Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
Speaker 2: A quick note, this week's episode of Monster Talk was
Speaker 2: put together rather quickly and did not get my usual
Speaker 2: level of editorial cleanup. There's going to be a little
Speaker 2: bit of cussing in it, as we say in the South.
Speaker 2: In fact, you'll hear a cuss word in just a
Speaker 2: few moments now that I think about it, because I'm
Speaker 2: going to quote Martin Luther. Technically his cussing would have
Speaker 2: been in German, but I'm reading a translation. I love monsters,
Speaker 2: That's why I created Monster Talk. Hopefully that comes across
Speaker 2: in the episodes. But I'm also a skeptic, and sometimes
Speaker 2: I hear skeptics say disparaging things about monsters, like why
Speaker 2: do they matter? They're not real, or yeah, but only
Speaker 2: an idiot or a crazy person who believe that, and
Speaker 2: so on. But really that's not true. It doesn't take
Speaker 2: much to get people, rational, normal run of the mill
Speaker 2: people to believe in a monster. They just have to
Speaker 2: see something they don't understand, or experience something odd or unusual,
Speaker 2: and then their mind will do the rest. Take change links,
Speaker 2: for example, I used to think they were a silly
Speaker 2: idea you put your kid to and overnight fairies come
Speaker 2: and leave one of their children for you to raise. Instead,
Speaker 2: they take away your child. I figured it was based
Speaker 2: on the behavior of the cuckoo bird, which is a
Speaker 2: real animal that puts its eggs into the nest of
Speaker 2: other species in a behavior called brood parasitism. But then
Speaker 2: I read that the founder of the Protestant Reformation, none
Speaker 2: other than Martin Luther himself, had seen a changeling. I'll
Speaker 2: let you hear his description. Eight years ago at Dassao,
Speaker 2: I Martin Luther saw and touched the changeling. It was
Speaker 2: twelve years old, and from its eyes and the fact
Speaker 2: that it had all of its senses, one could have
Speaker 2: thought that it was a real child. It did nothing
Speaker 2: but eat. In fact, it ate enough for any four
Speaker 2: peasants or threshers. It ate shit and pissed, and whenever
Speaker 2: someone touched it it cried. When bad things happened in
Speaker 2: the house, it laughed and was happy, and when things
Speaker 2: went well, it cried. It had these two virtues. I
Speaker 2: said to the Prince of Anhalt, if I were the
Speaker 2: prince or ruler here, I would throw this child into
Speaker 2: the water into the molda that flows by the Dessau
Speaker 2: commit homicidium on him. But the Elector of Saxony, who
Speaker 2: was with me at Dessau, and the Princess of Annhal
Speaker 2: did not want to follow my advice. Therefore, I said,
Speaker 2: then you should have all Christians repeat the Lord's prayer
Speaker 2: in church that God may exercise the devil. They did
Speaker 2: this daily at Dessau, and the changeling child died in
Speaker 2: the following year. Such a changeling child is only a
Speaker 2: piece of flesh, a masa carnas, because it has no soul.
Speaker 2: After reading this account, I suddenly realized that I had
Speaker 2: misunderstood the changeling legend completely. It wasn't some crazy fairy
Speaker 2: tale made up by people based on a cuckoo bird.
Speaker 2: It was a genuine, but non scientific response to discovering
Speaker 2: that the child you've had had raised so far, which
Speaker 2: had seemed normal, had suddenly turned into a stranger, unable
Speaker 2: to communicate, afraid of touch. Well, let's just say that
Speaker 2: as the parent of a child with autism, it was
Speaker 2: a chilling revelation, especially if you read how the so
Speaker 2: called legends recommended treatment of such children. This episode's not
Speaker 2: about change links or autism, but I did want to
Speaker 2: take a moment to point out that these monsters are
Speaker 2: sometimes much more serious business than people realize. You probably
Speaker 2: know that already, after all, you're listening to the show,
Speaker 2: but I want to thank you for listening and for
Speaker 2: making monsters and science a part of your experience. It's
Speaker 2: actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. A giant,
Speaker 2: very creature, part ape, part Matt in Luckness, a twenty
Speaker 2: four a mile long bottomless lake in the Highlands of Scotland.
Speaker 3: It's a creature known as the Luckness Monster.
Speaker 4: Monstertal.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm
Speaker 2: your host, Blake Smith, together with Ben Radford and Karen Stalls.
Speaker 2: Now we bring you the interviews and commentary about the
Speaker 2: intersection between myth and reality. Now, this episode's way more
Speaker 2: casual than normal, and I just wanted to give you
Speaker 2: a quick update on why that is. And this also
Speaker 2: has to do with the recent lag in episodes. I've
Speaker 2: started a new job and I'm working very long hours
Speaker 2: as we get ready to launch our website. I like
Speaker 2: to keep Monster Talking non commercial project, but if you're
Speaker 2: curious about my day job, I'll be posting a little
Speaker 2: bit about it on my Twitter feed. That's doctor Atlantis
Speaker 2: at Twitter. We have a lot of awesome topics to
Speaker 2: cover in the future, and there's no shortage of monsters.
Speaker 2: So as soon as my time becomes free again, we'll
Speaker 2: pop back with more regularity. So thanks for bearing with
Speaker 2: me on this because I am really excited about it.
Speaker 4: More obstrutal.
Speaker 2: So today we're talking with Brian Thompson of the James
Speaker 2: or in the Educational Foundation, and Brian, you're the field
Speaker 2: coordinator for the j REF.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that is a term that means nothing to most people,
Speaker 5: so I'll briefly explain it. Its outreach. I'm in charge
Speaker 5: of reaching out to the skeptical community, so I talked
Speaker 5: to local group leaders from all over the world about
Speaker 5: how they can help educate people about skepticism and do
Speaker 5: activism in their community and get together and have fun.
Speaker 4: And that's cool.
Speaker 2: I bet.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, you know it's pretty good. I could be
Speaker 5: working in construction walking beams and skyscrapers and stuff putting
Speaker 5: those together, which would be a terrible job for me
Speaker 5: because I'm afraid of heights and I'm also afraid of
Speaker 5: carrying my lunch.
Speaker 4: In a pale.
Speaker 5: Do they still do that like to sit side by
Speaker 5: side on girders eating their lunch.
Speaker 2: According to the photos at my pizzeria, Then yes, that's
Speaker 2: really where I get a lot of my information.
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, well that's how I get around New York
Speaker 5: City is by the wallpaper subway.
Speaker 2: It probably is. All right, So you're going around saying
Speaker 2: words about this amazing meeting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, pretty much everywhere I go, I say some
Speaker 5: words about the amazing meeting.
Speaker 4: You've been before, right.
Speaker 2: I've been a couple of times, and I have to
Speaker 2: admit it lived up to his name. It's a fantastic experience.
Speaker 2: But before I go off from.
Speaker 5: No, wait, wait, wait, wait a second, wait a second,
Speaker 5: it's an amazing experience.
Speaker 2: What did I say?
Speaker 5: You said fantastic, and legally if you say fantastic meeting,
Speaker 5: we will sue.
Speaker 2: I don't want that.
Speaker 4: I don't want that, and it's just fair warning.
Speaker 2: I guess I could go back and fix it and post.
Speaker 2: Could I just sort of issue a retraction now and
Speaker 2: then say that I retract my statement fantastic and would
Speaker 2: like to replace that with an adjective that's more appropriate
Speaker 2: and legally sound.
Speaker 5: That being asked along to our attorneys and be sure
Speaker 5: when you say amazing, make sure to pronounce the exclamation
Speaker 5: point where the eye is supposed to be.
Speaker 2: Is it the amazing meeting exclamation point TM?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: No, no, no, it's just it's the exclamation point is
Speaker 5: more just emphasis.
Speaker 4: So it's like amazing meeting.
Speaker 2: Is it? But is it? Do either?
Speaker 1: Do?
Speaker 2: Is there a TM or an R at the end
Speaker 2: or anything like that?
Speaker 4: And you don't have to say that, but yes there is.
Speaker 2: So it's silent.
Speaker 4: It's a silent trademark symbols.
Speaker 2: Silent but really really binding legally. Okay, yeah, so no,
Speaker 2: I don't recall as much rules lawyer in when I
Speaker 2: was there, but yeah, it was a really amazing time
Speaker 2: that I had.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and when I say that, oh sorry.
Speaker 2: Seriously, though, it really I feel a little bit stupid
Speaker 2: saying it. It is amazing, it really is. It's not
Speaker 2: just the incredible speakers and the sort of camaraderie of
Speaker 2: meeting all these like minded people. It's also just the
Speaker 2: conversations in the the panels and no, it is those things,
Speaker 2: all those things. I'm just going to redo that whole bit.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, wait, wait wait, I don't think so. I
Speaker 4: don't think I think I get where you're going with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more than just what's on the car. Let
Speaker 2: me say that, right, yeah, or what's on the car.
Speaker 2: You get the piece of paper saying here's what the
Speaker 2: events are, here's what people here's what people are talking,
Speaker 2: here's what they're talking about, here's the workshops. But beyond that,
Speaker 2: you're going to meet so many people from just uh
Speaker 2: what's the word for, lots and lots of.
Speaker 4: Different uh, diverse.
Speaker 2: You're going to meet a diverse group of people.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 2: It's smartest people I've ever met.
Speaker 5: It's the largest or one of the largest, certainly skeptics
Speaker 5: events in the entire world. And and despite that, it
Speaker 5: still feels very intimate.
Speaker 4: Maybe is the word.
Speaker 2: It's definitely the word.
