• conrad82@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    When the first dinosaur bone was discovered, noone had heard about it before and people believed that bones they found before were from some animals

    After people knew about dinosaurs they started finding them other places in the world at a rapid pace. Many people thought it was all a hoax

    So you know, unless you know about them you don’t know what to report. And americans think most about aliens I guess.

    That being said, probably there aren’t secret aliens around. probably 🫣

    • TheActualDevil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So… what were they mistaking the aliens for?

      I mean, the actual verified “alien craft” in America is actually more of a “not sure what that is” grainy footage in an age where Donald Trump tweeted out classified satellite images that showed the cameras we use are actually far more advanced and show far more detail than any we knew existed. And that technology was over a decade old at the time!

      • Wollff@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        So… what were they mistaking the aliens for?

        Ghosts. Spirits. Dragons. Or any other mythical creatures, or mythical phenomena of your choice.

        If there were aliens, those are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And those are the descriptions I would expect in basically all the world, almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today.

        • TheActualDevil@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          So it couldn’t be Americans mistaking ghosts for aliens? Or bigfoot, a creature that we haven’t been able to verify because their culture advanced past ours and is able to cloak themselves and occasionally go on joyrides in their more advanced technology and forget to turn on the cloaking device? We have just as much evidence for all of these things.

            • TheActualDevil@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              No, I’m pretty sure I fully understand you. I’m just pretty sure that people are either making it up or ascribing normal, terrestrial things that they don’t understand as fantastical things. There aren’t ghosts, spirits, dragons or aliens that have secretly visited earth but choses not to make actual contact. My point is that all of those things are equally unlikely. I assumed my over-the-top absurdity made that clear.

              And I feel like you might be underestimating literally all of the world if you think these things are actually aliens. You’re implying that they would assume something they don’t understand is some mystical nonsense. That “almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today” is superstitious and wouldn’t know what aliens are.

              • Wollff@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                I’m just pretty sure that people are either making it up or ascribing normal, terrestrial things that they don’t understand as fantastical things.

                Yes.

                As I said: If there were aliens, those fantastical things, are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And in most non US places. After all, aliens are a modern US legend, invented from Americans, for Americans.

                I didn’t say that there were any aliens anywhere. Or that there were any other fantastical things anywhere.

                That “almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today” is superstitious and wouldn’t know what aliens are

                Didn’t we just establish that aliens are superstition? I think you are overestimating how many people share “aliens” as the most popular superstition which comes to mind first.

                Most of the US shares that. A lot of other places probably don’t. Don’t underestimate how many strange stories about strange things in the night are out there :D

                • TheActualDevil@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Ya know what? I misread this interaction. My bad. I didn’t realize we were arguing the same point. The last week has shown a lot of people on this site arguing fervently for the case of aliens visiting earth, and I made assumptions. I’m sorry buddy.

                  • Wollff@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    No worries! I hope I was not too much of a dick in my response, and I totally understand why and how you would read things the way you did. I’ll just try to express myself more clearly in the future. You know, this communication thing? It’s a never ending struggle! :D

      • 🐱TheCat@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I think its like bigfoot / mothman etc - once someone in your area is talking about seeing a thing, it increases the likelihood you will think you saw that thing specifically next time you see something that would be otherwise unexplainable to you

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I have several relatives who “see” plots all the time. Every time I deal with them I get to hear about them. Bet you didn’t know that there is a plot to turn frogs gay and convert our children into drag queens.