My Unique Theory On Alien Intervention...

[Torch2k]

Anyways, if anyone has a different reason why these coincidences came about, I am open to the suggestions.

Ummm ... because they're coincidences? Last time I checked, that's what coincidences are. To suggest anything else, you have to show why you think they're significant. Really. It's your responsibility.

[Tom Servo]

Just look to supposed "random" things around us and in our collective human history to see if you can find deviations from the statistical norm. For example, every United States president starting with Pres. Harrison (and apparently ending with Pres. Reagan and George W Bush) that was elected in a year ending in zero died in office. EVERYONE! (That's 7 altogether you know--way far beyond mere chance.)

Plus look to seemingly "UNEXPLAINED" phenomenon. For example, in 1917, the "Blessed Virgin Mary" is said to have appeared to 3 peasant children in Fatima, Portugal. Finally a miracle is said to have appeared there, witnessed by thousands of people, where the sun seemed to spin in the sky and plommet to earth. Indeed many photographs of the event still exist. And BTW I also believe things like ghost phenomenon is caused by them.

But don't just look to extraordinary examples like the ones above, look to the more mundane things too. What numbers come up more frequently when dealing with supposedly random events? And what letters? It sounds strange, but may yield some interesting results. ...

First Welcome to the BAUT.

I have a few points I would like to comment on.
Probably the strongest example you give is the President assasinations. This has already been discussed by others as being not entirely out of the possibility of randomness. I would agree with them that this is something that can randomly happen.
My question for you would be. Why would a very advanced alien race decide that rather than making there presence known to the earthlings it would be a better Idea to sit back and assasinate United states presidents in a somewhat pattern requiring them to be elected in years ending with 0s?

I could perhaps entertain the thought that they may want to help assasinate a president or two that they thought would benifit either the earthlings or the aliens plans. But why would they decide to make it a point of doing it on an obscure pattern which requires them to be elected on years ending with earth calendar 0s?

(If I was the advanced alien race that stumbled upon the earthlings I would certainly have no need at all to devote that much time, energy, resources, man power, alien power, or evan advanced mind control technology to accomplish this pattern for my own amusement) Is this pattern benifiting anyone be it man or alien. I cant see why it would.

Now.

Lets say hypotheticaly you were the advanced alien race. If you were, it would still be an increadable discovery to find any other life in the universe other than your own. This would also require an increadable amount of devotion, resources, time, equiptment, life support systems, ect, ect, ect to even reach the humans.

Now lets say after all that you decided to go to see the humans but not let them see you. It would be increadably pointless to get here and do strange obscure number games and letter games with them that seem to have no benifit to them at all. No benifit or if you were evil these seem to not really harm us either. (except for the poor now dead US presidents) America seems to be Ok now despite the dead presidents. (some may argue differently but I say I'm doing ok at least living in America.)

Please give us some more examples of random events that may actually not be random at all.


Please let me know what your opinions are on my theory.

[Halcyon Dayz]

Ontologically, "aliens" as a concept is a floating abstraction. It has no demonstrable connection to anything in reality. You might just easily say uillomanagratty, siutfosh or Gobligok. A series of vocal sounds without a reference in reality has no explanatory power.

You are going to like the writings of JayUtah.

He keeps hammering exactly that point. Though he likes the word Nargles.

[Jimbee68]

My question for you would be. Why would a very advanced alien race decide that rather than making there presence known to the earthlings it would be a better Idea to sit back and assasinate United states presidents in a somewhat pattern requiring them to be elected in years ending with 0s?

I could perhaps entertain the thought that they may want to help assasinate a president or two that they thought would benifit either the earthlings or the aliens plans. But why would they decide to make it a point of doing it on an obscure pattern which requires them to be elected on years ending with earth calendar 0s?

Please let me know what your opinions are on my theory.

Oh, I am open to all theories and opinions. But I still honestly think I've got something here. (As I've said, I've had weirder experiences of my own, but choose not to go into that, in this thread at least.)

