Determining The Truth Or Falsity Of The Misperception/Hoax/Hallucination Hypothesis (MHH)

Introduction

In a communication to the UFO Updates mailing list from Ed Stewart, Stewart claims that the hypothesis that UFO reports are soley caused by

Witness misperception of known phenomena (incorrect interpretation of stimulus by perceptual systems).
Witness knowingly propagating false accounts of UFO phenomena, based on imagination, literature and cultural context.
Witness experiencing altered mental states which generate the appearance of UFO events in the absence of any external stimulus.

cannot be validated because it amounts to attempting to prove a negative. His citation of part of the Project Sign report is to the point:

"No definite and conclusive evidence is yet available that would prove or disprove the existence of these unidentified objects as real aircraft of unknown and unconventional configuration. It is unlikely that positive proof of their existence will be obtained without examination of the remains of crashed objects. Proof of non-existence is equally impossible to obtain unless a reasonable and convincing explanation is determined for each incident."

However, it is my contention that the MHH (Misperception/Hoax/Hallucination Hypothesis) can, indeed, be proven or disproven. This document discusses the discriminators which I believe exist for this hypothesis.

Can The MHH Be Proven Or Refuted?

Any hypothesis makes explicit or implicit predictions in its attempt to explain the phenomenon to which it is addressed. The MHH is indeed a hypothesis, and it makes a number of predictions which can be validated or refuted from the data.

According to the previous citation and to most MHH proponents, there is only one way to prove the MHH - obtain a reasonable and convincing explanation for each incident. Since this is held to be impossible, MHH proponents neatly avoid the pressure placed upon most theorists.

According to that citation and to its proponents there is also a simple way to refute the MHH - discovery of indisputable physical remains of a technological UFO, overt contact with the source of the UFO phenomenon, or repeatable observations of the phenomenon which would allow direct determination of the cause of the phenomenon.

MHH proponents then claim that since MHH cannot be proved and it has not been refuted, it is the best explanation for UFO reports. They assert that success in applying MHH to a large percentage of initial reports allows one to assume that the reports unaccounted for by the MHH are nonetheless caused by the MHH phenomenon.

What Are The MHH Predictions?

If the MHH is the true explanation of the UFO phenomenon, then there are a number of predictions it makes about the data, cases both explained and unexplained:

The MHH can explain all of the best UFO reports - those with the most credible witnesses, those with multiple witnesses, those with detailed, data-rich observations, those observed with instruments, those which leave physical traces, those where observing conditions are excellent, and those where the object is claimed to be in close proximity to the witness. If the MHH can explain these reports, no one will complain if it fails on poor reports from less credible single witnesses under less than ideal conditions.
UFO witnesses generally suffer from sensory or perceptual problems which lead to the misidentification of common or natural but uncommon phenomena.
UFO witnesses are in unfamiliar environments at the time of their observation, and their misperceptions stem from observing a familiar phenomenon in an unfamiliar environment or from observation of an unfamiliar but natural phenomenon.
UFO witnesses who report cases with physical effects are probably hoaxers (they are unlikely to be misperceivers, as are subsequent investigators, since the effects are objectively existent and easily examined), and therefore will be generally less credible in reputation than non-CE-2 witnesses. These claimants will be shown to follow known psychological profiles for hoaxers.
Witnesses who claim close proximity UFO events who are not hoaxers will be shown to suffer from mental or physical disorders which induce hallucination, or will have a history of hallucinatory drug use, or will be found to have their experiences under conditions which could lead an otherwise normal person to hallucinate. Such experiences will fit clinical profiles for hallucinatory experiences under the disorder, drug, or special conditions.
Instrumentally observed UFOs are a special case where either the misperception is assigned to the observing apparatus or the observer's interpretation of the state reported by the apparatus. Therefore the misperception can be classified as a known error in the apparatus or a known error in operator interpretation of the apparatus state.

These are eminently verifiable predictions.

The State Of The Predictions

More research is needed on all of these predictions. However, there are some observations which can be made on their application to date. In many cases no support for the MHH in regard to a specific category is known to the author, so that column was shifted to the last column in the table.

