Another example why I put little stock into eyewitness testimony

[Creepy Green Light]

So I was revisiting some P-3C Orion mishaps over the years. There was a stretch when Naval Air Station Brunswick, ME lost 3 planes within several months. Somehow I never knew about these until today, even though that's where my squadron was home based. One of the planes exploded & then the wings came off the plane - killing everybody on board. The eyewitness reports; people reported a mid-air collision - false, never happened. And people also reported parachutes - false, never happened. There is nothing you are going to see to make you think another plane was involved and definitely nothing you are going to see to make you think you are looking at guys in parachutes floating to the ground. So even with a terrestrial object that everybody is familiar with (an airplane) - the witnesses can't get it right. They make things up involving other aircraft & parachutes. Why is this? Who knows. But my point is; if this kind of thing happens with an ordinary, mundane object like an airplane at around 12 noon - then how do we expect these same witnesses to get it right when it comes to flying saucers or other not so common objects? How much of what they are saying is either exaggerated or completely & totally made up?

September 22, 1978

The next accident took place on September 22, 1978, when a third P-3 Orion, (Bu. No. 152757), from Brunswick NAS, suddenly exploded in mid-air over the town of Poland, Maine, killing all eight men aboard. The debris fell from the sky over a wide area, in some cases narrowly missing some homes.

The Orion had taken off from Brunswick NAS just minutes before bound for Trenton, Ontario, Canada, to take part in an air show as a display aircraft. The aircraft was assigned to Patrol Squadron 8.

One witness to the accident told a reporter, “When the plane blew up, there was a big mess of debris and pieces flying all different directions. It was just an incredible big boom and a huge ball of fire, and then there was fire flying around everywhere.”

Another witness who was piloting a private plane about fifteen miles away told reporters, “All of a sudden I saw a big flash in the sky.”

The Navy later reported that over 75 witnesses were eventually interviewed.

Initial reports were that the Orion had been involved in a mid-air collision with another aircraft, and some reported seeing parachutes in the air shortly after the explosion, but these reports turned out to be in error.

 

[SOUL-DRIFTER]

One must consider the witness.
How good of an observer he or she is AND what are the possibilities they exaggerated or made up the story or points about it.
Naturally there will be some that enjoy deceiving others while there will be some that would never lie or exaggerate what they saw or experienced. We can only go by what others tell us about them and their reputation.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

One must consider the witness.
How good of an observer he or she is AND what are the possibilities they exaggerated or made up the story or points about it.
Naturally there will be some that enjoy deceiving others while there will be some that would never lie or exaggerate what they saw or experienced. We can only go by what others tell us about them and their reputation.

I can perhaps see where if there were things floating to the ground that resembled parachutes and the person(s) mis ID'd those things for people in parachutes - but when there is not one shred of anything that would resemble parachutes and the witness says that - it means they are lying or are mentally incapacitated in some way. It makes me wonder what would happen if it weren't a P-3C that exploded, but a meteorite. Now these same witnesses would probably say things like "the object was coming down at a 45 degree angle and then suddenly stopped, changed direction, then made a controlled landing behind that hill. It looked metallic & shiny, blah blah, etc." When in reality - none of that is true.

 

[pigfarmer]

I can perhaps see where if there were things floating to the ground that resembled parachutes and the person(s) mis ID'd those things for people in parachutes - but when there is not one shred of anything that would resemble parachutes and the witness says that - it means they are lying or are mentally incapacitated in some way. It makes me wonder what would happen if it weren't a P-3C that exploded, but a meteorite. Now these same witnesses would probably say things like "the object was coming down at a 45 degree angle and then suddenly stopped, changed direction, then made a controlled landing behind that hill. It looked metallic & shiny, blah blah, etc." When in reality - none of that is true.

When asked I think people will say what they think you want to hear; confabulate. Human nature, not exactly outright lies or kookery - although we've all had enough of that when it comes to witness reports.

I'd show up at a business on a service call. Contact centers were great for this where you had a group of people all together doing about the same thing. There would be some network or telephone trouble and I'd go to who reported it and ask them a few questions. Nothing gets office staff clucking like some strange man showing up with a pad & pencil writing things down. It was very common to have others pipe up and add their two cents to the report. Sometimes they would be spot on and that input was helpful, but more often than not once I took detailed look behind the scenes I would find that they were full of shit. Maybe not even there when whatever it was happened or I could see that nothing like what they described did happen. But I had to listen to what they said because sometimes they were telling me the literal truth.Kind of a mundane War of the Worlds psychology at work and all we were talking about was a stupid computer or telephone, not an aircraft blowing up.