[cjameshuff]

Oh, I am open to all theories and opinions. But I still honestly think I've got something here. (As I've said, I've had weirder experiences of my own, but choose not to go into that, in this thread at least.)

Did you look at any batches of numbers from the random.org link in my earlier post? Do you think aliens are influencing atmospheric noise in just the right way to produce numerical patterns after being measured and processed by their system and condensed into a list to your specifications?

In any random data set, there are almost certain to be runs, coincidences, and apparent patterns. They are expected, not unusual. Given that simple coincidence is a perfectly reasonable explanation, what reason do you have to suspect the patterns you've picked out are due to aliens with strange numerical obsessions manipulating events?

[Paul Beardsley]

Oh, I am open to all theories and opinions. But I still honestly think I've got something here.

The fact that you haven't responded to the counter-arguments and yet you persist with this absurd belief suggests to me that you're not very open at all right now.

(As I've said, I've had weirder experiences of my own, but choose not to go into that, in this thread at least.)

When people keep talking about things they are not going to talk about, I believe the polite response is, "Put up or shut up!"

Wannabe detective: "I believe the victim died of spontaneous combustion."

Actual detective: "The victim was stabbed. We found the murder weapon and the murderer confessed. There are no burns on the body whatsoever."

Wannabe detective: "I still honestly think I've got something here."

[Jimbee68]

Given that simple coincidence is a perfectly reasonable explanation, what reason do you have to suspect the patterns you've picked out are due to aliens with strange numerical obsessions manipulating events?

Well, for one thing, some coincidences like the "zero curse" are surprisingly specific. They only affect presidents who get elected on a certain date. And again I have to emphasize, for 7 presidents in a row, it happened without exception. Okay, maybe I am relying partly on my own hunch, and partly on my own weird experiences. But I just can't dismiss these as statistical glitches.

As to what an advanced alien would want to accomplish by doing such things. I still don't know that part of it yet. But if they ever tell me, I will relate it asap.

[Paul Beardsley]

Well, for one thing, some coincidences like the "zero curse" are surprisingly specific. They only affect presidents who get elected on a certain date. And again I have to emphasize, for 7 presidents in a row, it happened without exception.

If by "a certain date" you meant something like "17 April" and elections that could take place any day of the year, then yes, it would be remarkable. But no, by "a certain date" you mean a year that ends in 0.

I take it you are aware that one in every ten years ends in a 0?

And as has been pointed out more than once, some presidents had more than one go.

But I just can't dismiss these as statistical glitches.

Maybe you can't. But people who know a bit about statistics can. What does that say to you?

[Jens]

Well, for one thing, some coincidences like the "zero curse" are surprisingly specific. They only affect presidents who get elected on a certain date.

The thing, though, is that it is such an absurd idea. What would be the possible purpose of doing such a thing? Suppose that we were watching another inhabited planet. Do you think we would just choose some country there and spend a hundred years arranging for the murder of their leaders elected in a certain combination of years? We could also do something equally absurd, and knock down every building in a certain town with the number 10 or something. But why? If you want people to know you're there, you can announce it. If you don't want them to know you're there, you hide. You don't put out strange clues unless it's some kind of a sick game. Are you thinking that maybe aliens are having a betting game on when they'll get caught?

[Gillianren]

I take it you are aware that one in every ten years ends in a 0?

And, as far as the relevant elections, one in five.

And as has been pointed out more than once, some presidents had more than one go.

If you just look at the year in which the President was elected to the term in which he died--and include Zachary Taylor!--it's a little less specific-looking. To whit, 1840, 1848, 1864, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1944, and 1960. Yes, five of them end in zero. But then let's look at the year in which those men were first elected. 1840, 1848, 1860, 1880, 1896, 1920, 1932, and 1960. Still five--but not exactly the same five! Significant, or just coincidence? I know which I'm voting for.

An interesting consideration if it isn't coincidence is what role Robert Todd Lincoln played in the aliens' plans. After 1900, he refused to meet Presidents again.

