Occhino has conducted psychic readings for clients in Bay Shore on Long Island since the 1990s. After she established a devoted following, her first book, Beyond These Four Walls, was published in 2004 and was followed by Sign of the Dove in 2006. That same year, her daily radio show Angels on Call debuted on December 11. Each show consisted of personal readings based on a different theme, such as “Medical Mon­days” for “listeners’ current and future health” (quoted from Occhino’s SiriusXM webpage, which has since been taken down). Occhino is not a medical doctor, lacks formal credentials in medicine, and, according to her now-defunct radio show biography, “didn’t take college courses.” Rather, she claims that when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1992, it heightened her psychic senses. A promotional sample highlighting Occhino’s “medical readings” in­cluded a caller telling Occhino, “You are right on the money.” After the caller de­scribes headache afflictions, there is this exchange:

Occhino: It’s like I got pains in my eyes.

Caller: Okay. Do you see anything in my stomach?

Occhino: Hold up. No, no. I gotta work my way down because what we think [sic] the minor things may be symptoms of other things.

Caller: Okay.

Occhino: Okay? So you may be getting headaches from the acid or bile in your stomach or whatever. You know what I mean?

Caller: Uh-huh.

Occhino: This could all be connected. So I just gotta work my way down. Now when I work my way [sic] into your in­testines.

Caller: Uh-huh.

Occhino: To the middle of your intestines. They’re long. In the middle it makes me feel, like there’s maybe some acid burn out. (Pause)

Caller: Uh-huh.

Occhino: It makes me feel like. (Pause) Have you ever been treated for duodenal ulcers or bleeding ulcers?

Caller: Yes.

Occhino: Okay because that’s what I’m seeing like little scabs.

Caller: Yep.

Occhino: In the lining of your intes­tines.

Caller: Yep.

Occhino: Have you checked? I would check. If I were you I would check. I would bring up to my doctor diverticulitis.

Caller: Yep. I have that.

This exchange, which has since been re­moved from Sirius’s website, is revealing. First, it is only when the caller directs Occhino to a part of the body that is troubling her that Occhino focuses on the stomach region and claims the affliction is an ulcer. According to the National Institutes of Health website, “abdominal discomfort is the most common symptom of both duodenal and gastric ulcers” (National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse 2010). Furthermore, Occhino asked, “Have you ever been treated for duodenal ulcers or bleeding ulcers?” That is very different from concluding that the caller’s current problem is a specific ulcer. Since twenty-five million people will suffer from an ulcer at some point, it is not unreasonable to assume that an older woman (as the caller’s voice seemed to indicate) with abdominal pain might have had an ulcer at one time. Once Occhino was correct, the rest of the show was built from this “hit.” Next, Occhino tells the caller she has diverticulitis, which Occhino tells the caller “can come with ulcers.” Furthermore, the National Insti­tutes of Health maintains that “diverticulitis is very common. It is found in more than half of Americans over age 60” (“Diver­ticulitis” 2010). Thus there is a 50 percent chance the caller will have this affliction after the age of sixty. Finally, Occhino offers other possible issues that are spun off from the ulcer “hit” before concluding with vague, noncommittal advice, telling the listener to get better by “calming down.”

Beyond “Medical Mondays,” Occhino is happy to mention her involvement in high-profile crime cases. A 2006 Newsday article claims she “may have helped crack the case of the disappearance of Patrick McNeill Jr.” (Dowdy 2006). There is no evidence or in­formation in the paper about what she predicted. Instead, the actual details about McNeill’s disappearance are that McNeill was drinking at a bar with friends and went to meet a girl. He was never heard from again. His body was discovered two months later after being spotted “floating near the 65th Street Pier” and was picked up “by an Army Corps of Engineers boat” (Cooper 1997). An autopsy revealed he had drowned with a “moderate amount of alcohol in his blood” (“Autopsy Shows a Fordham Student Drowned” 1997). It is unclear how Occhino was even involved with the McNeill affair, much less how she “broke” the case.

Occhino also claims to have “weighed in on local cases,” including the 1992 Katie Beers kidnapping and the 1999 disappearance of Katherine Kolodziej (Dowdy 2006). The Beers kidnapping ended when John Esposito told police Beers was “hidden in an elaborate chamber under his Bay Shore bungalow” (Blumenthal 1993). Thus, there is no proof the case was solved by psychic means; rather Esposito told police Beers’s location. In addition, Newsday also re­ported in 1999 that Occhino “said she had identified” Kolodziej’s murderer, who “was already on the police’s short list of suspects” (Dowdy 1999). Despite a police officer saying “We [have] got some very good leads,” the more than decade-old case remains unsolved. Occhino’s psychic insight was therefore not helpful enough to solve the case in the intervening decade.

In 2007, fresh from the celebrity of her radio show, Occhino used her “gift” to gaze into the celebrity world. She told the New York Post that Lindsay Lohan is “going to be blackballed and working in a 7-Eleven on Long Island” (Fleming 2007). While it is not much of a stretch to say a person with a drug problem might be “blackballed,” Lohan entered rehab in Southern California and has not worked at a 7-Eleven on Long Island. Occhino also said Mario Batali, a TV chef, must lose weight or will “have a heart attack within three years.” It does not take psychic power to advise that an overweight middle-aged man should lose weight or he’ll have health problems. The chef lost thirty-five pounds in 2010, but Occhino failed to predict his current business problems and the cancellation of his show.

In another failed prediction, Occhino asserted Whitney Houston would “be back and bigger than ever. . . . She will do a movie and win an Academy award.” Occhino further said, “She’ll work with Mel Gibson.” This prediction again fails on all counts as Houston has neither starred in a recent movie with Gibson nor won the award for a new project. Furthermore, no date was given, which hedges the possibility that the prediction may come true at some point the future. Houston’s 2009 tour suffered from trouble, and in 2010 Gibson faced public-relations problems in a custody fight with Oksana Grigorieva. Occhino then made a prediction that Star Jones would “never get divorced.” After three years of marriage, Jones filed for divorce from Al Reynolds in March 2008. Despite these abysmal predictions, Occhino’s star continued to rise.

In 2006, Occhino’s fee was $300 for an hour-long reading from her Long Island home or her Manhattan apartment on the Upper West Side (Padgett 2006). Two years later, she re­leased her third book, Awakened Instincts, coauthored with her daughter Jacqueline Sul­livan. Despite the fact that fortune-telling is illegal (except for “entertainment” purposes) in New York State, Occhino has built a following in New York and now conducts seminars and readings throughout the United States. In 2010, Atlas Media Corporation gave Occhino a one-hour television show on Syfy. The show premiered on July 15 and chronicled Occhino raising a family, even trying to find her daughter a husband, while coming into contact with people who were seemingly impressed with her psychic abilities. The reaction from the press was immediately negative. Newsday, the largest Long Island newspaper, graded the show a C–, explaining, “The producers slice, dice, nip and tuck hours of daily-life footage into lickety-split montages, and still nothing feels remotely fresh or real” (Werts 2010). The New York Post explained why “Mary knows worst” by saying the show “can’t de­cide if it’s a reality show about a Long Island family that is ripe for ridicule, or a show about a woman who was born with a gift that is no laughing matter.” A few weeks later, in the midst of poor ratings, Syfy cancelled the show. As Rob Vaux, of Mania.com, asked: “Did you see that coming, psychic lady?” (Vaux 2010).

Occhino uses her “involvement” in police cases to further her psychic career while failing to offer independent empirical proof of psychic abilities. Her biography cites an unpublished “test” by Gary Schwartz as validation for psychic powers. In fact, Schwartz’s educational credentials and affiliations are featured prominently in Occhino’s current biography, but the bio neglects her own education and the long history of criticisms about Schwartz’s methods and tests (“About Mary Occhino” 2010). She offered “virtual MRIs” to callers on her show without any medical education, which is potentially dangerous if people accept her claims without seeking proper medical diagnoses. In late December 2010, Occhino announced she would not “renew” her radio contract with SiriusXM, effectively ending her radio show in its current format. But her failed predictions and the end of her shows have not hurt her business. Occhino’s books, business, and seminars continue to attract desperate people, and her store, Mary O’s Celestial Whispers in Center Moriches, New York, remains in business. But does Mary know best? When it comes to her psychic predictions, it appears not.

References

About Mary Occhino. 2010. Available online at http://celestialwhispers.com/about/.

Autopsy shows a Fordham student drowned. 1997. New York Times (April 17).

Blumenthal, Ralph. 1993. The Katie Beers case; mystery surrounds suspect and underground chamber. New York Times (January 15).

Comeback Whitney hits a flat note Down Under. 2010. AFP (February 23).

Cooper, Michael. 1997. Body of missing Fordham Student is found off pier. New York Times (April 8).

Diverticulitis (encyclopedia entry). 2010. Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia. Available online at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000257.htm.

Dowdy, Zachary. 1999. When all else fails, try a sixth sense. Newsday (October 6).

———. 2006. Seeking by sixth sense: Court TV profiles Bay Shore psychic who has more than stars in her eyes when helping in police work. Newsday (April 25).

Fleming, Kirsten. 2007. Divine secrets—Psychic Mary Occhino predicts the fates of the ultra-famous. New York Post (February 8).

Ghost host: At home with a real Long Island psychic. 2010. New York Post (July 15).

National Digestive Diseases Information Clearing­house. 2010. H. pylori and peptic ulcers. Available online at http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hpylori/.

Padgett, Tania. 2006. Paranormal packs halls, sells books and floods airwaves. San Francisco Chronicle (June 18).

Shaffer, Ryan. 2010. Entertainment, fakery, and ambiguity: Examining the ‘Fortune Telling Law’ in New York State. Skeptical Inquirer (March/April).

Vaux, Rob. 2010. The TV wasteland continues. Mania.com (August 8). Available at http://www.mania.com/tv-wasteland-continues_article_124555.html.

Werts, Diane. 2010. LI psychic should know better on ‘Mary Knows Best.’ Newsday (July 15).

A poll in September 2008 showed interest in the celestial beings reaching a new level. Conducted by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion, the poll of 1,700 respondents yielded 55 percent an­swering in the affirmative to the statement, “I was protected from harm by a guardian angel” (Stark 2008, 57). Christopher Bader, director of the Baylor survey, which also covered a number of other religious issues, found that response “the big shocker” in the report. He ex­plained: “If you ask whether people believe in guardian angels, a lot of people will say, ‘sure.’ But this is different. It’s experiential. It means that lots of Americans are having these lived supernatural experiences” (quoted in Van Biema 2008).

But are these experiences really supernatural? Or are they only natural, the result of misperceptions and even misreporting? A look into the phenomenon of claimed guardian-angel encounters is illuminating.

Angel Guardians

Perhaps the earliest depiction of an angelic being, or a precursor of angels, is a winged figure on an ancient Sumerian stele. The entity is pouring the water of life from a jar into the king’s cup. Other precursors may be the giant, winged, supernatural beings—part animal, part human—that guarded the temples of ancient Assyria, thus perhaps serving as models for the concept that angels are protectors. The word angel derives from the Greek angelos, “messenger”; however, in biblical accounts, the entities not only fulfilled the role of messengers (e.g., Matt. 1:20) but also were avengers (2 Sam. 24:16), protectors (Ps. 91:11), rescuers (Dan. 6:22), and more (Burn­ham 1990, 81–82; Larue 1990, 57–61; Guiley 1991, 20).

Figure 1. Guardian angel depicted in a late nineteenth-century print (author’s collection).

In modern times, angels have been seen primarily as guardians (figure 1). “Angels represent God’s personal care for each one of us,” observes Father Andrew Greeley, a priest turned sociologist-novelist (qtd. in Wood­ward et al. 1993). This “new angelology”—the belief in personal guardian angels—is manifested not only in books but in angel focus groups and workshops, as well as angel bric-a-brac, posters, greeting cards, and so on. Ac­cord­ing to Newsweek: “It may be kitsch, but there’s more to the current angel obsession than the Hallmarking of America. Like the search for extraterrestrials, the belief in angels implies that we are not alone in the universe—that someone up there likes me” (Woodward et al. 1993).

