Conspiracy Clearinghouse

EPISODE 98 | Smoke & Mirrors: Unintentional Dangers and Slow Thinking (Because Reasons 8) Guest: Kent Weishaus, licensed clinical social worker, author of Stop Breaking Down: The Secret to Avoiding Overwhelm and Crack-Up Why are there so many adherents to conspiracy theories these days? What are the mechanisms that encourage people to latch onto a particular narrative?  We are modern creatures...

EPISODE 97 | Üst akıl: Totally Turkey Turkey is a place with a complex history and a diverse population, which can lead to a sense of uncertainty and instability. Conspiracy theories that offer simple explanations for complex events and interactions, seem to take hold easily there, especially lately. This can make it difficult for people to distinguish between reliable information and propaganda a...

EPISODE 96 | Inside Out: Neuroscience & Memory (Because Reasons 7) Guest: Dr. Gary Simonds, neurosurgeon, professor and author of Death's Pale Flag What happens when a lauded neurosurgeon starts thinking about ghosts and the scientific approach to the paranormal? You get a novel like Death's Pale Flag. This is the fictional work by Gary R. Simonds, who spends a lot of his time thinking about t...

EPSIODE 95 | Bodyguard of Lies: The Ghost Army & Wartime Deception (World Is Weird 11) More than 100 million soldiers took part in WWII, but not all of them were fighting with guns. There was obviously a lot of administration and infrastructure to deal with, there were codebreakers and spies, and there were even some who engaged in secret deception to trick the enemy. This episode is not about...

EPISODE 94 | Peek-A-Boo: Project Star Gate The US military heard the Soviets were working on creating psychic spies, so they started their own program, which would, after many name changes, get dubbed Project Star Gate. This would attract cranks and flim-flammers of all kinds over its 25 year run, resulting in not much useful intel but inspiring some participants to make a number of outlandish cla...

EPISODE 93 | From Sea to Sea: More Canada Mysteries & Histories Guest: Nile Séguin, comedian, actor, writer, French-Canadian Canada, northern neighbor to the United States, a sovereign nation that’s only party sovereign, second largest country in the world by size but 37th by population. It’s a place filled with fairly reasonable people, lots of trees and many mysteries. Like what we do? Then...

EPISODE 92 | Octopus's Garden: Dan Casolaro, INSLAW & Death (WIW 10) A number of unusual deaths, law enforcement software, mob families, casinos, drug running, arms dealing, and a possible nationwide, possible international, conspiracy known as the Octopus – this wild and complicated tale reads like a whole series of thriller novels and is further proof that the world is weird indeed. Like wha...

EPSIODE 91 | Tartaria Sauce : The Great Tartarian Empire and 15-Minute Cities One day, I wondered if there were any conspiracy theories about architecture, which is something I am quite keen on, so I fired up the laptop and did a Google search, and sure enough, there is. One. One that’s weird and funny and just a little bit sad. While researching this, a new conspiracy pops up on the interwebs, th...

EPISODE 90 | Oh, Canada!  The Great White North, the Just Society - Canada is a cold place filled with reasonable people. For the most part. But not even they are immune to the pull of the conspirasphere, and have hatched some wacky ideas all their own.  This episode is by request of a Canadian fan of the podcast. So enjoy! Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on  Buy Me a Cof...

EPISODE 89 | JBS BS: The John Birch Society History is full of those who became tyrants or aspired to become one. Even in a country like the United States in the fairly enlightened 20th century, there were those who thought that, well, actually, their vision of how things should be was the best one, and that they should probably just be in charge. And if you opposed them, they said all sorts of di...

EPISODE 88 | Weird AI Yankovic (Not-So-Scary AI Futures) Guest: Josh Bachynski, AI consultant AI is here and it's here to stay. And despite all the hand wringing and doom-and-gloom predictions, the AI-powered future actually looks pretty bright. AI is already being used in a number of applications, and more are on the way.  Josh Bachynski and I talk about the inherent ethics of intelligence; AI/ro...

EPISODE 87 | CSI: Conspiracy: Three Cold Cases (World Is Weird 9) True crime is a popular genre, mainly because people love mysteries. Here are three cases from the conspiracy world that fit the bill, from three different decades and three different countries, where the weird and the unexplained meet head on.  We’ll look at the Lead Masks Case from Brazil, the UK’s Zigmund Adamski case (sometimes...

