Para-commonality

[NNY Paranormal]

There is a point where paranormal apologists need to stop and look around, as it seems hardly possible for them to have missed—through all of the evidence-bearing, analogizing, and sermonizing—some extraordinarily interesting similarities between many (if not all) of the paranormal categories. Let’s consider a few overlapping characteristics between some of the more pronounced paranormal theatres: Ufo’s, Ghosts, and Cryptoids. In all of these areas, we find instances of sulfur smells, electromagnetic abnormalities (very similar in affect), animal mutilations, and strange aberrations of purpose (when compared to what we might reasonably expect from such creatures and phenomena).

Sulphur smells are reported throughout the paranormal rogue’s gallery, and seem to texture the paranormal olfactory experience in ways that would seem to suggest more than just unwashed bodies and extraterrestrial technologies. The regularity of this feature within tales of the paranormal in general should problematize attempts to collapse all instances of sulfur smells into a single exclusive category (a dirty bigfoot, demonic manifestations, etc.); why should so many, apparently disparate phenomena, share something as unique as the smell of sulfur? Of course, this overlap isn’t exactly lost on all paranormal researchers, but their handling of this occurrence generally expands the range of the unknown, as opposed to narrowing the focus to common features that could put us on track to some kind of explanatory framework. Specifically, such researchers would rather assign the smell of sulfur to underground bases within the hollow earth; or proof that Hell-dwelling demons, thick with sulfur and brimstone, are responsible for all paranormal activity.

Electromagnetic abnormalities are some of the most vulgar displays of similarity across paranormal categories, dimming lights and discharging batteries wherever ufos, ghosts and cryptoids happen to meander. And of course, apologists for isolated paranormal categories treat this occurrence with ham-handed aplomb, disposing of this similarity with unexamined assumptions: ghosts need ‘energy’ to manifest, aliens just can’t seem to curb the effulgence of their gravity-defeating technologies, etc. (My favorite justification occurs within bigfoot circles, where the mysterious discharging of batteries and the general failure of electrical equipment is written off as the ‘bigfoot curse’: just a humorous application of Murphy’s law, describing how everything tends to go wrong whenever you’ve got a bigfoot in the viewfinder.) The electromagnetic component to nearly every paranormal category is so common as to be routine, but its ubiquity is only exceeded by its dismissal as a mere side effect of anything that we don’t understand. (Quite frankly, I’m surprised we don’t wonder why electromagnetic abnormalities don’t accompany the reading of mystery novels, or the playing of guessing games.)

Animal mutilation is an oft overlooked commonality across categories of the strange, as the dominant assumption seems to be that anomalous phenomena is, for some reason, just really rude to animals. This feature to the paranormal could be just as easily extended to the upcoming discussion of counterintuitive actions perpetrated by alleged paranormal entities, as the mutilation of animals seems completely illogical to the habits of nearly all ‘hidden’ entities, especially when one takes seriously other standard assumptions concerning mysterious entities (we’ll get into those soon enough). Animal mutilations also tend to herald the coming of the unknown, foreshadowing aliens, cryptids, and even hauntings. However, Even this correlation has been misappropriated by apologists, who claim animal mutilations speak to secret (albeit, out in the open) experiments by aliens; or the frustrated venting of cryptid entities, killing those animals that might irritate them (although, in most cases, animals of every stripe are usually seen to cower and run from the approach of mysterious entities).

The matter of counterintuitive behaviors is a complex similarity to tackle, as it attempts to assess how unknown creatures ought to behave, as opposed to how they (allegedly) actually act. Let’s take the phenomenon of saucer crashes as a fairly defining example. Here the idea is that aliens, who seem to prize anonymity concerning their activities, would allow their crafts to crash to the ground—filled with alien biology and their own personal, hyper-advanced technologies—to be recovered by human organizations; and that these crashes happen so often as to warrant human governments to develop “Saucer recovery teams.” To be clear, we are talking about aliens who are believed to possess mastery over time, space and dimension; and can instantaneously move from place to place, as well as employ a technology that can ‘phase’ inanimate and living matter alike through solid barriers, abduct millions of human beings from various locations across the world, etc. Given all of this, we are expected to believe that these creatures couldn’t simply recover their own property before its collected and exploited by human beings (or, should human beings actually manage to collect such crafts, that aliens couldn’t simply reclaim their possessions via application of their far superior powers of mind and technology). Of course, the temptation to explain all of this via recourse to our own ignorance is strong, meaning that we simply write off these ostensive contradictions to the mind-boggling actions of a race that is far too advanced for us to conceive of, much less properly understand. This mentality and phenomenon are present in all paranormal theatres, as whatever paranormal action that runs contrary to our common sense is attributed to the ineffable motivations of creatures beyond the reach of our puny human understanding. However, this mentality is revealed as a bit more desperate when applied to mysterious entities that are generally attributed subhuman intellect, such as Bigfoot and Thunderbirds. As soon as such beings display strange actions or abilities that run counter to established assumptions and theories, paranormal camps become split. One camp might simply denounce anecdotes wherein Bigfoot is seen to pass through solid objects, or disappear into thin air; and so become more of a ‘purist’ camp (Bigfoot is just a hidden animal, nothing more). While other groups might interpret the supernatural powers or unusual behaviors as mystical aspects to the being’s existence, incorporating the new attributes into a view that takes such beings further and further from intelligibility. More so than with Ufos and ghosts, cryptids contrast quite a bit with the idea that their frequent dalliances with supernaturalism can be written off as a product of an advanced or sublime nature, causing apologists and purists alike no small amount of frustration. What these contradictions should do, however, is bring the disparate groups of paranormal researchers closer together, rather than further apart; as the core features to most (if not all) paranormal phenomena seem to have a common cause.

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