Squaring the Strange

This episode is really a trickster triptych! Just in time for trick-or-treating, we look at three tricksters in popular media right now: Holmes, Patterson, and Castaneda. First, an old friend has some thoughts on the Department of Health and Human Services gathering data on potential EMF harms. Celestia is giddy about how the new documentary "You Can See Everything" pushed all her buttons, and Matt Crowley stops by to talk about Marq Evans's film "Capturing Bigfoot," newly out in limited release and on Amazon Prime for streaming. Then Ben and Celestia have an in-depth talk with author Ru Marshall about their comprehensive biography of Carlos Castaneda, a literary hoaxer who took the psychedelic generation by storm and later inspired what appears to be a bizarre cult suicide near Pahrump, Nevada in the late 1990s. His books purported to share indigenous wisdom from a "Don Juan" figure that could unlock immortality, a fiction Castaneda presented as anthropology to eager academics in Southern California. His propensity for power, control and never-ending lies has eerie parallels with the Trump era we are now facing.

First, Ben and Celestia chat about current events involving clowns, Noah's ark, psychics, measles, moon hoaxes, and more. Then we welcome Sharon Hill and Darren Naish, both of whom published books on cryptozoology and monster hunting around a decade ago. We talk about the evolution of that field, including the depletion of actual experts and rise of influencers in their place. Monsters and cryptids have come to represent a sense of community and local pride, artistic and pop culture expression, and a fantasy escapism from news and everyday life. In many ways, we are living through a similar period America went through in the 1970s. We hit on the "paranormal unified field theory" and the "scientification" of folklore. How is the rise in dogmen sightings connected to Bigfoot, and how have debunkings and evidence affected the community?

After some current events discussion about AI images in real estate and RFK Jr. mentioning chemtrails, we welcome friend of the podcast Amy Frushour Kelly. She's a longtime editor turned AI writing consultant, and has watched what the new models have done to the average editor's workload. We ask some questions on what AI writing means in terms of authenticity, honesty, and contractual obligations. How accurate are the tools that supposedly determine whether something has been written with AI, and what makes humans "get a feeling" something has been crafted by an LLM? Fair warning: we three editors end up getting really geeky about our craft in a few places. And we also get philosophical: what does AI writing mean to the future of cultural transaction and complex thought itself?

First, we recount a tiny bit of the beautiful chaos that was Dragon Con. Then, after a few current event tidbits related to 9-11, we are joined by Andy Taylor of Geekshock and (retired Klingon) Paul Mattingly of Matt & Mattingly's Ice Cream Social. With our geeky nerd power tripled, we discuss all flavors of sci-fi and how various franchises have approached critical thinking, gullibility and other skeptic-adjacent topics. Does Kubrick's dense cinematic style attract lovers of conspiracy thinking and, thus, invite moon hoax theories? Did the communicator really inspire the flip-phone? How much of the Nostradamus-like predictions in sci-fi are simply due to the writers being keyed into pop culture, the latest scientific advances and common sense?

First, housekeeping about our upcoming visit to DragonCon in Atlanta next week (come say hello if you plan on going!). Ben and Celestia lament the latest measles news, pay respects to Dolly Parton and Tim Curry, and discuss the ever-present "rule of threes" when it comes to celebrity deaths. Then for our main topic Ben talks about Jose Escamilla and his decades-long obsession with what he termed "Roswell rods" or "skyfish." They were an ill-defined phenomenon, somewhere between UFOs, interdimensional cryptids, and light-speed bacteria. Still, Escamilla took them seriously enough to make several films and set up scientific-ish protocols to guide his research -- which, weirdly, led him to Tiger Woods. A unique thing about Roswell Rods is that even the fringe believers couldn't quite swallow this particular mystery, leading to a public debunking by Joe Rogan himself. So, what can we learn from Escamilla and the strange, short life of Roswell rods?

