Suppose somebody tells me of a highly surprising or improbable event, m. In fact, let m be an event about as improbable as you can imagine. So my evidence for m is that ‘this person is saying that m happened’. I now have a choice between two views of the matter: (a) This person is saying that m happened. But m did not. (b) This person is saying that m happened. And m did. Now each of (a) and (b) contains one surprising element. View (a) contains the surprise: this person spoke falsely. View (b) contains the surprise of m occurring. So I have to balance which is more surprising or improbable,
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