What would convince you?

[TheKeyAuthor]

1 Would he have to appear on Oprah or the like? Which means he has to be a celeb first. How would he become a celeb?
2 Would he have to do tricks like change water into wine? Which means the likes of David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy etc. are candidates?
3 Would you believe a "miracle" on TV anyway?
4 Are we too sceptical and information overloaded to believe anything any more?
5 Would anything possibly convince anyone in the 21st century anyhow?

Snorbs:
B) Sorry, I meant birthday (day month) not DOB. The number is 318.
C) It captures the symmetry that is there.
D) When you said it was "framed by a waning crescent moon", what exactly did you mean by that? And are you really suggesting that you saw the crescent of Venus with the naked eye and that formed the curve of the P? Must've been an incredibly small curve.
A very thin crescent moon was next to it in the sky. I have since found out that Venus shines most brilliantly when it appears as a crescent from Earth. By sheer coincidence, Venus was shining at its maximum brightness. Being short-sighted, that magnified the image and being out of focus produced the star burst or rays (as you often see on TV when a headlamp or light source is filmed out of focus.) In itself, it is a rare event. Apparently there was a third star there as well.

Honestly, I was so awestruck it got me out of bed for a better look, half expecting to see people in the street pointing up at it (I didn't). I've never seen anything like it.

As for probabilities, we could discuss it for a month of Sundays.

So no one felt confident or secure giving support to any conclusion other than nonsense. Interesting. My gut feeling is that discussing real observable events in such a debate is uncomfortable ground for most. I suspect that is because they have frequently been associated with scaremongers, charlatans and the like.

If the number 318 represents a birthday then that can either be 31 August or 18 March. So there's a 2 in 366 (must remember leap years!) chance of randomly hitting the same date. So the chance of two initials matching, plus a date match for 318, is 1 in 26 x 26 x (366/2) = roughly 1 in 120,000.

But, of course, it's less than that because the date happens to be the birthday of someone close to Parent X. I suspect Parent X would have claimed a match if 318 had matched his/her own birthday, or the birthday of his/her mother, father, brothers, sisters, partners or children. Or their house number. Or part of their telephone number.

In other words you're obtaining an arbitrary number by some undisclosed method and then hunting for significance for that number. It's confirmation bias in action - you're paying attention to the results that demonstrate what you want to find (318 matches your mother's birthday) while ignoring the stacks of results that show no correlation at all (eg, that 318 doesn't match your birthday even though 318 was somehow derived from your name).

Finally, there is no symmetry in Chi Rho. It is an asymmetric shape. If by "it captures the symmetry that is there" you mean that you're ignoring the asymmetric parts and then claiming significance in the remaining symmetric parts then you are most definitely and deliberately hunting for correlations that really aren't there. Again, that's confirmation bias.

I still can't picture what you mean by your descriptions of the stars you saw. Did you actually see the crescent of Venus with your own eyes or not? If not, what formed the curve of the P in Chi Rho? If you did, how tiny was it compared to the rest of the figure?

Can you point to the goverment legislation you mention that prevents you from using your name? Do you mean just for revealing your name in a published book or do you mean that your name became illegal?

Snorbs: 318 Yes, 2 date formats, but we have a standard one in the UK. I factored in a few of your arguments about other close birthdays; hence the probability range. Phone numbers are large, so not such a "clean" match if you tried that. A house number, phone number, credit card number etc. don't have that human touch, but I understand you can go hunting for things. I didn't go hunting here.

Symmetry. Hmm... that is such a simple shape and argument that if we can't see common ground then best we leave it.

With my short-sightedness the image was larger but blurred. Yes I saw everything with my own eyes. If my eyes were perfect then there would have been no star burst etc. The curved part was of the right dimensions. The Morning Star is so bright (on such occasions) that apparently the police receive lots of calls about it.

worldgone: The former. I can't be identified in public. Legislation was pushed through in the 2010 parliamentary wash-up process. It is not a due process, but more akin to horse-trading that takes place when a parliament ends (they close it a few weeks before a general election). In my case this happened in April 2010 when I was writing my book. When I came across the Chi Rho months later, I felt like I'd got my name back, but in a much more powerful form. To see it in the night sky like that a week later, well....