Speaker 5: Yeah, more uptimate for some people than others. But we're
Speaker 5: sort of it's last year, we had sixteen hundred people
Speaker 5: I believe roughly sixteen hundred people packed into the South
Speaker 5: Point Hotel and Casino, which is a very large building.
Speaker 5: But still when you have sixteen hundred people all staying
Speaker 5: in the same place, and pretty much everybody that goes
Speaker 5: to TAM is staying in the South Point or very
Speaker 5: close by, and a lot of people never really see
Speaker 5: any sunlight because there's really no reason to. You can
Speaker 5: go outside into the hot Las Vegas air. You notice
Speaker 5: that Las Vegas, it always feels like someone's breathing right
Speaker 5: in your face when you go outside and they spend
Speaker 5: their bread. Smells like a delicious buffet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit. It's nice.
Speaker 5: It's like a warm, savory wind always blowing in your face.
Speaker 5: And some people don't like that, so they like being
Speaker 5: able to stay inside the South Point. You got a
Speaker 5: bar there, you've got.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you've got everything at the South Point. There
Speaker 2: is absolutely no reason to leave the hotel if you
Speaker 2: don't want to do anything. So like last year when
Speaker 2: I went, I took my wife and we did go
Speaker 2: catch a show, but that was because she was with me.
Speaker 2: Otherwise I would have just stayed in the hotel. And
Speaker 2: there's plenty to do. You could go bowling, you could
Speaker 2: last year, you could go see a Harry Potter movie.
Speaker 2: It's amazing, it's really, really quite amazing.
Speaker 5: You can do that this year if you brought a
Speaker 5: maybe a DVD player and right to a red box
Speaker 5: or something.
Speaker 4: But I don't know why you would do that. You
Speaker 4: certainly have time.
Speaker 5: There's time in the evenings to go do things that
Speaker 5: Las Vegas has to offer, like go see maybe a
Speaker 5: Pennant teller show or something like that. But if you
Speaker 5: choose to stay in the South Point, you can you
Speaker 5: can always find someone to talk to and something to do.
Speaker 5: Like you said, it's a very diverse group of people
Speaker 5: that show up for TAM, people from all over the world,
Speaker 5: with all sorts of crazy accents and weird manners of dress.
Speaker 5: But everybody's able to put aside any differences they might
Speaker 5: have and talk about all the things that they have
Speaker 5: in common, which at TAM, if you're a skeptic, is a.
Speaker 4: Ton of things.
Speaker 5: It's just nothing but NonStop, wonderful conversation with wonderful, friendly people,
Speaker 5: whether you're down in the Elmar Bar in the South Point,
Speaker 5: or people sort of pack into different corners around the
Speaker 5: conference area and are always chit chatting and talking. It's
Speaker 5: it's just a it's a great community experience, and that's
Speaker 5: outside of or I guess it's not outside of but
Speaker 5: it's in addition to the official programming schedule, which is
Speaker 5: also extremely significant and maybe the main draw.
Speaker 2: Maybe I guess you could tell me who's yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: who's coming this year?
Speaker 4: This year, We've got all sorts of folks.
Speaker 5: You know, we've got the tam regulars like Steven Novella
Speaker 5: and the other Novellas and they probably hate it when
Speaker 5: people call them the other Novellas.
Speaker 4: Right, and the rest Stephen Novella and the rest.
Speaker 5: You have your Eugenie Scott's from the National Center for
Speaker 5: Science Education will be there, Michael Schrmer will be there.
Speaker 5: Your Monster Talk co host, doctor Karen stolesnow.
Speaker 4: We'll be there.
Speaker 5: We've got Penn and Teller. I think this is the
Speaker 5: only skeptics conference. Well, you'll be able to see Penn
Speaker 5: and Teller. We've got Jamie Ian Swiss, the wonderful mentalist.
Speaker 5: We've got Paul Pravenza, the wonderful comedian doing a stand
Speaker 5: up show. I'm going to be hosting a comedic game
Speaker 5: show that does not at all a rip off of
Speaker 5: Wait wait, don't tell me you called Weightwaight, don't fool
Speaker 5: me that you were on at Dragon Con this past year.
Speaker 5: Maybe on again. Paul Prevenza will certainly be on it.
Speaker 5: You've got your Brian Dunning from skeptoid dot Com. You've
Speaker 5: got your Pamela Gay. You've got all sorts of people.
Speaker 5: List goes on and on and on, Max Mayven, Lawrence Krauss,
Speaker 5: Richard Saunders, and of course James Randy himself, which everyone
Speaker 5: loves singing Randy and he loves seeing everybody. He's constantly
Speaker 5: shaking hands and hugging people and doing magic tricks. And
Speaker 5: if you come to TAM you'll be able to take
Speaker 5: part in that.
Speaker 2: And he's actually nice to everyone, not just the good
Speaker 2: little boys and girls.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, he's nice to everyone. It's a myth that
Speaker 5: he's only nice to the good little poison girls. It's
Speaker 5: as the myth that he just leaves Cole and the
Speaker 5: stockings of the ones that are bad. He doesn't make
Speaker 5: any distinction one way or the other. He will give
Speaker 5: you presents on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 4: Right here are we talking about again?
Speaker 2: Well? I forget, but I just feel I feel warm.
Speaker 5: Right, Charles Darwin will be there. One of the things
Speaker 5: I'm particularly excited about is a newcomer to TAM. I
Speaker 5: believe she maybe have been to TAM before, but she
Speaker 5: hasn't been doing her show. Kelly Carlin, daughter of George Carlin.
Speaker 5: She's going to be doing her show A Carlin Home Companion,
Speaker 5: which is about her life growing up as George Carlin's daughter.
Speaker 5: It's a great show. And she's doing that at TAM
Speaker 5: there's a ton of Does she have a.
Speaker 2: Bit on seven words? My dad yelled at me a lot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was sure that I'll print it on a
Speaker 5: T shirt or something. Yeah, it's it's amazing, like I would.
Speaker 5: I was at she she put on a birthday celebration
Speaker 5: for George car then he would have been seventy five
Speaker 5: last week as of this recording. And I went to
Speaker 5: that event and she was trying out all this stuff
Speaker 5: that her dad had had stored over the years. He
Speaker 5: just kept everything, every piece of history he was ever
Speaker 5: a part of his clothes, everything, So she has all
Speaker 5: sorts of weird stories and visual aids and it's just
Speaker 5: it's a wonderful show.
Speaker 4: So yeah, you can. You can. You can go to
Speaker 4: Amazing Meeting dot com.
Speaker 5: And see the list of all of our wonderful speakers
Speaker 5: and our workshop schedule. It's just it's a it's a
Speaker 5: great time. It's going to be July twelfth through the fifteenth,
Speaker 5: and you'd really if you think you might want to go,
Speaker 5: you might want to go. Get your registration now because
Speaker 5: it could sell out. And also if it doesn't sell out,
Speaker 5: if you wait too long, the price will go up
Speaker 5: like any other conference. So get in early and you
Speaker 5: can seal a deal for yourself.
Speaker 4: More obstrutle.
Speaker 2: You know this was so casual. I forgot to put
Speaker 2: together a byo for you.
Speaker 6: Well, the first question will be sort of you know,
Speaker 6: were you.
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 2: How did you get on our podcast?
Speaker 4: What's happening?
Speaker 6: At least?
Speaker 3: We're all a bit rusty on this right now.
Speaker 2: I think that's my fault. I've just been I've been
Speaker 2: working so hard on money job, I haven't had time
Speaker 2: to do any recording or anything. So Tonight's guest. You
Speaker 2: know I always say tonight, I'm still doing that. People
Speaker 2: could be listening to this at nine am.
Speaker 6: But they don't. They don't. They always listen to it tonight.
Speaker 6: You know, come on this week.
Speaker 2: I mons your talk this week, not me in.
Speaker 1: The morning, do you Yeah, Well, I'm doing my hair
Speaker 1: and stuff getting ready for work.
Speaker 6: So Blake just say for everybody except Sharen ah Man, awake.
Speaker 4: Morebstrtal day.
Speaker 2: This morning, as Sharon gets ready for work, we're talking
Speaker 2: to her live. I would be doing my hair, but
Speaker 2: I don't have any left I need. It has been
Speaker 2: so it we're like a fifty to fifty hair mix here.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's good, it's even.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, so today we're talking with Sharon Hill. Sharon has
Speaker 2: done a lot of things with skepticism, but right now
Speaker 2: we're talking to her because of her new website, Doubtful News. Now,
Speaker 2: many skeptics already know who you are, but for those
Speaker 2: listeners who don't, what's your background?
Speaker 1: Oh, jezus, I've been with this involved in the skeptical
Speaker 1: topics and subjects. This is probably about nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: I was always interested in the paranormal and monsters, and
Speaker 1: about that time I was out of college and I
Speaker 1: had some time to start reading more involved literature about it.
Speaker 1: And I found that the skeptical literature that I'd never
Speaker 1: seen before was way more interesting than the credulous stuff
Speaker 1: that you would find in the public libraries or on
Speaker 1: the popular books and magazines. So I really got into it.
Speaker 1: And at that point, the Internet was becoming more of
Speaker 1: a thing, so I got on there and I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, the first browser was text only, and I
Speaker 1: would just search for sit all day and search for
Speaker 1: ghosts and bigfoot and lackness sponsor and find out all
Speaker 1: these cool things that I didn't know before. And so
Speaker 1: that was sort of my introduction there was the Internet
Speaker 1: was definitely a gateway to finding better information on these topics.
Speaker 1: And after that, you know, I just was interested in
Speaker 1: it for a long long time. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if if Ben remembers the first time we met. It
Speaker 1: was it was in a it was Philadelphia meeting. You
Speaker 1: were talking about lake monsters. Do you remember that?