Personal encounters with angels—related as inspirational stories—fill the books on angels. One such account appears in Graham’s book (1975, 2–3). It tells of a little girl who fetches a doctor to help her ailing mother. After caring for the woman, the doctor learns that her daughter died a month before, and in the closet hangs the little girl’s coat; “It was warm and dry and could not possibly have been out in the wintry night.”

Investigating the account, I discovered that it is a very old tale, circulated in various forms, with conflicting details (Nickell 1995, 153–55). Noted folklorist Jan Brun­vand (2000, 123–36) followed up on the tale (with some assistance from me) and demonstrated that it derived from a story told by S. Weir Mitchell (1829–1914), a physician and writer of prose fiction. Mitchell himself referred to it as “an early [illegible] ghost tale of [mine ?]”—a seemingly tacit admission that the narrative was pure fiction (Nickell 2011).

Encounters

Most of the currently popular angel stories are personal narratives. Among these are tales of “mysterious stranger angels,” ordinary-looking people who “appear suddenly when they are needed, and disappear just as suddenly when their job is done” (Guiley 1993, 65).

This genre includes the “roadside rescue” story, which one source admits “happens so often that it is almost a cliché in angel lore.” Essentially, “In the roadside rescue, the mysterious stranger arrives to help the motorist stranded on a lonely road at night, or who is injured in an accident in an isolated spot. Or, human beings arrive just in the nick of time” (Guiley 1993, 66). One such testimonial has come from Jane M. Howard, an “angel channeler and author.” According to Guiley (1993, 66):

One night, the gas pedal in Janie’s car became stuck, and she ran off the freeway near Baltimore. She stopped the car by throwing the transmission into park. It would not restart, and she began to panic. It was ten P.M. and she was miles from the nearest exit. She prayed to the angels for help, and within minutes, a van pulled up, carrying a man and a woman.

The woman rolled down her window and told Janie not to be frightened, for they were Christians. Even so, many people would have been wary of strangers at night. But the angels gave Janie assurances, and she accepted a ride to a gas station. She discovered that the couple lived in a town near hers, and knew her family. They pulled off to help Janie, they said, because they had a daughter, and they hoped that if their daughter ever was in distress, she, too, would be aided.

Notwithstanding such mundane occurrences, often the intervention is described so as to leave little doubt that it must have been a supernatural event. One such narrative tells of a woman’s visit to an electronics store and a young man who helped her son with some technical knowledge. The woman stated (in Guiley 1993, 65):

I was just dumbfounded. The young man wished us a nice day and left the store. A couple of seconds later, I rushed out the door to thank him, but he was gone. He literally disappeared. The store is in the middle of the block, so you would still be able to see someone walking down the sidewalk. Obviously, this was not an ordinary human. I still get chills about it.

However, we must ask: Was it really only “a couple of seconds later” or could it have been several seconds—long enough for the man to have entered a waiting car or stepped into an adjacent store?

Then there are the bedside angelic encounters, such as a story told by a Louis­ville woman in Burnham’s A Book of Angels (1990, 275–76). One of the woman’s good friends had died but seemed to linger as a “presence.” Moreover, she says,

Twice I have awakened from sleep to see something mystical. I sat up in bed to convince myself I was not dreaming.

To the right of me, hovering about five feet from the floor, was a bright mass of energy, a yellow and orange ball about six inches in diameter. I closed my eyes and reopened them. I even pinched myself to make sure I was really seeing what was be­fore my eyes, and there it remained until I fell asleep again.

I was frightened. About a year later, the same thing happened under the same circumstances. However, this time I asked questions subconsciously and they were answered. They were all in reference to my friend who had left this world. And the overall summation was, I was not to fear or worry, because I was being watched over. His protection, caring, and love were continuing, though his physical being was gone.

One immediately recognizes in this account the unmistakable characteristics of a “waking dream”—a very realistic-seeming hallucination that occurs in the state between full wakefulness and sleep. Waking dreams are responsible for countless supposed visitations by angels, as well as by ghosts, extraterrestrials, demons, and other otherworldly entities that lurk in the subconscious mind (Nickell 1995, 41, 46, 117, 131, 157, 209, 214; Baker 1995, 278).

In still other cases the percipient may simply be a classic fantasizer (Nickell 1995, 40–41, 57). Children are especially well known for engaging in fantasies. Consider, for example, this anecdote related by Sophy Burnham (1990, 4):

Once my mother saw an angel. She was five years old at the time, just a little girl in her nightie, getting ready for bed, when she looked up and saw an angel standing in the bedroom door.

“Auntie!” She pointed at the figure. “Look!” but her beloved auntie could not see.

“Go to sleep, child,” she said. “There’s nothing there.” I don’t know what her angel looked like. When I asked her, my mother’s face took on a dreamy and exalted look, simultaneously nostalgic and alight. She used words like brilliance or radiance, and I have the impression of many colors. But I have no idea what she saw.

As indicated by the aunt’s inability to see it, the angel obviously resulted from a child’s imagination and is no more credible than an eyewitness account of Santa Claus, a leprechaun, or an elf.

Stress can even produce angels in crisis situations. As psychologist Robert A. Baker observes, there is a “well-known psychological fact that human beings, when subjected to extreme fear and stress, frequently hallucinate. These hallucinations, in many in­stances, take the form of helpers, aides, guides, assistants, et al., playing the role of Savior.” Adds Baker, “If the hallucinator also has religious leanings it is easy to understand how such a ‘helper’ is converted into one of the heavenly host, i.e., a guardian angel” (qtd. in Nickell 1995, 157–58).

Then there are stories that appear to fall into the category of urban legends. One of these features the Angel of Mons that supposedly came to the aid of British soldiers at that Belgian battlefield during World War I. Folklorist David Clarke, for his The Angel of Mons: Phantom Soldiers and Ghostly Guard­ians, exhaustively investigated the story, finding it had been inspired by a fictional tale “at a time when the British people were desperate for news of a miracle” (2004, 241). Appearing in the London Evening News of September 29, 1914, “The Bow­men” by Arthur Machen dramatized the British routing of the Germans in symbolic terms of St. George and “his Agincourt bowmen.” Many read the story as true, prompting rumors of eyewitness accounts. Concludes Clarke (2004, 246):

In 1914, Britain was an imperial nation with a long tradition of success in combat that was sustained by belief in divine intervention. At Mons, the cream of the British Army narrowly escaped defeat at the hands of the Germans during the first month of the war. Many believed it was a miracle, and Arthur Machen’s story provided a perfect conduit for the creation and transmission of a reassuring modern legend that was based upon ancient precedents. His literary skills gave the story a resonance and power that would sustain it long beyond his lifetime. It was a legend that had an important and positive function during the war, sustaining hope, boosting patriotic optimism and shoring up faltering faith during the dark days of the Somme, Passchendaele and all the other disastrous battles that almost exterminated a generation of young men. Today the Angel of Mons remains one of the undying icons of that war and lives on as a symbol of the loss of innocence that was the legacy it left upon the British psyche. This legend re-emerged for a brief spell during the national crisis of 1940, at Dunkirk and during the Battle of Britain. Maybe one day the angels will be needed again.

The concept of guardian angels, notes one writer (Willin 2008, 37), “was given a huge impetus” by the publication of Machen’s tale.

Photographing Angels

Thus far we have considered personal ac­counts of angels acting as guardians; however, if such accounts represent only what serious researchers disparage as “anecdotal evidence,” then what about photographic evidence—photos offered to support claims of angelic encounters? Unfortunately, the evidence is at best unconvincing, usually easily explainable. Many touted examples, for instance, are nothing more than simulacra, images perceived by the mind’s tendency to “recognize” common shapes in random patterns, like seeing pictures in inkblots, clouds, woodgrain patterns, and the like (Nickell 2007, 18).

Such images may also be faked. Consider the “Cloud Angel” photo circulated by Betty Malz, author of Angels Watching Over Me and other books. The picture Malz (1993) was kind enough to send me was accompanied by a brief narrative telling how a honeymooning couple had taken the photo from the window of their airplane. They had undergone severe turbulence that provoked them to pray for safety, whereupon the turbulence soon subsided and later the angel-shaped cloud appeared in one of their photos. It turns out, however, that the same picture has a long history—touted variously as an image of Christ taken during Hurricane Hugo (“Experts” 1990) and a “ghostly ap­parition” taken in 1971 by an “ordained spiritual minister” (Holzer 1993). Suspi­ciously, the cloud lacks the three-dimensional qualities of genuine cloud photographs as determined by a computer imaging expert (Nickell 2001, 200–03).

Much more recently, a few “angel” photos were included in the book The Para­normal Caught on Film by Melvyn Willin (2008, 36–37, 42–43, 46–47, 62–63). Alas, however, these range from the poorly documented to the suspiciously anonymous and are attributable to a variety of a photographic anomalies including reflections, simulacra, and other factors, as well as outright fakery.

As these narrative and photograph examples demonstrate, to many people guardian angels offer comfort in difficult times, while to others they are confirmation of deeply held religious or New Age beliefs. However, the evidence for their existence appears as ethereal, elusive, and doubtful as the alleged entities themselves.

Acknowledgments

As always, I appreciate the assistance of Timothy Binga, director of the Center for Inquiry Libraries.

References

Baker, Robert A. Afterward to Nickell 1995, 275–85.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. 2000. The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story! Chicago: University of Illinois.

Burnham, Sophy. 1990. A Book of Angels. New York: Ballantine Books.

CNN “Headline News.” 1993. CNN/Time/Newsweek poll cited December 18.

Clarke, David. 2004. The Angel of Mons: Phantom Soldiers and Ghostly Guardians. Chichester, Eng­land: John Wiley & Sons.

Experts call “Hugo Christ” photo fake. 1990. Charle­ston, South Carolina, Evening Post (April 12).

Graham, Billy. 1975. Angels: God’s Secret Agents. Gar­den City, New York: Doubleday.

Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 1991. Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience. New York: Harper­Collins.

———. 1993. A radiance of angels. Fate (December): 60–68.

Holzer, Hans. 1993. America’s Restless Ghosts. Stamford, Connecticut: Longmeadow Press.

Larue, Gerald A. 1990. The Supernatural, the Occult and the Bible. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.

Malz, Betty. 1993. Photograph and letter to Joe Nickell, March 17.

Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, New York: Prome­theus Books. (A portion of the material for this article was taken from this source.)

———. 2001. Real-Life X-files. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

———. 2007. Adventures in Paranormal Investigation. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

———. 2011. The Doctor’s ghostly visitor: Tracking ‘The Girl in the Snow.’ Skeptical Briefs 21(2) (Summer): 5–7.

Stark, Rodney. 2008. What Americans Really Believe: New Findings from the Baylor Surveys of Religion. With Christopher Bader, et al. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press.

Van Biema, David. 2008. Guardian angels are here, say most Americans. Available online at www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1842179,00.html; accessed September 19, 2008.

Willin, Melvyn. 2008. The Paranormal Caught on Film. Cincinnati, Ohio: David & Charles.

Woodward, Kenneth L., et al. 1993. Angels. Newsweek (December 27): 54.

There’s two things the general public are guaranteed to be concerned about: their health and the contents of their wallets. Yet somehow we are drawn to claims that you can make your thighs thin via a tube of goop and eagerly purchase promises of perfect complexions through using gunk best slapped on with a spatula.

Just look at any of the millions of products on supermarket shelves worldwide touting legally defensible scientific-sounding advertising gibberish (with no explicit claims as to what exactly the “life-enhancing collagen” will do for your dead hair follicles). Skepticism and questioning the pseudoscience in cosmetics should go together like the products’ endless promises of long-life and perfect skin. With that in mind, I set off to conduct a series of interviews over several months on this topic, hoping to get some sensible advice as to what to do when making up my mind about makeup.

