Reply #9: One can accept her facts without accepting her inferences.

[Igel]

She says she heard a loud noise or 'boom'. That's an observation. There's probably corroboration.

She says they were explosions. That's an inference.

There's a very, very large divide between the fact and the inference that it's her responsibility to fill in, if she wants to make that argument. But she hasn't. She leaves us with a fact and an abductive inference.

Abduction's great for producing hypotheses, but is in no way a permissible part of an argument for a conclusion's being necessary. (Abduction's one of those things left out of the US high school curriculum that should be prominently included in, oh, 9th grade or so.)