Third world ghost involves complicated belief pattern

[skeptigirl]

GHOST STORY (http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=67215&cat=India)Police official spooked by thief:-
Bhopal | February 16, 2005 6:05:22 PM IST

Bhopal, Feb 16 : A police officer who fainted upon sighting a "ghost" gained consciousness Wednesday to learn he had missed catching a thief!

Reportedly, police sub-inspector Ramkailash Dangi was returning to his quarters near Satpada police station in Vidisha late Tuesday when he saw some movement in the locked home of a deceased neighbour, Pradeep Sharma.

Upon constable Sharma's death in a shootout, his family members had moved to another place without packing up the household goods. Dangi saw the thief, who was busy packing the stolen goods, and promptly fainted at what he Thought was an apparition in a haunted house.

A watchman stumbled upon an unconscious Dangi Wednesday morning. At the sub-inspector's claim of Having seen a ghost, the watchman discovered bundles of "loot" left behind in the deceased constable's Home. I bring up this story, not because of the ghost belief but because of the surrounding circumstances described in the report.

First, you have a police officer who had the very strong belief a normal event was abnormal. That's the pervasiveness of belief in ghosts in the community. Not a surprise.

But you also have the physiological reaction which I'm not sure is valid and that's one of the things I want to discuss. One, did this guy really faint? Possibly. But fainting is a vascular reflex that is immediately corrected when one falls or lays down. And even if the person was propped up, if circulation did not return to normal within a few minutes at most, it would be lethal. After all, the reason you are fainting is the blood supply to the brain is temporarily interrupted. So how did this guy stay unconscious until morning?

And that is the second thing I want to bring up, the role of storytelling in this news account. I read many local news accounts from Indian and other third world news sources on a regular basis in following infectious disease outbreak reports. I have seen hundreds of similar misperceived or made up events described in similar reports. Some examples are several meteorite falls that supposedly started fires, (meteorites don't start fires and the fire aspect was quietly dropped in the stories much later); a woman who gave birth to a frog (which was reported as a witnessed fact in the mainstream news, not a tabloid); during the SARS outbreak the accounts from India included many improbable accounts like people testing positive but not having symptoms when no test was yet available; and so on.

No one seems to notice things like the story not only was unbelievable, that's to be expected, but certain aspects of the stories are impossible yet reported on as factual accounts without an eye blink of a comment. And sometimes the additional aspects which are unbelievable are added in great detail. The fire stories in the meteroite falls weren't just fires but what caught fire and the reactions to the damage.

I have become interested in the storytelling that accompanies these reports. There must be some bigger psych-social aspect going on.

[Goshawk]

Perhaps he simply remained "unconscious" so that he wouldn't have to go in there and confront the "ghost".

Or perhaps he wasn't so much unconscious as "rigid with terror".

Or perhaps the "unconscious" cop the watchman found was actually the "passed-out drunk" cop the watchman found. :D

[jmercer]

Originally posted by skeptigirl
GHOST STORY (http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=67215&cat=India) I bring up this story, not because of the ghost belief but because of the surrounding circumstances described in the report.

First, you have a police officer who had the very strong belief a normal event was abnormal. That's the pervasiveness of belief in ghosts in the community. Not a surprise.

But you also have the physiological reaction which I'm not sure is valid and that's one of the things I want to discuss. One, did this guy really faint? Possibly. But fainting is a vascular reflex that is immediately corrected when one falls or lays down. And even if the person was propped up, if circulation did not return to normal within a few minutes at most, it would be lethal. After all, the reason you are fainting is the blood supply to the brain is temporarily interrupted. So how did this guy stay unconscious until morning?

And that is the second thing I want to bring up, the role of storytelling in this news account. I read many local news accounts from Indian and other third world news sources on a regular basis in following infectious disease outbreak reports. I have seen hundreds of similar misperceived or made up events described in similar reports. Some examples are several meteorite falls that supposedly started fires, (meteorites don't start fires and the fire aspect was quietly dropped in the stories much later); a woman who gave birth to a frog (which was reported as a witnessed fact in the mainstream news, not a tabloid); during the SARS outbreak the accounts from India included many improbable accounts like people testing positive but not having symptoms when no test was yet available; and so on.

