The Debunker's Trap: When Explaining Something Isn't the Same as Explaining It Away

There is a particular kind of argument that appears again and again whenever somebody reports something strange.

A person sees an unusual animal.

Someone suggests it might have been a bear.

Case closed.

Someone photographs an unexplained object.

Perhaps it was a bird, a balloon, or an aircraft.

Mystery solved.

Someone reports an unusual sound in the woods.

Probably an owl.

End of story.

Sometimes those explanations are correct.

The problem begins when "could be" quietly becomes "was."

That's what I call the Debunker's Trap.

The trap isn't skepticism itself. Skepticism is valuable. The trap is believing that once you've proposed a conventional explanation, you have actually demonstrated it.

Those are two very different things.

A Possible Explanation Isn't Necessarily the Explanation

Suppose somebody sees a large, hairy figure walking through the woods.

A skeptic says, "It could have been a bear standing upright."

Absolutely.

It could have been.

But that doesn't establish that it was a bear.

Maybe the witness saw a bear. Maybe it was another animal. Maybe it was a person. Maybe the witness misperceived something in poor lighting. Or perhaps the observation really was something unusual.

The correct conclusion, based on the information available, might simply be:

We don't know.

That's not a failure of skepticism.

That's intellectual honesty.

Yet "we don't know" can be an uncomfortable conclusion. People naturally want mysteries to have answers. Skeptics and believers can both fall into this trap.

The believer may say, "It was definitely Bigfoot."

The skeptic may respond, "It was definitely a bear."

Both may be claiming more certainty than the evidence actually allows.

The "Bear" Explanation

Bigfoot provides an excellent example.

Over the years, countless alleged Bigfoot sightings have been attributed to bears.

And sometimes that's almost certainly what happened.

Bears can stand upright. They can appear surprisingly large. Their movements can look strange at a distance. In poor visibility, a bear could conceivably produce a very confusing sighting.

But there's a subtle logical problem.

The fact that bears can produce a particular appearance doesn't demonstrate that every witness who reports that appearance saw a bear.

If a witness says:

"I saw something about seven feet tall, walking upright, with unusually long arms, and I watched it for several minutes."

responding "Bears can stand up" doesn't actually resolve the report.

It provides a hypothesis.

That's useful.

It isn't a conclusion.

The Same Problem Applies to UFOs

This isn't exclusively a Bigfoot problem.

Someone sees a strange light in the sky.

A skeptic identifies Venus.

Fine.

But was it Venus?

That depends on whether Venus was actually in the right part of the sky at the right time, whether its apparent movement matches the observation, whether the brightness is consistent, and whether other details of the report fit.

If they do, you've got a good explanation.

If they don't, "Venus" becomes little more than a convenient label.

The same applies to aircraft, satellites, balloons, drones and atmospheric phenomena.

A skeptical investigation should ask:

Does the proposed explanation actually fit the evidence?

Not merely:

Can I imagine something ordinary that might produce something like this?

The Difference Between "Possible" and "Probable"

This distinction is enormously important.

Almost any strange observation can have dozens of conceivable explanations.

The challenge is determining which explanation is most consistent with the evidence.

Imagine somebody finds a set of enormous footprints in the wilderness.

Possible explanations might include:

• A bear.
• A human wearing oversized footwear.
• A deliberately constructed fake.
• An unusual natural formation.
• A misinterpretation of ordinary tracks.
• Some unknown animal.

The fact that all of those possibilities exist doesn't make them equally likely.

And it certainly doesn't mean that identifying one as "possible" solves the case.

Good investigation requires comparing the hypotheses.

What would we expect the footprints to look like if they were made by a bear?

What would we expect if they were fabricated?

Do the stride length, depth, anatomy, terrain and trackway pattern fit?

Are there inconsistencies?

Is there independent evidence?

That's investigation.

Simply naming a possibility isn't.

The Debunking Shortcut

There is another version of the trap that is even more common.

A skeptic finds one plausible explanation and assumes that it explains the entire phenomenon.

For example:

"People sometimes mistake bears for Bigfoot."

True.

Therefore:

"Bigfoot sightings are people mistaking bears for Bigfoot."

That second statement doesn't logically follow from the first.

It's an enormous leap.

It would be like saying:

"People sometimes mistake airplanes for UFOs, therefore every UFO report is an airplane."