Speaker 6: I do, In fact, I remember I remember that, and
Speaker 6: then you and I think we went to like an
Speaker 6: Applebee's or something that had a beer. If I'm not mistaken, No.
Speaker 1: You're mistaken because I had to leave early.
Speaker 6: And you and I had a beer somewhere where that was.
Speaker 6: But tell me more about I apparently have a bad memory.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking that remember that time you talked about lake monsters.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, this.
Speaker 1: Is before your your your book had come out. I'm
Speaker 1: like monsters, I'm pretty sure. And it was in a
Speaker 1: it was Philadelphia. It was a skeptical group meeting, and
Speaker 1: you talked about you had two talks one about uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know Myths probably, and then the second one
Speaker 1: was Lake Monsters, and I had to leave because I
Speaker 1: had just had a baby a couple months before, so
Speaker 1: I couldn't stay very long, and Philadelphia was a far
Speaker 1: trip from where I lived, so I didn't get to
Speaker 1: see it, but I eventually did get the book, and
Speaker 1: then I started going to skeptical conferences. I got involved
Speaker 1: with the websites. I volunteered to help write a couple
Speaker 1: of things on what was called the Young Skeptics at
Speaker 1: the time became Inquiring Mine, so it's basically for kids,
Speaker 1: and I was always interested in writing them about monsters
Speaker 1: for kids because I know that that's a very interesting
Speaker 1: subject to them, and it was fun to write for
Speaker 1: an age group like that. So I got into that,
Speaker 1: and after that I wrote a couple of pieces. This
Speaker 1: pirded skeptical briefs and things like that about ghosts, and
Speaker 1: I went back and got a master's degree in science
Speaker 1: and the public It's and education and started writing my thesis,
Speaker 1: which was about research and do paranormal groups in the
Speaker 1: United States, and that includes the ghost hunters and the
Speaker 1: cryptozoology groups as well as general paranormal groups that investigate
Speaker 1: anma lies and forty and type things. So I really
Speaker 1: got into it then. And then I started writing articles
Speaker 1: and started a blog, started a website, So yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: doing a lot of different.
Speaker 3: Things and masters then what questions were you looking at
Speaker 3: concerning these groups in the States.
Speaker 1: I was interested in how they used science, if they
Speaker 1: used it in a very casual way, if they had
Speaker 1: scientists as part of their investigation groups, if they understood
Speaker 1: what it meant to set up a research plan, and
Speaker 1: how they were conducting their investigations. So I looked at
Speaker 1: a thousand different websites. I just went totally from what
Speaker 1: was on the web, and the majority of those are
Speaker 1: ghost hunting groups. But there were a growing number of
Speaker 1: bigfoot groups, mostly Bigfoot. They did other crypti investigations as well,
Speaker 1: but mostly was Bigfoot. And there's a declining number of
Speaker 1: UFO investigation groups and a couple that sort of did everything.
Speaker 1: And I looked at them all across the country and
Speaker 1: how they used science in their investigations.
Speaker 3: Do they use science little?
Speaker 2: It's mostly an attitude.
Speaker 1: Science means careful, and they act particulars and the conclusions
Speaker 1: were they acted like they thought scientists should act. That's
Speaker 1: a big difference from what science is as a process,
Speaker 1: and none of them, almost across the board, there were
Speaker 1: no real scientists involved. There may have been a handful
Speaker 1: of wildlife biologists or computer scientists were popular, you know,
Speaker 1: in these groups, but otherwise none of them had scientific training,
Speaker 1: and they never when they recruited people for their groups,
Speaker 1: they didn't ask for people with scientific training. All they
Speaker 1: wanted was people who were interested in the topics, especially
Speaker 1: people who had had their own personal experiences. That the
Speaker 1: personal experience was what was driving people into these amateur
Speaker 1: investigation groups, going out and doing their own investigations. They
Speaker 1: really didn't know how to conduct them scientifically at all.
Speaker 6: I should for for for listeners who wanted to read
Speaker 6: more about it. Actually, we published Sharon's piece and Skeptical
Speaker 6: Acquiring Magazine that was from an adaptation of for thesis
Speaker 6: and it was a great piece. So I encourage people
Speaker 6: who want to read more about it to check. I
Speaker 6: think it appeared I think three or four issues back,
Speaker 6: but it was very good.
Speaker 1: I think it was March March April.
Speaker 2: What's the Where can people find that?
Speaker 6: Ben Skeptical Acchoir Science Magazine. It's available in better bookstores.
Speaker 6: If the bookstore you're in doesn't carry it. It's not
Speaker 6: a better bookstore. It's it's around and about. You can
Speaker 6: get it online. You can order it. Uh, you know
Speaker 6: it's a it's around psycop dot org. I think I've
Speaker 6: I sometimes write for it or something and you know
Speaker 6: whatever cool I.
Speaker 3: Mean supermarkets if we can find that. Oh that's National
Speaker 3: enquire Sorry, yeah.
Speaker 6: It's well, I was gonna ask you for show.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna say that we're gonna put a link
Speaker 2: of the show notes go ahead.
Speaker 6: So did you I was curious about the follow up
Speaker 6: to it? Did when you when you were inquiring these
Speaker 6: groups and you know, asking them, you know, deer ghost
Speaker 6: hunters of Akron, you know, what's your what's your understanding
Speaker 6: of science? What sort of answers did you? Did you was?
Speaker 6: Were they sort of defensive about it? Did they wreck?
Speaker 6: Do they realize that you were probably not going to
Speaker 6: be taking a very positive view of their lack of science?
Speaker 6: Or were they like, oh, yeah, we do we have
Speaker 6: MF detectors?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 6: They what were you know? I assume that they didn't
Speaker 6: think there was anything wrong with that.
Speaker 1: I was a little bit more subtle than that. I
Speaker 1: didn't want them to know that I was looking at
Speaker 1: this from a skeptical viewpoint. I wanted to be neutral,
Speaker 1: right because I was pretty sure that they were going
Speaker 1: to give me a different answer if I look like
Speaker 1: I was critical, So I I really wanted to get
Speaker 1: a big data set. So that's why I went through
Speaker 1: a thousand of them to get a really good cross
Speaker 1: section to get a feel of it. But about thirty
Speaker 1: of them that distinctly used very scientific terms. Whether it
Speaker 1: was in their name, you know, where the Scientific Ghost
Speaker 1: and Investigator Investigation Group, or they was, it was very
Speaker 1: blatant on their site that that was what they were
Speaker 1: relying on to draw people in and get them to
Speaker 1: increase their credibility. They looked credible by using that word.
Speaker 1: So I took about thirty of those and I emailed
Speaker 1: them individually and asked them, what is it about your
Speaker 1: group that scientific? Do you have any scientists on board?
Speaker 1: Can you explain some of the ways that you use
Speaker 1: science and your investigation? Eight replied yea, which is not bad.
Speaker 1: Some were very they didn't want to talk. They're like,
Speaker 1: who are you, what are you doing? And others would
Speaker 1: say they did get defensive. I teach this, I teach
Speaker 1: these courses to interested individuals, and we do science and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. And they didn't give me any details,
Speaker 1: and a few, maybe three or four, were very detailed
Speaker 1: and helpful. And the more that I asked them about it,
Speaker 1: the more they said, well, we're not really trained scientists,
Speaker 1: but we're trying to do the best we can. We're
Speaker 1: trying to be careful, we're trying to be meticulous. We're
Speaker 1: trying to be systematic in what we do, which is
Speaker 1: not science. It's science y, you know. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: It wasn't rigorous. They thought it was rigorous putting out
Speaker 1: all their equipment every single time in a very it
Speaker 1: was definitely a meticulous, careful way. But you could do
Speaker 1: that with any pieces of equipment. It's not scientific. But
Speaker 1: the equipment was the one thing that really did stand
Speaker 1: out as them feeling very scientific.
Speaker 6: The the gadgets and the gears did it very much.
Speaker 3: And so where were they getting their exposure to science
Speaker 3: or their interpretation of lines I was coming from.
Speaker 1: I was hoping I didn't guess the answer beforehand, but
Speaker 1: it turns out it was true, and I did find
Speaker 1: a reference on this. They're getting it from television, they're
Speaker 1: getting it from the ghost hunters on TV very much,
Speaker 1: So no doubt about it. They mimic what they see
Speaker 1: on TV as being good ghost hunters, good investigators.
Speaker 2: I think that was kind of a major factor in
Speaker 2: the creation of this show, was because I was seeing
Speaker 2: a lack of scientific and skeptical qualities in any of
Speaker 2: the topic investigations, right, so, whether it was ghosts from
Speaker 2: monsters or UFOs. So you know, we don't really do
Speaker 2: UFOs very much on the show. Occasionally we'll talk about aliens.
Speaker 2: But did you take anything away from that? I mean,
Speaker 2: I know one of the topics I'm going to come
Speaker 2: up with is or come to in a moment, is
Speaker 2: about your website that you're working on now. But what
Speaker 2: does the skeptical community need to do or do you
Speaker 2: think it's an action call for us to do anything
Speaker 2: to help improve scientific literacy? I know we have organizations
Speaker 2: that do that. What does it mean to you that
Speaker 2: this is going on? Is it a problem that we
Speaker 2: can address in some way? What can we do?
Speaker 1: Well? There were two things. One, I think that some
Speaker 1: skeptical groups can if there is a way to work
Speaker 1: with these groups, do that in a friendly way, and
Speaker 1: you would definitely get a better result. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's possible. Some groups are not open to that.