[Van Rijn]

Well, for one thing, some coincidences like the "zero curse" are surprisingly specific. They only affect presidents who get elected on a certain date.

How are you defining "date"? And, how is it specific?

And again I have to emphasize, for 7 presidents in a row, it happened without exception.

So what? Why does this require any extraordinary explanation?

As already discussed in thread, it's a weak rule: If, for instance, the requirement was that a president be elected (not reelected) in a year ending with zero and die in the same term, there would be repeated exceptions.

By the way, are you claiming some special significance to the number seven?

[tnjrp]

What would be the possible purpose of doing such a thing?

That is a rather good question and one wouldn't like to receive an answer amounting to "God... erm, excuse me, aliens work in mysterious (yet highly circumscribed) ways". One might assume the so-called pattern would have some signifigance to them, of course, but that is rather a non-answer too.

[Strange]

This is such a good characterization of most ATM/CT contributers, that I think it is worth repeating.

Wannabe detective: "I believe the victim died of spontaneous combustion."

Actual detective: "The victim was stabbed. We found the murder weapon and the murderer confessed. There are no burns on the body whatsoever."

Wannabe detective: "I still honestly think I've got something here."

Further, the Wannabe Detective is likely to also say that they know nothing about detection, forensics, standards of evidence, etc. And when they say "victim" or "combustion" what they really mean is ... (some concept of their own invention).

[MartianMarvin]

Jimbee68, would you consider that every U.S. President who has ever died in office was elected in an even year an impossible coincidence as well?

[Garrison]

I remember watching an experiment on TV a while back where one group of people created a genuinely random set of numbers by rolling dice and another group created them just by writing down numbers. They then demonstrated that an expert could tell the two apart rather easily, why? because the people making up the numbers lists themselves didn't include enough patterns of numbers.
The point of the experiment was of course that many people just don't get the idea that patterns can and will emerge out of randomness, which this thread seems to further illustrate.

[Swift]

The point of the experiment was of course that many people just don't get the idea that patterns can and will emerge out of randomness, which this thread seems to further illustrate.

This experimental design software I used to use (EChip) used to have the following on its boot-up screen:

"Randomness comes in bunches"

[Weltraum]

Yeah, I think there's an inherent flaw in judging a given random set as showing a pattern: It's the assumption that something random will never produce what appears to be a pattern. If you're looking for patterns in random data, you'll probably find something eventually, in at least some part of that random data. The mind has a capacity for doing this.

If you want such a "discovery" to have any scientific merit, you need formulate some hypothesis to explain the apparent pattern and find a way to test this hypothesis. Otherwise, it remains an untested, unproven hypothesis. And what worth does that have?

[AstroRockHunter]

OK, I went to Wikipedia for this.

The presidents of the U.S. who were first elected in a year ending in '0' are:
Thomas Jefferson 2 terms Did not die in office.
William Harrison 1 term Died in office (complications from a cold)
Abraham Lincoln 2 terms Died in office (assassinated in 2nd term)
James Garfield 1 term Died in office (assassinated)
John Kennedy 1 term Died in office (assassinated)
Ronald Reagan 2 terms Did not die in office
George W. Bush 2 terms Did not die in office.

Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. He died in office in 1945 of natural causes.

FDR can be considered one of those aberrant data points that we can toss out. He was the only person to be elected to more than two terms.

While Abraham Lincoln was first elected in 1860, he was re-elected in 1864 and was assassinated in 1865.

This leaves 6 who were first elected in a year ending with '0', three of which died in office and three who did not.

I don't think that this is supportive of the presented OP.

[pzkpfw]

Yeah, I think there's an inherent flaw in judging a given random set as showing a pattern: It's the assumption that something random will never produce what appears to be a pattern. If you're looking for patterns in random data, you'll probably find something eventually, in at least some part of that random data. The mind has a capacity for doing this.

Best example of this I've seen was in a book where an experiment was reported, in a chapter on this subject...

Two pictures:
(a) one of randomly placed dots.
(b) one of randomly placed dots, but where no dot was placed within distance x of a previously placed dot.

