Squaring the Strange

This installment finishes our discussion on three missing persons cases that Ben, Celestia, and Kenny followed in real time and tracked with psychic detective predictions on how the cases would play out. Part 2 features Ben's examination of the Harley Dilly case, a teenager who went missing in December of 2019. The same content warning applies: we must discuss some details of the case that may be...

After some discussion on the recent pandemic declaration and unprecedented social distancing most of us now face, special guest Kenny Biddle joins Ben and Celestia (remotely!) to look at some current missing person cases as they unfold in real time, and how psychics have "helped" (or interfered) in the progress of each case. This turned into a rather long study, so this part has cases brought by C...

The Bermuda Triangle is a perennial favorite for seekers of the strange; Ben still gets calls regularly from students eager to ask him questions about this purported watery grave in the Caribbean. We look into the history of this mysterious place and a few factors that influenced its popularity. What does the Bermuda Triangle have to do with a college French class? And what does a new bit of 2020...

Ben and Celestia discuss one of the most memorable fakes in Bigfoot history. What began as a carnival side-show exhibit ended up the center of multiple origin stories, a tale about a reclusive California millionaire, and a possible homicide that attracted the attention of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. We learn about the showman with a block of ice who strung along two cryptid researchers for what seems l...

We made time to record a special bonus episode this month! Due to the late-breaking nature of the Wuhan/novel coronavirus (now officially named COVID-19), Ben has gathered the latest misinfo and disinfo in order to break it down in terms of recurring folklore, distrust of foreigners, and the psychology of why people grasp for simple memes over complex medical science. Then Doctor Dan Ketterer goes...

There is a rich field of literary hoaxes to pull from, and for this episode we pulled a few favorites. Ben brings a selection of "misery memoirs," stories of a victim triumphing over incredible hardships (which, in these examples, are fictional hardships or fictional victims). She Said Yes and Go Ask Alice are two prominent examples of teenage martyrdom that aren't what they seem. Celestia tells t...

This week, Ben recounts his recent investigation into the Mothman, a creature first spotted in the 1960s in rural West Virginia. Ben takes us on a tour of the area and discusses his trip there to help research the creature for a German television show. Like many cryptids, Mothman has gone through several incarnations and taken a few turns on its modern folkloric journey, from men-in-black conspira...

This is a long one, and be advised that this episode contains some grisly details. Ben and Celestia go on a sometimes quirky, sometimes bone-shivering tour of heads (or lack thereof). We have headless or multi-headed creatures in folklore, conjoined twinning, Miracle Mike the headless chicken, experiments on heads fresh from the guillotine, the Frozen head of Walt Disney, and shrunken heads. No ma...

This week Ben and Celestia are joined by Erik Kristopher Myers to discuss a short history of a particular sort of easter egg: the dreaded "hidden subversive element" stuck into a kids' show or game, either by a perverse animator or a much more sinister coalition bent on corrupting the youth of America. Disney has made a cottage industry of hiding adult content in cartoons--whether real or simply r...

We are joined by Kenny Biddle, our east coast paranormal investigator and skeptic, to discuss the darker side of ghost hunting. Not a demonic dark side, but rather real-world consequences. Things like trespassing dangers, costs to historical sites and organizations, loss of life and limb, and even the mangling of personal histories and reputations. Ben and Kenny both bring some examples from their...

Fresh from a convention of caricature artists and with heads full of pareidolia, Ben and Celestia discuss a few topics of the day and then dig into crystal skulls. Can we trust what Dan Ayrkroyd tells us on his fancy vodka bottle? Are there really thirteen of these ancient and powerful relics? What is the Skull of Doom, and does it have strange properties that baffle scientists? These skulls provi...

Human rights advocate Dr. Leo Igwe joins us to discuss the dangers posed by so-called "witch hunters" in his home nation of Nigeria and other parts of Africa today. He discusses the entrenched nature of magical beliefs in the region, as well as the complicated power structure that props up those who call out fellow citizens as witches. Religions brought from Europe now play into the mix, with Isla...

The Satanic Panic is a veritable cornucopia of skeptical angles, and for this episode we limit ourselves to a look back at the cultural feel of the 80s and early 90s and some seminal court cases that brought metal musicians to court to defend their craft and educate jurors on audio pareidolia. Along the way we reminisce about Dungeons & Dragons, Geraldo Rivera, and how technology affected the deve...

