The scientific community defines its concerns in such a way that some phenomena reported by individual or non-institutional scientists or by non-scientists are condemned as hallucinations, hoaxes, or otherwise unworthy of collective scientific investigation. In some cases years or even decades may pass before such evidence or phenomena acquire sufficient acceptability for establishment scientists to examine them. This forces some scientists or witnesses to spend a lifetime collecting data in order to overwhelm the initial resistance.
Past examples of compilers of overpowering data collections include Linnaeus and Darwin among others. 20th century sciences that have been obstructed include: the investigations of the sub-conscious and other inner terrain by psychoanalysts and psychologists; rocket development for space travel; and anthropological detection of human origins. Examples of under-investigated phenomena include: extra-sensory perception; hypnotism; astrology; unidentified flying objects; and folk medicine and remedies. Non-investigated phenomena have been included in the collection of Charles Fort and the Fortean societies, and are also quickly cited as anomalies in the work of astronomers, physicists and laboratory workers. Many of the phenomena concern human beings, such as survival after death, magic, comings and goings from the physical body, miracles (excluding the Shroud of Turin, investigated but not explained), the more incomprehensible yogic powers, healing power, charismatic phenomena, and the Devil, among others. Physical phenomena include inexplicable objects falling from the sky, countless violations of nature's 'laws' concerning time, space, energy and matter, and the intriguing subject of coincidences.