is sad.

rubixx
sleep paralysis, isnt' that just another way of saying I'm an adult with bad dreams. Is there a politcally correct way to say "I'm scared of the farkin boogy monster"?

As others have said, it's nothing of the sort - it's a really interesting state of consciousness where the brain has not turned off the paralysis that occurs during sleep and is still also dreaming, but the mind is also fully aware - so you see dream imagery, but are also paralysed. This is unsurprisingly alarming to most people.

I experienced it earlier this year, after a long period of getting too little sleep. I 'woke up' to having my leg humped by a naked, invisible succubus, while being paralysed. I knew straight away what was going on, so I wasn't freaked, but rather pleased to be experiencing a pretty rare sleep abnormality. At least it wasn't those little grey bastards - they freak me out.

That was debunking?

That's not an argument, the simple gainsaying of the last statement.

/yes it is
//no it isn't
///the webpage is as suspect as the material it's trying to debunk

chunderboy thus saieth:

"Doesn't that sound like a middle-of-the-night diaper change to you?"

hehehe. :)
I often wonder if my son will grow up and have this odd memory of shadow figures snatching him in the night, sitting him in a strange, bottomless chair, and speaking a strange, almost one-note language at him: "Pee! C'mon, pee! (jeezuzchrist this is taking forever) Pee!"

chunderboy
I always figured alien abduction memories were misinterpreted flashes of memory from early childhood.

For many, I'm sure that's true. Many 'abductions' sound more like incidents of child abuse.

Thought I'd add some more on sleep paralysis...

It happens to me probably once a month, sometimes more sometimes less. I know it's more likely to happen if you lie on your back (actually looked that one up too.) From my personal experience it also happens more on nights where I can't initially fall asleep.

The weirdest feeling is when you feel like you're floating. I had a dream where I got out of bed and started walking towards my computer. Right before I got to it the whole room started vibrating and my walk drastically slowed. I felt myself lift into the air as I slowly rotated myself to a horizontal position. I then floated back towards my bed and it felt like I was gently placed back in my body. Except when I actually hit my body I woke up. It was like my brain had to explain to itself how it was once standing up but is now lying down. I get that floating feeling a lot, but it's pretty cool.

As a former sufferer, I can safely tell you that just about 100% of abduction stories are the result of sleep paralysis.

I have sleep paralysis fireclown

For the longest time I had no idea what it was and I used to think demons were coming into my room to hurt me. When I got older I did some research and found out about sleep paralysis.

It is indeed some scary shiat

DrinkDifferent: It does not logically follow that just because your unusual night-time experiences can be explained by sleep paralysis, that EVERYONE ELSE'S unusual night-time experiences can consequently be explained away the same way. Just saying.

I concede your point. What I meant to say was that there is at least one very good mundane explanation. You are correct that this does not preclude actual abduction. But I do invoke Occams razor.

GiantRobot: I 'woke up' to having my leg humped by a naked, invisible succubus,

I admit I am a little jealous. I get insect dissections and you get this? Unfair I says.

GiantRobot

True. Though my post reads otherwise, I don't mean to suggest that this could explain all abduction memories, but I think it could eliminate a lot. Repression of abuse could explain others, including adult incidences like rape.

/Not an expert
//But this is fark

If I ever have to teach a web design class I'm going to show this to my students on the first day of what not to do. Thanks space.com for employing the special ed kids for your web work.

fireclown

So you've had the sleep paralysis too? The first time I had it was in the morning, and i remember thinking "oh crap, I'm farking paralyzed!" It was scary as hell and suddenly I could move again. It's much worse when it hits you at night and you feel like something is holding you down and since you can't turn your head your mind can start to "see" things in the corners of your eyes moving around in the dark. I recall seeing aliens and gorillas all kinds of crap standing in the doorway or next to the bed looking at me. Man I hate that shiat. Fortunately, I haven't had it since my mid-20s and I hope I stay that way.

Fireclown, is that drawing a Phil Foglio perchance? Looks like his style.