The majority of people surveyed thought picture (b) was "more random". The minimum distance rule made the dots in picture (b) spread out "more evenly" - but actually made it less random. The clumping visible in picture (a) made people mistakenly think it was the less random one.

[cjameshuff]

Well, for one thing, some coincidences like the "zero curse" are surprisingly specific. They only affect presidents who get elected on a certain date. And again I have to emphasize, for 7 presidents in a row, it happened without exception. Okay, maybe I am relying partly on my own hunch, and partly on my own weird experiences. But I just can't dismiss these as statistical glitches.

However "specific" they are, it is expected that some sort of pattern will be found if you look hard enough, so why shouldn't they be dismissed as such? There aren't nearly enough examples to give any reason to think it's something more than simple coincidence.

Presidents can be elected in years ending in 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8. 5 possibilities. Go to random.org's integer generation page, select a range from 0 to 4, and look for runs and clusters. On my very first run, I got a horizontal and vertical run of 4 2's and a 2x2 box of them...11 adjacent 2's. You don't care about presidents serving multiple terms in your sequence, so how about requiring more than 2 numbers to break a run...I got 8 zeros in a run broken only by a 3 and a 4. I didn't spot a 0-1-2-3-4, but I did spot 0-1-2-4...aside from the zero that started it off, each number is twice the previous one. What a coincidence! Could it be aliens?

I didn't even bother to look at diagonals. There's many potential patterns you can match in any data set, and you can always ignore the patterns that don't match, and add more rules or cherry-pick different sets of data if you don't find enough. Take any set of random numbers and start applying equally random rules, and you'll get matches...very "specific" matches...that have absolutely no meaning. The existence of such is certainly not evidence of extraterrestrial influence.

Also relevant to the subject at hand:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

[cjameshuff]

Best example of this I've seen was in a book where an experiment was reported, in a chapter on this subject...

Two pictures:
(a) one of randomly placed dots.
(b) one of randomly placed dots, but where no dot was placed within distance x of a previously placed dot.

The majority of people surveyed thought picture (b) was "more random". The minimum distance rule made the dots in picture (b) spread out "more evenly" - but actually made it less random. The clumping visible in picture (a) made people mistakenly think it was the less random one.

To illustrate (requires JavaScript and a browser supporting the <canvas> tag, like Firefox or Safari):
http://tmp.arklyffe.com/randomdots.html

[Jimbee68]

By the way, are you claiming some special significance to the number seven?

Actually, I have wondered about this very topic. Why seven? After all, seven was consider to be a number of completeness to the ancients (which in retrospect was rather silly--it is based on the seven then-known visible objects in the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the five known planets at the time). But I have studied some other coincidences. And seven does sometimes come up.

BTW, in your debates, you have barely mentioned the other points I made: Fatima and ghosts. I am sorry I don't have any pictures of Fatima at this moment (but if someone else has any, feel free to provide the link). But credible witnesses did say the Sun seemed to spin in the sky and plommet to earth. Then people who were soaked with rain became suddenly dry. Ghosts are also interesting. Some stories of ghosts, again from some very credible witnesses, are quite striking. Also interesting about ghosts is that the very-skeptical Carl Sagan once said he thought ghosts could be ET's. I wonder if he was referring to what I am talking about...

[Gillianren]

I haven't said anything about ghosts because, well, we have evidence that Presidents have died. Ghosts, not so much.

[eburacum45]

The Fatima events were most probably caused by too much staring at the Sun. This also happens at Knock, in Ireland, where pilgrims stare at the Sun in hope of a similar 'miracle'.

From here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8390184.stm

Dr Eamonn O'Donoghue, a consultant ophthalmologist surgeon told the Irish Times that the hospital would usually see one case of solar retinopathy "at most" per year.
However, there have been five such cases so far this year, all of them linked to events at Knock.
...
While he was unaware how the events were organised, he said, it would be "profoundly irresponsible" for anyone to encourage people to stare at the sun.
A crowd of about 7,000 people gathered at the shrine of the Virgin Mary on Saturday 31 October.
At this and at another event on 11 October, some people claimed to have seen the sun "dancing in the sky".

