Dan Aykroyd: Making something out of nothing

ParanoidSkeptic2

Active Member
Dan Aykroyd is probably one of the most high-profile celebrities who's open about his belief in woo and bunk, he has come with many outlandish claims over the years and has been quoted by many believers as a credible source (which is a fallacious use of the argument from authority, seems that people just assume that people of higher status are more credible).

One story that constantly was in the back of my head was the alleged cancelation of his show because of an encounter with "The men in black." I never looked at the source of the claim, just always looking at the listicles that people made with this claim amidst them.

However, today I decided to look into it. The first time that Aykroyd ever mentioned the possible connection with the men in black and the cancelation of his show was in 2005 when he was being interviewed about his paranormal beliefs.

Article:
Aykroyd also claims to have had a run-in with the “Men in Black.” He told Sereda that during a television show taping, he went outside to use the phone to talk to Britney Spears about her upcoming appearance on Saturday Night Live. He noticed some men in black suits standing next to a black car; Aykroyd looked away, and when he looked back a moment later they were gone. Within a couple of hours, Aykroyd reported that producers were ordered to stop shooting the project he was currently working on, which happened to be a UFO program. They had been interviewing Dr. Steven Greer of the Disclosure Project


Whilst he explicitly didn't say that that was the cause of it, he heavily implies this.

There's a bunch of problems with this reasoning. First of all, he just saw some guys in suits next to a black car, I don't think you can get more mundane than that. Suits are just regular apparel and no doubt some jobs would require a dress code of smart clothing, heck, anytime I go to town I see at least a few people in suits. The fact that they were driving a black car seems irrelevant, I think that Aykroyd just made a connection there because of his pre-conceived notion of what's to expect. In addition, black is one of the most popular colours for a car so I really don't understand why that detail is necessary.

Furthermore, Aykroyd says they instantly vanished, but at the time he was focused on phone conversation with Britney, he may have just misinterpreted how long he was looking away. Another factor is memory, he recited this incident 3 years after it happened, it's more than reasonable to assume that some of the details weren't perfectly accurate given how unreliable human memory is.

On the IMDb page it states that creative differences caused the cancelation of the show despite the Aykroyd thinking it might have something to do with the people he interviewed but I feel like those are related, if the studio wanted a more comedic style, the guests interviewees practically removed the possibility of that happening as they take the subject super seriously.

Article:
While the official reason for the cancellation of the show was creative differences, as the studio wanted a more comedic and wacky show while Aykroyd wanted more or less serious straightforward discussions about UFOs and the paranormal with both other celebrities and regular folk, Aykroyd himself believes that the sudden cancellation may have had something to do with the fact that on the day the show got canceled by studio head Bonnie Hammer, he was suppose to film an interview with ufologist Steven M. Greer and UFO conspiracy theorist Stephen G. Bassett for the show.


Also, as a final nail in the coffin, the cancelation took place hours after this incident, making it unnecessary to create any causal links between the two events as they are rely on an anecdote told years later, a conspiratorial mindset and conventions that have very dubious origins.

Overall, it feels like this only narrative was constructed because Aykroyd was already ready to believe any oddity that may justify his deeply rooted, pre-existing beliefs. Or, more simply, he just wanted to believe so he did. However, using Occam's razor, it's much more likely that it was just a mundane thing that was blown out of proportion by a believer (as these things tend to be).
 
Two fans dressed like the Blues Brothers?

Ha ha... instantly disappeared... That's credulity on the level of a kid after seeing a birthday party magician.
 
Funny how believers behave so consistently across the board, for example using same language patterns. Those guys in suits "instantly disappeared"...the tic-tac UFO exhibited "instantaneous acceleration"...The support for Building 7 was "instantaneously removed" and the building entered "instant freefall."

They're all basically just ghost stories around the campfire, dressed up to seem as creepy as can be.
 
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