I've had sleep paralysis once or twice too. First time (age about 6) I was on the bottom bunk with my sister on the top bunk, I was fully concious but had no real control over any of my muscles, tried screaming cause I was shiat scared but could only manage an almost silent "hahhhhhhh" of air. After a few times I realised that if I concentrated really hard on moving one muscle, say my hand or a finger, it would jerk into life and I'd wake up. Used to happen about two or three times a year.

It feels like your brains woken up properly but your body is still in sleep mode.

I don't think it's a plausable explaination for alien 'abductions' though...

chunderboy

True. Though my post reads otherwise, I don't mean to suggest that this could explain all abduction memories, but I think it could eliminate a lot.

I think there's a major problem with most of the discussion of UFOs and similar subjects - and that's trying to reduce everything to a single explanation. It would be like trying to explain all house fires as being caused by a kid playing with matches.

fireclown

What can I say? But she was invisible, though - I didn't actually see anthing good. The region on my upper leg/hip where she was grinding up against me (while trying to choke me, kinky thing that she was) felt very odd for hours afterwards. I don't know if this was what caused this particular hallucination, or if it was a consequence of it.

DrinkDifferent: It does not logically follow that just because your unusual night-time experiences can be explained by sleep paralysis, that EVERYONE ELSE'S unusual night-time experiences can consequently be explained away the same way. Just saying.

I concede your point. What I meant to say was that there is at least one very good mundane explanation. You are correct that this does not preclude actual abduction. But I do invoke Occams razor.

GiantRobot: I 'woke up' to having my leg humped by a naked, invisible succubus,

I admit I am a little jealous. I get insect dissections and you get this? Unfair I says.

Although mine was a generic episode of sleep paralysis, I later found out that my brother had a very similar experience *on the same night*, having a waking dream of a female ghost at the bottom of his bed rush up towards his head.

Now that's a spooky coincidence. :)

uummm, I've had it, I thought the whole point of sleep paralysis is tht your not dreaming. Kinda scary to be awake and conscious yet your body cant move and you cant call out for help.
That said, I've had it happen often, and while I often got that OMG theres somebody/something bad in the room with me parinoia that sometimes goes along with it, never once did aliens cross my mind.

/and i'm a ufo junkie to boot
//just my experience

I've had the sleep paralysis, too. Used to freak me out.
Can't lift a finger. Weird stuff flying around the room. If you can keep your wits about you and realize it's all a 'sort-of' dream, you won't go batshiat. But I can see panicking making the whole thing worse mentally.

Once saw a show about dreaming. Scientists had taken a cat, removed the part of the brain that locks your body in place while you sleep. The cat was totally spastic. running around the cage, clawing at nothing, hissing, etc. But it was sound asleep.

The cat was totally spastic. running around the cage, clawing at nothing, hissing, etc. But it was sound asleep.

Sounds like many cats I've known. I've also been entertained by dogs chasing rabbits in their sleep and barking.

It's cool that we're all alone in a cold, dead universe?

An ex of mine had sleep paralysis once, I was off on my way to class when I get a call from her crying her eyes out scared to death. Apparently she remembered me getting up and leaving, but then she went back to sleep and woke up not being able to move and dreaming that someone came into the apartment and was walking around.

/yes, this is a bad story

worst. site. ever.

This was perhaps one of the worst articles ever posted here

/wants the 60 seconds of his life back

Needs more succubi!

Debunk? Cool tag? psh...

One paragraph on how each "top ten" item does not a debunking canon create. I offer to my Fellow Farkers the Debunking of the Debunking. This isn't a pie-in-the-sky shot at proving the myths, just a simple neener-neener to the thinly-veiled arguments posted on the "authority" on all things Space. Maybe this will kick off a REAL discussion... but please note, this is for entertainment purposes only ;-)

10 - Alien Engineers
That early humans had the rational capacity for free thought, science and mathematics is no mystery, but there has yet to be a rational explanation for the similarities between them across the continents as they were built during a time which we have no concrete evidence of global travel or how detailed information about pyramid building would have been transferred. Aliens are likely not to credit for the transferrence or emergence of similar architecture across the globe, but it's not addressed by the debunkers. Shame...

