User:Angilas

On one late spring day years ago, I recall driving with a longtime friend. A large moth flew across the path of the car (perhaps a rare cecropia moth). I turned and said, "Did you see that moth?" He replied unequivocally, "That was a bird." We debated back and forth for about 20-30 seconds, until a moment of clarity hit. I posited, "Maybe we were just looking at two different things."

After all, no one ever said we were looking in the same direction and at the same organism.

So, trivia question:

• What do King Arthur, Pope Joan, and the Loch Ness Monster have in common?

... besides the fact that it would be hilarious if they all walked into a bar... they are all figures for whom almost no mainstream researcher considers them real.

• Now what do Bigfoot, the Roswell Incident's "memory foil" debris, and the Phoenix Lights chevron-UFO have in common?

... besides the fact that it would be less hilarious if they all sauntered into a bar... they are all likewise subjects for whom almost no mainstream researcher considers them real.

Yet in the former case, every lead's verdict on the verisimilitude uses attribution to more properly de-weight the WP:FRINGE hypotheses. To wit:

• "most historians who study the period do not consider him a historical figure"
• "The story was widely believed for centuries, but most modern scholars regard it as fictional."
• "The scientific community explains alleged sightings of the Loch Ness Monster as…"

And in the latter case, every lead's verdict on the verisimilitude eschews attribution and uses unattributed Wikivoice to assert:

• "the creature is not a real living animal."
• "The debris was from a complex and uncrewed military balloon train consisting of linked balloons and assorted equipment"
• "Both sightings were due to aircraft participating in Operation Snowbird"

I call this apparent incongruity in lead styles the Lead Verdict Inconsistency...

... and I have recently questioned whether the latter group that uses unattributed WP:Wikivoice strains WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, WP:VERIFY, and even WP:SYNTH.

In spite of WP:FRIND-compliant sources showing actual demonstrable inconsistencies... that is, the less-than-unequivocal conclusions of cited researchers and other relevant sources... the latter group of leads as currently written amalgamate the hypotheses into unattributed Wikivoice verdicts. Essentially, sources presenting hypotheses qua hypotheses and articles that demonstrably show conflicting data from reliable secondary sources have become presented in an apparent fact by fiat package. And it is my contention that this ostensible fault of style should be overturned to match the more cautious leads in King Arthur, Pope Joan, and the Loch Ness Monster:

My proposals to move to attribution on the other articles:

• "the overwhelming consensus among researchers is that the creature is not a real living animal."
• "The military identified the debris was from a complex and uncrewed military balloon train consisting of linked balloons and assorted equipment"
• "According to researchers, both sightings were due to aircraft participating in Operation Snowbird"

Any editors interested in the ongoing discussion can see the arguments (for and against) here:

• Bigfoot (Talk Page)
• Phoenix Lights (Talk Page)
• Roswell incident (Talk Page)

So, when you read the guidelines, do you see a moth like I do, or do you see a bird like they do... or is the truth that we're looking at two different things...?