False memories: a conjurer's view.

A very interesting article by James Randi about the UFO phenomenon and fallibility of memory:

"...When it comes to witness reliability, I have a very specialized expertise, and I'll spend some time here explaining that talent.
As a magician (more correctly, a conjurer — but that's a matter for discussion elsewhere) I am well aware of two important facets of human experience: how people are fooled by others, and how they fool themselves.
That last angle enters in here strongly.
With some individuals it appears to be easy to not only ignore that their perception has departed from what they should expect of the real world, but that their memory and interpretation of a perceived set of sensory inputs is infallible and certainly represents actuality..."

A better performance from ABC-TV