Speaker 1: Ghost hunter groups especially, they think that they're the experts.
Speaker 1: They don't want anybody else to come in and step
Speaker 1: on their territory. But it would be great if we
Speaker 1: could get the two sides to come in and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're not going to step on your toes. We're going
Speaker 1: to do our thing, but we're going to try to
Speaker 1: work together, and maybe we can come up with a
Speaker 1: better explanation for what's happening here, or we can come
Speaker 1: up with two different explanations, perhaps from each group, and
Speaker 1: see which one might I make a little bit more sense,
Speaker 1: or maybe we can learn from each other. And the
Speaker 1: second thing was I noticed that, and I don't think
Speaker 1: that most of the skeptical people would realize this. How
Speaker 1: totally dedicated these people are too searching for ghost evidence
Speaker 1: or bigfoot. They are so committed to this they put
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of their leisure time into it and
Speaker 1: their personal funds. Skeptics do the same, but in this case,
Speaker 1: this is for people who are almost spiritually involved in
Speaker 1: this subject and they want to do a good thing.
Speaker 1: They want to contribute and they also want to help
Speaker 1: people that they feel are in trouble with a haunting
Speaker 1: or something like that. They want to do good. They
Speaker 1: often do worse, you know, make the situation worse, I think,
Speaker 1: by telling people that they have demons infesting their house.
Speaker 1: But they want to do the right thing, and I
Speaker 1: think that their heart is in the right place. And
Speaker 1: I think the most important thing is they want to
Speaker 1: to be scientific. They don't know how they want to.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you I don't know how to
Speaker 1: make that better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think they want
Speaker 3: the credibility that comes along with that as well. But
Speaker 3: I certainly think there are a lot of people who
Speaker 3: for whom this is just a flavor of the month
Speaker 3: thing and they're just involved in a very dispassionate way.
Speaker 3: And aside to these other people who really get into
Speaker 3: it and live that like a lot of skeptics too
Speaker 3: as well, I think a lot of groups are on
Speaker 3: the way out.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: In your survey, did you happen to find out how
Speaker 2: many also want to be on TV?
Speaker 1: A lot a lot we're pitching TV shows, and I
Speaker 1: mean what I saw was just from the website. I
Speaker 1: didn't talk to enough people. What I had to do
Speaker 1: is just take the data from the websites because I
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly talk to them all. So what I was
Speaker 1: seeing was the public face of those groups. I didn't
Speaker 1: get into the personalities that were involved in actual day
Speaker 1: to day stuff in the groups, and that look like
Speaker 1: it very tremendously clear.
Speaker 2: I don't want anybody to think because I'm snickering about things.
Speaker 2: I totally understand the desire to be in a paranormal
Speaker 2: investigation group. I mean, I'm in one myself. It's just
Speaker 2: a skeptic group. It doesn't but there's not I mean
Speaker 2: that desire to investigate. It's the same passion that drives us.
Speaker 2: It's just what technologies and techniques we use, I think that,
Speaker 2: and how we approach the questions, right, But uh, it's
Speaker 2: that desire to find out that the answers to unknown question,
Speaker 2: you know, that is their life after death or their ghosts?
Speaker 2: Is there an American would a But these are all
Speaker 2: really interesting questions.
Speaker 3: We have those in common.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, like I said, most of these people were inspired
Speaker 1: by personal experiences they had that they were confused by,
Speaker 1: or that they wanted to show other people that they
Speaker 1: were valid and skeptics. We don't often have that. I mean,
Speaker 1: some of us have had potential paranormal experiences, but we
Speaker 1: think that there's a reasonable explanation for them. Some people,
Speaker 1: other people are really affected by it, and they don't
Speaker 1: they think it's paranormal.
Speaker 6: That's been my experience, especially, you know, when when I'm
Speaker 6: talking to people who like in ghost hunter groups and
Speaker 6: in cryptology in groups specifically where you know, as you
Speaker 6: pointed out, many of them are driven by some you know,
Speaker 6: personal firsthand experience. And and what I've found is that oftentimes,
Speaker 6: you know, they have this experience, you know, they they
Speaker 6: see something weird in the woods, and of course they
Speaker 6: immediately jump to Bigfoot or they you know, see something
Speaker 6: weird in the hallway. And one thing that these these
Speaker 6: groups offer is our answers. They're not starting correct answers,
Speaker 6: but they offer they offer already made framework of belief
Speaker 6: and you know, well come to you know, hey, if
Speaker 6: you saw a ghosts, you know, go come, you know,
Speaker 6: come to our local ghost hunters meeting and and share
Speaker 6: your story. And that's where they feel, you know, they're
Speaker 6: among friend friends, They're among people who share their experiences.
Speaker 6: They're not typically among skeptics, which is sort of a
Speaker 6: shame and of itself. It's a problem in and of itself.
Speaker 6: But that's one thing that that I think that a
Speaker 6: lot of times gets overlooked in discussions about paranormal groups.
Speaker 6: Is is a lot of times it's the sense of community.
Speaker 6: It's it's friends, It's people hanging out. I mean, it's
Speaker 6: you know, it's it's yeahoo's you know, going out for
Speaker 6: the weekend looking for looking for bigfoot in the in
Speaker 6: the woods. It's uh, it's friends, you know, walking around
Speaker 6: the local cemetery, and it's you know, I certainly a
Speaker 6: lot of it is there are very dedicated people in there.
Speaker 6: But a lot of times, what I found is that
Speaker 6: that we get so busy sort of criticizing their lack
Speaker 6: of science in some cases, that we forget that in
Speaker 6: many ways, it's a social event. That's that's what a
Speaker 6: lot of people get from it, right, Amen, Amen and Sharon.
Speaker 3: You're going to be talking about skeptics and believers looking
Speaker 3: horns at Tame this year, aren't you.
Speaker 1: Yes. Uh, I've I've learned so much in the past
Speaker 1: two years. I think about talking to people of other viewpoints,
Speaker 1: and I don't like conflict. I'm not I just avoid it.
Speaker 1: But what I had to learn to do is handle
Speaker 1: it in a certain way, because as if you're in
Speaker 1: a scientific field, you get criticized for everything. You get
Speaker 1: criticized from everything from grammar to you know, the basic
Speaker 1: premise of your whole idea, so you get used to
Speaker 1: that a little bit. In terms of a non personal critique.
Speaker 1: When you're online and you're doing articles or you're doing
Speaker 1: blog posts, you get a lot of personal comments from people,
Speaker 1: and maybe they're not meant to be personal, but it's
Speaker 1: hard not to take personal. So I had to learn
Speaker 1: some techniques that are counter to the way that you
Speaker 1: would normally react, which would be get defensive and start
Speaker 1: getting angry about things. Learn how to handle that and
Speaker 1: take it away from the personal aspect and try to
Speaker 1: see what's behind that person's comment. It's probably not directed
Speaker 1: at you. It's just directed at some idea of you
Speaker 1: that they have. So I've been practicing that on my
Speaker 1: blog and in real life. And I thought that I
Speaker 1: could share some of those things that tam about dealing
Speaker 1: with people of other worldviews, and maybe we could bring
Speaker 1: this conversation to a civil level and agree on some
Speaker 1: things and then move from there to answer the bigger
Speaker 1: questions and how we would approach those bigger questions without
Speaker 1: getting mad at each other.
Speaker 2: And just in case our listeners don't know, we're talking
Speaker 2: about TAM, which is the Amazing Meeting which takes place
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas, Nevada every year. It's put on by
Speaker 2: the James Randy Educational Foundation, and it's a place where
Speaker 2: skeptics and scientists and researchers and people who are just
Speaker 2: interested in these topics get together and listen to lectures
Speaker 2: and mingle. It's fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sharon's going to be appearing at the workshop on Thursday,
Speaker 3: isn't it It four pm?
Speaker 1: That's right, And I've got some great panelists to help
Speaker 1: me out totally different subject areas and it'll be really cool.
Speaker 6: Sharon was going to ask about, Yes, go ahead. I
Speaker 6: was going to ask about, you know, trying you mentioned,
Speaker 6: you know, trying to bring the skeptics and believers together
Speaker 6: and sort of having the same you know, so for
Speaker 6: more of a dialogue. And I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 6: I've I've tried to advocate that for a long time.
Speaker 6: Although I'm wondering what your thoughts are on on how
Speaker 6: viable that really is? I mean if if if if
Speaker 6: essentially skeptics and for lack of a better word, believers
Speaker 6: aren't even sharing basic premises. You know, you know, for example,
Speaker 6: a lot of a lot of ghost groups just sort
Speaker 6: of use the word ghosts and throw around the word
Speaker 6: ghosts as if there's some universally agreed upon definition, and
Speaker 6: of course there isn't. So how how big of an
Speaker 6: impediment do you think that is? That that you know
Speaker 6: that in many cases that they're you're just coming from
Speaker 6: two very very different world views.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but the communities are close to
Speaker 1: each other, they're they're insulated from each other completely. There's
Speaker 1: there's no real way to overlap except in a forum
Speaker 1: where you're arguing with each other. What I've seen potentially
Speaker 1: work is going person to person, having just a one,
Speaker 1: one to one connection with somebody in a paranormal group,
Speaker 1: where you start a conversation and say, I understand where
Speaker 1: you're coming from, and you have these beliefs that you're
Speaker 1: going in there with different beliefs and different methods than
Speaker 1: than I would, and talk to them and get get
Speaker 1: to talk to them on a person to person level,
Speaker 1: not about the subject, but but try to understand where
Speaker 1: they're coming from. And in a couple of cases it's
Speaker 1: just happened on the blog. People have come in really
Speaker 1: defensive about a news story that I've been critical of,
Speaker 1: a haunting or something like that, and they've come on
Speaker 1: to the site and they said, you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, and I said, look, let's just ratchet
Speaker 1: this down and let's figure out what exactly did you
Speaker 1: see and start talking about it at a much more
Speaker 1: civil level, and they will admit, we would really like
Speaker 1: to have another set of eyeballs, you know, somebody who
Speaker 1: doesn't share the same viewpoint that we have to come
Speaker 1: in and then it's hard to actually make those arrangements.
