On the reliability of witnesses: I was once watching through binoculars a Starfighter display. It was flying erratically. My interest and concentration were at a peak. The pilot ejected and the aircraft exploded in the air. Or maybe it was the other way round. And since then I have not really trusted anyone's account of things they have seen.
(Frankfurt Airport/Rhein-Main AFB, about 1990)
About 5 years ago the BBC here in the UK did a very interesting TV show on the reliability of witnesses. They set up a situation (with actors) in a bar where a young woman started a fight by punching a man, and they asked people what they thought happened. Most of the older men said that a man had started the fight, not a woman. The explanation was that when they were young the idea of a woman starting a fight was so unlikely that they discounted it, even though that was what actually happened in front of their eyes. In other words, in the 1950s or 1960s it was unheard of for a woman to do something like that in public, so they just assumed that the man had started it. It just shows how unreliable eyewitnesses can be, because things like people's basic assumptions about life can get in the way of giving a true account of what happened. That's just one example, but it applies to lots of situations. People often see what they expect to see instead of what has actually taken place.