The Conspiracy Skeptic

Stephen Barnes has released a conspiracy themed trivia game called Conspiracy Theory: Trivia Board Game. It's an amazingly fun game and, if I can put in a plug, is a great Father's Day present for that hard-to-buy-for father. It's available on both Amazon and Amazon Canada. It's certainly a game True Believers can enjoy but Stephen has cleverly weaved in a helping of skepticism. On Conspiracy Skeptic we talk about the creation of the game, some of his favorite conspiracies, a few interesting Canadian conspiracies that made it into the game. And happy memorial day, American cousins.

Wes Brown is a fellow fan of the Monster Talk podcast. He comes on to make the point before 2016 conspiracy theories were just a kind of fun. They're not so fun anymore when people in power now base policy on them. We have a wide ranging discussion of conspiracy theories pre and post 2016 as well as we discuss Wes's semi sarcastic theory that MRA types are suffering from a kind of penis theft panic. Warning we do say "penis" quite a bit in this episode.

What if The Demon-Haunted World was written as madcap comedy novel? Eric Bickernicks, along with his covivant Jan Brady, has written a book about UFOs, conspiracy theories, Bigfoot, and pretty much everything else from a skeptical POV... all in the form of a comedic narrative. It's a fun read, a great idea, and currently available for free download at high-strangeness.net.

James Scott Berdahl is a geologist working in Vancouver and points between there and Whitehorse in the Yukon. While researching my eventual book on Canadian conspiracies, I ran across a 2008 MA thesis by Berdahl on a meteor that smacked into Canada's Yukon and some of the conspiracy thinking that emerged from the locals. I got Berdahl to dig back into his academic past and talk about the Tagish Lake Fireball on The Conspiracy Skeptic podcast.

Jeb Card is cohost of an amazing podcast called Archeological Fantasies. This podcast will change the way you think. If you spend a lot of time watching Ancient Aliens and go "what the actual fuck?", Archeological Fantasies is the perfect podcast for you. Jeb comes on Conspiracy Skeptic to talk about the podcast, the origins of Qanon, how archeologists don't actually hide skeletons of giants in the basement of the Smithsonian, and just about everything else.

Back from the dead. Sort of. This is an early July 4 Conspiracy Skeptic podcast for my American friends about to hit the road or airline security line. I've been working on a book about Canadian conspiracy theories, written specifically for an American audience. This is a sample chapter. I'm about 3 chapters into a book that covers at least 20 chapters. So. Don't except this to hit the shelves of B. Dalton Books anytime soon. Glen Kealey, Shelley Ann Clark, Simon Reisman, Brian Mulroney, and a whole lot more all conspire in the mid-1990s to convince Canada the USA is out to take our water! Oh yeah, it never happened.

Nigel St. Whitehall returns to lend his knowledge as a historian, loyal party member, and lawyer to discuss how hard it is to actually rig the US electoral system. He also reveals he's cohosting a new podcast.

Dr. Karen Stollznow, host of Monster Talk and one of the greatest all around skeptic working today, joins the Conspiracy Skeptic to talk about some surprising conspiracies people of the Land Down Under have cooked up in the last few decades.

Carrie Poppy from the Oh No Ross and Carrie podcast is on to talk about a supposed conspiracy of silence around the Black Dhalia Murder. As well we talk about her amazing podcast.

Dr. David D. Perlmutter is a professor at and Dean of the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University. He's on Conspiracy Skeptic to talk about how images are used and misused in history and politics.