Gods, Ghosts & UFOs

First up this week, we’re unpacking some statistics about American belief in a grab bag of paranormal buzzwords, followed by a richly deserved take-down of a rhetorically lazy debunking documentary (which also happens to be splattered with AI slop), and then finally (blessedly) discussing an esteemed neurobiologist’s convincing claim that DMT aliens are real. Highlights: * A big Gallup poll shows...

From Vatican-certified miracles to possible hoaxes to potentially malevolent balls of light, this week’s episode is a reminder that the world is full of hope and horror. Oh, also lots of comically stupid grifters. Hooray! Highlights: * Pope Leo XIV declares Rhode Island's first official miracle: a premature baby Tyquan (born 2007) came back to life after an hour of failed resuscitation * The burea...

This week, a biotech company that's literally bringing extinct species back to life, the spiritual migration from evangelical churches to tarot decks, and the neuroscience of how music hijacks our perception of time. Hint: it's all connected to ego death and the eternal now. Highlights: * Colossal Biosciences is actively de-extincting species (or are they?) from things like 13,000-year-old teeth a...

A buffet of bizarre beings from across the biological spectrum…and beyond! From eight-foot bipedal dog-like cryptids terrorizing the English countryside to strange new microorganisms thriving in Cleveland boat shafts, we are reminded that Earth is weirder and more populace than we can imagine. Highlights: * A mysterious hairy bipedal figure in Danes Dyke woodland - but nobody saw it until reviewin...

This week we're joined by Mike Cleland, a researcher who has become renowned for uncovering the connection between owl encounters and UFO experiences. What started as a camping trip in 2006 has led Mike to collect thousands of stories about coincidence, consciousness, and contact. Highlights: * Mike's transformative 2006 camping trip with three and a revelation * A laundromat synchronicity * The f...

This week, a New Orleans Uber driver who changed a novelist's life forever, international Bigfoot sightings that prove these creatures aren't just an American phenomenon, and fevered coverage of the very recent Buga sphere press conference, with a truckload of new claims and details. Show Notes * A psychic Uber driver delivers eerily accurate personal insights and a message "from the other side" t...

For lucky number 13, we’re talking about a study from Johns Hopkins where a bunch of religious leaders from across the faith spectrum all tripped on shrooms. We’re also following up on the Buga sphere because HOW COULD WE NOT. Finally, fantastically, a conversation with Scott and Forrest from Astonishing Legends about the passions and philosophies that drive us all to investigate high strangeness....

This week we have mixed feelings about new footage of giant rats, then discuss a misleading headline about psychic investigations, and finally, gloriously, we’re freaking out about groundbreaking research that suggest huge sentient clouds of plasma might be roaming our upper atmosphere. Do these things have any connection the UFO sighting Tom shared in our pilot episode?? Highlights: * Meet the 3-...

In our last episode, Mysterious Metal Spheres and a Brand New Crop Circle, we talked about how Claude Opus 4 (the latest version of Anthropic’s large language model AI) resorted to blackmail to avoid getting shut down during some early tests. During that segment, I mentioned that I had spun up a chat Claude itself to see what it might say in response to this story. While the AI’s responses weren’t...

This week we’re sampling another flavor of AI doom, and chasing that with a quick look into one of the most genuinely mysterious and legitimately joyful mysteries to float out of the world of UAPs in the past month. Highlights: * A listener’s take on the term “NPC” * Friend of the show Lisa will be joining us to share her extensively documented ghost stories (we want your questions!) — and if you...

This week, we’re making fun of people who are smarter than us about simulation theory, and grousing about the art of summoning dollars from dread. Also, when it comes to a mysterious pulsing star, we’re reminded that when you can’t rule anything out, that includes aliens. Here’s the beats: * A better breakdown of why we’re on Substack (hint: it makes it easier to email us) * A listener story about...

From medical miracles to psychic powers and the enigma of consciousness, here’s what’s up this week: * The story of Jacqueline Duffin, an atheist hematologist who helped confirm a miracle for a Catholic saint’s canonization * What it takes for the Catholic Church to call something a miracle — think serious disease, failed treatments, and an inexplicable recovery (that lasts at least 10 years) * Mi...

First off, a big welcome to everyone who found us through Kelly Chase and her truly excellent Cosmosis Podcast. This week, we’re going to talk about what to do when your chatbot thinks you’re Jesus, then celebrate the recent neuroscience of lucid dreaming, and finally take some time to make fun of a new mathematical model of dark energy we don’t really understand at all. Episode Highlights: * A Re...

After recording without Mal last week (which she graciously calls her "favorite episode yet"), we’re pleased as peaches all three of us could be back together to run through a bunch of headlines that promised more than they delivered. Oh, except for the giant squid. That thing was awesome. Episode Highlights: * Tom declines to share details about his past life (and promises to tell us off-air, whi...

Today it's just Tom and Jordan, bromancing their way along a philosophical journey through reincarnation, the nature of consciousness, and what life might lie beyond this mortal coil. Normally, we like to cover some headlines, but with Mal unable to join us this week, and considering the pretty big personal headline for Jordan (another baby!), we decided to forgo the typical format, and instead sp...

It’s not for nothing that “Gods” is the first word in the name of this show. Today, we’re talking about the Catholic Church's rigorous miracle verification process, and some (okay one in particular) truly bizarre holy relics. If we had to pick a theme, it would probably be the way humans imbue objects with meaning and power. Highlights: * Tom shares a recent article about the Catholic Church's con...

Alright alright, we’re back to UFOs. It wasn’t our fault Skywatcher released a “taxonomy” of nine different types of UFOs last week. And then, naturally, it only made sense to talk about abductions. “Abductions”? Who knows! We sure don’t. At the end, Mal teases her profound experience from a seven-day silent retreat that left her feeling "shaken up like a can of soda." Episode Highlights: * Skywat...

Today, we’re talking about increased sightings of a legendary dinosaur in the Congo, the CIA's psi-quest for the Lost Ark, and asteroids filled with DNA (basically). Highlights: * How the failed Kickstarter turned out to be a blessing in disguise * Mal teases an intense seven-day silent retreat experience that left her feeling "all shaken up like a can of soda" * Increased sightings of the Mokele-...

This week, Mal, Tom, and Jordan dive into the nature of time and some compelling video of a can of soda. Highlights: * A new University of Surrey study suggests time might flow in both directions * Is linear time an illusion we've constructed to process information? * That time Tom's daughter predicted a future accident * How our brains might be filters for reality rather than gatherers of informa...

The Biggest Podcast in the Universe For the inaugural episode of Gods, Ghosts & UFOs, it seemed fitting to tackle the subject that has been smashing into the walls of consensus reality like a battering ram. In late 2024, UFO sightings became so pervasive across so much of the country (and, if you were paying attention, in many other parts of the world, too) that the story made headlines in every m...

Gods, Ghosts & UFOs is the biggest podcast in the universe, where we talk about all the things they said weren't real. Every Friday, hosts Jordan, Tom, and Mal use stories from the "news" as conversation starters for occasionally absurd but always open-minded explorations into topics of high strangeness. All recovering materialists welcome! And, please, come share your own stories at godsghostsufo...

In Part Two of the RSS-warming series... Let's talk about cryptids, baby - Mal introduces her research on lesser-known cryptids from wildlife expert Forrest Galante Mokele Mbembe: The Congo Dinosaur - A sauropod-like creature with sightings dating back to a German captain in 1913 The Ozark Howler - Mal describes a nine-foot beast with "the tail of a cat and the body of a dog" and a horrifying howl...

In this non-episode... * An impossible question - Can we ever know if AI is conscious? Tom's immediate response: "I'm gonna say no.” * Turing tests - We thought conversation was the test of consciousness... until AI mastered it, revealing we never knew what we were asking in the first place. * But… "What is consciousness?" Mal points out we’ve essentially created a new species that doesn't share o...