Fears, Fascination and the Paranormal

It's amazing how focused people can be on what they don't understand. Or what presents itself as a phenomena beyond normalcy, not readily adapted to scientific or rational explanation.

Peoples' obsessions with UFOs, with objects beyond the readily explicable, with the belief that extra-terrestrial beings are teasing us, visiting our planet, examining and studying our way of life, our bodily structures, our minds, are legend. Sightings are reported on a continual basis, often by people purporting to be of sound mind, and often enough in some kind of official capacity whose rationality is usually beyond reproach.

So we have government agencies investigating these inexplicable and often troubling occurrences where people claim to have been taken captive on board a spacecraft, and being subjected to surgical treatments.

We have credible witnesses swearing to having seen hovering, well-lighted spacecraft, flying in a manner unlike any spacecraft we have ourselves devised. We have conspiracy theories in abundance, that government knows the truth of these alien forays into our earthspace, but the evidence that they collect is strictly classified and cannot be breached, remaining closely-guarded state secrets.

Then there are the earthbound creatures of great perplexity which roam among us, rarely seen, but leaving indications of their existence behind from time to time for mankind to ponder. Great leviathans of the deep whose huge, undulating coils bring to mind primeval existence and which make their homes deep in lakes and seas. Huge, hairy humanlike creatures whose powerful bodies and Neanderthal-like heads make their surprising appearances from time to time, eluding cameras and teasing the terrified observer.

How about the irrational, but deep-seated fears people exhibit, believing that walking under a ladder will result in some personal tragedy? Or that seeing a black cat, particularly on Hallowe'en night is a prediction of bad things to follow? Or, heaven forfend, those suffering from a morbid fear of what evil can befall them on Friday the 13th. The 13th floor of a building doesn't exist because of peoples' fears relating to that deadly number.

Irrational fears to be sure, but in the depths of fear they instill in people, they take on a reality not readily explained. Do we inherit these fears, or are they handed down to us as dreaded fables?

And then there are the mysteries that we cannot quite explain, like the feeling that whatever you're doing at any given time has already been experienced by you at some earlier time. Deja vu. How many people are struck by the odd phenomenon of seeing the time 11:11 on a clock so often that you wonder just how this comes to be that you happen to glance so frequently at a clock and find those numbers blinking back at you. Scary, no?

Does human telepathy exist? What explains that suddenly the thought of someone will glance across your consciousness and next thing you know that person telephones you, or writes you a letter, or you just happen to bump into one another. Odd, how odd can it get? What about thought transference? Isn't it really peculiar that someone you're close to just happens to think the same thing you do at the same time? What's going on? Just as you pick up that ringing telephone, you instantly know who is on the other line. What?!!

There are those who claim to have 'felt' or 'seen' or 'dreamed of' an event that eventually, or very soon afterward actually occurs. How freaky is that? Of course, like faith in a belief of the Almighty, there is no scientific way that any of those can be 'proven' as a living phenomenon. These things appear to happen. There is no acceptable explanation for them. Science cannot give us proof that human telepathy exists, for example.

Here are some interesting examples about the human brain, about which, in fact, very little is known - where is the seat of the soul, for example, what is thought, where does it go?

• More electrical impulses are generated in one day by a single human brain than by all the telephones in the world.
• It is estimated that on an average day the human brain produces 70,000 thoughts.