No one seems to notice things like the story not only was unbelievable, that's to be expected, but certain aspects of the stories are impossible yet reported on as factual accounts without an eye blink of a comment. And sometimes the additional aspects which are unbelievable are added in great detail. The fire stories in the meteroite falls weren't just fires but what caught fire and the reactions to the damage.

I have become interested in the storytelling that accompanies these reports. There must be some bigger psych-social aspect going on.

Hi, skeptigirl - welcome to the forums!

You make a lot of good points... some cultures have a deeply embedded attitude of credulity. They treat their ghost stories as if they were facts, not fiction... and they involve their religions in their daily existence in a way that's utterly foriegn to many of us.

Regarding the officer's snooze... if it's true, then he's either got a medical problem; was drunk; or hit his head as he passed out. But you're 100% right - simply fainting from shock wouldn't result in an overnight coma. :D

[misawafan]

Originally posted by Goshawk
Or perhaps the "unconscious" cop the watchman found was actually the "passed-out drunk" cop the watchman found. :D

There was my first thought...

[skeptigirl]

I was really not so much pointing out he couldn't have fainted for the whole night, as I was pointing out the retelling of these events seems to involve more 'story telling' than reporting. It's possible there is an explanation for the story that has some basis in reality. But I think it is more likely half the story is real and half is totally made up by someone telling the story.

What I have noticed reading these news stories is that somewhere along the way someone adds all sorts of details to the story that weren't there. I don't know who adds the facts, the first person who tells the story, the last who re-tells it, or a little from everyone.

Here are two news reports about the meteorites starting fires. They are two separate incidents. Both involve elaborate descriptions of the fires and the damage done. The first one appears to have been a real meteorite and the second one probably was but I didn't see any follow up information. But let's assume it was. The first story had follow up stories that no longer included the fire stories. So let's assume there were no real fires in either story.

Meteorites do not start fires. Only a fraction of a millimeter of the outer surface is molten at any time while the rock falls through the atmosphere. As soon as it lands it will only be slightly warm.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=4&u=/nm/20050126/sc_nm/cambodia_meteorite_dc
A 10 pound meteorite which landed in a former Khmer Rouge (news - web sites) zone of northwest Cambodia started fires across rice fields and prayers from villagers who saw it as a divine omen of peace.

"Some farmers are angry with the rock because it caused fires and destroyed several hundred hectares of their paddy fields," said Sok Sareth, police chief of Banteay Meanchey province, around 200 miles northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh. Here's a follow up story sans the fire. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-01/26/content_2511399.htm

Here's an earlier story, different meteorite.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/09/28/india.meteorite/index.html
BHUBANESWAR, India -- Two people have been injured and several homes badly damaged by a suspected meteorite crashing into a village in eastern India, reports said Sunday.

Reports from several districts described an ear spitting noise that shattered several windows as the object sped overhead.

At least one part of the fireball came down in a village in Mayurbhanj district, setting several homes alight and lightly injuring at least two people.

The report said other parts of the suspected meteorite may have crashed into another village, also setting at least one thatched house ablaze. It isn't just that there was an incorrect report of a fire, it's that the reports of the fires are so detailed. Someone had to make that up and know they were making it up. If it were just a misunderstood comment or speculation of a fire that was added to the story, then I'd chalk it up to the 'whisper it around the circle' effect. Instead it seems to be a cultural norm to elaborate when retelling a story. Not speculate and/or exaggerate but outright add all sorts of completely new details to the story.

Again, I have seen this time and time again reading these news accounts. Very damaging myths are prevalent in third world countries. I think this storytelling is worth looking at as a contributing factor.

[jmercer]

Fair enough... but I think you may be focusing on the wrong end of the spectrum.

You have to look at the culture before you look at the media. Some cultures view the media as a story-telling mechanism, and look to it as much for entertainment as for information. In fact, in some cultures (such as the mid-eastern ones) story-telling and information delivery are considered the same thing by tradition.

[Ashles]

I know this is a huge derail, I am finding this "Meteorites never start fires" fact very interesting.

