Your idea of “otherwise-sane people” seems off to me. “Sanity” is not a binary equation, a switch that you can flip on or off. In fact, you’re probably well aware that extremely rational people are susceptible to a lot of the same psychological effect as “the rest”. And there is no reason to think that awareness of such effects as mass hysteria is a full-proof shield for it.
In any case, on to your question. A room full of hardcore scientists can still easily be fooled by a skilled magician and if they are not told they are dealing with a magician, they can even be fooled into a “shared vivid hallucination”. Worse still, in all likelihood some of these hypothetical scientists and “otherwise-sane people” might be the most prominent defenders of their “observations”.
Your idea of “otherwise-sane people” seems off to me. “Sanity” is not a binary equation, a switch that you can flip on or off. In fact, you’re probably well aware that extremely rational people are susceptible to a lot of the same psychological effect as “the rest”. And there is no reason to think that awareness of such effects as mass hysteria is a full-proof shield for it.
In any case, on to your question. A room full of hardcore scientists can still easily be fooled by a skilled magician and if they are not told they are dealing with a magician, they can even be fooled into a “shared vivid hallucination”. Worse still, in all likelihood some of these hypothetical scientists and “otherwise-sane people” might be the most prominent defenders of their “observations”.