While I remain skeptical of any number of the odder claims that pop up in UFOlogy, I can’t quite bring myself to the level of enlightenment that this
“Sage” displays. I come here on a regular basis because it treats UFOs as
a phenomena worthy of discussion. I also
enjoy the fact that while Greg and Nick
both have their ’spheres of belief’ if
you will, I have never seen them condescending, patronizing, or deliberately belittling the opinions of
their peers and guests. A civil question was asked-a simple request for
more information…

Cohen said nothing about any “lights” that Columbus allegedly saw. Cohen only talked about the various humanoid monsters that Columbus constantly inquired the American natives about. This information was taken from letters that Columbus wrote. What those letters (help) prove is that most people can be deluded into believing in things that do not exist anywhere except in their imagination. The alleged lights incident would not change anything in that regard.

I read much of the available online literature on Columbus months ago. I did not have access to the Cohen article as you do. My original statement said “strange lights,” not “mysterious UFO-like lights.” What I was looking for was more data, which I had to ask for twice. How is that “blindly accepting a storytale?” You are essentially asking us to take your word for it until you reveal your sources and data, which is what you accuse others of doing.

If you’d explained the issue throughly in the first place (which is what a sage would do) instead of making glib statements about “reality,” and others’ ignorance of it, we would all have saved a lot of time and typing. I certainly appreciate the illumination, but not the effort required to receive it.

Why is it that you will blindly accept a storytale, so long as it is a storytale that is about something paranormal, and run with it ’till the cows come home? You need to start learning to do some homework, before parroting any ol’ tall tale that comes along your way…

Columbus wrote a diary of his voyage to the New World, and presented it to Queen Elizabeth upon his return. All traces of this diary disappeared in 1545. What took its place was a thirdhand retelling (read, “a friend of a friend of a friend told me”) by Bartolomé de las Casas. This document, aside from being hearsay, was filled with spelling errors, illegible sentences, and reworked passages. It is bad enough translating one language into another, so imagine the magnitude of the problem that would be had in translating that nonsense, and a translation of this document did not take place until 1989 — which was too late for Cohen to include in his work.

That document is the ONLY thing that mentions the lights incident. Maybe that document would be enough evidence for a UFO researcher to make a case, but scientists — heck, even a person with common logical sense — would find such tripe questionable.

So what about the lights incident? In that questionable hearsay diary of Columbus, it rumors that he and his crew experienced three strange events: some lights on bobbing on the horizon, a fireball crash into the sea, and a “compass problem”. The lights were on the horizon not flying in the sky and lights are not objects — nothing paranormal about that. The fireball incident was not elaborated upon other then to say they saw a fireball fall into the sea, so there is nothing paranormal there. The compass problem was that at night the compass would not point at the North Star like it should and that “the North Star must have moved to a new location” — which makes it sound like they were disoriented, since they only mention one North Star and not two, and the North Star can be located via all the other stars around it.

If this entire thing were not hearsay, all it would mean is that Columbus and his crew did not have enough intelligence or data to explain what they experienced, and if they did not have enough data to make any claims about it one way or the other, then you do not have enough data to make any claims about it, one way or the other, either…yet despite the complete lack of evidence, you still believe it must be something paranormal that needs explaining.

And that my friend is an example of how to do your homework.

I suppose that I could have saved some time if I had originally written “ALLEGEDLY witnessed strange lights.” In anomalies, we are talking about strange events, no matter what the source, and most people acknowledge this while looking for viable evidence. It would be nice to see the original Cohen article and how he settled on “mass delusion,” even though I don’t have any problem with that conclusion.

Some varieties of minutiae, especially those rooted in insignificant semantics, are just not worth the effort. Eventually, you cease to react to them.

Cohen did not say it was anything since it was not based on documented witness testimony. What you are referring to is a rumor, not reality.

How does “based on witness testimony” equate with “rumors”? Applying one’s own interpretation of someone else’s fairly clear comments in order to create errors in their reasoning is not helpful.

“Witness testimony” should include written accounts, ship’s logs, etc. which is all we have over 500 years after the fact.

What did Cohen say it was?

I thought I should include the “hallucination” category, as it comes up in assessments of UFO reports, whether it’s valid or not.