I know plenty of others, including myself, who back up the anecdote with the same story. When does an anecdote stop becoming an anecdote and start becoming evidence? ;)
I think HN needs to have more discussion on this point. For instance, I used to listen to Art Bell: his callers gave numerous anecdotes about UFOs, but I wouldn't say those anecdotes added up to evidence of any sort. On the other hand, if you know 1000 people, and 20 of them have seen UFOs, that's definitely evidence, all else being equal. (The people you know don't exactly constitute an unbiased sample, but they aren't a meaninglessly biased sample either.)