Speaker 1: But if you're in the same town it might be easier.
Speaker 1: But I think it involves getting to people on a
Speaker 1: very personal, one on one level and establishing a really
Speaker 1: a trusting relationship that you know you're not going to
Speaker 1: get stabbed in the back or you're not going to
Speaker 1: get criticized. So I don't know, maybe that would work.
Speaker 1: I wish there were more skeptical groups that would sort
Speaker 1: of reach out in a friendly way. It's really hard though.
Speaker 2: You just mentioned your blog, which is one of the
Speaker 2: main reasons why I wanted you to come on the
Speaker 2: show and talk with us. Your blog is called Doubtful News.
Speaker 2: I didn't really think of it as a blog, but
Speaker 2: I guess that's what it is. What is it and
Speaker 2: why did you create it? Give me the elevator speech.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a unique news feed. There isn't anything like it.
Speaker 1: I looked before I started it, and I wanted something
Speaker 1: like this because this is what I would be interested in.
Speaker 1: I wanted a place to talk about these stories that
Speaker 1: were coming out in the news about the paranormal and
Speaker 1: pseudoscience and anomalies which is one of my favorite topics
Speaker 1: as well forty and type anomalies, natural events that are
Speaker 1: sort of strange and unusual and anti science type stories.
Speaker 1: And what I did was I started the blog where
Speaker 1: I linked to these news stories and give a quote
Speaker 1: from the story and then pose either some links to
Speaker 1: additional information maybe that would be a more skeptical type
Speaker 1: treatment of the topic, or I pose questions that I
Speaker 1: find missing in the story. There's missing information, or there's
Speaker 1: details missing, or something doesn't seem right. So it's just
Speaker 1: a way of questioning the story and in a critical
Speaker 1: thinking way, and it's evidence focused. I want people to
Speaker 1: come on and contribute their views if they have more information,
Speaker 1: and provide some references or evidence for their claims, not
Speaker 1: just opinions thrown around or anything like that. But I
Speaker 1: started it back in August of twenty eleven, and we
Speaker 1: ramped up pretty quickly, and so we're approaching a year
Speaker 1: in August and already we're over half a million page
Speaker 1: views since it began, So I'm pretty pleased with the response.
Speaker 1: We've been getting some nice search results people, and this
Speaker 1: was one of the main points is when people search
Speaker 1: for these subjects, I really like them to be able
Speaker 1: to find something of a more you know, thinking, critical
Speaker 1: thinking nature about the story. I want them to find
Speaker 1: something that's not scredulous. It seems to be working.
Speaker 2: So I've been following the site for a while, and
Speaker 2: it seems like you're doing a combination of things because
Speaker 2: you're doing aggregation by gathering the stories, but you're also
Speaker 2: doing some curation very much, and I was curious as
Speaker 2: to how that was going because I look at a
Speaker 2: lot of paranormal and cryptozoological news sites and I find
Speaker 2: yours very helpful, very useful, but I have not been
Speaker 2: offered very loudly a free iPad, So I'm wondering, yeah,
Speaker 2: or vigor, is your site broken in some way?
Speaker 1: We tried ads, you know, the problem with ads is
Speaker 1: they come up with psychics and diets and business venture
Speaker 1: totally antithetical to the purpose of the site. So we
Speaker 1: quit that and we started asking for donations, and that
Speaker 1: was actually a better route to go. So we do
Speaker 1: accept donations strictly for server issues and and travel and
Speaker 1: costs like that, business cards and things like that. But so, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've done away with the ads. I wanted to leave
Speaker 1: it as a very clean site.
Speaker 2: It is so you could.
Speaker 1: Just take a look at everything and just scan the
Speaker 1: page really quick if and find some stories that you like,
Speaker 1: or go to the categories if you're into one particular category.
Speaker 3: And I think it's a fantastic idea that you're running
Speaker 3: this site and that you're treating these current events in skepticism.
Speaker 3: That's how I see the site as a news site
Speaker 3: for skepticism. And I do like the link that you
Speaker 3: have for were we wrong about something? Tell us a
Speaker 3: bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I added that about a month ago, at about the
Speaker 1: same time where we quit running so many bigfoot stories,
Speaker 1: which is a sort of another aspect of this. I
Speaker 1: was because I really like the cryptosology news and because
Speaker 1: I don't think that there is a good cryptozoology news
Speaker 1: site out there. The ones that are out there are
Speaker 1: just they're just trails and trails of garbage stories just
Speaker 1: to get hits, and I, well, there's more than once
Speaker 1: it was. They're loaded with ads there, their teasers. I
Speaker 1: just got annoyed. So I started putting the better stories
Speaker 1: on the doubtful news site. And then that's sort of
Speaker 1: backfired in a in a couple of different ways. So
Speaker 1: I trailed I tailed that back, and I at one
Speaker 1: point I said, I'm just not going to do any
Speaker 1: more big Foot stories. They're pain And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that happened was a certain person who's a researcher
Speaker 1: but he's not one of the field researchers, was upset
Speaker 1: at the way a certain news story treated him, made
Speaker 1: him look like he was lying or whatever. So when
Speaker 1: I quoted the news story, I had to go buy
Speaker 1: what the news story said because I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: different from that, and so I commented on the news story, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it looked like this guy wasn't very clear
Speaker 1: on what he was asking. Well, it turns out that
Speaker 1: the news story was wrong. Now, I'm not a journalist.
Speaker 1: I can't fact check somebody else's story. That's not the
Speaker 1: point of the site. But when he came on and
Speaker 1: started telling me that I was I should have fact
Speaker 1: checked and I was completely wrong, and I called him
Speaker 1: a liar. And the more I tried to explained him, look,
Speaker 1: whatever you want me to fix, I will fix. You know,
Speaker 1: sn S news station or whatever isn't going to give
Speaker 1: you a retraction space like I will. You can explain
Speaker 1: your position on our site. I will gladly do that.
Speaker 1: You make your corrections, and you speak your mind, I
Speaker 1: will put that on. He just got angrier and angrier
Speaker 1: with me, to the point where he threatened. He said,
Speaker 1: I want a public apology. I want. I gave you
Speaker 1: an apology, and I gave you a forum to make
Speaker 1: any corrections that you want. I think that's more than fair. No,
Speaker 1: no public apology or you're gonna hear from my lawyer.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's it. Goodbye. So I blocked him. Well,
Speaker 1: this was like he found me on Facebook and started
Speaker 1: messaging me on Facebook, which we did not know each other.
Speaker 1: So I was a little bit freaked out about that.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile I had other people messaging me saying, you
Speaker 1: do not want to deal with this this person, he
Speaker 1: does this repeatedly. So I cut him off and I
Speaker 1: pulled the story, and I put a note as to
Speaker 1: why I pulled the story because current bigfoot news is
Speaker 1: just too absurd to warrant discussion anymore on the site.
Speaker 1: And that's when I put up that page that says,
Speaker 1: if we were wrong about something, we want to make
Speaker 1: it right. We want it to be public, the truth.
Speaker 1: We want the truth out there. We don't we don't
Speaker 1: want to repeat an error. We want to fix it.
Speaker 6: That's that's certainly a novel idea. I mean, it would
Speaker 6: it would be wonderful if a lot of the believer sites,
Speaker 6: you know, would say, well, we were wrong about something. Look,
Speaker 6: you know we touted this this you know this blob
Speaker 6: squash is a big foot. It's it's clearly your moose,
Speaker 6: and hey, we were wrong. They never do that, Yeah,
Speaker 6: they don't. They don't go ahead, Blake.
Speaker 2: I didn't interrupt it, no, no, no, I was just gonna
Speaker 2: say it's too bad. He wasn't as diligent about finding
Speaker 2: Bigfoot as he was about finding you on Facebook.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, it did show that he was a pretty good investigator.
Speaker 2: Right exactly he was. He has skills, got some mad skills,
Speaker 2: but maybe not out right he's using his powers for evil.
Speaker 1: He really needed some social skills as well.
Speaker 2: All right, So we'll put a link to your site
Speaker 2: in the show notes. But if you want to tell
Speaker 2: people real quick how they can find it. For those
Speaker 2: people too lazy to read the show notes, you knew
Speaker 2: who I'm talking to.
Speaker 1: It's doubtfulnews dot com. If you can spell doubtful, I've
Speaker 1: I've looked at the search results and some people have
Speaker 1: trouble but d O U B T f U lnews
Speaker 1: dot com and on Twitter, it's also a doubtful News
Speaker 1: on Twitter excellent. And there's also a Facebook page you
Speaker 1: could search for it and find it there.
Speaker 2: I noticed there was like this j ref weekly summary
Speaker 2: kind of thing going on. What's that all about?