9 - Cattle Mutilation
Predation alone has been ruled out as a cause in many mutilation cases based on the precision with which the cuts were made, the state of the corpses left behind, and strange but similar phenomenon common to many cases. Unexplained lights in the skies during nights preceeding mutilations, surgical removal of external tissue and intenal organs, and complete exsanguination continue to leave a lot of unanswered questions. Predation alone cannot explain these circumstances or the nature of the damage incurred -- a rancher worth his or her salt has been around long enough to tell when a coyote, mountain lion or some other natural predator/scavenger has torn at a head of cattle and it is presumptuous to assume these folks can't tell tooth marks from diamond-shaped incisions from which hide was bloodlessly removed and recta which have been cleanly and completely cored out. Photos of mutilation reports are all over the web, do a little digging and decide for yourself.

8 Area 51 -
This area has been operating in secrecy for 50 years. If anything was ever recovered from a UFO incident, it would likely have been taken here or at least made a stop at Area 51. Between Dale Brown's "Dreamland" novels and movies such as Independence Day as well as the explosion in popular awareness of the Groom Lake site due to the release of classified testing data on aircraft from the U-2 through the B-2, it's not likely that otherworldly artifacts remain, but since "Use of Deadly Force Has Been Authorized by the Base Commander" I'm not likely to find out on my own anytime soon. And neither is Space.com

7 - Crop Circles
Okay, we pretty much know that these are hoaxes perpetrated by nerds who can draw pretty circles. Next...

6 - The Face on Mars (Cydonia)
Again, this has been largely accepted among skeptics and "officials" as a play of light on a naturally-occurring topographic feature on Mars, but come on! Until Gary Sinise takes a trip out there FOR REAL THIS TIME and knocks on the door, we may never really know. Doesn't that leave the possibility that an alien-made feature has eroded to the state it's in today? Does it?

5 - Alien Autopsy Film
This piece of fabricated film was number 5? Puh-lease. We all know it was poo from the get-go. If someone had been close enough to film an autopsy of an alien being and it had somehow been preserved for half a century only to be exposed by Fox during a prime-time special, don't you think "someone" would have been close enough to lock it up in a box and park it right next to the Ark that Indy dug up back in the 30's? Oh wait, that was a movie? Han Solo wasn't a treasure hunter? Ok... move along, nothing to see here.

4 - Flying Saucers
Kenneth Arnold's sighting may be in question, but the six decades of unexplained sightings by nearly every society on earth that followed can't possibly be written off as painted balloons, pie tins, frisbees, or swamp gas. Of the strange objects in the sky and the 700+ sightings listed in Project Blue Book as unexplained, sightings and incidents reported by pilots, military personnel and average non-kook folks leave a LOT of 'splaining for someone to do. It's certain that the saucer-fever that followed may be largely attributed to misidentification, hoaxers and maybe even swamp gas, but sightings continue to this day and a few are still as-yet unexplainable. Sighting a singular case that's 60 years old does not a debunking make. Furthermore, the corroborating witnesses who also claimed to see nine shiny somethings in the sky at the same time as pilot Arnold seem to have been ommitted from the "debunking."

3 - Alien Implants
As much as I'd like to believe that our little grey friends have been leaving behind Mythbusters-esque remote controls buried deep in the bodies of the loony and the abducted and that a mustachioed maniac with almond-shaped eyes and a little beret is giggling like a schoolgirl every time he makes the pretty girl hop on the chubby guy, the burden of proof lies on these "implantees" to prove that what's coming out isn't simply a bit of their parents' basement or the tinfoil off a Hungry Man TV dinner or their best friend's hat. Debunked? Nope... just good ol' fashioned common sense. How this made it to #3 is beyond me since there are much more titillating myths involving aliens.

2 - Alien abductions
Sleep paralysis is real, as are the lab-induced hallucinations that have created similar effects in others. However, this doesn't begin to scratch at the surface of even the more popular abduction stories. Betty and Barney Hill's story has yet to be effectively refuted and Travis Walton's experience leaves a number of unanswered questions -- mainly why a simple Arizona logger or an active, intelligent and rational young couple could make these stories up and why they would do so in an age when such claims would being ridicule and shame instead of money and fame. Many so-called "abductees" are three sandwiches shy of a picnic, but this alone drops short of explaining those events that are just as compelling decades after their initial reports.

