I recently reviewed Andy Thomas's book about the "paranormal" experiences reported by ordinary people.
It is a common response to such reports to demand a plausible "scientific" explanation - but I would assert that several paranormal phenomena do not require any explanation, because they are natural and spontaneous aspects of normal human experience.
As such, they ought to be regarded as baseline aspects of real life, rather than things that are unacceptable unless explained in terms of what is 2025 mainstream-acceptable (i.e. regarded as valid by official bureaucracies and "legacy" mass media).
Thomas's list of the "strange" phenomena covered in his book include:
Of these; I would regard ghosts, poltergeists, psychic experiences, premonitions, and synchronicities; as being, broadly speaking, merely natural and spontaneous phenomena.
These are the sort of thing (albeit without applying such categories to them) of a kind that it is likely to happen to pretty much all young children and tribal peoples.
They are something that ought, therefore, to be regarded as normal (even if unusual) aspects of everyday life.
They are indeed, not merely normal - but a kind of baseline for human beings.
These can be part of the background assumptions with which we enter this life; and which it is unnatural and distorting for us to discard as impossible on the basis of "currently-acceptable theories".
What is normal and baseline does not need to be explained before being accepted as potentially valid.
By contrast; phenomena like UFOs and crop circles are much more restricted (by persons, and by location) in terms of experiences.
In other words UFOs and crop-circles are not necessarily (although they may sometimes be) "normal happenings" - and often seem absent from the experiences of many people and cultures.
They are also theoretically-constructed phenomena, in the sense that that defining them requires significant background knowledge.
To perceive a UFO implicitly requires an idea of what is normal in the skies; which is something that must be learned. And crop circles are usually often properly apprehended from above, or by walking through fields of corn to find them (which, agriculturally, doesn't usually happen!).
But to return to the "normal paranormal" phenomena like telepathy, feeling the presence of spirits - perhaps of the dead, "out-of-body" travelling, actions by invisible beings and the like...
These should be accepted as possible in principle and therefore not requiring explanation - even though some (or most) specific claims of such occurrences may be mistaken or dishonest.
I mean that we ought not to demand some kind of explanation of how such things can occur, before believing them.
To repeat: We should work on the basis that reports of ghosts or telepathic events (for instance) are a possibility; on the basis that it is natural to believe in ghosts, and to experience telepathy.
We can then evaluate reports on the basis of the honesty and credibility of witnesses; and specific contextual details of the report; as with any other second-hand information.
After all; all public knowledge is derived from eye-witness testimony!
Nations have, for example, gone to war on the basis of credible reports of enemy military activities from, for example, competent and trustworthy naval Captains. Why then should we doubt the same kind of people when they report a sea-serpent, or some other "cryptid"?
We do not need, and should not demand, an up-front and "satisfactory" explanation of how ghosts are possible and what they are made-of. And likewise the possibility of telepathy does not require an explanation of how it might happen.
I would go further.
To take the example of telepathy - or the experience "mind to mind" contact, of knowing another being's intentions, nature etc -- actual experience may go far beyond, or actually contradict, mainstream "scientific" understanding of what is possible.
Thus; I think it likely that our basic experience of telepathy is one where it is not just humans that are telepathically-known; but potentially other animals, plants, and even things such as planets and stars.
Yet, the telepathic experience of "contact", is one that is instantaneous contact. There is no "time lag" - even over very large (or vast) distances - such as would be the case with planets and stars.
In other words; telepathy, when valid, is apparently not constrained either by the speed of light or by problems of "translation". We just know - directly, without mediation - what is happening in another being now.
Such experience is, of course, contrary to the assumed constraints of current-physics - and indeed contrary to how it is assumed that any communication "must" occur (e.g. needing an encoder, transmitter, receiver, decoder etc).
In this sense, the implications of some paranormal experiences are profound and wide-ranging; because accepting their validity entails that reality is qualitatively different from that described by current "science" and affirmed as valid by official authorities.
In other words; the acceptance of the validity of some paranormal phenomena is subversive with respect to the claims of our society and civilization to be sole arbiters of what is real and true - and whose evaluations we ought to believe and obey.
This is probably one major reason why paranormal experiences - including those that are normal to the point of being almost universal - have not so-far been, and probably never shall be; regarded as real, true, serious, and sometime important.