Speaker 1: Well, the goal is to be to bring the news
Speaker 1: to as many people as possible, and we were all
Speaker 1: about outreach and getting people to see. One of the
Speaker 1: things about the site is I wanted the skeptics to
Speaker 1: see how much fringe and weird news is actually out there,
Speaker 1: because I don't know that they really understand that people
Speaker 1: read this stuff pass it on to their friends and
Speaker 1: think it's true. I wanted them to see that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of these strange stories coming out and it
Speaker 1: bodes well to be involved in donating to skeptical causes
Speaker 1: to sort of combat the media issues that we have
Speaker 1: to face with these kind of stories. So originally the site,
Speaker 1: I offered the syndication of the feed to skeptic dot
Speaker 1: com and they took it, so it's on the Skeptic
Speaker 1: site as well, which also it takes away from our
Speaker 1: hit count. But what's more important is that it appears
Speaker 1: in search results and people can find those stories. That's
Speaker 1: what's important. And then I offered it to the j
Speaker 1: ref as a weekly summary as a way to give
Speaker 1: them content for their blog and to just show that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's these these news stories out there that
Speaker 1: people may have missed because they're not looking at all
Speaker 1: the news feeds and Twitter feeds that I am. A
Speaker 1: lot of stories that I find are from Twitter, and
Speaker 1: then a lot of people aren't on there sharing those
Speaker 1: links or on RSS feeds that I follow from paranormal sites.
Speaker 1: So maybe I'm looking in places that people wouldn't normally
Speaker 1: look and I'm trying to bring those stories to their attention.
Speaker 3: And so would you say that you're most of your
Speaker 3: readers are skeptics or believers, or a mix of the two.
Speaker 1: There's definitely a mix. There's definitely a h I think
Speaker 1: what happens is some people will find it through search
Speaker 1: because they're interested in that topic, and they'll find it
Speaker 1: and they'll come on, especially if their name is mentioned
Speaker 1: in the story, if it's one of their news stories,
Speaker 1: if it's a psychic, a psychic will have a Google
Speaker 1: search with her name on it, and she'll find the
Speaker 1: site and then she'll come on and she'll tell me
Speaker 1: what an idiot I am. But the the ghost hunters
Speaker 1: will do that as well. They'll they'll find their names.
Speaker 1: So some religious people will come on the site. And
Speaker 1: because we have a very strict moderating policy and commenting policy,
Speaker 1: I will not allow proselytizing or name calling or long
Speaker 1: ranty posts. I'll just remove them and i'll warn people
Speaker 1: don't do this again, or or I'll moderate them and
Speaker 1: I won't approve their comments and they notice that real quick.
Speaker 6: It seems to me that that, you know, again, being
Speaker 6: being a fan of your site as well and going
Speaker 6: to it frequently, it's got to be a hell of
Speaker 6: a lot of work. How much time is this take?
Speaker 6: I mean, this is obviously, you know, unpaid volunteer. I
Speaker 6: mean a lot of crypto stuff is as well, but
Speaker 6: certainly is so what how much is this does this take?
Speaker 1: Well? I am a news junkie, you know, so I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the stories anyway. So I have like book
Speaker 1: marklets that I could use when whatever media I'm using,
Speaker 1: and I'll send the story to the site in a
Speaker 1: draft form and or I'll write them up. And all
Speaker 1: I really have to do is once I read the story,
Speaker 1: just quote the pertinent parts. And because I've I've read
Speaker 1: so much and I've been around, you know, these skeptic
Speaker 1: sites for so long, I kind of know where to
Speaker 1: go to get a good link, or if I have questions,
Speaker 1: I know where to go to get some additional information.
Speaker 1: I use a special Google search engine that can pull
Speaker 1: just from the skeptical sites to school, so I get
Speaker 1: I could get that information really really quick, So it
Speaker 1: really doesn't take that long to do the stories. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I will just throw the stories into draft and I
Speaker 1: have my co editor, my awesome co editor and support
Speaker 1: Torko Oda Guard helped me out and he'll write up
Speaker 1: the story for me as well, and I'll add commentary
Speaker 1: or something. So it does take a couple hours per day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's cool because he can put extra umlauts in.
Speaker 1: Or jokes or well sometimes I have to edit what
Speaker 1: he writes because it's snarky.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it's all about the tone. Okay, Well let's
Speaker 2: talk something. Let's actually talk about the news a little bit.
Speaker 2: You're run a new site. What can you tell us
Speaker 2: about what's up with Bigfoot? What's Bigfoot up to? What's
Speaker 2: going on with Bigfoot?
Speaker 1: Well, like I said, it's crazy. Bigfoot news is just crazy.
Speaker 1: Since the show Finding Bigfoot has gotten popular, it's just
Speaker 1: ramped up the interest in Bigfoot totally as a subject area.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really brought a lot of people
Speaker 1: into it either as a you know, they're looking for
Speaker 1: a little bit of cash to market Bigfoot, either on
Speaker 1: their their website or merchandise or tours or whatever. So
Speaker 1: it's it's really gotten a whole lot of attention. So
Speaker 1: a lot of these stories are coming out. There's a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount. Every day, there's new videos and new pictures,
Speaker 1: and I've learned to ignore those because they're all terrible.
Speaker 1: Once in a while, there comes a decent story that
Speaker 1: actually has some substance to it. Either there's evidence, or
Speaker 1: there's been a proposed project or like the recently, there
Speaker 1: was that one proposed by Oxford University to collect DNA evidence,
Speaker 1: and that was that was big news because Bigfoot's being
Speaker 1: taken seriously. And there was the good story a few
Speaker 1: months back about the scientists being called to Russia to
Speaker 1: look for Yetti evidence. And not only was that a good, big,
Speaker 1: big for Yetti story, but it had a whole other
Speaker 1: backstory that was interesting about tourism trying to bring people
Speaker 1: into this area of Siberia where they were promoting the
Speaker 1: Yetti as tourism. And I thought, that's fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: The idea of paranormal tourism, bringing people in to your
Speaker 1: town or to your city so they could experience something
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't be able to experience in their own
Speaker 1: town in a paranormal sense. I thought that's really interesting,
Speaker 1: and I think that a lot of lake monsters are
Speaker 1: that effect as well. So the Bigfoot thing is is
Speaker 1: a lot about money these days, and a lot about
Speaker 1: egos and notoriety, and I got real sick of it.
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm tailing it back. But we're waiting.
Speaker 1: A few months ago I posted a blog. It was
Speaker 1: sort of like a commentary on the new site. I said,
Speaker 1: produce your evidence. You've made big promises, now produce it,
Speaker 1: and we're waiting. So that's the story on Bigfoot. We're waiting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 3: We're real waiting.
Speaker 1: We're getting old.
Speaker 3: And so aside from Bigfoot, what are some of your
Speaker 3: favorite crypto related stories from the past year.
Speaker 1: Oh love, I love weird animal stories. I love stories
Speaker 1: where people think they've seen something Like lately, the latest
Speaker 1: story was that people thought they saw a tiger in
Speaker 1: their neighborhood and two people appears that they were independent
Speaker 1: witnesses that they saw this big cat in their neighborhood
Speaker 1: in Washington State and it caused a lot of people
Speaker 1: to come out and the police and an emergency personnel
Speaker 1: to go and look for it. This happened a couple
Speaker 1: months back when kids said they saw a gorilla sneaking
Speaker 1: around down in the South. I mean, it's just these
Speaker 1: stories are they're so amusing because it's about perception and
Speaker 1: it's not really a monster. It's about people's perception of
Speaker 1: what could be dangerous out there in their backyards. Another
Speaker 1: recent one about somebody who took pictures of a cat
Speaker 1: in their backyard and said it was a cougar. It's
Speaker 1: a tabby cat made the news and everyone looks at
Speaker 1: these pictures and says, how could somebody have have taken
Speaker 1: this picture and thought it was anything other than a
Speaker 1: domestic cat. Well, he was kind of large. But it's
Speaker 1: about perception. I think.
Speaker 2: Was it like a forty year old cat dating like
Speaker 2: a twenty year old?
Speaker 1: The pictures were labeled cougar?
Speaker 2: I got it, okay.
Speaker 1: Other than that, yeah, I just love weird animal story.
Speaker 1: I wrote a piece for another blog about hairless creatures,
Speaker 1: how we're fascinated with anything that's hairless, these hairless carcasses
Speaker 1: that wash up on the shore, and I love those
Speaker 1: stories that the thing that washes up on the beach
Speaker 1: that nobody can identify. Those are great. And then I
Speaker 1: just wait in yeah, and I just wait for Darren
Speaker 1: Nage to come around and identify it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they threw me back in the water. They're worried.
Speaker 6: And from aross the rooms.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Blake, you're not hairless.
Speaker 2: That's true. I'm clearly a mammal of some sort.
Speaker 6: Well, Sharon, I'm not gonna let you off the hook
Speaker 6: on on Bigfoot again. I I because I know there's
Speaker 6: been at least two or three that I can think
Speaker 6: of off the top of my head. Cases in the last
Speaker 6: I'm going to say six or nine months of big
Speaker 6: you know, promised breathless promises of of you know, just
Speaker 6: just to wait and see next week, next month, we're
Speaker 6: going to finally have bigfoot DNA evidence. There's doctor Melbourn
Speaker 6: ketch them. There's there's a couple other ones. There was
Speaker 6: a project. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell it. Give us give
Speaker 6: us a quick I mean I know some of them,
Speaker 6: but give us a quick rundown of some of those stories.
Speaker 1: Well here's what I thought was weird. I mean, for
Speaker 1: for decades, the cryptozoologists had always said there was no
Speaker 1: funding to go out and do these types of projects.
