blog.area51.org

Frequently Asked Questions

Came here looking for answers and ended up with even more questions? Let us at least attempt to answer a few of them about ourselves. This is by no means an exhaustive list. If there’s something that you’re wondering about, why not contact us?

What do you mean by “paranormal”?

We think paranormal means “a phenomenon that cannot be explained using today’s science”. This does not mean that the paranormal is magical.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”–Arthur C. Clarke, novelist

The unexplained does not always add up to be paranormal. Usually, something that we’d think of as a paranormal phenomenon seems to press the edges of current understanding and wants to make drastic changes to the way we see the world. An advanced civilization existing 10,000 years B.C., for instance, would certainly change our understanding of history if not reality (when historians and scientists generally accept that the first civilization happened around 3,000 B.C.). An intelligent humanoid leftover from evolution living in the Pacific Northwest might screw up our worldview as well. Those things are paranormal — we don’t have science to explain them, and our scientific explanations would need massive change if we had to accommodate them.

Clarke also once said: “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

That’s what we do here at Area51.Org: venture into the impossible.

What do you mean by “conspiracy”?

“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”–Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister

“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise their power from behind the scenes.”–Justice Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court

“Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.”–Robert Heinlein, novelist

We mean two or more people acting together to do something in secret. Usually this involves harming the general public or other groups of people.

Obviously the U.S. government, world leaders, and large corporations are the most guilty of these crimes. But conspiracies can work against individuals — especially under the GWB administration, people have been “disappeared” apparently because they said things that one does not say in a fascist state led by King George.

Conspiracy is the tool used by those who believe the world is their playground, and that we are their playthings.

Unfortunately for them, it’s time for G.I. Joe to start shooting back.

How can you have a site called Area51.Org without any information about Area 51?

It’s coming, grasshopper. To us, Area 51, the base, is just a launching point. We’ve been as near the actual Area 51 as you can legally be, by the way, and probably would’ve gone much further if it wouldn’t have certainly meant being stopped by the camo dudes and spending the night in the hoosegow.

Anyway, look, we’re in pre-release. There is a lot of stuff that we haven’t released yet, therefore.

If you’re looking for a site that’s exclusively about Area 51, we recommend Dreamland Resort.

What’s Occam’s Razor?

Occam’s Razor is a rule of thumb that says the simplest explanation for a mystery will usually turn out to be the correct one. It’s a useful thing to remember, providing you know how to use it. For example, if I wake up and find my lawn has a huge circular imprint of burnt grass, I could suggest that an alien scout ship landed in the middle of the night, or I could guess that maybe some neighborhood kids got crazy with fertilizer in an act of vandalism. In all likelihood, between those two choices, I have some mischievous neighbors. It’s the simpler explanation, and it’s more likely to be true.

Occam’s Razor is frequently misused by skeptics to bolster arguments. It’s only a rule of thumb–the simplest explanation is not always the right explanation. Most often, skeptics will attempt to use Occam’s Razor as a law. If there is a simpler explanation, then it must be correct, ipso facto. Wrong. It’s just a guide to reason, not a law. If my lawn damage had been accompanied by other phenomena, like sightings of strange lights in the area, then “kids with fertilizer” becomes a less simple explanation — for one thing, it doesn’t answer all the questions!

Too often we find skeptics trying to shoot a hole in a mystery, thinking that if they offer a simple explanation for one small part of it, they’ve cracked the case. If Ray Wallace really did run around all over Northern California with fake Bigfoot feet strapped on, then that’s simpler than believing that a race of hominids has stayed hidden for thousands of years. Ray’s fake footprints (of shoddy quality anyway) alone cannot explain the physical evidence and other Sasquatch data, muchless the scores of credible sightings. It also can’t explain the fresh footprints found in extremely remote places. This “simplest” explanation, that Ray Wallace was behind all Bigfoot tracks, is not the best.

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