Three things:

1. Many people intuitively assume that clumping/clustering of events implies non-randomness, and that random processes are smooth and low-variance. The opposite is true [1].

2. A consequence of 1. is that people often over-estimate their understanding of the likelihood of events and the degree to which they are conditional/dependent.

3. There was an intriguing comment on this site a few days ago [2], referencing Daniel Kahneman's work on System 1 and System 2 thinking. From memory it said that reality is a lot less explicable than we tend to think - and that a lot of what we casually think we know about the everyday world is just our brains filling in the gaps using quick and cheap System 1.

As to why people are clutching at science-fictional interpretations: perhaps they're looking for some excitement or novelty? That would be very human.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clustering_illusion

[2] Unfortunately I cant find the comment. I wish I'd favourited it.

Anyone else feel a bit queasy about citing Kahneman as a source anymore?

https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-und...