Have you heard of the invisible ships phenomenon, cited in several new-age books and movies? It goes like this: When Captain Cook/Columbus/Magellan (depending on the version of the story you’re hearing) arrived at the coast of Australia/Cuba/South America, the native people completely ignored them, presumably because huge ships were so alien to their experience that “… their highly filtered perceptions couldn’t register what was happening, and they literally failed to ‘see’ the ships.” (Quoting here from JZ Knight’s What the Bleep Do We Know?)
The story seems to have originated with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain James Cook’s 1770 voyage. On several occasions while they were off the coast of Australia, he commented that the natives paid virtually no attention to the 106-foot long Endeavour. On April 28, sailing north along the east coast of Australia, he recorded in his diary that fishermen “… seemd to be totaly engag’d in what they were about: the ship passd within a quarter of a mile of them and yet they scarce lifted their eyes from their employment … ”
Banks seemed to be troubled by not being the star attraction: “Not one was once observd to stop and look towards the ship; they pursued their way in all appearance intirely unmovd by the neighbourhood of so remarkable an object as a ship must necessarily be to people who have never seen one.”
However, as soon as the explorers approached the shore in longboats, their attempts at landing were resisted. For instance, “… as soon as we aproachd the rocks two of the men came down upon them, each armd with a lance.”
There’s a more obvious answer for the odd times when Cook’s ship didn’t spur a reaction from people on the shore. While we can’t disprove the extraordinary notion that the ships were indeed invisible, I think the more prosaic solution is that the natives were living on the edge of survival, and that anything that wasn’t a threat or didn’t contribute to their well-being could be safely ignored.
And as panhandlers and wheelchair users can tell you, just because you’re ignored doesn’t mean you’re invisible.
Barry Evans’ own attempts at captaining sailboats have mostly been unfortunate, so far– there’s always the next time. He lives in Old Town Eureka.
This article appears in California Renovation.
Excellent point! True, passive acts are normally ignored and not something “invisible” under the Webster’s dictionary’s definition, or are they? “Invisible” means: “(1a) incapable of nature of being seen.” Any decent attorney could spin that definition towards their own argument with ease. Although that doesn’t prove that the ships were invisible, it also doesn’t prove that the ships were simply ignored, as you state. It may be helpful to re-examine your “prosaic” conclusion as the exact stance you attempted to refute. In all honesty though, keep up the good work Barry!
Hi, just wanted to question the assumption of these peoples “living on the edge of survival”. I believe quite the opposite was true.
It’s fun to consider the possibility this reaction (if accurately reported) is similar to what you may expect from people who’ve seen similar ships before.
Enjoyed article, thank you.
CH
visible, or invisible, recognized or unrecognized, interesting or not, one thing was true. They could not imagine the imminent and clear danger they were in until it was too late. This is the lesson for us today. It is the same apathy, carelessness or ignorance about the destructive forces in our lives. for ex proxy wars that can turn into a nuclear war any day now, or irreversible damaging and depletion of natural resources like tropical forests, oceans,water streams or atmosphere. This is happening everyday we see or hear about it but, we go on with our business in the same manner everyday because we only care about our senses and convenience but not enough about our children’s future or how we are going die one day.
I think I might be able to somehow “imagine” their mindset. I would say that surely these people who believed in, and probably saw, spirits of all shapes on a regular basis, “saw” the relatively silent sailing ship, but they obviously must have initially considered it to be a spirit of some sort, and initially deserving of the same level of attention that other such “spirits” normally received. As with other such “spirits,” they probably were hoping and praying that if they ignored it, perhaps it would simply “go away,” and leave them alone in peace.
Hey, I must confess I have actually “seen” some of these in my own day, and that is exactly how I tend to respond to most of them. As in a zoo with the sign, “don’t feed the animals,” most folks, when confronted with something that almost appears as a hallucination, will tend to try to “not feed” it.
However, should the “hallucination” begin to deploy longboats (much easier for a native to understand), and to begin heading in my direction with strangely colored and clothed men inside of them, you had better believe it, I would suddenly realize that my first strategy was simply not working, and I had better do something better, and quick!
PS: A further consideration…. If I were ever in some analogous circumstance, and if I were near others, I would probably do four things:
1. Question my own sanity.
2. Look around me to see if anyone else was seeing what I was seeing.
3. If nobody else seemed to see it, you figure out the rest.
4. Mayby, if I was brave enough, and a close family member had happened to be nearby when I thought I had the ‘hallucination,’ at the end of the day I might privately and carefully ask, “did you see what I saw?”
Kinda funny if you ask me 🙂
Well, my comment is that ignoring and survival mode are contradictory , so therefore, one can’t have it both ways:
To begin with, Humans are one of the most curious species on the planet.
If they were on “survival mode”, it’s inherent hyper-focus triggered by the brain’s amygdala would actually add to curiosity to the point of hyper-vigilance. The possibility that is brought up in the other post regarding them being aboriginals who is phenomenology include seeing spirits all the time is also a good point. But you can trust that under those circumstances they would have been very aware. Maybe not help early responsive, but very aware. Their survival depends on that awareness in a wild environment.