One of the first things any astronomer should tell you is 'never look directly at the Sun with the naked eye.' Events like this encourage people to do just that.

[LaurelHS]

A similar thing happened in India.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7292981.stm

[Van Rijn]

Actually, I have wondered about this very topic. Why seven? After all, seven was consider to be a number of completeness to the ancients (which in retrospect was rather silly--it is based on the seven then-known visible objects in the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the five known planets at the time). But I have studied some other coincidences. And seven does sometimes come up.

Sorry, this still isn't clear - are you making some special claim about the number "7"?

BTW, in your debates, you have barely mentioned the other points I made: Fatima and ghosts.

There are a couple of reasons I haven't mentioned them. First, you mentioned them along with the presidential coincidence, but you haven't made clear what the connection (if any) is supposed to be. Just what is the connection in your view?

Second, even if you aren't claiming religious significance, Fatima, especially, gets into what many would consider religious territory, so given the board rules (which I assume you read), discussion of that here requires some care.

Ghosts aren't exactly a space or astronomy topic either, so generally aren't discussed here. And, again, it isn't clear to me exactly what your point is. But, if you're going to argue that ghosts exist, you'll need to present the evidence. And, if you are claiming they are aliens or time travelers, you'd need to present the evidence for that as well.

[NorthGuy]

OK, I went to Wikipedia for this.

The presidents of the U.S. who were first elected in a year ending in '0' are:
Thomas Jefferson 2 terms Did not die in office.
William Harrison 1 term Died in office (complications from a cold)
Abraham Lincoln 2 terms Died in office (assassinated in 2nd term)
James Garfield 1 term Died in office (assassinated)
John Kennedy 1 term Died in office (assassinated)
Ronald Reagan 2 terms Did not die in office
George W. Bush 2 terms Did not die in office.

Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. He died in office in 1945 of natural causes.

FDR can be considered one of those aberrant data points that we can toss out. He was the only person to be elected to more than two terms.

While Abraham Lincoln was first elected in 1860, he was re-elected in 1864 and was assassinated in 1865.

This leaves 6 who were first elected in a year ending with '0', three of which died in office and three who did not.

I don't think that this is supportive of the presented OP.

Just to complete your data:
James Madison was elected in 1816 and 1820; did not die in office.
William McKinley was elected in 1896 and 1900; assassinated in 1901.

The only other president to die in office was Zachary Taylor: elected to his only term in 1848 and died of illness in 1950.

All in all, there's no pattern here.

[Torch2k]

Also interesting about ghosts is that the very-skeptical Carl Sagan once said he thought ghosts could be ET's. I wonder if he was referring to what I am talking about...

Mmmhmm! And skeptical me would love to see a source for this quote. To my knowledge, Carl Sagan didn't believe there was compelling evidence for either. Maybe a read through Demon-Haunted World would clear this up for you.

[Jens]

BTW, in your debates, you have barely mentioned the other points I made: Fatima and ghosts. I am sorry I don't have any pictures of Fatima at this moment (but if someone else has any, feel free to provide the link). But credible witnesses did say the Sun seemed to spin in the sky and plommet to earth.

That was supposed to have happened in 1917. There are still people alive who were alive at that time. If the sun has plummeted to earth, the earth would have been obliterated and we would no longer be here. But the same question applies: why on earth would aliens want to do such a thing? Why not do something constructive like fix those Toyota pedals?

[Geo Kaplan]

That was supposed to have happened in 1917. There are still people alive who were alive at that time. If the sun has plummeted to earth, the earth would have been obliterated and we would no longer be here. But the same question applies: why on earth would aliens want to do such a thing? Why not do something constructive like fix those Toyota pedals?

You got that all wrong. The aliens caused the Toyota problem, but only for vehicles with license plate numbers ending in zero. Or so I've heard.