When talking to people for the episode of the Token Skeptic podcast (“On Myths and Makeup”), I tracked down representatives from the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. While all of them encouraged a skeptical outlook, they all had slightly different takes on the cosmetic industry and how laws in their countries deal with the more questionable efforts to promote products.

For my interview with a representative of the United States, I spoke to Perry Romanowski. He’s a member of the Beauty Brains Podcast and the Chemists Corner website, where he reviews cosmetic products and solves consumer problems. Perry has written and edited numerous articles and books, taught continuing education classes for industry scientists, and is the author of the book Beginning Cosmetic Chemistry.

Perry Romanowski: It’s actually an area in skepticism that I don’t think is really analyzed that much. We don’t really look at consumer advertising, and at least I don’t know of other podcasts dedicated to consumer products and the kind of information that people are getting through advertising, and how they can be skeptical about those things.

Kylie Sturgess: Do you think people are naturally skeptical about cosmetic claims, or do we just lap it up and accept what’s being fed to us?

Romanowski: I think there’s kind of a dichotomy there. People don’t want to know the truth. People actually want to buy the story. But I think in buying the story, they sort of accept that it is a story.

For example, you know, the best functional ingredients might be something like petrolatum, but nobody wants to buy a petrolatum-featuring lotion; what they’d rather have is an aloe vera lotion. So what the companies are going to do is create the best working lotion, but then they’ll drop in some aloe vera because it’s the glitz and the story that people really are ultimately going to buy.

Sturgess: Do you think that people have overly high expectations of what cosmetics can do for them?

Romanowski: Some people do have unreasonably high expectations, yes. I mean, it is sad to me when I see people spending hundreds of dollars on beauty products which I know are not going to work any better than something that would’ve cost them five dollars. But if you put it in the right packaging, you put the right story, have a dermatologist behind it saying it’s going to work better… that is enough to convince people to buy a product for an amount of money that they don’t really need to spend.

Sturgess: What’s some of the best advice that you give to people when they’re heading towards the cosmetic counter, some of the key terms that we should be more skeptical about?

Romanowski: Well, if you look at the United States (and I think it’s pretty much true around the world) we have a law here where it says you cannot lie in advertising. So you can say whatever you want about your product—you just can’t lie. Some of the beauty claims, the way the things are worded, give an impression of a meaning that maybe isn’t there.

For example, the marketing people, when creating an anti-aging product, they may say something like, “Rejuvenex” or something like that, and that’s just a made-up word. The way that the claim is written, they’ll use the words, “With Rejuvenex.” So they’ll say, “This product moisturizes your wrinkles with Rejuvenex.” The way that they write the claim implies that the Rejuvenex actually does something—but it doesn’t, really, if you look at the way the sentence is written. So it’s a little bit complicated, and that’s one of the ways that people can trick you.

Another thing to look for is when you see the word unique. Pretty much anybody can use the word unique in their advertising, because if you made the product, it is unique to you, so... But it doesn’t really mean anything.

You know, another thing that doesn’t really mean anything is when you see a claim about “cruelty-free” or “not animal-tested.” It’s a big area that people are concerned about. But the truth is you can say “not animal-tested” as long as you didn’t personally test the product on animals. Now, you could’ve had all your raw material suppliers do all the testing using animals, but you still can say that you didn’t do it. So you should be wary of those kinds of claims too.

Sturgess: Just how ludicrous can advertising about cosmetics get?

Romanowski: Well, anti-aging is probably one of the biggest areas for cosmetics where you see products that say that they work as well as a facelift, and this is absolutely untrue. There’s no way that a topical product will work as well as surgery. I don’t care how much money you spend on it, it just doesn’t work that well!

Sturgess: So what’s the legislation like in the USA? You mentioned that there are requirements in terms of advertising; is there a difference between federal and state level?

Romanowski: As far as it goes, not really. The cosmetic industry is regulated in a variety of ways. Mostly it’s self-regulated in the United States. But we have to follow the laws of the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. And you have to follow the FTC [Federal Trade Commission], which talks about the advertising. But the industry is largely self-regulated, and it has worked. As far as producing a safe product, it has worked rather well for a lot of years, and that’s sort of why there hasn’t been any push for more regulation. But, you know, cosmetic companies are interested in selling products and getting people to re-buy products, and so it is in their interest not to produce products that are dangerous!

Sturgess: Are women still targeted more than men by cosmetic products? I mean, historically, they clearly have been, but is there a growing trend for men to be drawn to the cosmetic counter?

Romanowski: Well, there absolutely is a push by the cosmetic industry to grow and segment. Every year, that’s always touted as the next hot segment. And the truth is I think it’s like pushing a rock up a hill, because it turns out that men mostly don’t buy cosmetics. There’s been small growth in the development of cosmetics for men in the market, but it just ends up that wives or girlfriends are the ones buying the products for them!

There has been some small growth in the market, but it has never caught on the way that people have thought it would. Cosmetic companies still focus on selling primarily to women, because women are the people who buy the products.

Sturgess: So what would you say is a good blanket strategy to adopt when you’re shopping for cosmetics? What should people be mindful about?

Romanowski: Well, the number one thing to do is to be skeptical and to know that the price of a product is not reflective of how well it’s going to work for you. So if you think you’re going to buy a really expensive product and you’re going to get the best-working one, that’s not necessarily true. Price is not reflective of how it works.

What I would suggest is that you go through and start with the lowest price that you feel comfortable paying and try products on that level. The truth is, most products are going to work and function pretty well because a lot of it is about the experience of using the product. So if you start at the lowest price that you feel like spending, and if those products don’t work for you, go up to the next level of pricing. Find a level of product that you like how it works and you feel comfortable spending that amount of money. And stay away from products that really cost a lot of money, because they aren’t working any better—it’s all just marketing.

The main purpose of this research is to discover if there is any truth to the concept of an NDE. In theory, an NDE occurs when the flow of blood and oxygen to the human brain stops or slows, which can happen for a variety of reasons, including a near-fatal accident, a heart attack, a catastrophic illness, or an Al Gore global warming lecture. Of course, the concept of being “clinically dead” isn’t always easy to scientifically explain, like the crocoduck. Is it when the heart ceases? Or is it when a person’s EEG flatlines even when tempted with cheese fries?

In addition, the AWARE researchers would like to settle the controversy over whether some of the survivors of these brushes with deathness were also exposed to an out-of-body experience (OBE) or whether they were only divinely delusional (ODD). By interviewing those who claim to have returned from “the other side,” researchers hope to settle the age-old question of whether consciousness disappears with brain inactivity or whether it lives on and on and on and on like angels and souls and Twinkies.

Approximately 15,000 patients will be included in the study. It is likely that of the survivors, only about 150 will report an episode that would qualify as an NDE. Moreover, according to some estimates, only about a quarter of patients with an NDE will report some kind of OBE by regaling the listener with tales of bizarre-sounding experiences. These include remote viewing, falling toward a tunnel of light, and meeting religious figures, which proves one thing: even during death, modern humans remain inveterate multitaskers.

The researchers will test for OBEs by “hiding” randomly generated images in the operating room. These images will be visible only to someone who is having an OBE and looking down from the ceiling—that is, unless the out-of-body self decides to wander down to the hospital cafeteria for some yummy chow. Once the previously deceased patient is resurrected, he or she should be able to describe the hidden image observed while buzzing around the OR—unless the patient unfortunately returns as a reincarnated turtle, which would then require the use of a facilitated-communication expert.

Surprisingly, NDEs aren’t a recent phenomenon. Some ancient texts include incidents in which critically wounded soldiers describe their journey into the afterlife after being revived through CPR (common-prayer resuscitation). Also, a number of extraordinary thinkers have experienced or lent credence to NDEs, such as Plato, Carl Jung, and Eric Estrada of CHiPs. Even atheists aren’t immune to the phenomenon. One atheist became an ex-atheist after returning from his “death,” where he observed “billions and billions of Carl Sagans.”

The modern phenomenon of NDEs, however, actually dates back to the publication of Raymond Moody’s best-selling Life After Life (1975), in which he coins the phrase “near-death experience” after X-ing out the alternative: “psychedelic groove-on” (PGO).

Moody’s interest in NDEs developed while he was in medical school, possibly after he sniffed one too many cadavers. Eventually he interviewed dozens of people who had supposedly died and returned to tell the tale. Because of the unexpected similarity of experiences, Moody eschewed science and concluded that there was more to dying than death. To Moody, the common experiences he recorded proved one thing: this crazy-ass idea could sell him some books! Since then, tens of thousands of personal accounts of NDEs have been “recorded all over the world,” just like religious-image discoveries on everyday food items (e.g., a burnt fish stick).

As stated earlier, not everyone who’s dabbled in death has had a heavenly experience. In various studies, anywhere from 2 percent to ___ percent (fill in the blank) of those who have returned from having “nearly passed” reported NDEs as well as OBEs. Others had neither, while a small minority described the event as “like being stuck in Toledo, Ohio, for six weeks.”

Some of the more common universal experiences recorded by Moody and others include:

Out-of-body experiences (OBEs). This is the most controversial claim that AWARE is trying to settle. According to solid, indisputable anecdotal evidence, it’s clearly possible for one’s consciousness to leave one’s body and fly hither and yon like a magic carpet, which allows the deceased to clearly observe his or her own resuscitation without the use of prescription eyeglasses. This phenomenon might eventually come in handy if the patient observes the surgeon mocking his liver and is then called as an eyewitness to his own medical malpractice lawsuit.

Hearing strange sounds. These have been described variously as a buzzing, a ringing, and a Bob-Dylan-singing-Christmas-carols type of noise.

A feeling of peace. This feeling is often difficult to explain since no such state has existed on our planet for decades.

Encountering other dead beings. Many believe they’ve arrived in heaven because they come across religious figures, deceased relatives and friends, beings of light, strangers, or Jerry Garcia. One person even witnessed Buddha driving a yellow school bus. Strangely, the religious figures that are observed are those of the person’s own religion. For example, during an NDE no Hindu is known to have seen Jesus, no Christian has met face-to-face with Mohammed, and no member of the Jewish faith has run into L. Ron Hubbard.

Looking down a long tunnel of light. Described as akin to coming out of the birth canal, visiting The Screaming Tunnels of Niagara Falls, or “feeling like one bitchin’ migraine.”

Rising rapidly into heaven. So far, no one has reported falling rapidly into the bowels of hell.

A desire to stay deceased. Most “zombies” reluctantly return to life kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, it’s practically impossible to compare notes with those who stuck to their guns and decided not to return, since they’re not talking. Apparently, what happens in the afterlife stays in the afterlife.

A profound transformation. The transformed person no longer has a fear of death, unless he or she is driving in Los Angeles.

To some, there is no doubt that these common experiences are evidence of a world beyond. For others, like skeptics, some kind of physical evidence of these events would be welcome. Would it be asking too much for Jesus’ autograph on a temporary visa?

Many scientists (or killjoys) claim there are plenty of logical and rational theories for what causes an NDE, including chemical changes to parts of the brain, unusual electrical activity in other parts of the brain, intrusion of our normal REM dream sleep into our consciousness, and an innate inability to reason. Some scientists claim to be able to duplicate many of these NDE and OBE events through use of certain drugs, electronic stimulation of the brain, or by reading passages from Deepak Chopra’s latest book, but these tests have yet to be duplicated. At some future date, we might know enough about the brain to fully understand the NDE, but right now it’s clear that you don’t necessarily have to be officially pronounced dead to meet up with the seventy-two virgins in paradise.

One question that puzzles many skeptics is that if the brain has stopped functioning (no neural or EEG activity), then where is this “memory” of the afterlife stored? Good question. To give believers the benefit of the doubt, however, there’s much that scientists don’t understand about the human brain, and it’s possible that since it contains more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, there’s probably hidden storage space aplenty.

Since it’s clear I’m bending over backward to accommodate the believers at this point, I’ll also admit that these various “scientific” theories are quite complicated and make my head spin. If we were to apply Occam’s Razor to this issue, might not the existence of an afterlife and angels and beings of light and souls and religious figures and separate consciousnesses and a life review, as well as the ability to communicate with lights and the possibility of attaining complete knowledge about life and the nature of the universe and so on, ad infinitum, be the simplest explanation after all?