Just in time for Halloween, when scary clowns abound, Ben takes us on a tour of the modern clown panic phenomenon . . . from bands of phantom clowns in white vans showing up in the 1980s to the "Great Clown Panic of 2016" that went worldwide, to more recent fears about effects of homicidal clowns in our media. Clown panics touch on quite a few currents of fear, from unknown assailants to viral cop...

First, we look into an outrage-inspiring headline about a woman arrested for being topless at her own home. Then we dive into animal carcasses and reasons why suspicious dead animals have unnerved us throughout history. Hailed by Biblical prophecies and superstitions as a portent of doom, or seen as proof of malevolent mischief by--take your pick--aliens, hungry cryptids, Satanists, or (more reali...

We begin with a longer-than-usual opening segment (because gosh darn it, a lot happened). Ben recounts his latest TV appearance and chupacabra follow-up. The AlienStock / Storm Area 51 thing happened, or tried to happen. And two movies open this week that are unsettling audiences due to clown content--one of the films contains Ben! Lastly, we take a cursory look at a tabloid story that mirrors the...

We open with Dr. Hans House, who schools us on infectious diseases, especially some little-known facets of ebola, measles and the flu. He shares some knowledge on public health efforts and how we can all do our part to reduce disease vectors and save lives. Then we chat with Kenny Biddle about his recent investigations into diploma mills and paranormal credential fakery. Ben shares a personal expe...

It's our 100th episode! We begin with a discussion of "Alienstock," the planned alien-themed music festival being imposed upon Rachel, NV, in the coming weeks. Then for our main topic we look at numerology and the mystical-seeming quality of numbers from a few different angles involving Pythagoras, power chords, and ocean waves, as well as the arbitrary decoder-ring version of fortune-telling that...

This episode is a deep dive into some popular movies of the past few decades and their associated curses . . . some that are due to genuinely tragic or strangely coincidental circumstances, others that have been a bit cultivated by those wishing to market the movie or just tell a good yarn years after its release. Filmmaker and friend of the show Erik Kristopher Myers joins Ben and Celestia to loo...

This started off as a little bonus mini-episode (in between episodes 98 and 99) where we have a little roundtable about some frustrating patterns of thought we have spotted on social media and other types of public discourse; some have actual fallacy names, some don't necessarily have a label. Lo and behold, once we got chatting it turned into a regular length episode. Just a bit less formal. Hope...

Ben and special guest Matt Crowley reminisce about their first encounter, at a Bigfoot conference in Idaho about a dozen years ago. We look at some cultural aspects of Bigfootery, and Matt walks us through his "I can't unsee this" moment involving the Skookum cast, which has been touted as the best piece of Bigfoot evidence since the Patterson-Gimlin film.

This episode is a walk-through of Ben's investigation into the facts, theories, and folklore of a mysterious burial vault on Barbados. Due to strange natural phenomenon, ghosts, or a curse, the dead are said to not be able to rest within its walls. In the 1800s, stories emerged of the vaults contents being strewn about, inexplicably, while it was sealed. There's a lot to unpack, and Ben takes us t...

Richard Saunders of The Skeptic Zone joins us to discuss organ theft tales! The notion of waking up one day without a few organs, the biological equivalent of being pick-pocketed, has been a pernicious and persistent rumor. In the 1990s, the idea of waking up in a bathtub full of ice with an ominous note did not seem so far-fetched, and notions of rich Westerners kidnapping children from developin...

Ben and Celestia are joined by the SciBabe, Yvette d'Entremont, to discuss the scourge of MLMs (Multilevel Marketing) companies. These organizations, some of the bordering on pyramid schemes, have a long and storied history in America. Many target women, often seeming like a good option to stay-at-home mothers eager for income and independence. But the math doesn't tell such an optimistic story, n...

We begin with Ben's breakdown of the just-released documents that show FBI involvement with Bigfoot. Then Celestia examines an "uncanny" drawing of a child that didn't exist yet. Our main topic is a deep dive into Ben's real-time analysis of psychic predictions about the Holly Bobo murder. An assortment of predictions followed predictable social scripts and serve as a good example of the vast stre...