In this paper we examine how the features of an on-going experience are identified as having subsequently reportable properties. Using transcripts of the audio track of a video posted on YouTube purporting to capture the movements of a UFO (or at least, ostensibly anomalous lights in the sky), the analysis examines how the participants exhibit and negotiate their understanding of the object/lights, how they evaluate the evidence provided by the video in comparison to what they can see, and the way that another’s failure to see the same phenomenon is managed to ensure that the absence of corroboration does not undermine implicit claims about its objectivity and potentially anomalous features.
Bartholomew, R.E., & Howard, G.S. (1998). UFOs and alien contact. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
Branton, J., & McVicker, L. (2011). Mysterious flying object identified. The Columbian, 9thMarch 2011. Available at: [URL] [Accessed 27th July 2011].
Brunvand, J.H. (1981). The vanishing hitchhiker: Urban legends and their meanings. Glasgow, UK: Picador.
Castro, M., Burrows, R., and Wooffitt, R. The paranormal is (still) normal: The sociological implications of a survey of paranormal experiences in Great Britain. Sociological Research Online, 19 (3), 16 <[URL]>
Devereux, G. (Ed.). (1953). Psychoanalysis and the occult. London: Souvenir Press.
Drew, P. (2012). What drives sequences?Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 61–68.
Drew, P., & Heritage, J. (1992). Analyzing talk at work: An introduction. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings (pp. 3–65). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Friedman, A. (2011). Toward a sociology of perception: Sight, sex and gender. Cultural Sociology, 5(2), 187–206.
Garfinkel, H., Lynch, M., & Livingston, E. (1981). The work of discovering science construed with materials from the optically discovered pulsar. Philosophy of Social Science, 11(2), 131–158.
Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3), 606–633.
Goodwin, C. (1995). Seeing in-depth. Social Studies of Science, 251, 237–274.
Goodwin, C. (2000a). Practices of colour classification. Mind, Culture and Society, 7(1), 19–36.
Goodwin, C. (2000b). Practices of seeing: Visual analysis, an ethnomethodological approach. In T. Van Leeuwen & C. Jewitt (Eds.), Handbook of visual analysis (pp. 157–182). London: Sage Publications.
Greyson, B. (2000). Near-death experiences. In E. Cardeña, S.J. Lynn & S. Krippner (Eds.), Varieties of anomalous experience: Examining the scientific evidence (pp. 315–352). Washington DC: The American Psychological Association.
Gurney, E., Myers, F.W.H.,& Podmore, F. (1886). Phantasms of the living Vol. 21. London: Trubner.
Hartswood, M., Proctor, R., Rouncefield, M., & Slack, R. (2001). Performance management in breast screening: A case of professional vision and ecologies of practice. Journal of Cognition, Technology and Work, 4(2), 91–100.
Hay, D. (1982). Exploring inner space: Science and religious experience. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.
Heath, C. & Luff, P. (2000). Technology in action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology. Cambridge, MA: Polity.
Heritage, J. (2012a). Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 1–29.
Heritage, J. (2012b). The epistemic engine: Sequence organisation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(1), 30–52.
Heritage, J., & Raymond, G. (2005). The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in talk-in-interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68(1), 15–38.
Hindmarsh, J., & Heath, C. (2000). Sharing the tools of the trade: The interactional constitution of workplace objects. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 29(5), 523–562.
Hufford, D. (1982). The terror that comes in the night: An experience-centred study of supernatural assault traditions. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hunter, J., & Luke, D. (Eds.). (2014). Talking with spirits: Ethnographies from between the worlds. Brisbane, Australia: Daily Grail Publishing.
Jefferson, G. (1979). A technique for inviting laughter and its subsequent acceptance declination. In G. Psathas, (Ed.). Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. PAGES). New York: Irvington Publishers.
Jefferson, G. (1984). On the organization of laughter in talk about troubles. In J.M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 346–370). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Jefferson, G., Sacks, H., & Schegloff, E.A. (1987). Notes on laughter in pursuit of intimacy. In G. Button & J.R.E. Lee (Eds.), Talk and social structure (pp. 152–205). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Kochmann, T., LeBaron, C., Goodwin, C., & Feltovich, P. (2010). ‘Can you see the cystic artery yet?’: A simple matter of trust. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(2), 521–541.
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Beverly Hills: Princeton University Press.