Until this ongoing controversy is resolved once but not likely for all by the AWARE experimenters, it would behoove skeptics, including myself, to keep an open mind on this controversial topic. And even before the results are finally published, maybe we should start thinking about award nominations for this worthy study. I’m thinking an Ig Noble Prize. How about a Pigasus Award? If we’re especially lucky, maybe a Darwin Award.

Then again, if the AWARE experiment totally fails, all is not lost. Why not try an alternative test, such as stretching a nano-fiber mosquito net above the dying patient to trap the consciousness when it tries to escape the body? Catching a consciousness would be awesome evidence, wouldn’t it? It surely beats electronic voice phenomena (EVP) and orbs.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, in the name of science, I’m off to run my own AWARE experiment by way of autoerotic asphyxiation. Will I have an NDE? An OBE? And will I be able to watch my own orgasm (O)? Results TBA.

SkeptiCal, a one day conference billed as Northern California's science and skepticism conference, was host to more than 260 skeptics at the DoubleTree Hotel in Berkeley, California on April 21, 2012. The convention day was split between speakers giving talks to all the conference goers and two breakout sessions, each of which had three options. Lunch featured live entertainment and there was a live skeptic poetry reading between talks. Altogether, there were approximately fifteen speakers and entertainers.

Conference Speakers

Dr. Sarah Strand's talk, "The Neurobiology of Religious Experiences," offered an explanation of out-of-body experiences. Out-of-body experiences (OBE) were explained in most cases as having the following characteristics: peace and connection to the universe, sense of release from one's body, movement toward a bright light down a dark tunnel, and a vision of a deity or people from one's life. OBEs may occur when the part of the brain that connects the right and left parietal lobes—the angular gyrus—experiences an interruption in activity. The perception of the space of our bodies (where our bodies start and end) is controlled by the left parietal lobe. The right parietal lobe controls the perception of space outside our bodies (the space after our bodies end). When the connection between right and left parietal lobe is disrupted, we can no longer differentiate between our bodies and the surrounding space. As a consequence, a person can experience the sensation of floating. People who have OBEs do not universally interpret them as religious; such an experience could simply be the result of a physiological difference in the sensitivity of one part of their brains. When stimulated, people with high sensitivity in their right temporal lobe see or feel a presence in the room more often than those with low sensitivity. Religious believers and non-theists both experience a sensed presence, the feeling that there is someone or something in the room, during an OBE. Sensed presence may be the neurological exemplar of religious experience. To summarize, we need not look outside our own skulls to explain an out-of-body experience because the answer is between our ears.

(In a follow up e-mail, Dr. Strand graciously offered her e-mail address to Skeptical Inquirer readers who have further questions. Contact Dr. Strand at scstrand@gmail.com.)

"Homeopathy: How Does It Work?" QR code sticker

Jay Diamond, outspoken international skepticism activist and the founder of Reason4Reason and the 10:23 Campaign, gave an impassioned talk about how to advance skepticism publicly and facilitated acts of activism during his talk. The audience attempted to overdose on a homeopathic remedy for insomnia made primarily of coffee (and water, of course), each person taking approximately fifteen doses in a small cup. (There were no reported cases of death or persons falling asleep during the conference.) Diamond encouraged the audience to take a QR code sticker and put it on the shelves of stores that sell homeopathic remedies. He also led a twitter bombing of Pauley Perrette, who plays forensic scientist Abby Sciuto on NCIS, because she participated in an anti-bullying campaign with self-proclaimed psychic John Coffey.

Executive Director of Chabot Space and Science Center Alex Zwissler provided a light-hearted examination of the rational and irrational aspects of belief in his talk, "How Do We Know What to Believe." Zwissler combined important insights into the reason's behind people's choice to believe with disarming, witty slides—featuring such captions as "Stand back, there is science in this shit"—and stories of nuclear scientist climate change deniers. Zwissler even presented a belief equation: If A is true, then B and C must follow. In this equation, skeptics spend most of their time worrying about proving A but most people are more concerned about B and C. Before a lengthy and at times hilarious Q&A session, Zwissler left the audience with the question, "What beliefs would you be willing to change in order to get others to change their beliefs?" His talk in five words: Be smart and speak gently.

Television skeptic, world class soprano, and cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Indre Viskontas's talk "The Allure of Mystery: Why Debunking Falls Flat" outlined the value of story when trying to get people's attention and change their minds. Viskontas explained that people generally remember stories better than they remember facts. Specifically, if given a list of facts and a list of myths, after a short time people tend to misremember some of the myths as facts. An interesting aspect of her talk was a brief explanation on what skeptics often do wrong; in essence, Viskontas encouraged skeptics to employ storytelling when it is important to the speaker that the listeners remember the content or change their beliefs.

Dr. Alison Gopnik's eye-opening and adorable talk, "The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us about the Truth," offered some insight into our own minds by unveiling the minds of children and the value of immaturity to an intelligent species. Using a clever arrangement of Ping-Pong balls of two different colors, Gopnik's graduate students were able to ascertain that babies can do basic statistical reasoning by indicating when something unexpected happened. Children will override their experience for what they are told. Researchers gave children a strange toy that did several things and made various noises. When a child was asked to figure the toy out, the child would seek out its functions. If the child was told that one of the toy's functions was what that toy does, then the child would not seek out the toy's other functions. Succinctly: Hey teacher, leave them kids alone.

Mentalist and former James Randi Education Foundation Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge protocol tester Jonny Zavant showed off whimsical works of trickery and flimflammery with his assistant Caroline. The highlight of the performance was when we learned that "Roar is dinosaur for I love you."

Breakout Sessions

A note on breakout sessions: Since there were three going on at one time, it was not possible to attend them all. I attended two.

Morning Session

Not covered: "This Week in Science" Live Podcast by Dr. Kiki & Justin and "Extreme Weather: World Temperature Records" by Christopher C. Burt.

"Vaccinate Your Damn Kids" by Elyse Anders, the founder of the Women Thinking Free Foundation and Hug Me! I'm Vaccinated Campaign, encouraged people to vaccinate their kids. She addressed concerns of adult vaccination and arguments presented by anti-vaxxers, and participated in a lengthy question and answer session. In the back of the room, the City of Berkeley's Health Department offered free Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis/whooping cough) vaccines and Anders encouraged everyone whose vaccinations were out-of-date (or who thought they might be) to get vaccinated. Approximately 12% of conference goers did their part to keep up a strong herd immunity by getting vaccinated.

Afternoon Session

Not Covered: "This Year the World Will End—Or Will It?" by David Morrison and "Fear, Magic and Death: My Escape from Wooville" by Kernan Coleman.

In "Grassroots Skepticism" Brian Thompson, the Field Coordinator for the James Randi Educational Foundation, led a discussion about how to successfully start and maintain a group for skeptics. In it, he encouraged skeptics who want start a group to first see if other groups exist because it is easier to join or take over an existing dead group than to start a new one. Thompson advised a founder to consider the focus of the group: educational, social, activism, or all of the above. When an outsider wanders into a group, Thompson advised that skeptics go out of their way to be nice, like Mormons—whom he called "sneakily nice."

To Better Hear a Skeptic-Do You Have a Solution?

"Now in a class of twenty five, I have ten that are not vaccinated."
"I worry about my friends who think that using these remedies will treat them."
"How do we get people to stop believing in woo?"
"She is my hero."
"I get extra credit for being here."
"I wanted to meet like-minded people."
"My family does not know I am skeptical of religion."
"Now they are saying that vaccines have parts of aborted fetuses in them."

In the hallway between talks; in the seats while waiting for a speaker to get started; and during the question and answer section of a presentation, a careful observer could see what conventioneers were hoping to get out of SkeptiCal 2012: satisfying and practical solutions. For many, advice was needed to address pressing and frustrating concerns. Others' reasons were as personal as meeting a hero or getting a better grade. The specific issues that brought conventioneers to SkeptiCal were nearly as diverse and numerous as the convention-goers themselves; yet almost every question and conversation could be whittled down to "I have a problem. Do you have a solution?"

During Anders's talk, often exasperated and obviously extremely concerned people who feared the consequences of not finding a solution posed questions to her. A teacher from California's Central Valley—a generally poorer and more conservative area in California—explained the changes in her classroom to the group during the question and answer portion of Anders's talk.

"Ten years ago, I only had one child who was not vaccinated in my class. They were a Christian Scientist or something. Now in a class of twenty five, I have ten that are not vaccinated."

The teacher went on to explain that her friends and the parents of her students alike flood her inbox with e-mails that contain pseudo-scientific and fear-mongering information about vaccines. She reported that these concerns keep changing: first, parents were concerned that their children would develop autism due to mercury poisoning from thimerosal; then they were worried that their children were receiving too many medications at once; then the fear was of toxins; and now a rumor that vaccinations are made of parts of aborted fetuses is frightening a new population of poor religious conservatives into refusing to vaccinate their children.

Even after sitting down with parents and explaining vaccines, this teacher could not persuade them to vaccinate their children. Several disappointing attempts to set them straight failed and she did not know how to effectively convey the safety of vaccines to them.

Anders replied, "We can say the Lancet retracted the 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield that showed a connection between vaccines and autism. They don't care about that. When I went to get my child vaccinated, I had a moment of terror and thought-what if I'm wrong? And I know better."

Audience members chimed in with advice on how to send information to the worried parents, ideas on how to combat the parents' emotional concerns, along with words of support. Helpful websites—including http://www.hugmeimvaccinated.org—were also discussed.

Sheldon Helms, psychology professor at Ohlone College, Bay Area Skeptics Board Member, and SkeptiCal 2012 event planner, wanted to inspire his students to attend science and psychology talks they might not see elsewhere. (One of his many hats is adviser to Ohlone's psychology club.)

"The majority of my students who came to SkeptiCal were members of the Ohlone College Psychology Club," said Helms. "They were very excited about the fact that the conference had so many topics related to psychology and social science in general, and voted to use club funds to pay for their registration as a field trip. I offered my other students extra credit to encourage them to attend, and many did so. I would estimate that about thirty of my students attended, and at least seventeen of those were Psychology Club members."

In a follow up e-mail about the conference, Helms explained the impact the conference had on his students: "I have no doubt that my students benefited from being at SkeptiCal. … After returning to my classes, my students who attended were abuzz with excitement about the speakers they heard, the people they met, and the camaraderie they felt being there."

It probably comes as no surprise that after a desire to learn something new, fellowship and camaraderie may be the single most sought-after aspect of SkeptiCal 2012. Being a skeptic can be lonely and isolating; outside of online communities, it can be hard to find a supportive ear. Skepticism often puts the skeptic at odds with the harmful yet deeply-held personally-identifying beliefs (e.g., I am a healer because I do reiki) of otherwise decent people. Many skeptics feel an obligation to engage woo because of its potential harms. Even those who do not actively engage it may find their personal value of rational thought or admiration of science attacked, dismissed, or devalued, even by their families.

Numerous people who were interviewed refused to give their names out of fear that their loved ones would find out they are skeptical. Some had family members and friends who celebrated woo, while others who had become extremely skeptical of religion feared being disowned if their skepticism became public knowledge. Some expressed a frustration at finding a skeptical or skeptic-friendly romantic partner.

In his talk, Brian Thompson asked the crowd why they were in a group or why their skeptical groups started. The overwhelming answer was that people were lonely and wanted to find like-minded people. Thompson summarized their answers: loneliness.

A perceived failure to live up to a duty to protect, a feeling of inadequate persuasive arsenal to attack these ideas effectively (how do we convince people to stop believing in woo), fear, and isolation create a frustrated, marginalized, and often lonely population needing to connect with others of a like mind for emotional recharging and idea exchange.It is no surprise that so many conversations at the conference revolved around meeting other skeptics, having a friendly ear to bounce ideas off of, and trying to develop ideas with people supportive of and familiar with the scientific thought process.