1 - Roswell
We'll never really know what happened at Roswell -- we'll have to just accept that and move on. The government has had 60+ years to let witnesses die of natural causes, destroy documentation, and create misleading and often fallacious stories of what happened. Myth and fact have become so intertwined today as to be undiscernable from one another. The scraps of evidence that we have to work with are inconclusive, but one nagging question remains. What made the crash of Mogul balloon train #4 such a big deal when the crash of balloon train #6 as repored by a rancher and picked up by a small military contingent without media attention or claims of saucers, bodies, nurses, or unexplainable metals with otherworldly properties? What made the crash of Mogul flight #4 so special? It may not have been a balloon train after all.

Garble:
It's cool that we're all alone in a cold, dead universe?

Who says we're alone?

Just because space aliens aren't abducting and anally probing random humans in between building pyramids and running the Secret World Government* doesn't mean that Earth is the only planet in the Universe sustaining some sort of life.


* No, I can't prove that none of that is happening, but even if I could, that wouldn't lead me to conclude that there isn't life anywhere else. Space is big. Really big.
Consider for a moment a peanut in Reading and a small walnut in Johannesburg...

More Sucubbi!

It's weird reading about other peoples sleep issues. I went through this off and on for years. Glad it's over with.

10: Weren't some of the theories disproven. Like how a 1 hojillion block of pyramid piece would crush logs ?
9: I believe them on this one...
8: It is a top secret military base, and there are of course perfectly legitimate government and military reasons for keeping the base's purposes secret that have nothing to do with aliens or UFOs Just because you say so, doesn't make it true :) Hell, it seems like a pretty weak argument anyway...
7: I believe them on this one...
6: I somewhat believe them... The photo NASA released recently (was it this year?) showed the face no longer existing. That's a whole lotta dust to try and cover up a giant face. Are we to believe that over the course of a couple of years the isolated planet could have blown so much dust around?
5: Earlier this year, the special effects artist who created the alien confessed that it was in fact a hoax. I'd like for there to be references to him being who he claims he is and not some drunk picked off the street. But then, I think the video is pretty stupid anyway...
4: The whole case hasn't been debunked. Only the term "flying saucer" has been referenced. That's not very smart now is it, Space.com?
3: Yeah, the idea of alient implants is a bit far-fetched... That said, they didn't really relate their argument to such implants as anal probes.
2: Sleep paralysis eh? Are people that stupid to believe that mere sleep paralysis could be mistaken for an encounter (let's excuse those who are doing it for the fame and money)?
1: Roswell seems pretty debunked. But where's the proof - on either side - to back up their argument?

Overall, for my final judgement, I have to say that...

...

...the web designer sucks.

/ Oddly enough, the even numbered theories in the Top Ten seem to be the more poorly debunked theories... Seems like something is indeed going on.
// Not a 100% believer of extra-terrestial life, but I don't want to believe that we're the only living things in the universe... Because, you know, that'd make God's little experiment a failure.

cockpunches rubixx just for the heck of it.

dude, your a dick, but at least you know it.

/bring it

Giant bot: I didn't cockbite, I was poking fun at fireclown for adult daydreams. I was pulling his crank about the boogy man and then you felt the need to explain further. lol if you can't read its not my fault. dork.

and Scoot_puff: you know I love it.

quarterback_punk Like your list/rebuttal. On some of these have some Unanswered Questions. I try to be very Skeptical. But Pyramids made by Aliens is just Tarded. But Was there Semi-Advanced (Doubtful but open to debate) Civilizations Before some Catastrophe? Some people just don't give mankind credit where credit is due. Nice list.

adminJim: (sleep paralysis) feels like your brains woken up properly but your body is still in sleep mode. I don't think it's a plausable explaination for alien 'abductions' though...

That's a very succinct and accurate description of it. I've had sleep paralysis a handful of times in my life. The first few times freaked me out, until I did some research in a library. Now I actually enjoy them.