Laurier, E., & Brown, B. Cultures of seeing: Pedagogies of the riverbank. Unpublished MS. Available at [URL]
Law, J., & Lynch, M. (1988). Lists, field guides and the descriptive organization of seeing: Birdwatching as an exemplary observational activity. Human Studies, 11(2-3), 217–303.
Mondada, L. (2013). Displaying, contesting and negotiating epistemic authority in social interaction: Descriptions and questions in guided tours. Discourse Studies, 15(5), 597–626.
Ohashi, Y., Wooffitt, R., Jackson, C., & Nixon, Y. (2013). Discourse, culture and extraordinary experiences: Observations from a comparative, qualitative analysis of Japanese and UK English accounts of paranormal phenomena. Western Journal of Communication, 77(4), 466–488.
Pomerantz, A.M. (1986) Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies 91, 219–229.
Potter, J. (1996). Representing reality. London, UK: Sage.
Psathas, G. (1991). The structure of direction giving in interaction. In D. Boden & D.H. Zimmerman (Eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology andconversation analysis. California: California University Press.
Rhine, L.E. (1981). The invisible picture: A study of psychic experiences. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation Vols. I & II1. edited by G. Jefferson & E.A. Schegloff. Oxford & Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
Stevenson, I. (1970). Telepathic impressions: A review and report of thirty-five new cases. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.
Stivers, T. (2005). Modified repeats: One method for asserting primary rights from second position. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38(2), 131–158.
Stivers, T., Mondada, L., & Steensig, J. (Eds.). (2011). The morality of knowledge in conversation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Totten, N. (Ed.). (2003). Psychoanalysis and the paranormal: Lands of darkness. London: Karnac.
Weeks, P.A.D. (1995). The micrsociology of everyday life. In S.M. Hale (Ed.), Controversies in sociology (2nd Edn.). Toronto: Copp Clark Ltd.
Widdicombe, S., & Wooffitt, R. (1995). The language of youth subcultures: Social identity in action. Hemel Hempstead, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Wilkinson, S. and Kitzinger, C. (2006) Surprise as an interactional achievement: Reaction tokens in conversation. Social Psychology Quarterly, 69(2), 150–182.
Wooffitt, R. (1992). Telling tales of the unexpected: The organisation of factual discourse. Hemel Hempstead, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Wooffitt, R., & Widdicombe, S. (2006). Interaction in interviews. In P. Drew, G. Raymond & D. Weinberg (Eds.), Talk and interaction in social research methods (pp. 28–49). London and Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Young, D.E., & Goulet, J-G. (Eds.). (1994). Being changed by cross-cultural encounters: The anthropology of extraordinary experience. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.
Cited by (11)
Cited by 11 other publications
McVittie, Chris & Andy McKinlay
2023. “I don't mean extradimensional in a woo-woo sense”: Doing non-explanation in discussions of unidentified aerial phenomena. Language & Communication 88 ► pp. 90 ff.
Bardina, Svetlana
2021. ‘That’s what the dream says’: The use of normalizing devices in dream reports. Discourse Studies► pp. 146144562110016 ff.
Ironside, Rachael & Robin Wooffitt
2021. Language, Embodiment and Anomalous Experience. In Making Sense of the Paranormal, ► pp. 1 ff.
Ironside, Rachael & Robin Wooffitt
2021. What Is That?. In Making Sense of the Paranormal, ► pp. 69 ff.
Pérez Navarro, José M. & Xana Martínez Guerra
2020. Personality, cognition, and morbidity in the understanding of paranormal belief. PsyCh Journal 9:1 ► pp. 118 ff.
Pérez Navarro, José Miguel
2020. Factores cognitivos, mórbidos y premórbidos en la formación y sustento de la creencia en lo paranormal. Interdisciplinaria Revista de Psicología y Ciencias Afines 37:2 ► pp. 211 ff.
Stockbridge, Germaine & Robin Wooffitt
2019. Coincidence by design. Qualitative Research 19:4 ► pp. 437 ff.
Ironside, Rachael
2017. Discovering strange events in empty spaces: The role of multimodal practice and the interpretation of paranormal events. Journal of Pragmatics 120 ► pp. 88 ff.
Ironside, Rachael
2018. Feeling spirits: sharing subjective paranormal experience through embodied talk and action
. Text & Talk 38:6 ► pp. 705 ff.
Hayward, Rachael, Robin Wooffitt & Catherine Woods
2015. The transgressive that: Making the world uncanny. Discourse Studies 17:6 ► pp. 703 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.