Eddie Scott Horsfall performed skeptic-inspired songs during the lunch break for the crowd, but his reason for coming was not solely musical. "I want a sense of community, and to be around like-minded people."

Horsfall was seeking other people who shared the sentiment that "The universe we live in is explainable and understandable through science and that's awesome!"

Similarly, Helms wanted to show his students a community of people who value critical thought:

...the impetus for encouraging them to attend was to expose them to information about psychology, other sciences, and critical thinking in general. Equally important, however, was that they do this in an atmosphere where they would be surrounded by like-minded people who are also interested in those topics. We live in a world that openly discourages critical thinking and that, all too often, disparages those who seek an education. One of the best antidotes to that negativity is to gather together with others who think like you do, and whose behavior sends the message that it's not only okay to be interested in science, but actually cool.

We might take away from SkeptiCal 2012 that in order to persuade people to re-examine their beliefs, it is necessary to tell a story that illustrates the facts without confusing the audience with comparisons to untruths—in other words, stories that convey realities without explicitly outlining them. Once minds turn to skepticism and are convinced of their mistakes in method of thought or belief, their irrational needs do not evaporate. Open skepticism is often adversarial and heated; its products bounce off of closed minds more often than they seep into open ones. Skeptics may grow thicker skins, use more energy in thought, and seek truth before good feeling, but skepticism is not immunity to feeling the sting of failure, the pain of rejection, and or the burden of worry. Skeptics, just like everyone else, need support, camaraderie, and acceptance.

The answer may be to follow Brian Thompson's advice to be sneakily nice—most of the time.

Links

SkeptiCal 2012: http://www.skepticalcon.org/

Sarah Strand: http://sites.google.com/site/strandpsychology/about-me

Jay Diamond: https://twitter.com/#!/jaydiamond

Reason4Reason: http://reason4reason.org/

10:23 Campaign: http://www.1023.org.uk/

Pauley Perrette: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauley_Perrette

Chip Coffey: http://www.chipcoffey.com/

Alex Zwissler: https://twitter.com/#!/alexzwissler

Chabot Space and Science Center: http://www.chabotspace.org/index.htm

Indre Viskontas: http://www.indreviskontas.com/

Alison Gopnik: http://www.alisongopnik.com/

This Week in Science Live Podcast: http://www.twis.org/

Brian Thompson: http://www.amateurscientist.org/

Sheldon Helms: http://www.ohlone.edu/people/shelms/

“Help”

Musick’s narrative, titled “Help,” relates how “Doctor Anderson” was awakened by a knock at the door “just past midnight.” He found on his doorstep a girl of twelve or thirteen who was dressed in a blue coat and carrying a white muff. She implored him to hurry to “the old Hostler place,” where her mother was desperately ill, and then she darted down the road. Anderson picked up his doctor’s bag, quickly saddled his horse, and hurried on his way until “he saw the glow of a lamp in the old Hostler house.”

Finding a bedridden woman inside, the physician put wood on the dying fire and set to work to treat her fever. When she had rallied, he told her how fortunate she was that her daughter had fetched him. “But I have no daughter,” the woman whispered. “My daughter has been dead for three years.” Anderson described to her how the girl had been dressed; the woman admitted that her daughter had had such clothing and indicated where the items were hanging.

Thereupon, relates the narrative’s final paragraph, “Doctor Anderson strode over to the closet, opened the door, and took out a blue coat and white muff. His hands trembled when he felt the coat and muff and found them still warm and damp from perspiration.”

How do we explain such an event? Well, first we remember to apply an old skeptic’s dictum: before attempting to explain something, make sure it really happened.

Another Version

As it turns out, a book by Billy Graham contains a remarkably similar story (1975, 2–3), wherein the implication is that the little girl in the tale is not a ghost but rather an angel:

Dr. S.W. Mitchell, a celebrated Philadelphia neurologist, had gone to bed after an exceptionally tiring day. Suddenly he was awakened by someone knocking on his door. Opening it he found a little girl, poorly dressed and deeply upset. She told him her mother was very sick and asked him if he would please come with her. It was a bitterly cold, snowy night, but though he was bone tired, Dr. Mitchell dressed and followed the girl. . . .

As Reader’s Digest reports the story, he found the mother desperately ill with pneumonia. After arranging for medical care, he complimented the sick woman on the intelligence and persistence of her little daughter. The woman looked at him strangely and said, “My daughter died a month ago.” She added, “Her shoes and coat are in the clothes closet there.” Dr. Mitchell, amazed and perplexed, went to the closet and opened the door. There hung the very coat worn by the little girl who had brought him to tend her mother. It was warm and dry and could not possibly have been out in the wintry night. . . .

Could the doctor have been called in the hour of desperate need by an angel who appeared as this woman’s young daughter? Was this the work of God’s angels on behalf of the sick woman?

Graham provides no documentation beyond the vague reference to Reader’s Digest, which in any event is hardly a scholarly source. In fact, I soon discovered that the tale is an old one, circulated in various forms with conflicting details. For example, as “The Girl in the Snow,” it appears in Margaret Ronan’s anthology of Strange Unsolved Mysteries. While Graham’s version is of implied recent vintage, that by Ronan is set on a “December day in 1880.” Whereas Graham states that the doctor was “awakened by someone knocking on his door,” Ronan tells us “the doorbell downstairs was ringing violently.” Absent from the Graham version is the suggestion that the little girl was a ghost, not an angel; for example, Ronan says the child looked “almost wraithlike in the whirling snow,” and that “at times she seemed to vanish into the storm. . . .” In Graham’s account, the doctor is credited with simply “arranging for medical care,” while Ronan insists Mitchell “set about at once to do what he could for her” and “by morning he felt that at last she was out of danger.” Although both versions preserve the essential element that the woman’s little girl had died a month before, Graham’s version quotes the mother as saying, “Her shoes and coat are in the clothes closet there,” while Ronan’s has her stating, “All I have left to remember her by are those clothes hanging on that peg over there.” Indeed the latter account does not describe a coat and shoes but states: “Hanging from the peg was the thin dress he had seen the child wearing, and the ragged shawl” (Ronan 1974, 99–101).

S. Weir Mitchell

Variant Tales

There are many other versions—or “variants” as folklorists say—of the proliferating tale. Of the five others I discovered, all feature the physician S. Weir Mitchell, but only two suggest the time period. Unlike the Graham (1975) and Ronan (1974) versions, which have the garments in a “clothes closet” and hanging from a peg, respectively, four of the other five variant tales say the clothes are in a “cupboard”; one has them in a “shabby chiffonier” (Edwards 1961, 52). There are differences in the clothes: Colby (1959) lists a “little dress” and “tattered shawl”; Edwards (1961) a “heavy dress,” “hightop shoes,” and “gray shawl” with a “blue glass pin”; Hurwood (1967) “all the clothes the child had worn when he saw her earlier”; Tyler (1970) that exact same wording; and Strange Stories (1976) “her shoes and [folded] shawl.”

No doubt there are still other versions of the story. Variants are a “defining characteristic of folklore,” according to distinguished folklorist Jan H. Brunvand (1978, 7), since oral transmission naturally produces differing versions of the same story. In this case, however, Brunvand notes that many of the variants are explained by writers copying others (Tyler from Hurwood, for instance) but adding details and making other changes for literary purposes (Brunvand 2000, 132). In any case, Brunvand (1981, 21) observes that when there is no certain original, the multiple versions of a tale provide “good evidence against credibility.” But was there an identifiable original of the Mitchell story?

Brunvand (2000, 123–36) followed up on the tale (with some assistance from me). Eventually he turned up a couple of versions that supposedly came from Mitchell himself. One was published in 1950 by R.W.G. Vail, then-director of the New York Historical Society:

One day in February, 1949, Dr. Philip Cook of Worcester, Mass., while on a visit to New York City, told me this story which he had heard the famous doctor and writer S. Weir Mitchell tell at a medical meeting years ago. (Dr. Mitchell died in 1914).

“I was sitting in my office late one night when I heard a knock and, going to the door, found a little girl crying, who asked me to go at once to her home to visit a very sick patient. I told her that I was practically retired and never made evening calls, but she seemed to be in such great distress that I agreed to make the call and so wrote down the name and address she gave me. So I got my bag, hat, and coat and returned to the door, but the little girl was gone. However, I had the address and so went on and made the call. When I got there, a woman came to the door in tears. I asked if there was a patient needing attention. She said that there had been—her little daughter—but that she had just died. She then invited me in. I saw the patient lying dead in her bed, and it was the little girl who had called at my office.”

Brunvand (2000, 123–36) also turned up an interesting letter from the Mitchell papers. Dated November 2, 1909, it had been written to Mitchell by physician Noel Smith of Dover, New Hampshire. It read:

S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.

My dear Doctor:—

Please pardon my intrusion upon your valuable time, but—as I should like the truthfulness, or otherwise, of what follows established, I have taken the liberty of addressing you.

A travelling man, a stranger, accosted me a few days since at one of our principal hotels, knowing that I was a physician, asking me if I believe in the supernatural, communications with the spirits of departed friends, etc.—I assured him that I had never experienced any personal observations or manifestations that would lead me to any such belief. He then related to me the following story, vouching for its authenticity.—He was a member of some organization, I think, in N.Y., and they had lectures now and then upon various topics. One evening it was announced that prominent men were present who would in turn relate their most wonderful experiences. You was [sic] the first called upon, and you stated that you could tell your most wonderful personal experience in a few words. You went on to say that you were engaged in writing late one evening in your library when somebody knocked three times upon the library door. This was thought to be very strange, as electric bells were in use. Upon opening the door, a little girl, about 12 years of age stood there, having a red cloak for an outer garment. She asked if you were Dr. Mitchell, and wished you to go at once to visit her mother professionally, as she was very ill. You informed her that you had given up general practice, but that Dr. Bennett lived diagonally across the street, and that you would direct her to his door, which you did. In a few moments the raps upon your door were repeated, and you found the girl there a second time. She could not obtain Dr. Bennett’s services, and urged you to accompany her home; and you did so. She conducted you to a poor section of the city and up a rickety flight of stairs into a tenement house. She ushered you into a room where her mother lay ill upon a bed. You prescribed for the sick lady, giving her some general directions for future guide, and assured her that it was only at the very urgent and persistent efforts of her daughter that you were prevailed upon to come to her. The woman said that that was strange: that she had no daughter—that her only daughter had just died and her body reposed in a casket in the adjoining room. You then looked into this room & viewed the remains of a girl about 12 years of age, while hanging upon the wall was a red cloak.

I am curious to know, doctor, whether you ever had any such experience, or any approach thereto. Hence these words. Let me say right here that Mrs. Smith & myself enjoyed very much the reading together the “Red City” when running in the Century Magazine.

Thanking you in advance for your reply to this inquiry. I am

Yours Sincerely

Noel Smith

The Revelation

Mitchell wrote the following at the top of Smith’s letter in his own handwriting: “One of many about an early [illegible] ghosttale of [mine?]”—a seemingly tacit admission that the ghost narrative was pure fiction.

Indeed, Mitchell must surely be alluding to this very matter when, in his novel Characteristics ([1891] 1909, 208–209), the protagonist, North, observes:

It is dangerous to tell a ghost-story nowadays. . . . A friend of mine once told one in print out of his wicked head, just for the fun of it. It was about a little dead child who rang up a doctor one night, and took him to see her dying mother. Since then he has been the prey of collectors of such marvels. Psychical societies write to him; anxious believers and disbelievers in the supernatural assail him with letters. He has written some fifty to lay this ghost. How could he predict a day when he would be taken seriously?

So there we have it: Mitchell’s oblique confession that he had simply conjured up a ghost tale, filled it with literary verisimilitude (semblance of truth), and sent it forth. Later, as Brunvand (2000, 129) notes, Mitchell was “chagrined to find the public believing that he was presenting the story as the literal truth.” Mitchell—like the Fox Sisters whose phony spirit communications spawned the modern spiritualist movement (Nickell 2007, 39)—discovered that the genie could not be put back into the bottle.

