Need an Explanation please

[SkepticalScience]

Hey Everyone:

Someone very dear to me, sent me an email this morning about a rescue worker who had a dream that helped locate a missing girl.

She tells, that it's stories like this one that makes her "believe there is another realm that science can't understand".

So here's the link:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=157951


She said she would like to give God credit for helping the researchers find it - and said she would like another explanation if i had one.

Can you all help me with one?

[c4ts]

Morpheus deserves recognition here. This "God" person is just hogging all the credit.

[Dragonrock]

Without more information it would be impossible to say with any certainty. It might have been a coincidence, or she might have seen tire marks that caused her to look over the side of the road, or she might have found her the day before an then gone home to have his dream so that she could make her story of finding the girl more spectacular.

More importantly, all her dream showed was a wooded area and a voice said "keep going." This in not particularly prophetic, I would also suspect that she had been dreaming about the incident for a while as things like this can easily end up being the only thing talked about. She just remembered this dream and forgot about the ones that didn't come true.

[Skeptical Greg]

With her daughter joining her, they drove to the area where the crash occurred, praying along the way. "I just thought, 'Let her speak out to us,"' Nohr told The Seattle Times.

Nohr said something drew her to stop and clamber over a concrete barrier and more than 100 feet down a steep, densely vegetated embankment where she barely managed to discern the wrecked 1996 Toyota Camry in some trees.




I wonder if the daughter ( who was a friend of the missing girl ) was at the party that precluded this accident?

Maybe we will hear more about this later...

[SkepticalScience]

Ahhh. . .that is a good point.

I was going to say something along the lines of, "Think of all the people who have dreams everyday about finding missing people. Only a very very small handful turn out to be true. That very very small handful, is the EXACT same amount that happen by chance alone. "

If I mix in, your other points, I think that is an excellent answer! Thanks TONS!

[SkepticalScience]

Hmmm. . .

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/12/teen_missing041012.html

Even more evidence for the religious folks.

[Yaotl]

So she was looking around the scene of the accident? It isn't like she didn't know the person in question. If it was someone that had no interest in the missing girl or didn't know that was the scene of the accident, maybe it would be prophetic or what have you, but this is more like looking a little harder in a place she was likely to be.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Yaotl
....but this is more like looking a little harder in a place she was likely to be.

The problem is, no one else looked ' harder ' in this area, and they had been looking for some time..

I'm real suspicious of this woman and her daughter, driving right to the spot where she left the road..


I don't think it was the ' dream '... But I guess I'm a bit skeptical..

[Dragonrock]

They said she "managed to find the space between two guard rails." Below a missing guardrail would be a pretty good place to look.

[roger]

Wow. I'm convinced. A volunteer searcher who said she had had several vivid dreams of a wooded area found the wrecked car in the trees Sunday

I mean, what are the chances? Most usually when you can't find a car it's because it's sitting in plain sight, not hidden in trees.

Nohr said something drew her to stop and clamber over a concrete barrier

What could have drawn her attention?

Urquhart said Hatch ..."managed to find an open space between two guardrails."

An opening where somebody could actually go over the embackment? Nah, it couldn't have been that. If I was searching, I'd look at places where a car couldn't go off the road.

All right, I'm being a bit sarcastic, but I don't see much here to marvel about. If you think somebody was in an accident, and that you might be able to find them, you are going to assume they are in a wooded area. Plus, the dream was a wooded area, not a ravine or embankment. I call it a miss. Factor in the probability that they looked in about 20 other places first, and the propensity to exagerate about something drawing you to an area, and I don't see much of a story here.

Think about it. Just about every other day aren't you out with somebody, some silly little mishap occurs when ordering food at the takeout or whatever, and later on the friend is recounting the story and exagerrating about the event? It's just what people do. Try to tell a good story. Heck, my "every other day" is exaggeration, I just realized.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Dragonrock
They said she "managed to find the space between two guard rails." Below a missing guardrail would be a pretty good place to look.

Right.. But how did she manage to find it when no one else did?

[Dragonrock]

Originally posted by Diogenes
Right.. But how did she manage to find it when no one else did?

Because her daughter, who was a friend of the girl who crashed, was with her and might have told her where they had been partying. Perhaps the other searchers were looking in the wrong place because they didn't know where the party was as the kids at the party wouldn't tell them because there was alchohol being served.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Dragonrock
Because her daughter, who was a friend of the girl who crashed, was with her and might have told her where they had been partying. Perhaps the other searchers were looking in the wrong place because they didn't know where the party was as the kids at the party wouldn't tell them because there was alchohol being served.

The initial search was slowed because there had been underage drinking at the party, and the young people who attended would not say where it had been held, Urquhart said.

On Oct. 6, detectives learned the party had been in a neighborhood east of Lake Washington and searched along her likely route home, Urquhart said. But prospects dimmed as the days passed.


I don't disagree with you. I believe the daughter of the ' dreamer ' knew more than has been revealed at this time..

[roger]

Somehow I would think that a car going through a guardrail gap and down an enbankment would leave a mark or two that one could pick up on, at least unconsciously.

[1inChrist]

And the sceptics are proved wrong again. I love it. :D

[DangerousBeliefs]

Originally posted by 1inChrist
And the sceptics are proved wrong again. I love it. :D

Praise be to God!

Police said Hatch was speeding along a winding two-lane road after leaving the party, when her car went through a gap between guardrails and plunged down the ravine.

Efforts to find her were slowed initially because the teens at the party, where underage drinking had been taking place, were reluctant to tell police where it had been held.

He sure can pick the good ones to save!

[Ratman_tf]

Originally posted by 1inChrist
And the sceptics are proved wrong again. I love it. :D

Oh poop! Stuff like this happens all the time. There's nothing supernatural or miraculous about it.

[TruthSeeker]

Originally posted by 1inChrist
And the sceptics are proved wrong again. I love it. :D

Is that really what you conclude from reading this thread? You can't see that this might not be supernatural?

Gotta say, I love your consistency. :D

[Lisa Simpson]

With 1inC here, let me be the first to say--

I win.

[TruthSeeker]

Originally posted by Lisa Simpson
With 1inC here, let me be the first to say--

I win.

I knew you'd say that.

I think 1inC tried to cure your migraines but gave me psychic abilities instead.

Woo hoo...$1 000 000 for me!

I don't need to win no stinking debate anymore.

[Lisa Simpson]

Now, in all seriousness, how do we know that the dreamer isn't making up the dream in order to make a good story into a great story? Because who doesn't love a story where the god who didn't bother to stop the car from plunging down the embankment, suddenly decides to give info in a dream about where said car now rests.

[Lisa Simpson]

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
I knew you'd say that.

I think 1inC tried to cure your migraines but gave me psychic abilities instead.

Woo hoo...$1 000 000 for me!

I don't need to win no stinking debate anymore.

Now that you are psychic you can't be a winner in the debates anymore, because you will always know the outcome in advance!

I don't think 1inC is going to heal my migraines. He called me an ignoramus. :(

[TruthSeeker]

Originally posted by Lisa Simpson


I don't think 1inC is going to heal my migraines. He called me an ignoramus. :(

I think it means he has a crush on you ;)

[Kitty Chan]

Originally posted by Lisa Simpson
Now, in all seriousness, how do we know that the dreamer isn't making up the dream in order to make a good story into a great story? Because who doesn't love a story where the god who didn't bother to stop the car from plunging down the embankment, suddenly decides to give info in a dream about where said car now rests.

Well if there was alcohol involved, and maybe the miracle was her surviving for so long before her friend finally caved in.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by 1inChrist
And the sceptics are proved wrong again. I love it. :D

Wrong about what?