The SAAF Forum

This may seem like an unusual topic. One that may have people saying 'Yeah right'. But, it is something that I would like to discuss in a more serious vein.

We have all herd of premonitions. A feeling that something is about to happen. A sense of unease. Have you had such a feeling. I have, and I am aware of others that have as well.

Now what if one awoke this morning and had such a permonition. How accurate would it be? Is one looking into the future, is one experienceing some ripple of energy through time from a significant emotional event, and if so, could one develp the ability, or refine the focus to make it clearer in ones minds.

Now, what If one were to refine the ability to a point where one could for example say that today there would be an incident involving an aircraft. A jet or military craft, a two seater, in a fromation, that came in too low and clipped a tree, and hit the ground. What if one could then look at the scenery and relate it to a semi desert region like the Karoo, and note that people on the ground were injured? What if one could then walk amongst the wreckage and loom at the debris, and in the debris read the name of the Pilot. And saw that it read Capt M....

Herein lies the conundrum ... Lets say you could, and did, and you told the pilot, and he decided no to fly that day. Well then, how could one perceive an event that never occurred?

Lets look at a simpler scenario. You are driving down the road ... You have a premonition of something bad that would happen, you ease off on the gas, you do not overtake that truck, you do not move over into the faster lane, you do not do what you were going to do. And so, the bad event that you percieved would happen, does not happen, and then you feel all silly, and so you carry on as you were, and the next time you have a premontion, you think to yourself, oh, what a load of nonsense, and you ignore the premonition ... mmmmmm!

The fact of the matter is that we do have a sixth sense. It is a survival mechanism. Call it instinct, or whatver. It is what we as humans evolved as a fourth dimensional defense mechanism. In todays society, we rely on it less and less. These days it is not so important to instinctively know which path to follow in order to be sucessfull in our hunt or what path to follow in order to avoid danger, and so our sixth sense becomes detuned, but when, it does on occasion make us aware, we should take note, and if the event does not come to pass because we acted upon our sense of premonition, we should not discard it, becuase it did not serve us in the past. Maybe it served us very well in the past without us even knowing it and maybe we should make a point of heeding every single flag that it pops up in front of our faces.

So, I think that it is quite possible that someone who is oriented towards aviation, might be attuned to aviation related events... and would it be a coincidence if there was an incident in the next few hours ... I wonder.

I have a head-ache just thinking about it!

Often I've had a feeling while driving or riding my bike, to pull over just a bit or don't overtake here and almost always there has been a good reason for it. I've learnt to feel that voice in my head and do what it says.

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www.monzlyons.co.uk

I cannot vouch for the veracity of this tale - comes second hand from my nephew - the senior pilot that should have flown the PC-12 carrying the Italtile people stepped down at the last moment with the vague "he did not feel up to it" reason. As I say. pinch of salt - but for what it's worth.

In almost every crash of a civilian airliner you can always find people who should have been aboard but who, at the last moment, decided not to. Scientific correlation between cause and effect is lacking, but there you are.

My vote is with Dean on this one. Stuff headaches are made from. Premonition or not, I did once stop a European Airliner Pilot (a National Carrier overseas) taking his passenger jet on flight to Europe after he was in bar at with me drinking beer, years ago several hours before departure. He was depressed coming out of a divorce and sadly, or moreover, rightly, had to report him to tower at the old Jan Smuts JHB airport and he was not permitted to fly and some action taken against him. I really felt bad, but justified.

I believe the whole premonition thing could best be described as a crock of sh1t. There are so many gullible people out there.

But I'm an engineer, and I have an open mind so I suggest we do a scientific experiment to see whether premonitions are any use.

Anytime anyone has a premonition, describe it in detail on this thread (hear that, in detail) so an independent reviewer can decide whether the event has actually occurred as described.

Some reasonable rules:
(1) In detail, as mentioned previously
(2) the premonition has to be recorded at least 6 hours before the event. Not after the event, when you suddenly remember that you had a dream about some disaster the night before. We don't believe you.
(3) The event you describe should be low probability (less than 1 in 10 chance, say.) Don't bother describing "how the guy skipped a light and almost hit you". This happens all the time in JHB.
(4) The event must be independently verifiable (the above "how the guy skipped a light and almost hit you" is useless- no-one else can verify the event.) An airliner near-miss (or crash) will probably make the news - we'll accept it if it makes the news.
(5) if you are a skeptic, don't post false premonitions to try to bring the numbers down. Be fair about it.

Once 100 premonitions have been recorded, we can assess them independently, and see if more have occurred than we would expect. If the probability of every premonitional event is less than 1 in 10, and 25 out of 100 premonitions actually occurs, maybe there is some validity.

How does that sound?

There always has to be one... doesn't there?

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www.monzlyons.co.uk

My humble apologies, I'll try not to do it again. I have been thumbing through piles of New Scientists, Scientific Americans and American Scientists because I know there has been an article on premonitions in the last few decades. Have not found it yet but came across an interesting article on "coincidences" in the New Scientist of 17th January 1998 (Vol2117) which touches peripherally on the phenomena. Especially in the statistical probabilities of events occurring. Interesting read and if you drop me an email I'd be happy to mail you a scan of same.

No, not you Eugene.

The other fella... from NZ

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www.monzlyons.co.uk

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

Oh dear, no, not you either! The other other fella from NZ

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www.monzlyons.co.uk

It is an interesting hypothesis that you propose, Monique. The "other fella from NZ" proposes that the hypothesis is false, albeit in a somewhat unscientific, more standard, language. But, then he goes on and actually proposes what should be viewed as a very logical step, and that is to do proper research on your hypothesis. However, the proposed method should be more properly thought out and formulated by considering things like confidence levels, universes, sampling methods, sample sizes based on proper statistical requirements, etc. His/her proposal for sampling method, for instance will lead to a self selected sample which is, for the purpose of a scientific study, not reliable enough. Furthermore, his research proposal also lacks proper theory and literature studies with at least forty current references from respected, peer reviewed international (nogal) journals. If he could just correct these little nigling concerns, we may just have a thesis in the making which may lead to some interesting conclusions and recommendations

My hypothesis, on the other hand, is that the "other fella from NZ" supports a lousy rugby team in South Africa. (Anybody interested in researching my hypothesis?). If he was a BlueBullSuporter, then he would have had my vote and support all the way

By the way, this is just a tongue-in-cheek comment on this topic.

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Stay foolish; stay hungry

but it's the other other fella from NZ, that doesn't support the Bulls, not the other fella from NZ...

I'm getting this feeling that I should leave now, before something bad happens to me...

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www.monzlyons.co.uk

Hehehe, I couldn't resist using that emoticon

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A plan is simply a basis for change.

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www.monzlyons.co.uk