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jeffk · 07-09-2019, 06:15 AM

It's an amusing aspect of human nature how many people can witness an event and report completely different accounts of what happened. The police run into this all the time. You can try to tally up common elements from the different witnesses and assume those are likely to be factual but it isn't unusual for these "facts" to be totally wrong.

It's not only that we see different things based on our positioning or the lighting, etc. but we also have our own frame of reference and biases. As soon as we see something we start to interpret it and soon the interpretation creeps into our reporting. Something being large and moving toward you can seem "out of control". Something being in an unusual place can be "dangerous". Simply the possibility that something "could have gone wrong" can seem that it "was" going wrong.

Thanks for the input from the folks on the Dive who were in the best position to report. The marine patrol judgement of the incident is also useful.

07-09-2019, 06:15 AM	#51
jeffk Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Center Harbor Posts: 1,130 Thanks: 201 Thanked 421 Times in 239 Posts	It's an amusing aspect of human nature how many people can witness an event and report completely different accounts of what happened. The police run into this all the time. You can try to tally up common elements from the different witnesses and assume those are likely to be factual but it isn't unusual for these "facts" to be totally wrong. It's not only that we see different things based on our positioning or the lighting, etc. but we also have our own frame of reference and biases. As soon as we see something we start to interpret it and soon the interpretation creeps into our reporting. Something being large and moving toward you can seem "out of control". Something being in an unusual place can be "dangerous". Simply the possibility that something "could have gone wrong" can seem that it "was" going wrong. Thanks for the input from the folks on the Dive who were in the best position to report. The marine patrol judgement of the incident is also useful.