RE: Off the beaten path (for me): Let's talk Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, Swamp Devil, etc... [Cryptozoology]
when I was a kid, I ate these subjects up.
Do you remember a book by a husband/wife team (Blum???) that combined UFO and ghost stories? IIRC, there was also a chapter on "derro". I still remember some of those stories, and it has been fun in later life to track down some of those and see the debunking/additional info on these.
I think my favorite was the story of the Sutton family blasting away at aliens; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly%E2%80%93Hopkinsville_encounter
I still surf r/paranormal when my brain needs unwinding!
Moving back to your first point about "proving" the unprovable, here is a post, that, while focused on the political side of life, stills discusses "getting at ... the frustrating human attempt to fully explain a situation we don't have enough hard facts for a clear judgement on."
(hmmm, think I am going to repost those two posts soon)
Heh... I don't think I encountered the UFO + Ghost combination.
I "remember" Ralph and Judy Blum(e) as the authors, but I'll be derned if I can find them as authors these days.
But the bookstores were full of these kinds of books in the 70's ;>
Mom, Mom, can I have THAT one too?
I remember those books though I didn't read any of them. I remember seeing them on shelves. I read the Hardy Boys while other people read Judy Blum.
that's the Judy Blum that wrote all the kids' books ;) Probably why I have the name of the husband/wife authors misremembered. I was in elementary school in the 70s, and about half the the reader texts had that Blum's stories in them
I think the kid's fiction I read was mostly the 3 investigators...but what I mostly read was the UFO/ghost/Bigfoot stuff.
I got focused on natsec in high school tho; if we lived in a better world, I'd be a "paranormal" researcher
I am getting buzzed by work, I'll give your response a more thorough look and response here soon. :)