"Mass Hysteria": Are UFO eyewitnesses raving lunatics?
...Because that's what I often hear when the explanation is mentioned.
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Despite the unpopularity of the term, many mass UFO sightings are probably cases of what we have historically called mass hysteria. When you understand the psychology of it, it’s a perfect fit; and it tidily meshes well with other famous mysteries that are broadly accepted to have been the same phenomenon. But the UFOlogist community has been reluctant to embrace this solution.
Psychologist Robert Bartholomew is perhaps best known for his reporting on so-called “Havana Syndrome” these past few years. This has become popularly known as the case of “sonic weapons” used against American diplomats in Cuba and Europe. While many in government and intelligence still pursue pseudoscientific sci-fi explanations — intent on their preferred conclusion that there must have been some exotic weapon used — the scientific community recognized the case easily, and immediately, as one of mass psychogenic illness, aka “mass hysteria”.
Hysteria is, obviously, a problematic term. It suggests people running around in a panic, screaming and waving their arms in the air. If someone is told their experience is “mass hysteria” they are likely to get a very wrong idea of what was intended. Writing in Skeptic, Bartholomew offered an explanation:
The word “hysteria” is a loaded term that has a checkered past. It was commonly used during the 19th century to stigmatize women as psychologically unstable and emotionally volatile. Most Western physicians and psychiatrists no longer use the term, which has been superseded by more neutral designations such as “mass psychogenic illness,” “mass sociogenic illness,” and “functional neurological disorder.” The condition is used to describe the converting of psychological conflict or trauma into physical symptoms for which there is no organic basis.
The diplomats serving in Cuba were under unusually high stress, as Donald Trump had just taken office and the diplomats in Havana were immediately subjected to threats and taunts. Several species of cicadas were active and making unfamiliar noise, and probably someone had an ear infection and, under duress, associated his symptoms with the sounds. Right away, anyone else with any symptoms of anything (most of them were vague and common: fatigue, headaches, nausea) decided they had the same thing patient zero had.
The explanation fits perfectly, even explaining why only the diplomats and their families were affected, but not the Cubans working closely with them in their homes and offices. Stress led to the mass psychogenic illness, which led to more physical symptoms — and “Havana Syndrome” became a thing.
And so we consider the large number of mass UFO sightings for which social scientists have proposed mass hysteria as a probable explanation, and the predictable reaction from those who believed the sightings must have been actual alien encounters: “You’re saying we’re crazy, you’re saying we imagined it, and many of us are very reliable witnesses.” I might well react the same way if someone called me hysterical; it’s to be expected when one uses outdated language that’s not likely to be understood. Using Bartholomew’s suggested alternative description, “the converting of psychological conflict or trauma into physical symptoms,” it sounds much more plausible and not at all insulting. Consider the following cases: