Conspiracy Clearinghouse

EPISODE 116 | High(er) Strangeness w/Eric Bickernicks Guest: Eric Bickernicks, writer, author of High Strangeness and Higher Strangeness What does a guy who's made novelty songs, short comedy videos, an indie film for $32k, kettle corn aplenty, and a novel about art theft do next? If he's Eric Bickernicks, he writes two books about UFOs, hoaxes, alien thoughts, UFO cults, gullibility and Cape Cod....

EPISODE 115 | Cuckoo Coups in the U.S. Alarmist rhetoric has been used multiple times in America’s past with the express intent of fomenting a rebellion or even a coup. The game is to create a sense of urgency in the hopes that enough people will commit to extreme actions, so you can get what you want (which is power). According to Wikipedia, there have been 13 coup attempts in the United States s...

EPISODE 114 | All Your Base Are Belong to Us: U.S. Military Installations The United States spends more on their military than the next nine countries combined. With around 450 bases (or maybe 500 or maybe 750 or maybe 800 or even more) operating more than 111,000 installations in 80 or more countries, there’s a lot to keep track of. In fact, no one is really sure how accurate those numbers are, s...

EPISODE 113 | Power Is Power: The Vulnerable Electrical Grid Guest: Chris Underwood, author of the The Cold Winter series Our digital age needs electricity more than anything else. But what would happen is part of the power grid went down during one of the worst winter storms in history? That's the premise of Chris Underwood's thriller series The Cold Winter. The fact is that power grid is vulnera...

EPISODE 112 | GESARA & the Red Caesar What do proposed economic reforms, the idea of a post-constitutional American dictator and Christian Nationalism have in common? Donald Trump, for starters - at least for some people. Scammers and grifters of all stripes find common ground with would-be authoritarians in a weird confluence of conspiracy narratives that hope to create and capitalize on chao...

EPISODE 111 | Us vs. Them: Antisemitism Goes to School Guest: Scott Shay, president of Chai Mitzvah and author of  Conspiracy U Hamas forces swept into Israel on October 7, 2023, committing atrocities and taking hostages. Literally the next day, American student groups were blaming Israel. Protests on campuses began to multiply and today the situation seems out of control and pro-Israel and pro-Pa...

EPISODE 110 | How to Be a Fascist People use the term "Fascist" a lot these days, but do they really know what that means? Fascism is a very specific combination of ideas and goals that occurred within very clear historical and philosophical contexts.  This is a look at where Fascism came from, Mussolini's rise to power, and variations and offshoots of the first Fascist ideologies. And while not e...

EPISODE 109 | What's in a Name? The Shakespeare Authorship Debate Guest: Scott Jackson, Mary Irene Ryan Executive Artistic Director of Shakespeare at the University of Notre Dame, current vice president of the Shakespeare Theatre Association (STA) and incoming president, actor, director and Shakespeare scholar  William Shakespeare wrote at least 36 plays, 154 sonnets, two narrative poems and a few...

EPISODE 108 | Swiftboating Redux: Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome She's the most successful pop star today, yet some people seem to suffer brain meltdowns when thinking about Taylor Swift. Call it TDSD, Taylor Swift Derangement Syndrome, and it takes hold especially in MAGAmaniacs, Trumpeteers, Trad Chads and broflakes.  Tracing the conspirasphere's treatment of Swift along with her career and l...

EPISODE 107 | Traces of Reality: Abstract Art and the CIA (World Is Weird 13) Guest: Mandy Theis, founder and director of the School of Atelier Arts , academic director and professor at the Florence Academy of Art Maybe you've walked into a museum or gallery and seen a big white, blank canvas, or a huge circle, and thought, "So, this is art, eh?". But why is there so much of this abstract stuff ar...

EPISODE 106 | Suffer the Children: Pizzagate, Wayfair & the Seeds of QAnon "Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism." In the world of the internet, this is known as Poe’s Law, and it’s especially applicable to the weird narrative Gordian Knot known as Pizzagate....

EPISODE 105 | Capitol Assets: Weird DC (Travelogue 4) Guest: Fayge Horesh, co-creator, writer and host of the D Listers of History podcast, and licensed tour guide Washington D.C. is an interesting place and, like many cities, has some oddities. We take a look at some of the things around town that might not be obvious at first glance, like (not-so secret) tunnels, ghost cats, strange clocks, holl...

EPISODE 104 | Fatal Attraction: Magnet Woo While we use magnets all the time, most of us don’t know some of the subtleties of magnetic fields and the electromagnetic force. This lack of knowledge is the perfect opening for scam artists to sell unsuspecting folks all kinds of sham cures for illnesses and injuries, opening up a wide world of woo and pseudoscientific narratives. Like what we do? Then...

EPISODE 103 | Down in Bermuda, It’s Easy to Believe: The Devil’s Triangle Back in the 70s, the Bermuda Triangle was all over the place but today, not so much. Whatever happened with that? Did it go away? Was it debunked? Or did the woosphere simply get bored and move on to juicer subjects?  A bit of both. Plus, the are lots of other supposed interesting/mysterious/dangerous triangles out there. Th...

EPISODE 102 | Conspiracy Thinking in the Middle East (Because Reasons 10) Guest: Adel Aali, creator and host of the podcasts History Behind News and Unravelling the Middle East Conspiracy theories seem to thrive in the Middle East, but why? Adel Aali takes a look at some of the more common CTs, as well as where they come from and why that region might be primed for conspiracy thinking due to its h...

EPISODE 101 | Panic! at the Disco: The Jan. 6 Event (World Is Weird 12) On January 6, 2021 at 12:53 EST, a mass of people overwhelmed police on the west side of the US Capitol Building in Washington DC. At 2:11, a window was broken, and they entered the building. What followed was a bizarre scene, with some happy to just wander around, while others had more active plans. When it was over, 5 people...

EPISODE 100 | Conspirasphere Rising - A Talk w/Derek Arnold (Because Reasons 9) Guest: Derek Arnold, Senior Instructor at Villanova University, where he teaches a course on The Rhetoric of Conspiracy Theories The modern conspirasphere sort of starts with the assassination of JFK, and events in the two decades that follow help shape a growing trend toward conspiracy thinking in the United States. M...

EPISODE 99 | A Bridge Too Far: The Mothman Visits Point Pleasant The strange events of 1966-1967 in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia gave rise to one of America's most enduring legends - the Mothman. It made the headlines and also the careers of Gray Barker and John Keel. But it was more than just a large winged creature. There were visits from the Men in Black, UFOs aplenty, poltergeists...

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...