Fair minded skepticism, perhaps what they say is true.

So this is my 4^th post but I feared my first one was lacking in content. For this post I figured I’d go in the opposite direction of my typical skepticism and share a defense for difficult to accept statements. As I was watching some of the videos and the slides about Alien and UFO abductions there was a point when it was mentions that alien/UFO sightings skyrocketed after such events were getting sensationalized in the public eye. That’s a painfully eye rolling, “no kidding” type of observation and I’m almost certain that the desire for attention or even just the priming of people to think their experiences could be explained via extraterrestrial phenomenon are mostly to blame for this. However, I couldn’t help but think of the opposite argument to this in the name of fair minded thinking. This argument being that people are also more likely to come forward if they feel that there is greater chance of acceptance and lesser a chance of rejection. While the same arguments about false memories in general can be used to explain away alien encounters, and I in particular have doubts about people undergoing regression therapy since such therapy is known to implant false memories, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that everybody who has ever claimed to have had an encounter is absolutely wrong (though I will personally believe it when I see it for myself). To look with doubt upon the entire group of those making these claims would be no different than doubting the truth behind peoples inherent sexualities simply because at one point in time they absolutely could not be public about it without repercussions or rejection. Making the argument that people aren’t really gay but rather it’s merely a “trend” based on the fact that at some arbitrary point in time people were conforming to social norms completely overlooks the innate human desire to be “normal” and to satisfy social customs. Likewise, if you have no support or way to make your alien abduction experience fit into the social norms and body of knowledge currently available to people – than it’s just as plausible that you will recreate your memories to fit a story line more acceptable to the people around you (even if you truly did have an alien experience) as it is that someone could prime your memories to believe in an alien abduction that actually didn’t happen.