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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46814
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

## You need a major twist earlier in the story.

The **promise to the reader** is that there is a debate about the strange events, and that things don't always turn out as they appear. That makes your ending "fit" within the possibilities defined by the story.

> Strange events have happened and have been scientifically explained, even though they may have been implausible…

It sounds like your story is already playing with this ambiguity between (for simplicity) _rational_ and _irrational_ explanations. Build up one of these incidents as a "mystery" to be solved – not just _a mysterious phenomena_ but a mystery with clues and a "detective" (the MC?) attempting to get to the bottom of it.

## an example

I'm not trying to re-write your story, but one example would be that the buzz around strange phenomena has inspired hoaxes – at the very least there is heated debate because it is essentially "worldbreaking" to suddenly discover that science only works sometimes. An event that is considered to be difficult to explain, turns out to have a rational (possibly engineered/faked) explanation afterall.

In other words, you **have an important plot twist earlier in the story** that (in this example) leads the protagonist to _start to doubt_, but ultimately they disprove the paranormal. Let this twist have some consequences, so it carries weight in the story (it strains the MC's relationship, or requires extraordinary resources to solve, true believers send death threats, etc.).

## The later twist

This sets sets up the ending as a sort of foil to this earlier twist, and also helps to build the stakes because we've seen the earlier example.

The MC becomes more convinced than ever there is always a rational explanation if you dig hard enough. It's this conviction that leads them to push beyond a normal person's fear/skepticism. Put your protag out on a limb where they are convinced there is still a rational explanation, even as others begin to abandon it. If the reader has sympathy for the MC, it will feel like they are an underdog who will be proven right, until the final twist is them accepting what they had refused to believe.

Original score: 9