Everyone's body is paralyzed during a certain stage of sleep. It keeps you from acting out your dreams. Sometimes your brain wakes up, and you bring things from your dream into your room with you. Sometimes it's just a feeling inistead of actually seeing anyone or anything. It usually happens just as you're drifting to sleep or time to wake up. In medieval times, you explained it on demons and ghosts, now it's more likely to be aliens or ghosts. I once saw a full-sized horse in my tiny bedroom and couldn't so much as whisper about it or move a finger. The sensation passes in about a minute, and you're left to wonder WTF?

Kangaroo_Ralph maybe you were abducted by the Mr. EDs?

/I kid, I kid

icegryphon
I agree that the pyramids built by aliens myth is looney -- but I didn't want to incur the wrath of the Stargate fans, lol.

Just because they didn't have Internet pr0n doesn't mean ancient humans weren't getting it done. In fact no pr0n means folks were probably getting a metric assload of work done back in the day.

2006-06-22 10:01:25 AM fireclown


DrinkDifferent: It does not logically follow that just because your unusual night-time experiences can be explained by sleep paralysis, that EVERYONE ELSE'S unusual night-time experiences can consequently be explained away the same way. Just saying.

I concede your point. What I meant to say was that there is at least one very good mundane explanation. You are correct that this does not preclude actual abduction.

Agreed I have had these now and then since the 60s a few shrinks and My preasant doctor have different theorys combat, some nerve dammage, maybe the booze, genetics, bad diet, part of ageing, coma fetish, ect.

I have no clue but did realy enjoy this thread Thanks everybody this one was fun :)

It is impossible to debunk the existence of life on other planets until we go to every single other planet in the universe. Not just the known universe, the entire universe.

It's like God. There is just no way of knowing.

rubixx - what the hell are you prattling about? Try using English when communicating with grown-ups.

Wow. I clicked on this thread hoping to read some funny comments about the very, very lame article, and instead find out something about myself. Not only is there a name for the weird stuff that happens to me sometimes when I'm trying to wake up, but it happens to other people too! So it's called sleep paralysis...this is indeed some freaky stuff. For me, it usually happens upon waking (or trying to wake) from a nap. Never had it happen when I was waking up in the morning. The last time it happened, I was lying on the couch at my parents' place and I could hear everything going on around me...conversation, the TV, all that, but I could. not. move. And to top that, I kept falling back into deeper sleep, then coming out of it just enough to have the paralysis happen again. I knew if I could make one part move, like a finger or a foot or something, I'd totally wake up, but I couldn't manage even that. My brain flashed to that episode of (I think it was) Alfred Hitchcock's show where everybody thinks the guy is dead and they're about to bury him, until they see him crying a single tear...and then of course in my half-sleep state, I freaked and *I* started to cry, just a little. Still couldn't move or wake up any more. I did manage to finally whisper something that sounded enough like "Help" for hubby (sitting next to me) to gently shake me out of it- I had told him about these experiences in the past so he kinda knew what was going on.

It's very odd and since most of you say you grew out of it in your mid-20s, I'm hoping it will pass soon. I never find it enjoyable or interesting, just scary as fark. Are there any cures or preventions or is it just a matter of waiting to grow out of it?

Dansker
It's a distinct physiological state, different from sleep.
It used to scare the crap out of me as a kid, but now I just enjoy the weirdness and wait for it to pass.
Still happens about once a year.

Translation:
The first few times I was anally probed, I hated it, but now I've come to enjoy it.
Hey, what happens on Neptune stays on Neptune.

Brick Top:
Hey, what happens on Neptune stays on Neptune.

Yeah, so shut up about it already. I thought we had a deal.

Anyway, it's not so bad once you convince them to warm up the Probulator before insertion.

lysistrata23 - I don't think there are cures, but it is remarkably more common if you sleep on your back, so try to avoid that.

This page is a good one on SP and related phenomena, and has some good preventative ideas. There's also stuff on Wikpedia.

lysistrata23:
I never find it enjoyable or interesting, just scary as fark.

But at least now you know that it's not dangerous and that it happens to other people too.
That's what made me stop freaking out about it.