It has been a struggle for several years. During that time a number of "events" or coincidences occurred. The Chi Rho was just one of them, albeit the most spectacular. If people conclude it's all "nonsense", then that is fine. I just told it my way.

I didn't start this topic to convince anybody of anything. I was genuinely curious to know what you all think. Questioning your sanity from time to time is a good thing.

Which particular bit of legislation was that?

Seeker: Which particular bit of legislation was that?

It was in a Children Schools & Families Bill, passed in the March/April 2010 wash-up process.

Sciencelover:

1 That would indeed be quite something! However, it doesn't lend itself to verification unless the other person can come up with something. You would also expect there to be some context to it all.

2 Same as 1 except there is no 2nd person to support the claim.

Thekeyauthor- sorry, I misunderstood. I though your book was about some aspect of faith or religion- not the procedures of the Family Court or something.

I was wondering about some new sort of discrimination on the grounds of faith introduces by the Government!

Seeker: I was wondering about some new sort of discrimination on the grounds of faith introduces by the Government!

It was about keeping stories like mine out of the public domain. The media and public are less likely to take an interest without the human angle. They won't print a newspaper article about Mrs A, Mr B, child C from town Z etc.

Hey do all the time, actually. The legislation was about protecting the identity of vulnerable children.

So the legislation prevents you revealing your name because that would enable readers to find out the name of your daughter who is classed as a vulnerable child? I'm really sorry that life isn't being kind to you, but that doesn't sound like much of a basis for a conspiracy theory, it sounds like the Government doing its job properly and protecting those that are most in need. It does happen all the time "Baby P", "Child C", etc.

To answer sciencelovers post:
You have a dream that someone will come to your door, and the next day, that exact person comes to your home. Aside from in your dream, you'd never seen the person before. You have a conversation with the person, and the conversation is identical to the one you had in your dream. On top of that, while this person is talking to you, you feel a strong feeling that the dream was from God.

Unless I had a third-party who I had mentioned the dream to before the person turned up, I would put this down to brain-fizz (technical term!). Sometimes the brain stores short-term memories in the wrong place, i.e. in the long-term memory storage area. This is how deja-vu occurs, it's just the brain misfiling information. So I could never be really sure that I had the dream unless it was corroborated by an independent witness.

You have a dream/vision where you see God, and he takes you to another part of the universe and shows you stars and things that you've never heard of. The next day, when you look through books, you find the stars you were shown, and they have the same names and locations from your dream/vision.

I have had many dreams where I have seen and communicated with God(s) and angels (the big scary kind, not the twee ones). I put it down to an overactive imagination, an inner search and need to connect with the Divine, and, very occasionally, to a piece of cheese. The brain has a wonderful facility for storing information - somewhere everything you've ever seen and heard is stored away, so unless you were looking at a brand new star system that had just been announced, then I'd store it in the 'odd but isn't the brain amazing' category.

Sciencelover: If someone I didn't know told me that happened to them, I wouldn't immediately discount it, but I would, in all honesty, be very skeptical, even with a witness.

And that is true for most people, myself included. It is difficult enough trying to convince people that something of magnitude happened, but even more so when the authorities frustrate all your attempts to do so. Taking my name away was cynical. I got it back but in a form and manner that is seemingly even more unbelievable than my own story. But how could I do anything else other than use it?

Seeker: The legislation was about protecting the identity of vulnerable children.

They don't care about anyone except themselves, let alone vulnerable children.

worldgone: So the legislation prevents you revealing your name because that would enable readers to find out the name of your daughter who is classed as a vulnerable child?...It sounds like the Government doing its job properly and protecting those that are most in need.

Yes, it does sound like that. But a spate of stories, some from celebs like Geldof, came out after an Appeal Court ruling in 2006 allowed them. Those stories exposed the family legal racket for what it is: an omni-shambles. So the politicians effectively reversed the ruling because they don't want you to find out what they really do to children and their families.