Blossom Goodchild reflecting on the lack of UFOs on October 14th

[salvorhardin]

She sounds genuinely contrite and perhaps distraught. Says there's no excuse.

I don't know. I don't know what to make of this whole thing... I really don't know why I was made to put myself on the line like this, and then end up being so humiliated when all I did, I felt, was give that message out because it was my truth and I believed it myself.

This is actually sad. She sounds as if she really did believe this and now can't understand why her delusional communications aren't proven. She also states that she didn't make a lot of money off this (about $4,000 over 10 weeks) and that she's shutting down her blog and website until she's sorted all this out for herself. Toward the end she also makes something of a strange secular humanist plea for us to "change the world" ourselves, to show the aliens that we can do it without them.

I hope in the coming weeks she gets some mental health counseling, although I suspect she won't.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rm4v8ylAxTc

[Warpy]

1. Perhaps she'll put that $4000 to good use

like changing her name back to the one on her birth certificate.

Unfortunately, it won't stretch to adequate psychotherapy.

I do feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for all sick people who make total arses of themselves. I have enough bipolars in my extended family to know where she's coming from.

[salvorhardin]

7. I think you might be right

Goodchild may well be bipolar. I feel sorry for making fun of her in the other thread.

[frogmarch]

2. Well, at least

she didn't try to reinterpret the message she claims to have received from her alien pals.

[Random_Australian]

3. Yeah, I'm genuinely impressed by that.

In fact, it happens so often I was kinda assuming that is what she'd do.

So yeah, recognising that something one believes in with significant emotional commitment is wrong is rare in land of the woo (and heck, not so common for the rest of us), but apparently seen here.

Hmph.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Anyone have any idea why this became so widely talked about?

I get the impression there are various silly predictions around all the time, and while this one was fairly specific about the nature and time, so that it was obvious to all that nothing had happened, the scale this grew to (media articles about it, bookies saying they were closing bets on aliens turning up) astonishes me.

I'd love to ask someone who believed it why they believed this one. As far as I can see, she never said anything more than 'my spirit guide told me'.

[frogmarch]

5. As we all know, there are

lots and lots of woos out there. Those who believed Goodchild's alien fly-by prediction might be Heaven's Gate-esque, at least to some degree, but many other people, including some non-woos, are also fascinated by UFO stories, and I think that might be one reason this one went viral. Another might be that some people, including some skeptics, get a kick out of bizarrely kooky things that people sometimes come up with - and besides, as you said, Goodchild's prediction was quite specific, which was a real attention grabber.

[salvorhardin]

6. I wondered that myself

Was it just a YouTube meme ran wild? I don't know, but yeah, I thought this picked up a disproportionately large media share for such a run-of-the-mill kook story.

[conscious evolution]

12. It probably had something to do with the end

of the mercury retrograde period.

[moggie]

8. I disagree about the money

Ok, $4k over 10 weeks isn't exactly a living. But for just making up some shit, or sharing your delusions: that's a pretty handsome reward, particularly if you're otherwise struggling, financially. If I didn't have a conscience, I'd be very tempted to do the same.

I suspect it won't make a lasting difference to her worldview: she'll rationalise it in some way, and after a suitable interval she'll be back with more. I remember one of the DU promoters of that "fire the grid" nonsense writing (I paraphrase, but only slightly): "I admit I've fallen for every crackpot idea which came down the pike, but this time I know I'm right!"

[cosmik debris]

9. Maybe they did show up--But not at her house.

True to my promise, I got drunk in anticipation of the event. I saw many aliens at my house.

If she had concentrated on spirits instead of spirituality, maybe the aliens would have visited her too.

[TZ]

10. So what did the aliens look like..

Pink elephants? Harvey the Rabbit?;-)

[cosmik debris]

11. You know I can't remember that.

The aliens always cleanse my memory before they leave.

The only way I know they have been there is that a couple of hours have elapsed and I have no memory. I just wake up in my Lazy-Boy with a very intense urge to pee (that's a side effect of having sex with multiple aliens).

[trotsky]

13. ZOMG

They're visiting me too?!?!?

[Deep13]

14. "...because it was my truth..."

I suspect herein lies the problem. There is no "my truth." There is only one, objective truth. Believing in something or even genuinely needing something does not make it real.

[onager]

15. I'm really glad she wasn't a faith healer.

Which is the reason I'm not inclined to give her much sympathy, or the benefit of the doubt. Though in this case, I guess that should be "benefit of the belief."