Of course, the truth is we bring confirmatory bias from our own belief systems to any situation, so I don’t know that my analysis is anymore correct.
ButIMO, the natural state of the human – especially spiritually – at that in history, combines with survival brain physiology, to conclude that the invisible hypothesis, or the “they are spirits, and we just hope they will keep moving on” are the more likely explanations.
By the way, I also like the explanation where the person says they wood question their sanity, because no one else was looking, and therefore stay silent. There was a famous sociological perception experiment with Confederates where the Confederates stated that two lines were different in size when they were really the same, and most people agreed with them!
This would be another more consistent hypothesis than humans not noticing the ships!
I am not really satisfied by the writer`s explanation. The problem is that those ships were FOREIGN enough to activate the Anxiety System in our brain. And that triggers orientation reactions. So, the ships must have triggered some reactions, most of them unvoluntary, and yes, orientation reactions include turning the head and focusing attention on the foreign enough object.
On the other side i am not completely taken by the “it is so foreign it was invisible” explanation either. It smells of Paul Feyerabends studies in cultural relativism.
What we have here is a classic clash of psychology (orientation responses) with philosophy (cultural relativism)
Another explanation could be that they very well sighted the ship but interpreted it as something “supernatural” of an evil kind and therefore regarded it dangerous to focus with their eyes.
Ps Not to mention…, when you first see something on the horizon, it’s a mere speck, essentially shapeless. It could have been a bird up close, (relatively speaking), so this notion that because they’d never seen anything like it, it was invisible does not make sense. – CCH
this is all fake news! Just because they had no knowledge on the ships does not mean that they couldn’t see them. If a dog didn’t know what something was it could still see it and know to run away or not. THEREFORE THIS IS FAKE NEWS!!!
This is all pure speculation. The only data we actually have is that they did not seem to look at the ship or take an interest in it. The idea that the natives were on the edge of survival is not supported by anthropologists and accounts we have. It seems likely from what is know of other natives they had excellent eyesight. If you saw a large foreign object 1/4 mile offshore or anywhere (in the sky?) would you look it? Something was definitely going on there to prevent that.
If you don’t know what a ship is you can’t see a ship but you can see an identical set of shapes and colors and know it’s something unknown. The light still reaches your eyes. Your eyes still gather it in. tiny.cc/realityis
In 1998 I was exiting a busy supermarket in New Mexico . I stepped out of the entrance and heard a creeking sound of something heavy and metal. I looked in the direction of the sound. Across the street from the store was a gas station and much to my suprise was a large spaceship it hoovered right above the gas station by just a few feet . I stood in the doorway of the store POINTING and screaming “what the f… Is that?” Over and over I yelled out but NOBODY else seemed to be looking I have no idea how the people around could ignore the camotion I was causing . STILL to this day I wonder.The ship NOTICED me and began to move I chased it and watched it take off . I then went to my boyfriend’s house and told him what I saw .when he heard my discription of how it sounded he said ” I heard that.I just didn’t look up” . I now live in Texas but have seen many more I watched one fly right by me at the park the NOBODY else seemed to see .I absolutely think that I can see them because of having allready saw one . Its my theory . Believe it or not I truly want others to share these expirences with .Another interesting point is that I have captured some on camera some that my EYES could NOT see but the CAMERA could, what do you think about that? Could it be that the camera sees More than we do because it has no conchince and no objection? This is 100 % true .
in 1998 I was coming out of a busy grocery store in the evening and saw a spaceship above the gas station across the street I stood in the doorway yelling “what the heck is that ‘what the heck is that’. And I’m pointing at it and nobody else seems to notice it but me . I watched as IT seemed to notice me and started to drift across the street .I followed it I wantched as it changeed Shape and disappear into the sky. To this day I have no idea why nobody else seemed to notice it .When I look back on it now I think that because of that is perhaps the reason that today I see so many of them is it possible that the brain only recognizes things it’s already aware of? Are we conditioned that way? I don’t know. Just food for thought . Also I’ve captured some on camera some that I could not see but the camera could .
The author accepted an assumption (belief) that the person that was there saw something other than what he wrote…but you were not there. You could be correct of course, but to completely dismiss that the natives couldn’t see a ship because they were not at the vibrational frequency as the sailors to see that object is to state that matter can exist without an observer present – a dismissal of Quantum Mechanics law. Reality isn’t what exists. It is what is agreed to exist. This can come from belief (an acceptance of an assumption) or from the truth (what works for oneself and the majority of all concerned). Look, we know from Quantum Physics that it isn’t a theory but tested thousands of times by people disgustingly smarter than most of us. If what you decide to see – not ‘want’ to see (that is why wanting something just gives you more things to want for) but what you think is real – manifests into reality – then how do you know for sure that a reality the natives could never imagine was manifested? You can dream bigger and ‘see’ bigger than your ancestors 10,000 years ago and what you take for granted now would shock to death (literally) your ancestors. A simple laser fire starter could make you a god back in those days because they would not see the tine device in your hand but light coming from your hand turned into fire. Even if what I say isn’t backed by science – the possibility that maybe – the natives couldn’t see that ship is the same thinking that tortured and killed people that found out the would was not the center of the Universe. It could be true, it could be not true but you need to prove it, not believe it either way or you will never find the truth. Stop believing and start finding what really is – but only you can do that for truth must be something you observe to be true – never what others say. If you do this – you will find the truth – and truth is not what is holy or good or correct or right – but that which works – want what works helps your survival potential and the majority of all concerned.
