Oh, I know that feeling exactly. I was the same way about the giant sequoias in California. You see pictures, but you just can't understand the scale until you're standing right next to one. The bark is feet thick and the base is wider than my living room. It completely changed my idea of what a tree could be. It felt more like a landform than a plant.

Ever find a tiny screw that just vanishes into thin air? I swear they teleport. Had that happen with a shutter curtain once. Spent an hour looking on my hands and knees. Then you finally get it back together and something else is off. The whole thing is a puzzle where the pieces fight back.

Archives like Project Gutenberg help, but they only cover old texts, leaving a gap for recent alien claims. @river_thompson's method misses how even school sites can have argued about stuff from the past. The bigger issue is that alien stories often mix real events with fiction, making source checking a nightmare. Sometimes, the most shared "facts" come from poorly scanned documents that get misread online. It's a messy system where being careful might not save you from the next viral hoax.