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In the 1940s, Dr. Theodore Woodward at the University of Maryland School of Medicine had a famous saying: “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” In other words, go for the more likely explanation before the less likely. In his case, he was talking about medical diagnoses. Check first for the thing that most often causes the observed symptoms, before you go speculating about for exotic diseases and such.
It’s hard to think of a single paranormal claim that this doesn’t apply to. It’s really a restating of Occam’s Razor: “When presented with competing hypotheses, the one that requires the fewest new assumptions should be preferred” (one of many ways it can be stated). For most of us, horses are never too far away, but the presence of a zebra would likely be a new assumption (e.g., “zebras are in my neighborhood”).
The reason this popped into my head today was yet another invitation for comment to a news source about a particular wild claim being made. It doesn’t even matter what this one was, there are so many times this has happened to. Something mundane happens, but an alternative explanation exists that’s wild and incredible and evidence-free: