william schmaltz
WKR
I worked for a game agency long time ago and part of my job was taking wildlife sighting reports, mostly mountain lion. I would get dozens of pictures a week. Usually a person could tell it wasn't a lion by looking at a picture, when I couldn't tell because it was a blurry flip phone pic I would ask the sender to go and try to get a picture of a track it was usually a dog, house cat, or deer track. Most of the time there was no picture of the animal they saw and they would just say they saw a mountain lion and then send me a picture of the dog/house cat/deer track where it was standing. I'd say 3/100 reported mountain lion sightings I got were actually mountain lions. And that was in a state that has a decent population of lions (and most of those 3% were in areas you would expect them). Even after I would follow up and explain why it was something else, I'd say most of those people were still convinced on what they saw and are probably still telling their mountain lion story at the bar.
I know some guys that played a trick on their friend around a UFO sighting. The dude was convinced aliens/UFOs were real. Well they played the prank, and the guy's story ended up going national and after that no one had the heart to tell him it was just a prank. He claimed up and down he saw aliens get out of the UFO and described them. There are even drawings of the UFO and alien online. His 3 acquaintances were in the barn watching, what he was describing as aliens were three of his pigs that they let out. He basically tricked his mind into seeing something he had convinced himself was there.
As many wolf sightings that I've heard about in places, you'd think they have overrun the Midwest. Doesn't mean there are not potentially wolves there, but people that want to see them seem to have no problem randomly stumbling across one.
I know some guys that played a trick on their friend around a UFO sighting. The dude was convinced aliens/UFOs were real. Well they played the prank, and the guy's story ended up going national and after that no one had the heart to tell him it was just a prank. He claimed up and down he saw aliens get out of the UFO and described them. There are even drawings of the UFO and alien online. His 3 acquaintances were in the barn watching, what he was describing as aliens were three of his pigs that they let out. He basically tricked his mind into seeing something he had convinced himself was there.
As many wolf sightings that I've heard about in places, you'd think they have overrun the Midwest. Doesn't mean there are not potentially wolves there, but people that want to see them seem to have no problem randomly stumbling across one.