Skeptoid: Episodes
Skeptoid dips into the feedback mailbag and answers questions written in response to episodes about aliens, UFOs, and other scary things from space.
One popular fringe theory about human evolution states that we went through an aquatic phase, thus we are hairless, blubbery, and otherwise adapted for life in the water.
An Internet legend claims that a man named John Titor is a visitor from the year 2036. Do we have any reason to take this story at face value, or to dismiss it at face value?
A B-25 bomber ditched in a Pennsylvania river in broad daylight 1956. Many witnesses saw it and the survivors are still here. But, incredibly, the big bomber has never been found in the small river.
The list of 9/11 conspiracy theories is a long one. Today we look at a few of the claims surrounding the idea that it wasn't an airliner that struck the Pentagon on 9/11, but a missile.
Legend holds that a Middle Ages pope was revealed to be a woman when she unexpectedly gave birth. Is there any truth to this tale?
This cavity in our atmosphere resonates radio frequency at 7.83 Hz. But is that all it does? Many proponents of alternative medicine and New Age advocates say it does much more.
Some say the mysterious black-clad agents who visit UFO witnesses to threaten and intimidate them are from the US Government; others say they come from much farther away.
Skeptoid interviews three of the most popular and controversial figures in modern pseudoscience: TV doctor Dr. Mehmet Oz, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and New Age guru Deepak Chopra.
A list of ten Hollywood celebrities who have leveraged their fame to proactively create new resources promoting good science and critical thinking.
The ganzfeld experiments are often claimed to be the strongest evidence yet for telepathic abilities, and yet the history of their analyses reveals that they are anything but.
The Lost Dutchman is said to be the greatest of all the "lost mines" in the history of the American west, but a closer examination reveals a history that fails to stand up to skeptical scrutiny.
Skeptoid responds to another round of listener feedback, focusing on criticism of argument techniques.
The name of Nikola Tesla is associated with crazy conspiracy claims at least as much as with the real man and his real accomplishments. In this episode we try to separate what he really did from the pop-culture version.
Mongolian tradition holds that a strange and deadly worm lives beneath the sands of the Gobi desert. How this local belief became a fixture in Western cryptozoology is an even more interesting tale.
Throughout history, different sects have held different beliefs about the Earth being hollow. These have included honest scientific inquiry, occult mysticism, and conspiracy mongering.
In 1977 a radio telescope received a signal from deep space so closely matching what we'd expect an alien transmission to look like, that the astronomer on duty circled it and wrote "Wow!"
For centuries, mankind has been striving for magically easy solutions to difficult problems, best illustrated by perpetual motion machines that promise limitless free energy.
Skeptoid answers another round of listener feedback emails, this time focusing on conspiracy theories. We look at how you can convince your conspiratorial friends that their theories are nonsensical.
Skeptoid has tripled its audience reach: Announcing the immediate availability of Skeptoid in Mandarin Chinese, the world's most spoken language, on the Chinese iTunes store and at http://skeptoid.com.cn