Yeah, there’s no evidence to support the ships were actually invisible or even just invisible to the aboriginals. That’s an enormous leap. Plus, in the telling, there’s evidence suggesting that the ships were not, in fact, invisible or even unnoticed. It recounts: “However, as soon as the explorers approached the shore in longboats, their attempts at landing were resisted. For instance, ‘… as soon as we aproachd the rocks two of the men came down upon them, each armd with a lance.’ ” So those armed aboriginals meeting those foreign invaders in foreign longboats from a foreign ship they couldn’t see with resistance only just so happened to be precisely where they approached the shore entirely by coincidence? Or is it more likely they SAW them and, in as much as it appeared that they paid them no mind, they actually did and were actually readying to defend themselves if required. Appearing not to notice the foreigners in their ships gave the aborigines the advantage of surprise if attacked, of appearing to be unready and taken by surprise themselves but actually being ready to defend themselves, which turned out to be the case. It is not a highly sophisticated ploy to appear to not notice a threat or be ignorant of a threat while actually preparing to meet that threat and thus responding to an attacker from a position of strength, hopefully fooling the attacker into believing they will respond from a position of weakness, a position of ignorance and unpreparedness. Then there’s the fear factor. It’s the law of the jungle. Reacting to a possible threat with fear invites attack, like if when you see a predator, you immediately run, that will almost always result in it chasing you down– whether it’s a bear, a lion, a tiger, a dingo, or whatever. The best course is to NOT run, to NOT react, to NOT show any fear. So for aborigines seeing potential foreign invaders on the coast, not just Europeans in weird ships but even aborigines from other tribes there on the mainland and from nearby islands, as happened all the time, the smart thing to do would’ve been to pretend not to notice, to not make any sudden moves, and to appear to blithely go about doing what they’re doing, meanwhile signaling one or a couple among them to slowly move out of sight and alert the others so that if these foreigners decided to come ashore, they would be ready and meet those foreigners with armed resistance, the foreigners suddenly finding out they weren’t actually taking anyone by surprise and weren’t actually unnoticed. But if the foreigners decided to move on after seeing that they incited no fear, apparently barely clocking anyone’s notice, then all the better. The problem is, Europeans were massively prejudiced, often still are, considering everyone not European to be totally unsophisticated savages incapable of being organized and having a tactical plan in place on what to do should people not of their tribe come floating by their bit of shore, certainly not a plan where they smartly didn’t react, didn’t run around like chickens with their heads cut off, but instead pretended to ignore them while quietly readying an armed resistance should the passersby decide to come ashore. I mean, what’s actually plausible– that the aborigines were incapable of seeing what was before their very eyes just because they hadn’t seen a boat like that before (I mean, we see impossible things in movies because of CGI all the time, things we’ve never seen before, and it’s never the case that much or even any part of the audience was simply blinded to it because they’d never seen anything like that before. Or n that thinking, we’d all be blind because we’re born never having seen anything), or that they actually did see them and it was just smart tactics to appear to give them no notice, especially since when they did actually come ashore, men suddenly appeared right there who were ready, armed, and putting up resistance, indicating they were actually anything but unseen, much less unnoticed? It’s clear to me, but maybe you can’t see it because the idea is just too foreign to you that aborigines would smartly not appear to react to the appearance of potential foreign invaders on their shores.
I’m wondering if this is true and not just a myth. I was recently (last week) diagnosed as having congenital double vision. Even though my vision was technically correct, I was still seeing blurry. ALL the optometrist in my life from 10 years up to this point blamed it on astigmatism, which I do have, and told me I’d just have to get used to living with a little blur. But today, for the very first time, I actually saw, really saw the double vision, one thing on top of another, not just blur. My lack of knowledge of having double vision actually prevented me from seeing it. Now that I KNOW, I’m seeing it quite clearly. One thing on top of and slightly to the right the same thing. I first saw it when writing in a journal, the words were stacked, then looked up and saw my husband in Double Vision Land. Strange, strange, strange. SO glad my vision will be corrected by the new lenses I will be receiving in about a week.
Very interesting story, that myth or whatever it is. Thank you!
Basically, the kind of theory that the guilty conscience of an ego driven barbarous culture would postulate.
There is ONE instance that I am aware of, just like the small-pox blanket distribution.
There was a Shaman who kept seeing the ships and dismissed them as mirage. He kept going to the beach everyday and he kept seeing these figures. He then brought villagers with him and there was nothing on the ocean. So, he figured it was a vision or portent of things to come.
When the ships appeared near shore and men came ashore, they still did not believe they were real and got slaughtered be of it. I would have to find the book, but if I had to guess it would
be Guns, Germs, and Steel.
This story is certainly not one that justified colonialism, it only shows the brutality of Euopeans.