References

Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1978. The Study of American Folklore. New York: W.W. Norton.

———. 1981. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W.W. Norton.

———. 2000. The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story! Chicago: University of Illinois.

Colby, C.B. 1959. Strangely Enough (abridged). New York: Scholastic Book Services.

Edwards, Frank. 1961. Strange People. New York: Signet.

Graham, Billy. 1975. Angels: God’s Secret Agents. Garden City, New York: Doubleday.

Hurwood, Bernhardt J. 1967. Strange Talents. New York: Ace Books.

Mitchell, S. Weir. (1891) 1909. Characteristics. New York: Century.

Musick, Ruth Ann. 1965. The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.

Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.

———. 2007. Adventures in Paranormal Investigation. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky.

Ronan, Margaret. 1974. Strange Unsolved Mysteries. New York: Scholastic Book Services.

Strange Stories, Amazing Facts. 1976. Pleasantville, New York: The Reader’s Digest Association.

Tyler, Steven. 1970. ESP and Psychic Power. New York: Tower Publications.

The End of Discovery. By Russell Stannard. Oxford University Press, New York, 2010. ISBN: 978-0199585243. 224 pp. Hardcover, $24.95.

In 1844, the idea that we would ever be able to discover what distant stars are made of was so unthinkable that philosopher Auguste Comte cited it as an archetypal example of an unsolvable question. He was wrong. A mere three years after Comte’s death, scientists figured out how to read a star’s light spectrum to determine its chemical composition: each dark line in the spectrum represents light that was absorbed by a particular kind of atom or molecule.

It’s easy to look like a fool to future generations when one makes predictions, especially predictions about what will “never” happen. But even if we can’t speak with 100 percent certainty, are there any questions that at least seem to have a higher-than-usual chance of remaining unsolved forever? Particle physicist Russell Stannard thinks so. In The End of Discovery, he lists the scientific questions he fears may prove unanswerable and explains why each made the list. The questions are mostly from physics and cosmology, and they include some of the most fundamental issues about the nature of the universe. What happened before the big bang? Is there other intelligent life in the universe? What is space? Why are the laws of physics the way they are?

It’s not always clear why all of the book’s “potentially unsolvable” questions deserve that label any more than other problems that once baffled scientists. Take Stannard’s example of dark matter. Scientists believe it exists, despite never having observed it directly, because they have discovered gravitational forces that can’t be explained by the observable matter in the universe. It’s true that, as Stannard explains, we don’t yet have any idea what dark matter actually is. But there also don’t seem to be any obvious obstacles in the way of us solving that problem. So it’s not clear why we should consider ourselves to be in a more hopeless situation with respect to dark matter than earlier scientists were with respect to, say, the nature of light.

But for many of the questions Stannard raises, there are real obstacles to finding a solution. These fall roughly into one of two categories: obstacles to getting the evidence we need and obstacles to understanding the evidence we have. The former is a particular problem for investigations of the early universe, which is clouded by a “radiation fog” because its conditions were too hot for atoms to form. And some of the leading theories explaining quantum mechanics posit the existence of other, inaccessible universes. What hope do we have of testing those theories empirically?

Even if the evidence is “out there” and could be gathered in principle, it may be impossible to gather it in practice. Every time physicists have succeeded in smashing particles together at a significantly higher energy level—for example, by building bigger particle colliders—we have reaped new discoveries. But there are practical limits to the size of collider we can build, and some of our most promising theories may not be testable within those limits. For example, our equations predict that gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the weak and strong nuclear forces would all converge to the same strength at an energy level of approximately 10¹⁵ billion electron volts, revealing themselves as manifestations of a single force. Yet even the largest particle collider ever built, the Large Hadron Collider, can’t reach much higher than 10⁴ billion electron volts. That’s no guarantee that we won’t hit upon an alternate technological strategy someday, but neither can we assume that every technological challenge will be surmountable just because we want it to be. As Stannard rhetorically asks, “Why should all the indispensible experimental data for formulating a final complete theory happen to match what we humans are able to achieve in practical and economic terms?”

But our own brains may prove our biggest handicap in the quest for scientific understanding. As the biologist J.B.S. Haldane said, the universe might be “not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” If a monkey can’t be made to understand calculus, isn’t it plausible that there might be features of the universe, or mathematics necessary to understand those features, that are as far beyond our ken as calculus is beyond a monkey’s? We’re not at that point yet, but even today the math involved in string theory is a challenge for even the brightest scientists.

Technology could amend the situation to some degree, though Stannard doesn’t discuss that possibility in the book. Computers have already enabled us to perform calculations that are many orders of magnitude too complicated for us to do by hand. And artificial intelligence algorithms can pick up on patterns that are too subtle for a human brain to detect, involving interactions between hundreds or thousands of different variables. There’s even a recent example of a computer algorithm uncovering a law of motion.

However, while technology may be able to help us calculate answers, it’s unlikely to be able to help us understand them. Our brains didn’t evolve to help us understand quantum mechanics; they evolved to help our ancestors survive in the environment in which they happened to live. So, because it was useful to our ancestors, we developed an intuitive grasp of the physics of our day-to-day lives, such as the fact that a dropped object falls to the ground and that solid objects can’t pass through each other. But those generalities are true only for beings of roughly our size that inhabit worlds roughly like ours. If we had evolved in a much smaller world, perhaps we would be able to perceive that solid objects are mostly made up of empty space; if we had evolved to move much faster, perhaps we would have an intuitive grasp of the relativistic effects that warp time and space at high speeds. As it is, those scientific discoveries are hard to wrap our minds around.

And many of the scientific mysteries in The End of Discovery suffer from this problem. Even if we are able to figure out what is the case, we can’t understand how it can be the case. What does it mean for time to “begin” at the big bang? How is it possible for something to be both a wave and a particle simultaneously? Our concepts start to break down when we venture too far from the world we’re used to. One response to this conceptual impasse is to take an instrumentalist approach to science, focusing simply on finding theories that make accurate empirical predictions without trying to interpret them in a way that makes sense to us. This approach, which many physicists take with quantum mechanics, is summed up in the slogan “Shut up and calculate!” Unsatisfying, perhaps, but for some problems we may not have other options.

Stannard reassures us that he’s not anti-science and would be delighted if it turns out that all of these scientific mysteries are solvable after all. Nevertheless, there is something odd about his stated motivations for writing The End of Discovery: “[This book] is to be seen as a call to exercise a measure of humility,” he says in the introduction. “The claim is made that science is the only route to knowledge, and that ultimately it will bring us a complete understanding of everything.” Wait a minute—it’s one thing to say that science may not be able to give us all the knowledge we want about the universe, but it’s another thing altogether to suggest that there are other routes to that knowledge. Stannard doesn’t elaborate on what those other routes are, and it wouldn’t be fair to put words in his mouth. But it’s at the very least an unfortunate choice of phrasing, because it echoes a common but fallacious argument for theism: science doesn’t have answers for everything, therefore we need religion to give us answers.

Stannard also undercuts his pro-science protestations when he explains that in addition to promoting an appreciation for science’s achievements, his book is also intended to “engender an even greater sense of awe when faced with the mystery of existence.” Romanticizing the unknown has been a human tendency throughout our history, but it isn’t exactly a helpful one if we want to reduce the size of that unknown. Stannard may be right that there are mysteries about our universe that we’ll never solve. But whatever mysteries we do manage to solve, it won’t be thanks to us remaining in awe of them.

Here are some typical “facts”:

• Bigfoot has been spotted all over the world, often in wooded and mountainous areas.
• Bigfoot is an omnivore, eating plants, nuts, berries, fish, deer, and other animals.
• Bigfoot is shy. He just likes to be around others of his own kind but not around people.
• Since Bigfoot doesn’t want to be noticed or photographed, he is hard to spot and difficult to capture on film.
• He is curious, aware of people, and can stealthily avoid them.
• Bigfoots talk to each other by making loud howls across long distances or by wood knocking.
• Bigfoot throws rocks at people to scare them away. He isn't mean, just territorial.

How do they know these things? I asked the site owner. My comment got rejected and my question was never answered. Did I cross a line? I just wanted a reference. Apparently, that was too much to ask.

Self-styled Bigfoot researchers make claims that suggest they know more about Bigfoot than Bigfoot might know about himself. They can tell me what Bigfoot likes and doesn’t like, where he sleeps at night, how he avoids detection, and how he communicates. They tell the public that Bigfoot makes those sounds they hear at night. They find locations where a Bigfoot passed through or slept or built a shelter. These researchers even know about Bigfoots’ “culture”—what they do with their dead relatives, how they can fool humans. But apparently they don't know enough to catch one.

Fact? You Keep Using that Word But I Don’t Think It Means What You Think It Means

Perhaps there is confusion over what exactly is meant by “fact.” That word doesn't have a hard and fast definition, but rather one that is based on how the statement is verified—from universal on the left end to personal verification on the right. A scientific fact is at the extreme left end. It is incontrovertible, verifiable to anyone who wants to check it. Facts are the building blocks of theories that describe how nature works.

A more everyday usage of the term “fact” is in the middle: a statement that can be confirmed to the point where the consensus will be that it is true, it really occurred, or it is certainly the case. That infers that there was some process undertaken to establish some basis for what is stated. We accept a lot of things as facts not because we have personally verified them but because others probably have and/or because it is reasonable to accept those facts as true.

On the extreme right side is a fact based on personal verification. “Fact” is used as a label for a statement that a person very much wants to believe or believes to be true. It's a fact in that person’s mind because he or she has accepted it completely: “I know this is true. I’ve seen it.” You probably won't be able to sway that person’s belief with any counter facts of your own. Religious facts are in this category.

Squatchy Facts from the Bigfoot Experts

Matt Moneymaker (of the Bigfoot Field Research Organization [BFRO] and Finding Bigfoot TV show) and I once got into a comical yet revealing Twitter exchange regarding his statement of facts. The exchange began when he posted these statements (that I interpreted as a matters-of-fact on his part):

MattMoneymaker1: Only 2 threats to human safety: Some throw rocks & some vehicle collisions with deer at night are caused by bigfoots November 17, 2011

In response to another user, he continued:

MattMoneymaker1: … IN SOME PLACES they spook deer to run into traffic at night, then pick up the roadkill afterward. Makes hunting easier. November 17, 2011

Here I go again:

DoubtfulNews: How do you know? December 3, 2011

MattMoneymaker1: @DoubtfulNews You will come understand how I know, albeit gradually. December 3, 2011

Ah, so the truth will be revealed to me. Revelation is a way of knowing different than science. It’s one I don’t use too much since it’s historically unreliable. But cryptozoologists (who study Bigfoot and other mystery creatures) and paranormalists seem to like it. It provides great flexibility in “knowing.”

Here are more claims from Matt on Twitter:

What do you mean "we" can't find their droppings? Do you look for them? BFRO members have found BF droppings many times. February 17, 2012

...Squatch todlers swing through trees like gibbons. Squatches r lk apes in many was. They r vry smart but very...[shy] July 5, 2011

Definitely some squatches in Indiana. Check out damned [sic] rivers near Huntington and Mt. Etna. Look 4 combo of deer and catfish. July 12, 2011

Hey #Rutland #Vermont ppl, u got a family of squatches living n Bird Mt WMA. We heard them knocking in there a few nights ago. Awesome place Apr 17, 2012

Squatches r using powerline cut between Jehova's Witness Hall outside Whitehall & north flank of Bird Mt. That is the route from Adirondacks Apr 17, 2012

Want to catch a Squatch? Here are some curious suggestions I bet you haven't heard before:

MattMoneymaker1: Got a howling BF near your home/cabin at night? Step outside w/ a pumpkin or watermelon during howling. Walk toward sounds, set it on a log. April 10, 2012

MattMoneymaker1: Whistle or sing as you carry the pumpkin or watermelon. Set it on a log somewhere dark and out of view of your home/cabin. Walk back inside. April 10, 2012

And then what happens? Despite looking a bit strange, I'd bet lots of people have tried this on Matt’s advice, yet we have no Bigfoot to show for it. Is it a fact that Bigfoot likes singing, squashes, and melons? I'm just bursting with questions about this.