Speaker 1: Well now they're getting some private funding to actually do
Speaker 1: these projects. And they the money is there for them
Speaker 1: to go out and do it well. And we're getting
Speaker 1: nothing but secrets. It's just like it's coming or here's
Speaker 1: a teaser. And we had that picture a couple gee
Speaker 1: that this must have been the end of last year,
Speaker 1: very very early this year of the sasquatch that was
Speaker 1: supposedly a sash quatches, a black line picture of this
Speaker 1: very furry thing sleeping in the woods. She had a name,
Speaker 1: and the name escapes me right now, I can't remember,
Speaker 1: but they had named it, and they'd said that they
Speaker 1: were promising to have up close video of her when
Speaker 1: she was awake and you know, investigating the camera. And
Speaker 1: it was definitely a teaser. And it's been years that
Speaker 1: that project has been going on and we've got nothing.
Speaker 1: We've got nothing, and I just I can't. This may
Speaker 1: not be true. It can't have a feeling. It's like
Speaker 1: an investment scam. Give me some more money and I'll
Speaker 1: produce this project and it never shows up. The ketchup
Speaker 1: stuff went really, really weird when she started to take
Speaker 1: pictures of sticks in the woods and saying she was
Speaker 1: seeing these things. I will visit the Bigfoot forums.
Speaker 6: She's apoplectic, Blake, Sorry, I.
Speaker 2: Have to agree with her. It's one of the weirdest
Speaker 2: things in the world. She's like, I feel so lucky
Speaker 2: to be able to watch a family of five bigfoot
Speaker 2: wander around. And it's like, I don't need to take
Speaker 2: pictures of them. It's just I feel really special to
Speaker 2: be able to see this. I would feel special too.
Speaker 1: I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt
Speaker 1: from the beginning. She's a scientist, she must have something.
Speaker 1: We're going to listen to what she has to say.
Speaker 1: And I go to these bigfoot forums and I watch.
Speaker 1: I don't usual to participate because that doesn't usually work
Speaker 1: out too well, but I watched both what these people are.
Speaker 1: They believe because they have their own own sense of
Speaker 1: evidence and they may have had their personal experiences. They
Speaker 1: are very critical of her. Even the believers are becoming
Speaker 1: extremely critical her very strange.
Speaker 2: In Ketchum's case in particular, it is good and skeptical
Speaker 2: to point out that even though she says she's able
Speaker 2: to apparently at leisure watch bigfoot, a family of five
Speaker 2: or whatever wander around in the woods, that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: her DNA techniques are bad or anything. What's more troubling
Speaker 2: to me is that we haven't seen the results, and
Speaker 2: there's been a lot of excuses and delays and other things.
Speaker 2: But adding stories like that, like this is the ease
Speaker 2: with which I can capture Bigfoot in my eyes, but
Speaker 2: I can't pick up the camera and take a picture
Speaker 2: with a camera. It seems that's disturbing to me. That's
Speaker 2: disturbing to me.
Speaker 1: I can understand that scientific papers do take a long
Speaker 1: time and various edits, and especially with this type of topic,
Speaker 1: I imagine it's quite controversial for reviewers to have to
Speaker 1: look at this thing, but it is. It is very strange.
Speaker 1: And besides that that that basic thing of getting the
Speaker 1: paper published, there's again an extremely weird backstory of how
Speaker 1: the samples were collected and if something was if Bigfoot
Speaker 1: was shot, and if if you know, pieces were collected
Speaker 1: off of bigfoots that were shot.
Speaker 4: It's just weird.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of the Raelians and their cloning claims. Yeah,
Speaker 3: years ago, right.
Speaker 6: You don't know, you don't know what to think of
Speaker 6: these people, even the Georgia Bigfoot body in the freezer.
Speaker 6: It's just it's just it's just amazing. You see the
Speaker 6: same pattern. You know, we've all been following crypto stories
Speaker 6: for years now, and it's funny. It's like for a
Speaker 6: lot of people, they they just latch onto the latest story.
Speaker 6: They don't have any perspective. They don't realize that these
Speaker 6: same Thames, you know, this is like nineteen ninety five
Speaker 6: all over again. We're seeing the exact same stuff. It's like, dude,
Speaker 6: this is you know, we were there the first time
Speaker 6: that they claimed that they have this. You know, I
Speaker 6: have to explain those to people. It's like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: here they had big lad day. I'm like, really again,
Speaker 6: oh awesome.
Speaker 3: Reinventing the crypto wheel.
Speaker 1: And they'll say like, well, why would these people lie? Oh?
Speaker 1: Come on?
Speaker 2: You know, I think people fail to realize that, even
Speaker 2: if there's no money involved, there's a lot of prestige
Speaker 2: in having your name involved with these kind of stories
Speaker 2: in the news, you know, and getting attention. Right, I
Speaker 2: should have said attention to seat of prestige. But people
Speaker 2: people find. You know, people's value systems can be very
Speaker 2: different for your own. And it's really hard to say
Speaker 2: what would make someone do a hoax, but they do.
Speaker 2: They certainly do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one thing we know exists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so changing gears just a little bit. Has the
Speaker 2: zombie apocalypse begun? Because it seems like maybe the zombie
Speaker 2: apocalypse has begun.
Speaker 1: Isn't that weird? It's like a zombie flap, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you see you Fox flaps and then everybody
Speaker 1: starts seeing UFOs. It's sort of the way it feels
Speaker 1: to me. Everybody's sort of doing a cannibal thing.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, I think that's all a metaphor for the
Speaker 2: media myself. Man, I bet you have a theory on
Speaker 2: this right.
Speaker 6: On the zombies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw the article.
Speaker 6: Well you're talking about the original Haitian zombies.
Speaker 1: Just no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: Pop culture the thing, the thing that happens when the
Speaker 2: news has a story about a man eating another man's
Speaker 2: face and then suddenly and suddenly all the other newspapers see,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, the how many hits they're getting. We
Speaker 2: better find some stories like that. Yeah, that's what I
Speaker 2: think is happening.
Speaker 6: Well, you know what happened is I I got a
Speaker 6: I got an email from Discovery News like last week,
Speaker 6: you know who I write for, and they said, you know,
Speaker 6: can you write you know, there's this can you write
Speaker 6: about a zombie apocalypse, and I wrote back, I said,
Speaker 6: I said, I said, this is bullshit. I mean, I said,
Speaker 6: you know, I read this story said there's nothing you know,
Speaker 6: you know, we we have you know, this this alleged cannibal,
Speaker 6: you know, the guy who's high on on on bath
Speaker 6: sauce whatever it was. And uh and you know he
Speaker 6: wasn't he wasn't consuming the guy's face, he was naked,
Speaker 6: he had no weapons on his I mean, so it's
Speaker 6: like you have this, this this kernel that that even
Speaker 6: has nothing to do with zombies. It's only vaguely related
Speaker 6: to cannibalism, and of course that's immediately turned into this
Speaker 6: whole thing. And it's it's just amazing how the media
Speaker 6: does that. And you know, I mean it's at this
Speaker 6: point is predictable, but it's just it's just bizarre and
Speaker 6: and frankly, you know, I mean it's all fun to
Speaker 6: you know, joke about the zombie apocalypse this and that,
Speaker 6: but you know that it's it's important to remember that
Speaker 6: there's real cases here. I mean, there there was a
Speaker 6: man that was killed. You know, this is this is
Speaker 6: you know, the man had friends and family and things
Speaker 6: like that, and so you know, it's all it's all
Speaker 6: all good to sort of, you know, have this pop
Speaker 6: culture me meme about zombies and cannibals, but you know,
Speaker 6: there are real victims and these are real crimes.
Speaker 2: Right because in the end, the man was shot just
Speaker 2: for defacing private property. No good.
Speaker 1: I did get criticized for putting the word zombie apocalypse
Speaker 1: in the title of one of the stories that that
Speaker 1: was very insensitive. But the reason I did that because
Speaker 1: that's what the media was was hyping, right, they were putting,
Speaker 1: they were putting the package on these stories and delivering
Speaker 1: them to the public. That's the way they were delivering them.
Speaker 1: So that's what I wanted to address.
Speaker 2: It may be I don't know if it's tragic, but
Speaker 2: it is certainly a product of the media in that
Speaker 2: if we don't personally know the person who died, and
Speaker 2: there's a bizarre aspect of the story, it's really hard
Speaker 2: to empathize when you know, in these bizarre situations with
Speaker 2: the victims. I mean it just at least I have
Speaker 2: trouble because they seem so unreal. You know, they don't
Speaker 2: seem much different from a TV show in some ways.
Speaker 2: But you're right. But but Ben's absolutely right that a
Speaker 2: real person died and another real person was horribly made
Speaker 2: or what's the right word disfigured. So yeah, both victims,
Speaker 2: both were victims.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And speak speaking of that, like, there's this
Speaker 1: new thing about the hoax virus. There's there's a hoax
Speaker 1: going on in the Internet where there's a zombie virus,
Speaker 1: and this hoaxer claimed that the person who committed this
Speaker 1: crime had this virus, and apparently some people believe that
Speaker 1: that is true because it's, you know, showed up on
Speaker 1: snopes dot com and it's going around the internet.
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it real? Is there a zombie virus that causes
Speaker 1: you to act like this? So I think that rational
Speaker 1: people underestimate the ability of other people to be irrational,
Speaker 1: and they will buy into these things in the media
Speaker 1: and pass them on to the people that they know,
Speaker 1: and it just spreads. It's a meme.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing. I think fa this book is alleviating
Speaker 2: my inbox a little bit because a lot of people
Speaker 2: are using that as their methodology for spreading Internet rumors
Speaker 2: and urban legends and that sort of thing. And it's
Speaker 2: a lot easier to unfriend someone on Facebook than it
Speaker 2: is to stop a relative from emailing you, But I
Speaker 2: still do get a lot of stuff that I just
Speaker 2: resolve with a quick Snope search, and that's yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2: But also I think your service here is good as well,
Speaker 2: because you take a more current story. It takes sometimes
Speaker 2: weeks or months before the Mickelson's can get the story
Speaker 2: up on Snopes, you know, but you know when you
Speaker 2: have something where you can immediately at least throughout a
Speaker 2: few skeptical observations about how might this story be wrong
Speaker 2: or maybe the coverage is misleading, or is there really
Speaker 2: as many facts available as they say? That kind of thing,
Speaker 2: and you're just sprinkling it with doubt, which means you're
Speaker 2: well named, right, So I think that's a good public service.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think all of these sites working well together.