Obviously that wouldn't work.

The existence of false reports doesn't demonstrate that all reports are false.

And the existence of genuine misidentifications doesn't demonstrate that every unexplained observation is a misidentification.

The Debunker's Trap Can Work in Reverse

There is an important point here for believers too.

Suppose someone sees something that looks exactly like a large humanoid.

They conclude:

"That's Bigfoot."

But perhaps it was a person.

Or a bear.

Or an optical illusion.

Or a prank.

The believer can fall into precisely the same trap by taking a possible explanation and treating it as established fact.

That's why the best approach isn't believer versus skeptic.

It's evidence versus assumption.

What Would Actually Constitute a Good Explanation?

A strong explanation should do more than merely be possible.

It should explain the details.

If somebody proposes that a sighting was a bear, for example, we should be able to ask:

Does the animal's estimated size match?

Does its posture match?

Does its gait match?

Does its behavior match?

Was a bear known to be present in the area?

Could the witness have observed the animal clearly enough to distinguish it?

Does the explanation account for all the details, or only one of them?

That last question is particularly important.

Sometimes a proposed explanation solves one piece of a mystery while creating another.

If someone says a strange footprint was simply a bear track, but the alleged trackway contains features that don't resemble bear tracks, the explanation hasn't necessarily solved the mystery.

It may simply have moved the mystery somewhere else.

"I Can't Explain It" Doesn't Mean "It's Paranormal"

This is where skepticism needs an important safeguard.

There is a temptation, when criticizing debunking, to swing too far in the opposite direction.

If the conventional explanation doesn't work, perhaps the extraordinary explanation must be correct.

No.

That's another logical mistake.

If we can't explain a strange event, the appropriate conclusion may simply be:

We don't currently know what happened.

An unexplained Bigfoot sighting isn't automatically evidence for Bigfoot.

An unexplained UFO isn't automatically an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

An unexplained archaeological anomaly isn't automatically evidence of a lost advanced civilization.

Mystery is not proof.

But neither is mystery something we are required to pretend has already been solved.

The Most Interesting Position Is Sometimes the Middle One

There is a third position between believing every extraordinary claim and dismissing every extraordinary claim.

It sounds like this:

"I don't know—but let's investigate."

That's actually a very powerful position.

It allows us to take witnesses seriously without automatically believing their interpretation.

It allows us to consider conventional explanations without automatically declaring them correct.

And it leaves room for genuinely unusual discoveries.

Science has repeatedly advanced because somebody noticed something that didn't fit the existing explanation and refused to simply explain it away.

That doesn't mean every anomaly turns out to be revolutionary.

Most don't.

But occasionally, an anomaly really does tell us something.

The Goal Isn't to Protect the Mystery

There's an important distinction between investigating mysteries and protecting them.

If new evidence demonstrates that a famous Bigfoot case was a hoax, then that's worth knowing.

If an alleged UFO turns out to have been a weather balloon, that's not a disappointment. That's an answer.

If an archaeological mystery has a perfectly ordinary explanation, excellent.

The objective shouldn't be to preserve mystery for its own sake.

The objective should be to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Sometimes it leads to something mundane.

Sometimes it leads to a mistake.

Sometimes it leads to a hoax.

And sometimes, at least temporarily, it leads to:

We don't know.

That last answer should not be confused with failure.

The Real Debunker's Trap

The real trap isn't skepticism.

It's premature certainty.

It's taking an explanation that is merely possible and presenting it as proven.

It's confusing "I have an explanation" with "I have demonstrated what happened."

And it works both ways.

Believers should be careful not to turn mysteries into monsters simply because they don't have conventional explanations.

Skeptics should be equally careful not to turn conventional possibilities into established facts simply because they dislike extraordinary possibilities.

The intellectually honest investigator stands somewhere in between.

Ask questions.

Test explanations.

Look for contradictory evidence.

Change your mind when the evidence demands it.

And above all, remember one simple rule:

Explaining something isn't the same as explaining it away.

Sometimes the ordinary explanation really is the answer.

Sometimes the extraordinary claim really does collapse under scrutiny.

But sometimes the evidence simply isn't good enough to tell us yet.

And that's when the most honest words a researcher can say are also the most useful:

"I don't know."