Matt is always churning out such surprisingly specific details about Sasquatch. I refrain from asking each time “How do you know?” I suspect he is already annoyed with me and it’s tough to carry on an in-depth conversation in 140 characters or less. Conveniently, someone else asked and Matt tells the public he can prove it.

In a response to the question “How can you say that it is a well-known fact that BigFoot likes to throw rocks when you can't prove he's real?” (July 8, 2011) Matt replies:

MattMoneymaker1: We can prove "they" are real 2 anyone who wants 2 go into 1 of their cribs at night with us. We're not trying to catch one July 8, 2011

Plenty of people take him up on this offer. The BFRO runs sold-out camping expeditions into “squatchy” (Sasquatch-friendly) places. I don’t know how many people would say they found proof of Bigfoot on these trips but I haven’t seen any proof emerge. I get the impression that if you think Bigfoot is out there, everything is evidence of his presence. And the evidence is, again, of a personal nature.

Maybe all those things they say about Bigfoot are true (even though some are contradictory). But they aren't yet verified facts. We cannot verify Matt's facts because no one has documented conclusively that a Bigfoot/Sasquatch really exists nor has there been produced an actual body or body part for study or incontrovertible photo documentation. Bigfoot researchers have created a natural history of Bigfoot and pass it off to the public looking like a fact when it’s really a personal belief kind of fact, derived from personal observations or eyewitness reports.

Entire arrays of cryptids (mystery animals) are classified based on eyewitness descriptions from stories with no other corroborating evidence to support them. Examples of this speculative taxonomy are in so-called Field Guides or Handbooks to *insert any mystery thing here*. Such guides exist for lake monsters and sea serpents, Bigfoot and similar upright hairy man-like things, monsters (werewolves and the like), ghosts, vampires, little people (fairies and such), and all sorts of paranormal beings. They describe a wide range of creatures and their behaviors with (what looks to the reader like) facts. Most people are skeptical enough to view this literature as mostly entertainment but there actually are people that believe anything can exist, even magical creatures of folklore.

It's fine to speculate but when the whole premise of your field relies predominantly on anecdote-fueled interpretations, you are on thin ice making claims that there all these new animals are out there for us to find. Centuries ago, people knew facts about witches and demons, their behaviors, and reality. Historical natural history books had vivid descriptions of monstrous creatures. Here is one for the basilisk:

…he is king of serpents, and they be afraid, and flee when they see him. For he slayeth them with his smell and with his breath: and slayeth also anything that hath life with breath and with sight. In his sight no fowl nor bird passeth harmless, and though he be far from the fowl, yet it is burned and devoured by his mouth.

We never found anything that quite fit that description.

A Purpose Behind Manufacturing Facts

Any fact can be pulled out of the air when you are an expert in a field unconstrained by limits or rules, as is cryptozoology. Coming up with your own facts works well in the media and on TV shows because you can easily sound like you know what you are talking about. Most of the audience doesn't check your facts. These facts are repeated, catch on, and become public knowledge. This type of expert-looking testimony occurs not only on monster hunting shows but also on programming about UFO mysteries and especially on ghost hunting shows. Facts just spring up, fully formed, from imaginative speculation.

I have my own suspicion for why such manufacturing is so common today. It stems from the strong beliefs held by Bigfoot researchers and their need to justify their continued work and intellectual investment in their subject. Researchers get frustrated that not even one of these creatures can be found to unquestionably show the public they are real. They have to deliver to the public something to keep Bigfoot alive in their minds. The quest to find Bigfoot has gone on for so long that all the stories and hypotheses have woven themselves into an imagined biological sketch of Bigfoot. Researchers fit the debatable evidence they find into that framework and use it as inspiration to sustain and enhance belief about Bigfoot-like creatures.

Science isn’t such a house of cards. It’s built upon concepts we’ve already established to be true. Thinking that something ought to be one way is very different from something actually being that way. This important distinction is lost on wishful mystery hunters. Wishful thinking prevents them from seeking real world explanations for things like creature sightings, hauntings, and UFOs.

I often see comments that such TV shows are so silly, they should be labeled as comedy, that no one could believe they reflect reality. Skeptics often take a hard line against even the possibility of cryptids and see those handbooks and guides as fun entertainment. But consider this: many people around the world have formed paranormal investigation teams in response to ghost hunting shows on TV and people all around the U.S. have formed Bigfoot search groups. Do not underestimate the public buy-in to these activities. The more popular the topic becomes, the easier it is for people to accept.

Sure, Finding Bigfoot is clearly not a scientific expedition; it’s a TV show. Matt Moneymaker’s BFRO, however, labels itself “The only scientific research organization exploring the Bigfoot/Sasquatch mystery.” Matt himself is considered an authority (Note: he is trained in law, not science). Is this what people see as “scientific” enough to emulate? Indeed they do. And they buy those “facts” they are sold.

Comments on this story can be emailed to the author at shill@centerforinquiry.net

"DNA science apparently settles the biological question of who these ancient, advanced Hopewell mound builders were. But where else is this DNA found? And where did it originate?"—The Lost Civilizations of North America

In Part One of our series on diffusionist perspectives espoused in the Lost Civilizations of North America documentary (SI, September/October 2011), we discussed allegations made in the documentary that the true history of ancient North America has been hidden, perhaps intentionally, by mainstream scientists and historians (Feder et al. 2011). In Part Two (November/December 2011), we addressed claims made by diffusionists in general and in the documentary in particular concerning the discovery of artifacts with written inscriptions presented in support of that alternative history (Lepper et al. 2011). Here, in Part 3, we will address the interpretation proffered by some of those interviewed in the documentary that DNA studies prove a direct biological and historical connection between the mound builders of the American Midwest and the ancient inhabitants of the Middle East.

Lost Civilizations: Genetic Evidence

DNA studies have helped to address important questions about the biological makeup of Hopewell mound builder populations and where their ancestors came from, but the genetic data do not provide any evidence for a direct link between the Hopewell and Israelite populations of the Middle East, as some interviewees in Lost Civilizations claim. To date, DNA has been extracted from the remains of seventy-three individuals buried at two sites exhibiting Hopewell archaeological features (the pete Klunk mound group in Illinois and the Hopewell mound group in Ohio). Maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was analyzed, and it shows that the genetic makeup of these populations was broadly similar to other ancient and contemporary Native American populations from eastern North America (Mills 2003; Bolnick and Smith 2007) (Figure 1). When the Hopewell population (as well as other Native Americans) is compared with Old World populations, they are most genetically similar to populations in Asia. The scientific consensus, based on more than 150 studies of Native American genetic variation, suggests that all Native Americans are descended from a single source population that originated in Asia and migrated to the Americas via Beringia (Figure 2) approximately fourteen thousand to twenty thousand years ago (Kemp and Schurr 2010). This consensus reflects not only the observed patterns of mtDNA variation but also studies of paternally inherited Y-chromosome markers and biparentally inherited autosomal markers.

Figure 1. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup frequencies for Native American populations from eastern North America and the Galilee Druze. Note the level of consistency in the distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups among Native Americans. The distribution of haplogroups in a Galilee Druze population is quite different.

While the Lost Civilizations video does mention this "mainstream" perspective, it emphasizes a different interpretation of the Hopewell genetic data. Specifically, the video suggests that the presence of a mtDNA lineage known as "haplogroup X" in the Hopewell population is evidence of a pre-Columbian migration of Israelites to the Americas because haplogroup X originated in the "hills of Galilee" in Israel and began to disperse out of the Middle East approximately two thousand years ago. This argument is seriously flawed for four reasons.

First, while several genetic studies indicate that haplogroup X may have first evolved in the Near East (Brown et al. 1998; Reidla et al. 2003; Shlush et al. 2008), these studies do not suggest that it originated specifically in Israelite or other Hebrew-speaking populations. Haplogroup X is found throughout the Near East, western Eurasia, and northern Africa, and it is not unique to (nor especially common in) Israelite or Jewish populations (Reidla et al. 2003; Behar et al. 2004). Shlush et al. (2008) did find a higher frequency of haplogroup X in the Galilee Druze, a (non-Jewish) population isolate that practices a distinctive monotheistic religion, but the authors themselves point out that their nonrandom sampling strategy does not provide an accurate estimate of population haplogroup frequencies. Furthermore, Shlush et al. (2008) argue that the Galilee Druze represent a contemporary "refugium" for haplogroup X, not that haplogroup X must have originated in the hills of Galilee (as diffusionist Donald Yates claims in the video).

Figure 2. This map shows the configuration of the modern coastlines of northeast Asia and northwest North America, along with the maximum Late Pleistocene extent of the Bering Land Bridge. Its existence, between thirty-five thousand and eleven thousand years ago, provided a broad avenue across which human beings first entered the New World from the Old.

Second, and more important, the forms of haplogroup X found in the Galilee Druze (and elsewhere in the Near East) are not closely related to the particular form of haplogroup X found in Native Americans. All members of haplogroup X share some mutations, reflecting descent from a common maternal ancestor, but other mutations divide haplogroup X mtDNAs into various subdivisions (subhaplogroups) that diverged after the time of the shared maternal ancestor (Reidla et al. 2003). The Hopewell and other Native American populations exhibit sub-haplogroup X2a, which is different from the subhaplogroups present in the Galilee Druze (subhaplogroups X2*, X2b, X2e, X2f) or other Middle Eastern populations (Reidla et al. 2003; Shlush et al. 2008; Kemp and Schurr 2010). Because subhaplogroup X2a is not found in the Middle East and is not particularly closely related to the forms of haplogroup X that are found in that region, the haplogroup X data do not provide any evidence for a close biological relationship between Hopewell and Middle Eastern populations or any support for a direct migration from the Middle East to the Americas in pre-Columbian times.

Third, it is misleading and inappropriate to focus exclusively on haplogroup X and to ignore all other mtDNA lineages when considering the genetic origins of the Hopewell mound builders-especially since haplogroup X was found in only one of the seventy-three Hopewell individuals studied. As noted earlier, when all mtDNA haplogroups present in the Hopewell population (as well as other Native Americans) are considered, the genetic evidence clearly indicates an Asian origin. Furthermore, if there had been a pre-Columbian migration of Israelites to eastern North America, we would almost certainly see other common Middle Eastern lineages in the Hopewell and other Native American populations. We don't. None of the thirteen other mtDNA haplogroups found in the Galilee Druze is present in the Hopewell or other pre-Columbian Native Americans (see Figure 1). Nor do we see any of the common Druze or Middle Eastern Y-chromosome haplogroups in indigenous Americans. The genetic data therefore provide no evidence whatsoever for a migration of Israelites to eastern North America.

Finally, DNA studies do not suggest that haplogroup X began to disperse out of the Middle East only about 2,000 years ago, as diffusionist Rod Meldrum claims in the Lost Civilizations video. Meldrum argues that there is a scientific controversy over the rate of mtDNA mutation, and he suggests that (a) the most accurate mutation rate estimates come from human pedigree studies and (b) those mutation rates demonstrate that haplogroup X began to diversify and spread approximately two thousand years ago. However, the particular controversy that Meldrum cites is a decade old, concerns the mutation rate in only one small segment of mtDNA (the control region), and has generally been resolved. Pedigree studies measure the rate of mutation observed in parent-offspring comparisons, but many mutations are eliminated within a few generations of their occurrence because of natural selection, genetic drift, and recurrent mutation at some sites in the DNA. The measurable rate of mtDNA evolution therefore decreases over time (Soares et al. 2009), making it inappropriate to use mutation rate estimates from pedigree studies for dating the origin and diversification of most lineages (for example, any that originated more than a few generations ago). Instead, the mtDNA mutation rate is calculated by measuring the number of genetic differences between two or more individuals (or species) and then dividing that number by the length of time since they diverged from a common ancestor. The timing of their divergence is based on fossil, archaeological, and/or geological evidence, and it is not simply "theoretical" (as Meldrum suggests). Furthermore, Meldrum does not rely on newer findings to argue that haplogroup X began to diversify and spread only two thousand years ago, as he claims, but rather on an old and unusually fast estimate of the mtDNA mutation rate (Parsons et al. 1997). Virtually all pedigree studies have found significantly lower mutation rates (Howell et al. 2003) than the one Meldrum uses, which suggests that haplogroup X began diversifying much earlier than he claims. Studies of the complete mitochondrial genome (rather than just the control region), using less controversial mutation rates for the mtDNA coding region, also suggest that haplogroup X began to diversify much earlier (~31,800 years ago; Soares et al. 2009).

