Overwhelming Improbability Theory

At the heart of Overwhelming Improbability Theory is the idea that beyond a certain improbability limit the nature of probability changes such that highly probable events now become highly improbable and highly improbable events become highly probable. This redistribution of probability is known as improbability inversion and the limit is called the Threshold of Overwhelmingly Improbable Events (TOIE).

The concept of a TOIE and its inherent implications found great popularity with cult groups, alien abuductees, and governments—the reason being that any idea (no matter how irrational or insane it may be) could be justified provided it was overwhelmingly improbable enough to be placed past the TOIE.

Thus, a person claiming to have been abducted by aliens might persuade others that since the idea of aliens expending the vast amounts of energy required to traverse the enormous distances of space (in the hope that they stumble upon an inhabited planet upon which they completely and totally conceal their existence except from a group of people whom they somehow just know no one else will believe) is such a humongously ridiculous concept, that it must be probable for the mere fact that is so improbable it lies beyond the Threshold of Overwhelmingly Improbable Events.

While, on the other hand, a politician might state that "because all the evidence points to their having started wars on false pretenses, having abused the privileges of their office, as well as having used their power to harass those whose spoke out against them," they could not possible be guilty due to the probability of their innocence lying so far beyond the TOIE that it must be very probable.