First, we chat about what's making us skeptical these days, from the latest executive order targeting vaccine access to a really creative way to fund a biology lab. Oh, and we didn't experience zero gravity for seven seconds this week, did you? Then we bring on the legendary private investigator Bob Nygaard, who parlayed his career as a New York City cop into a busy life as the world's most effective psychic buster. And we don't mean he spills their secrets -- we mean he gets them put behind bars. Bob has been instrumental in getting many millions of dollars returned to victims and persuading district attorneys to press charges against the generational syndicates who orchestrate this type of crime. He explains to us their methodology and the skills he acquired that help him tie all the parts of a case together, often working against reluctant bureaucrats at every step. Laws against fortune telling and financial crimes vary in different jurisdictions, and victims are often reluctant to fight for themselves. Blending empathy with hard-nosed investigation work and dogged persistence, Bob shares success stories and some tips for spotting psychic criminals before they can get their hooks into a mark.

1:30 Clamper Mea Culpa

4:00 Lara Benham and Richard Saunders report on Not A Con Australia

17:00 Drinking conspiracies in Las Vegas

26:00 JIMOTHY JIMOTHY JIMOTHY JIMOTHY SO MUCH JIMOTHY

31:15 Dr. Fauci questioned in bad faith by senators

52:15 "Curse of Mayo" is broken

1:00:20 Giant of Kandahar shows up on Joe Rogan show

1:04:00 American Trickster, Carlos Castaneda and Marlo Morgan

First, Ben and Celestia chat about reflecting pool gashes, a biohacking longevity guru's diagnosis, the new Info Wars, and two anti-vaxxers in the news. Then we are joined by children's author Elizabeth Shreeve to discuss her new book Dinosaurs to Dragons: The Lore and Science of Mythical Creatures. Elizabeth takes a clever approach in structuring her book, which invites kids to think about monsters and fairies but also sneaks in evolutionary knowledge, folklore detective work and critical thinking. A few of her chapters have also been the subject of previous Squaring the Strange episodes, so we had a lot to talk about. In addition to discussing how storytelling can be an ally to science, we also discuss misconceptions about writing, using imagination as a skeptical tool, and Elizabeth's recent introduction to the skeptical community. Teachers will be happy to know Bertha Vasquez has created a teacher's guide for the new book already, and she and Elizabeth have teamed up to work on "Germ Wars," a story due out in 2027 about how modern public health and medicine have decreased child mortality.

After a quick chat on the launch of a new climate data website, an exorcist who suggested UFOs were demons, and a FEMA leader getting transported out of his job, Ben and Celestia look at some classic Americana for this week's 250th Independence Day. What is Americana? Symbols, traditions, and folk heroes all fall under that category -- and all of those are also up for some skeptical examination from time to time. For instance, how important was the American flag to our nation's founders and early citizens? And did Betsy Ross really sew the first one, or is that a bit of posthumous hearsay dressed up as inspirational history? Was Henry David Thoreau really a hermit? What is the "Ben Franklin effect"? We look at how almanacs shaped America, as popular commercial books filled with practical facts, superstition, dad jokes and tall tales. Folk heroes, both fictional and real (and in between) are also Americana: Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, John Henry, Paul Bunyan and more. Then we have some rapid-fire presidential myths like Taft in his bathtub, Jimmy Carter spotting a UFO, and whether James Buchanan was our first LGBTQ president.

The past two weeks, we have absorbed way too much to come up with our own content. And the speakers at the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research and CSI Con 2026 deserve some signal-boosting. So this episode is a recap of these two conventions -- one is skeptic-adjacent but starting to move toward the big tent of skepticism, and the other is the original circus that put up the tent back in 1976. Ben recounts interesting tidbits from his colleagues in folklore world, and then we go in-depth on the CSI Con held in Buffalo, New York for the 50th anniversary of the organization. What Paul Kurtz began as CSICOP has evolved and grown over the years, as have the battles the organization is tasked with fighting. From the original skeptical voices to new rising stars, we go into our own personal highlights of the event as well as our main takeaways in terms of the tone and themes that stood out.