Speaker 3: But I think we were sort of touched upon this briefly.
Speaker 3: But what's the latest in mangi decaying animal news?
Speaker 1: Oh, I haven't seen any too recently. Let's see, there
Speaker 1: was Sometimes you see these things come up and it's
Speaker 1: just like, are you kidding me? This really isn't This
Speaker 1: isn't news. This is a fake somebody sent you a hoax.
Speaker 1: It did show up on another website and I look
Speaker 1: at it and I try to decide is this going
Speaker 1: to go widespread? Is this story going to have legs
Speaker 1: and leave the one website and go all over the place.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong. I just a
Speaker 1: long time ago, I decided to pass on the story
Speaker 1: about this woman who had captured a picture on her
Speaker 1: cell phone of ghosts having sex in her living room.
Speaker 1: Do you recall that? Do you recall that I passed
Speaker 1: on it because I said that it is so stupid,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to put that up on the website.
Speaker 1: And it went everywhere. It just blew up and it
Speaker 1: became such a big story. And I'm like, oh, that
Speaker 1: was oops, you know, missed that one. So and then
Speaker 1: I've had some that I've put up, like I said
Speaker 1: that if backfired, and just it's they've just been too
Speaker 1: stupid and they haven't gone anywhere. But I haven't seen
Speaker 1: any animal weird animal carcasses show up for a while.
Speaker 1: That meme has passed. We're not seeing that come up
Speaker 1: as much anymore. That was a big deal for like
Speaker 1: two years, where every hairless dead thing was a cheap ofcapra.
Speaker 2: Given some time. Summer's here bloating.
Speaker 6: True, I'm just waiting. Well, it seems like it seems
Speaker 6: like your two main interests are cryptozoology and ghosts, if
Speaker 6: I'm not mistaken, What what is it that attracts you
Speaker 6: about those instead of you know, UFOs or psychics or
Speaker 6: other things like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, ever since I was a kid, I would
Speaker 1: read read books on monsters. You know, you're always in
Speaker 1: the zeros are a one section of your library, and
Speaker 1: I'd read all those books, and UFOs scared me for
Speaker 1: a while when I would read like Whitley Strieber's books,
Speaker 1: and I got a little scared about those, and then
Speaker 1: that passed, and then and UFOs seemed too technological to me,
Speaker 1: and that I always I really like animals, and of
Speaker 1: course I'm a scientist, so I was always one for
Speaker 1: bug collecting and animal watching and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: I think that's what draws me to the cryptozoology, wondering
Speaker 1: if there's something more out there that we don't know about.
Speaker 1: So that's the animal aspect that draws me into the monsters.
Speaker 1: The ghost I don't know. I've just always been interested
Speaker 1: in a haunted house, that's so fascinated by it. But
Speaker 1: I also really love the natural anomalies. I've done a
Speaker 1: lot of research into things like earthquake precursors and animal
Speaker 1: behavior before earthquakes, and earthquake lights, earthquake sounds, earthquake weather,
Speaker 1: and then things like luminous phenomenon and mystery sounds. I've
Speaker 1: done pieces on those. So when they were in the
Speaker 1: beginning of this year, there was this big deal about
Speaker 1: these mystery sounds, and I found that amusing. And then
Speaker 1: the year before that there was all these things about
Speaker 1: mass animal deaths. So it just seems January always brings
Speaker 1: some sort of horrible sign of the apocalypse. Two eleven
Speaker 1: it was the mass animal deaths, and then twenty twelve
Speaker 1: it was these strange sky noises. So I'm sure the
Speaker 1: end of this year is going to be wild with
Speaker 1: with twenty twelve type stories. I'm we're expecting to have
Speaker 1: lots of those as well.
Speaker 2: I've actually been dealing with the apocalypse since the seventies
Speaker 2: because growing up in my church, they were big advocates
Speaker 2: for the was it Hal Lindsay and the late Great
Speaker 2: planet Earth and that whole millennialum millennial millennium millennialism. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: so uh, I mean it's in Georgia at least. I mean,
Speaker 2: I a year doesn't go by, maybe a season doesn't
Speaker 2: go by, where someone I personally know, my family or
Speaker 2: or here on the street mentions that it looks like
Speaker 2: the end of times are here. And this has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the minds in twenty twelve. Just everybody's
Speaker 2: looking for the apocalypse down here. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I probably eat the heat, I guess.
Speaker 1: And these zombies aren't helping either.
Speaker 2: They're not helping it all here and they're not helping
Speaker 2: at all. But anyway, that was really a question, my
Speaker 2: question for you. I guess it's time to round things
Speaker 2: up because it's ten o'clock. But I shouldn't say what
Speaker 2: time it is because it's timeless. This show is timeless.
Speaker 2: But we like to ask all our guests. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure you know this already.
Speaker 1: I know this already, right, What are you wearing?
Speaker 2: What's your favorite monster?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, have you been a monster face my
Speaker 1: whole life? This is a really tough question, but you know,
Speaker 1: because I love sea serpents. I've always been fascinated with
Speaker 1: sea serpents because I think that that could be real
Speaker 1: thing that's really out there and it could be a
Speaker 1: number of different types of species that could potentially be
Speaker 1: out there. And I loved the Black Dog Legends. You know,
Speaker 1: you had the guest on a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: a couple episodes ago. I went out and bought that
Speaker 1: book because I love Black Dog Legends. They're so creepy,
Speaker 1: you know. They involved like sort of cryptid, haunted debons
Speaker 1: all rolled into one. A lot of fun. But I
Speaker 1: have to say, and I think I've told you this before,
Speaker 1: we had a group dinner at TAM one time where
Speaker 1: we went around the table and asked our favorite monsters.
Speaker 2: We sure did. That was awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I have to say I've always been fascinated
Speaker 1: with the Jersey Devil. I'm in Pennsylvania, so I was
Speaker 1: sort of familiar with the Pine barrens and the towns
Speaker 1: that actually Jersey Devil did terrorize parts of Pennsylvania in
Speaker 1: the big Flap of nineteen o six or nineteen oh nine,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, and those towns in Bucks County were
Speaker 1: affected by this creature and it just caused massysteria. And
Speaker 1: what I like about the Jersey Devil is he's this
Speaker 1: weird hybrid of you know, horse bat devil thing or kangaroo.
Speaker 1: I mean people were exhibiting painted kangaroos and calling it
Speaker 1: the Jersey Devil. He became a side show, and I
Speaker 1: just was fascinated the idea of the perception and what
Speaker 1: people thought was really happening. And maybe there was a
Speaker 1: large bird that was coming through the area and the
Speaker 1: crane or whatever and caused people to react strangely to
Speaker 1: it because they weren't familiar with it. So yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: have to say the Jersey Devil, he's my favorite.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 1: I think he has a lot in common with the Chupacabra, actually,
Speaker 1: I suspect, so yeah.
Speaker 3: Lots of monster's in one very much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever you want him to be, he can be.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It made it even better when when it turned out
Speaker 1: that there was like a political backstory to it as well,
Speaker 1: that the formation of the legend of the Leads Devil.
Speaker 1: That was something I hadn't heard before and I thought
Speaker 1: that was interesting. So all these aspects and people still
Speaker 1: out looking for him.
Speaker 2: That's also amazing to me. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just
Speaker 2: there's really no I guess that's another creature that if
Speaker 2: creationist wanted to find a creature that would have some
Speaker 2: kind of impact on evolution. There's your there's your monster
Speaker 2: right there. I mean, I don't think you need to
Speaker 2: go to Africa like for dinosaurs, because we know dinosaurs
Speaker 2: are real. Uh but but the Jersey Devil doesn't look
Speaker 2: like anything.
Speaker 1: Right, so cool stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, any any monster that has four limbs plus wings
Speaker 2: is a real serious problem for evolution.
Speaker 1: And leaves the footprints on your roof.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's awesome.
Speaker 2: So great answer, good choice. All right, Well, thank you
Speaker 2: so much than spending some time with us.
Speaker 6: Sharon say, thanks, thanks guys on good job on the site.
Speaker 1: Thank you, come visit Morebstertle.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to another episode of Monster Talk. We
Speaker 2: were talking today with Sharon Hill about the Doubtful News website,
Speaker 2: and we also heard from Brian Thompson of the James
Speaker 2: Randy Educational Foundation about the amazing meeting. Karen, Ben and
Speaker 2: I will be at TAM twenty twelve. We'd love to
Speaker 2: see you there. Maybe we can all hook up for
Speaker 2: a Monster Talk fan meal. Whatever the case. Just come
Speaker 2: up and say hello, we'd love to meet you in person.
Speaker 2: We really will be updating the show notes with the
Speaker 2: producer's page. That's really going to happen. Just bear with me.
Speaker 2: My new job, which I absolutely love, is taking up
Speaker 2: a lot of my time. But things should calm down
Speaker 2: after we launch our website and I can get back
Speaker 2: to monster talk maintenance. I want to thank Robert Smith,
Speaker 2: James Roach, and Bill Redlick for their kind donations. Our
Speaker 2: current big project is our transcript work, which is helping
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