When searching for information on this I came across this article:

Cadillac news - Article about meteorite caused fires. (http://www.cadillacnews.com/articles/2004/08/23/news/news02.txt)
The Discovery Channel reported on its Web site in March a presentation by Robert Wood, a retired McDonnell-Douglas physicist, who theorizes fragments of a comet discovered in the early 1820s possibly caused the fires.

Wood theorized that small pieces of frozen methane, acetylene or other high combustive materials hit the earth sparking the flames.
Is this just utter nonsense then?

Do meteorites never cause fires?

[RamblingOnwards]

Originally posted by skeptigirl
Someone had to make that up and know they were making it up.

It's not just the third world. Just recently someone commented on an ad that said something along the lines of 'your eyes capture more than 28 million images in your life'. I had watched that ad many, many, times before without even blinking at that statement. Somebody made up a figure with no justification, and I didn't even notice it. We become immune :)

[While it is a true statement, it is only true in the same way as 'you will capture more than 4 images in your life' is. Even discounting sleep hours, that figure works out to less than once a minute! ]

[skeptigirl]

Originally posted by Ashles
I know this is a huge derail, I am finding this "Meteorites never start fires" fact very interesting.

When searching for information on this I came across this article:

Cadillac news - Article about meteorite caused fires. (http://www.cadillacnews.com/articles/2004/08/23/news/news02.txt)

Is this just utter nonsense then?

Do meteorites never cause fires? This article is full of bull. However, the few circumstances when an object from the sky could cause a fire would be an asteroid or a fairly large object like the one that exploded above Tunguska. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event)

In the Tunguska event, I do not believe any fires were reported per se but someone can correct me if I am wrong. There was however a significant blast that I assume contained a fair amount of heat.

The Chicxulub asteroid (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/asteroid_jello_001122.html) that hit the Yucatan and Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago was supposed to have caused massive fires.

But neither of those are what the above article is referring to. So could your average object from the skies cause fires? No and the article has several obvious flaws in the hypothesis they are presenting.

1) How would this combustible material survive entry through the atmosphere? A small object would most definitely burn up. A very large object entering the atmosphere shatters well above the surface of Earth. This would be visible and audible over a very wide area. It would have been obvious. And all the fragments would burn up in the air before reaching the Earth's surface.

2) Why would no similar event have occurred since we've monitored incoming objects given how many fires in history they are claiming might have been attributed to these objects?

3) All of those fires have more likely explanations, some even have fairly well accepted explanations.

4) Comets are not known to contain large amounts of combustible gases and meteorites certainly don't either.

I don't know who the "engineer" they claim supports the hypothesis is but my guess is he's not thought of highly among his peers.

[skeptigirl]

Originally posted by RamblingOnwards
It's not just the third world. Just recently someone commented on an ad that said something along the lines of 'your eyes capture more than 28 million images in your life'. I had watched that ad many, many, times before without even blinking at that statement. Somebody made up a figure with no justification, and I didn't even notice it. We become immune :)

[While it is a true statement, it is only true in the same way as 'you will capture more than 4 images in your life' is. Even discounting sleep hours, that figure works out to less than once a minute! ] This is exactly what I am getting at. I don't think it has to do with the cultural aspects or how a culture views and uses the news. I think it is a human trait we haven't paid a lot of attention to. The problem of myths and mis-beliefs are usually addressed on the 'believer's' side of the equation. Is anyone looking at the concept that someone knowingly made a lot of the stuff up in the first place.

The person who takes in legitimate information and misinterprets it is a different beast. That would be the Mbekes of the world. Read the Internet and conclude HIV doesn't cause AIDS. Then you only have the believer side.

But there is another beast in that some people just totally make stuff up and tell their stories. I know some of the story tellers have mental flaws and can't help but tell stories about everything. But I think there are a lot of average folks who, like the story tellers in the example articles add or totally make up all sorts of things for some unknown reason.

And telling or perhaps retelling a different kind of made up story are the persons relating fantastic accounts with the supporting evidence, "I know it happened because it happened to my cousin". That's the joke my son and I have when we hear wild tales some one swears they have personal knowledge of. This is an additional human trait that adds to the nonsense. The trait of wanting to be believed even when you are only repeating what someone else said.