In spring 1954, Washington state experienced a truly peculiar epidemic. Something mysterious was pitting their windscreens even as they watched. What was the cause of this phenomenon? And what does it tell us about human nature?

While ORA is busy at work preparing season 2, here's a minisode on the Seattle Windscreen Pitting Epidemic to tide you over.

Sources:

James Ross Gardner, What Pitted Seattle’s Glass? https://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-city-life/2020/04/what-pitted-seattle-s-glass

Susan Gerbic, Why is the 1954 Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic Pertinent to Today? https://www.humanists.org/blog/2025-02-16/

Classified Humanity, https://classifiedhumanity.com/tagged/Windshield%20Pitting%20Epidemic  

Nahum Medalia & Otto Larsen (1958). Diffusion and Belief in a Collective Delusion: The Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic. American Sociological Review, 23(2), 180–186. https://doi.org/10.2307/2089002 

Nahum Medalia (1959). Who Cries Wolf? The Reporters of Damage to Police in a Pseudo-Disaster. Social Problems, 7(3), 233–240. https://doi.org/10.2307/799450 

Alan Stein, Windshield pitting incidents in Washington reach fever pitch on April 15, 1954. https://www.historylink.org/File/5136

Linton Weeks, The Windshield-Pitting Mystery of 1954, https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/05/28/410085713/the-windshield-pitting-mystery-of-1954

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What lurks in the dark waters of Loch Ness? When did people begin to believe there was a monster in this Scottish loch, and why? In this episode of Analytical Eye, we look at the history of the Loch Ness Monster.

This episode is dedicated to listener Leanne H, with thanks for her constant support. 

Voices were provided thanks to Al B, Amanda F and readaloud.net.

Sources

Like Bigfoot, there were so many interesting books about the Loch Ness Monster that I kept reading perhaps past when I should have moved on: and yet I still didn’t cover the full gamut, though I do believe I hit many of the key documents. Sources for this episode include: 

Believers

Rupert Gould, The Loch Ness Monster and Others, 1934

Constance Whyte, More than a Legend, 1957

Peter Costello, In Search of Lake Monsters, 1964 

Tim Dinsdale, Loch Ness Monster, 1968 

Tim Dinsdale, The Story of the Loch Ness Monster, 1973  

F. W. Holiday The Great Orm of Loch Ness: A Practical Inquiry into the Nature and Habits of Water-Monsters (1968), Serpents of the Sky, Dragons of the Earth (1973) and The Goblin Universe (1986: posthumous)

Nicholas Witchell, The Loch Ness Story, 1974 

Roy Mackal, The Monsters of Loch Ness, 1976 

Loch Ness Mystery Blogspot – a blog by a true believer who has carefully catalogued a huge amount of information about the Loch Ness Monster, current and full of an excellent amount of detail

Skeptics

Ronald Binns, The Loch Ness Mystery Solved, 1983

Steuart Campbell The Loch Ness Monster: The Evidence, 1986

Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero, Abominable Science! Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and other famous cryptids

Benjamin Radford and Joe Nickell, Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures, 2006 

Gareth Williams, A Monstrous Commotion: The Mysteries of Loch Ness, 2015

Dr Darren Naish, tetzoo.com, current. A fascinating blog by a biologist with an interest in examining cryptozoology. Not only was it an excellent lead for Nessie sources, I found it so intriguing that I ended up dipping into random entries on other topics entirely. I recommend it.

In-betweeners 

Gerald Snyder, Is there a Loch Ness Monster? The Search for the Evidence, 1977

Jonathan Betts – Time Restored: the Harrison timekeepers and R.T. Gould, the man who knew (almost) everything, 2006 

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Was Beatle Paul McCartney killed and replaced with a talented impostor in the 1960s? Did the surviving Beatles hide clues to his death in their subsequent albums? Or was the whole idea a mirage – and if so, where did it come from? In this episode of Analytical Eye, we turn our attention to the 1960s and one of the earlier music conspiracy theories.

This episode is dedicated to Shannan M. 

Please remember the ORA is not a real agency: it’s just a bunch of otters in a line. 

Sources

Sources for this episode are mostly secondary.

A particular shout-out to Andru Reeve and his 1994 book Turn me on, dead man: The Beatles and the Paul is dead hoax, which provides a comprehensive overview of how this theory developed.

Another good secondary source is R. Gary Patterson’s 1998 The Walrus was Paul: The Great Beatles Death Clues.

Hunter Davies 1968 book The Beatles: The Authorised Biography provides a contemporary understanding of how the band felt about fannish interpretations.

In articles, I consulted

• Tim Harper, Is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead? Drake Times -Delphic, 17 September 1969
• Fred LaBour,McCartney Dead: New Evidence Brought to Light, Michigan Daily, 14 October 1969
• Jeff Magalif, Clues Do Not a Dead Man Make: 'I Buried Paul'- And So Have We, Harvard Crimson, October 23, 1969
• David Felton and David Dalton, Charles Manson: The Incredibly Story of the Most Dangerous Man Alive, Rolling Stone, 25 June 1970 
• David Sheff, An exclusive interview: John Lennon and Yoko Ono on love, sex, money, fame and all about the Beatles, Playboy, January 1981 

On the internet side, thank you to the YouTubers who captured Beatles interviews, parts of Roby Yonge and F Lee Bailey’s programs, and forwards and backwards ‘clues’ – this has immeasurably improved the research and also the episode.

Thank you also to the website for the band Klaatu.

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HEY OCCAM 

I had to use your computer for something. Mine still hasn't been replaced after that fire - totally not my fault this time either! 

Anyway you were still logged in and I saw you had an episode ready to go so I uploaded it for you! 

YOUR WELCOME :):):)

Hanlon

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In 1917, two young girls in Yorkshire took photographs of fairies in their very own backyard. 

To skeptics, the photos seemed like obvious fakes - but to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, they were proof of a whole new realm of existence. What made him so sure, and how did the investigation of these photos unfold over the years and decades that followed? 

In this episode of Analytical Eye, we look at the Cottingley Fairy incident.

This episode is dedicated to Rosie, with thanks.

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Why did some people in the Victorian period argue that the earth was flat?  Were they flat-out wrong - or is there something in their argument, once you get around to assessing it? 

In this episode of Analytical Eye, we consider the flat earth theory: one of the oldest alternative beliefs we've looked at to date.

This episode is dedicated to Al Baker, with thanks for bringing the voice of Samuel Rowbotham to life.

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In this episode, we dig into the history of crop circles. Who or what was behind the flattened swirled crops phenomenon in the 1980s and 1990s? Was it something out of this world? An unusual meteorological phenomenon? Or just a corny prank?

This episode is dedicated to listener Nick B.

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In this second part of our first two-part special, we assess the conspiracy theory that alien bodies were recovered from a crashed alien spaceship in Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947.

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Something crashed into the New Mexico desert in July 1947. But what was it? Just a weather balloon, as the authorities claimed? Or was it an alien spacecraft, as a first-hand witness insisted? In this first part of a special two-episode assessment, it's time to look at the Roswell incident. 

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In August 1958, Jerry Crew discovered something had been walking around his excavator... something with unusually big feet. In this episode, we look at the arguments for and against Bigfoot and his Canadian cousin Sasquatch, and the first generation of Bigfoot hunters.

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