EPISODE 86 | The Skynet Matrix: AI Goes Rogue Guest: Josh Bachynski, AI thought leader and programmer AI seems to be everywhere, and plenty of folks have freaked out about it over the years. AI expert Josh Bachynski talks about doomsday scenarios, their likelihood and what's probably coming in the near future.  Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on  Buy Me a Coffee . #Conspi...

EPSIODE 85 | Project Pegasus: Mars and Beyond! The United States has secret bases on Mars, which they may or may not share with aliens. This base is there, but also not there, because it might only exist in the future, accessible using time travel technology, or maybe in a bubble universe. People, such as a young Barack Obama, are sent to this base to perform various tasks, like fighting a vast wa...

EPISODE 84 | Sound Advice: A440 vs. A432 Guest: Andrew Currie, Owner & Lead Sound Engineer of Mechanizer Studios Today, most musicians use 440Hz as the reference pitch for orchestras, but they use to use all sorts of different ones, especially 432Hz. Wow, that’s interesting, I guess. But even something as seemingly innocuous as international musical pitch standards can be fair game for the conspir...

EPISODE 83 | Play Ball!: Sportspiracies Guest: Mark Fitzhenry, EFL teacher in Prague, co-founder of the Imperfectionists improv group Sport seems to almost lend itself to rumor, innuendo and conspiracy thinking with accusations of wrongdoing, curses that plague a team for years and even the occasional crossover of the geopolitical and athletic worlds. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three v...

EPISODE 82 | Reptiles of the Mind: The Reptilian Conspiracy (Big 'Uns 7) The conspirasphere thrives on the idea that things are not what they seem to be on the surface. And for some, the very people around us are not what they seem. Why, they might not even be human, at all. Some of the supposed “people” you see are actually shapeshifting aliens, possibly from somewhere in Orion, maybe from inside...

EPISODE 81 | The Logos Prophecy Guest: Martin Treanor, author of The Logos Prophecy (Fall of Ancients 1) What if all the conspiracy theories were true? That's what writer Martin Treanor used as the starting point for an ambitious trilogy of novels that starts in the present day (with a conspiracy theorist and a science guy), then travels back 13,000 years, and finishes thousands of years in the fu...

EPISODE 80 | Fair Dinkum: 4 Mysteries from Down Under Australia - a land with a checkered past where everything, it seems, wants to kill you (even the magpies). It's the land of the Dreamtime, and vegemite, and Zooper Dooper ice blocks, and shopping trolleys dumped in car parks. It's also a land of mystery and the unexplained. Sometimes. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on...

EPISODE 79 | Film Flam: JFK & Stone Guest: Fred Litwin, author of Oliver Stone's Film-Flam: The Demagogue of Dealey Plaza Former JFK conspiracy theorist turned JFK conspiracy debunker Fred Litwin has written a new book, this time taking aim at Oliver Stone's 1991 film "JFK" and his 2021 four-part TV series defending that movie, JFK: Destiny Betrayed. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or thre...

EPISODE 78 | Khazar Love Triangle An obscure 10th century confederation of Turkic-speaking peoples between the Caspian and Black Seas gets transformed through the power of imagination into anything and everything. The Khazars become symbols for a number of claims, including being the origin of the Cossacks (or at least some of them), the real Jews, fake Jews and more. Today, the Khazar Myth is oft...

EPISODE 77 | Monster Mash: Werewolf? There Wolf! Tales of shapeshifters go back many moons in human history, and wolves seem to be especially in the spotlight. When people get accused of this, they often find themselves in serious trouble. And once in a blue moon, someone claims that they are actually a werewolf. This is often a mental disorder known as clinical lycanthropy. And then there are tho...

EPISODE 76 | Klown Kar: The KKK Can KMA (World Is Weird 8) We're always products of the time and place we live in, so when a Southern group of friends got together in the wake of the American Civil War to start a fun club, it’s really not that big a surprise that it quickly transformed into the largest racist organization in the country. We’re talking about the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist group that...

EPISODE 75 | Org Chart: Insidious Institutions Men with power meeting behind closed doors - an idea that makes some people pretty suspicious. Perhaps memories of old star chambers, which carried out extra-judicial proceedings, are what worry people. Or maybe it’s just an inherent distrust of powerful people plotting to influence the world and reshape it to their own benefit, which just might also...

EPISODE 74 | Red Alert: UFOs as Threat! Some think UAPs might be a "threat" and there have been a few incidents that might be indicative of intent to harm. Or at least, encounters that we interpret as maybe not so friendly, though that might say more about us than about any glowing orbs flying around in the sky. Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on  Buy Me a Coffee . #Consp...