Prediction	Refutation	Support
MHH can explain the best UFO cases. As cases deteriorate in quality, the MHH will find it more difficult to explain them.	By definition, the best UFO cases have already passed the MHH filter (given the use of UFO as proposed by Hynek, which is accepted in this document). The misperception part of the hypothesis decreases in explanatory power with improved reports (better conditions, better observers, richer data). By the time close encounters are reached, few reports can be explained by this part of the hypothesis, and those which can be seem to differ significantly from unidentified cases, while the unidentified cases show numerous common factors. No evidence has be found that a significant percentage of UFO reports in the CE range can be explained as hoaxes. Studies performed so far (AF, U Of Co) show only a small percentage of confirmed hoaxes in UFO reports, many of which are confined to photographic hoaxes or to landing trace hoaxes. No evidence has been demonstrated that any noticeable percentage of UFO reports are due to hallucinations. Thus, one can state that the explanatory profile of the MHH is the opposite of what one would expect, in that CE reports (the reports which are the most data rich) reported by credible witnesses, are the least easily explained by the MHH and many such reports have been unable to be explained by the MHH. According to Special Report 14, twice as many unknowns come from reliable reports as from unreliable reports. Since the AF was a proponent of MHH, this would appear to be another refutation of it.
UFO witnesses generally suffer from sensory or perceptual problems which lead to the misidentification of common or natural but uncommon phenomena.	No such pattern of problems has been demonstrated. Groups which are tested to exclude persons with such problems (such as pilots, radar operators, etc) report some of the best cases - cases which remain unexplained by the MHH. Misidentifications show a slight increase among such tested groups compared to a technically trained witness pool of non-tested personnel (pilots are slightly more likely to report an identifiable sighting than technical personnel, according to Hynek's analysis of Blue Book data). Unless a significant pro-reporting bias can be found for pilots, this would appear to be as direct a refutation of this prediction as the current state of the data allows.
UFO witnesses are in unfamiliar environments at the time of their observation, and their misperceptions stem from observing a familiar phenomenon in an unfamiliar environment or from observation of an unfamiliar but natural phenomenon	According to Vallee's study of the French wave in 1954[footnote 1], "Practically in all cases, the site of the observation was quite familiar to the witness. In 22 cases [approx 10% of sample], the [object] landed literally in his backyard or in the immediate vicinity of his house or property... In no less than 75 cases [more than 30% of sample] it landed directly on the road or in the immediate vicinity of the road which he used for going to and from work. In fifteen cases [more than 5% of sample] it landed where the witnesses were working... In 43 cases [approx 20% of sample] the witnesses were at work when they saw the object for the first time. In 9 cases they were going to work. In 21 cases they were returning from work."
UFO witnesses who report cases with physical effects are probably hoaxers (they are unlikely to be misperceivers, as are subsequent investigators, since the effects are objectively existent and easily examined), and therefore will be generally less credible in reputation than non-CE-2 witnesses. These claimants will be shown to follow known psychological profiles for hoaxers.	The same study shows a slight increase in percentage for businesspeople and technical personnel. No study showing a psychological profile for CE-II witnesses that follows any clinical study of hoaxer profiles is known to this author.	A slight increase in percentage of young reporters of CE-II in one demographic study[footnote 2] over the CE-I percentage of such reporters. This may not be significant given a small sample size.
Witnesses who claim close proximity UFO events who are not hoaxers will be shown to suffer from mental or physical disorders which induce hallucination, or will have a history of hallucinatory drug use, or will be found to have their experiences under conditions which could lead an otherwise normal person to hallucinate. Such experiences will fit clinical profiles for hallucinatory experiences under the disorder, drug, or special conditions.	No such profile has been demonstrated. There does not appear to be any basis for attributing complex hallucinations to the state known as "road hypnosis".
Instrumentally observed UFOs are a special case where either the misperception is assigned to the observing apparatus or the observer's interpretation of the state reported by the apparatus. Therefore the misperception can be classified as a known error in the apparatus or a known error in operator interpretation of the apparatus state.	High quality instrument cases such as the RB47 case[footnote 3] show a pattern which cannot be attributed to instrumental or operator error. Radar and visual observations occur and remain unidentified. Multiple frequency radar observations also remain unidentified, and no physical basis for system misperception exists in those cases.

Conclusion

The MHH, contrary to the assertions of its proponents, does make predictions which can be validated. Those predictions are not supported by the pattern of explanation, by large scale studies, by witness studies, or by the pattern of the data. This tends to confirm that not only can the MHH be refuted, but that it has been refuted.

Footnotes

1. Humanoids, A Special Report of Flying Saucer Review, p 65

2. http://www.temporaldoorway.com/uhyndemg.htm

3. UFO Encyclopedia, ed. Clark, article by Brad Sparks