Conclusion

In the past, many scholars have pointed to a sometimes explicitly racist agenda behind the claims of diffusionists who argue that the glories of Native American civilizations were achieved only through borrowing from various Old World groups. The producers of the Lost Civilizations of North America and the diffusionists they feature in their documentary turn this argument on its head by suggesting that it is instead those “mainstream” scholars who are the real racists because they deny Native Americans their role in an already globalized world of the early centuries of the Common Era. However, the only support for this picture of Native American–Old World interactions two thousand years ago comes from resurrected frauds and distorted history. There is no credible archaeological or genetic evidence to suggest that any Old World peoples migrated to the Americas after the initial incursion from Siberia prior to the tentative forays of the Norse beginning at around 1000 CE other than limited contacts between Siberia and the American arctic.

References

Behar, Doron M., Michael F. Hammer, Daniel Garrigan, et al. 2004. Mtdna evidence for a genetic bottleneck in the early history of the Ashkenazi Jewish population. European Journal of Human Genetics 12: 355-64.

Bolnick, Deborah A., and David G. Smith. 2007. Migration and social structure among the Hopewell: Evidence from ancient DNA. American Antiquity 72: 627-44.

Brown, Michael D., Seyed H. Hosseini, Antonio Torroni, et al. 1998. MtDNA haplogroup X: an ancient link between Europe/Western Asia and North America? American Journal of Human Genetics 63:1852-61.

Feder, Kenneth, Bradley T. Lepper, Terry A. Barnhart, and Deborah A. Bolnick. 2011. Civilizations lost and found: Fabricating history, part one: An alternate reality. Skeptical Inquirer 35(5) (September/October): 38-45.

Howell, Neil, Christy Bogolin Smejkal, D.A. Mackey, et al. 2003. The pedigree rate of sequence divergence in the human mitochondrial genome: There is a difference between phylogenetic and pedigree rates. American Journal of Human Genetics 72: 659-70.

Kemp, Brian M., and Theodore G. Schurr. 2010. Ancient and modern genetic variation in the Americas. In Human Variation in the Americas. Benjamin M. Auerbach, editor. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 38: 12-50.

Lepper, Bradley T., Kenneth L. Feder, Terry A. Barnhart, and Deborah A. Bolnick. 2011. Civilizations lost and found: Fabricating history, part two: False messages in stone. Skeptical Inquirer 35(6) (November/December): 48-54.

Mills, Lisa. 2003. Mitochondrial DNA analysis of the Ohio Hopewell of the Hopewell Mound group. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

Parsons, Thomas J., David S. Muniec, Kevin Sullivan, et al. 1997. A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region. Nature Genetics 15: 363-68.

Reidla, Maere, Toomas Kivisild, Ene Metspalu, et al. 2003. Origin and diffusion of mtDNA haplogroup X. American Journal of Human Genetics 73: 1178-90.

Shlush, Liran I., Doron M. Behar, Guennady Yudkovsky, et al. 2008. The Druze: A population genetic refugium of the Near East. PLoS ONE 3(5): e2105.

Soares, Pedro, Luca Ermini, Noel Thomson, et al. 2009. Correcting for purifying selection: An improved human mitochondrial molecular clock. American Journal of Human Genetics 84: 740-59.

Disclaimer

We are well aware that a claim underlying the Lost Civilizations documentary—that the mound-building people of the American Midwest were migrants from the Middle East 2,000 years ago—may be informed by religious doctrine. It is our position in this paper, however, that whatever inspires this claim is not nearly as important as the fact that it is plainly wrong. As such, we will leave it to others to assess the role played, if any, by religion in shaping Lost Civilizations and focus instead on scientific evidence relevant to that claim.

In May 2009 a meteorite impact was reported just thirty miles south of Fort Worth, Texas, but the mysterious object was of a very unusual composition for a meteorite. Had an impact occurred, it would have caused widespread devastation-yet nothing of the sort happened.

From my perspective, the event started to unfold at 8:20 AM CDT on May 18, 2009, when I received a phone call from Sue Stevens, the senior media relations officer at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). I'm an associate professor of physics and currently director of the astronomy program at the same institution. Arlington, well known as a sports and university city, is located in the center of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Stevens told me that she received an urgent phone call from Richard Ray, a reporter from a Fox TV affiliate, about a truly extraordinary event: a meteorite impact that occurred overnight, just south of Fort Worth. Richard Ray wanted to give me a call within the next few minutes, and he wanted to meet me at the impact site later that day.

Of course, I agreed. The reporter explained to me that the meteoric impact occurred close to Texas State Highway 67 at a location thirty miles south of Fort Worth, very close to the county line between the Erath and Somer­vell counties in the proximity of Chalk Mountain. In fact, this place is located at the northern outskirts of the Texas Hill Country, a geographical region of Central Texas four times the size of Connecticut. The Texas Hill Country is known for its vast diversity in botany and wildlife. Geological features include limestone and granite. It is noteworthy that the greater area of the alleged meteoric impact site is known for mysteries such as UFO sightings near Stephenville (January 8, 2008) and the "Creation Evidence Museum" in Glen Rose. Some of the UFO sightings have meanwhile been attributed to night flights and flares dropped by US Air Force F-16s stationed at Fort Worth (see "The Stephen­ville Lights: What Actually Hap­pened," Skeptical Inquirer, January/February 2009).

Overall setting of the meteoric site. Credit: Steve Hudgeons, Texas Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) lead investigator; forwarded by Richard Ray, Fox TV.

Visiting the Impact Site

Due to my work schedule, I decided to meet the television reporter at noon at the site of the alleged meteorite impact. I was accompanied by Aurelian Balan, the astronomy laboratory supervisor at UTA. At the site of impact, we met Corky Underwood, who owned the property. we also met Arthur J. Ehl­mann, emeritus professor of geology at Texas Christian University (TCU), a leading expert in meteoric research, as well as the current curator of TCU's Oscar E. Monning Meteorite Gallery. There were a few other spectators as well.

The site of impact was quite amazing. The supposed meteorite was nearly round in shape and as big as a standard refrigerator. It was of a grayish-white color and did not show any signs of heat-related coating or disintegration.
It was sitting near the end of a trench, and as a secondary feature it was sitting on a crater about three times the diameter of the meteorite. The trench itself seemed to indicate that the meteorite was partially sliding on the ground before coming to a complete stop. Corky Under­wood also pointed to some trees in the background that had apparently been damaged by the in­coming "meteorite." "These trees were perfectly all right before the meteorite hit," he said. The tracks on the ground as well as the smashed trees pointed to an extremely inclined meteoric trajectory.

My colleague Arthur Ehlmann chipped off a piece of the meteorite with his pocket knife. "This is limestone," he explained. "This can't be from outer space." Limestone is a sedimentary rock, one of the three major rock groups that form Earth's crust. It is composed mostly of calcium and magnesium carbonates and is formed via deposition in water. Limestone isn't found in meteorites.

Meteorite and crater. Credit: Steve Hudgeons, Texas Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) lead investigator; forwarded by Richard Ray, Fox TV.

Meteorite Origins

Meteorites are natural objects originating in outer space that survive impact with Earth's surface. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids, the large counterparts of meteoroids. When they enter the atmosphere, impact pressure causes the body to heat up and emit light. Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories: stony meteorites are rocks, mainly composed of silicate minerals; iron meteorites are largely composed of metallic iron-nickel; and stony-iron meteorites contain large amounts of both metallic and rocky material. Stony meteorites are by far the most abundant. Modern classification schemes divide meteorites into groups according to their structure, chemical and isotopic composition, and mineralogy.

Most meteoroids disintegrate significantly when entering Earth's at­mos­phere. If they hit the ground, the objects are known to arrive at their terminal velocity and typically create craters about ten times their size. Explosions, detonations, and rumblings are often heard during meteorite falls, which can be caused by sonic booms as well as shock waves resulting from major fragmentation events. These sounds can be heard over wide areas, up to many thousands of square miles. As meteoroids are heated during atmospheric entry, their surfaces melt and experience ablation. They can be sculpted into various shapes during this process. Obviously, all these features are in stark contrast to those of the meteorite encountered at Chalk Mountain.

The Meteorite in the News

The Chalk Mountain meteorite re­ceived significant news coverage, in­cluding from Fox TV. Although the Fox TV clip, which aired on the evening of May 18, 2009, was clearly skewed toward sensationalism, it was still technically correct because it stated that the so-called meteorite finding poses an unsolved mystery because its origin is still unknown. I also gave an interview to Whitney White-Ashley from a small local newspaper located at Glen Rose, the seat of Somer­vell County. Angelia Joiner later published an online article about the meteorite that tried to create the impression that there is chemical evidence that the rock is not from the immediate area. Joiner also quoted Steve Hudgeons, lead investigator of the Texas Mutual UFO network, who offered a calculation about the trajectory of the rock. At that time, the true origin of the meteorite was a mystery.

A piece of earth-moving equipment available from “RECS—Rental Equipment Contractor Supplies.” The company’s website identifies Elaine Underwood as owner and Corky Underwood as sales/operation manager.

Conclusion

I received an unexpected and intriguing clue via email on May 20, 2009, from John Maroul of Benbrook, Texas, who had previously forwarded me a list of science questions about meteorites. His email read in part: "Look what Corky Underwood does for a living: Rents and sells heavy equipment that can carve limestone and dig trenches. Not saying he hoaxed this but it is more than suspect."

The solution to the meteorite mystery at Chalk Mountain turned out to be both trivial and embarrassing. John Maroul's email also pointed me to the website www.recsinc.com, which contains detailed information on renting out earth-moving equipment. Accord­ing to the website, the company's equipment is able to handle dirt and all sizes of rock. Together with the overwhelming scientific evidence that the "meteorite" could not be from outer space due to its limestone composition and, additionally, would not have survived its path through Earth's atmosphere, this was the final piece of the puzzle. Problem solved-it was almost certainly a hoax.

For those of you who would like to find and visit the alleged site of the "meteorite impact," please be aware: the site is located on private property (indicated by a clearly visible sign), and most Texans, especially those in the Hill Country, own guns. There may be an admission fee.

Note

I later called the Fox News reporter to tell him my conclusion and the evidence on which it was based. Shortly after our phone conversation, the Fox News clip (which was about two minutes long) became unavailable.

References

Bennett, Jeffrey, and Seth Shostak. 2007. Life in the Universe, 2nd ed. Boston, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.

Comins, Neil F., and William J. Kaufmann III. 2008. Discovering the Universe, 8th ed. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co.

Creation Evidence Museum Online. Available online at http://www.creationevidence.org; accessed January 1, 2011.

Ehlmann, Arthur J. 2008. The Oscar E. Monning Meteorite Collection Catalog. Tucson, Arizona: Stanegate Press.

Joiner, Angelina. Mysterious crater and rock baffles all. Available online at http://www.angeliajoiner.com; accessed March 29, 2010.

"RECS-Rental Equipment Contractor Sup­plies." Accessed April 7, 2010; January 5, 2011. Available online at www.recsinc.com.

Seeds, Michael A. 2006. Horizons: Exploring the Universe. 9th ed. Belmont, California: Thom­son Brooks/Cole.