There is a special place in my cold, shriveled heart reserved for the Moon landing hoax crowd — the true believers who, against all available evidence and common sense, have convinced themselves that humanity’s single greatest technological achievement was faked on a soundstage somewhere in the desert by Stanley Kubrick, the CIA, or whichever shadowy … Read more
Area 51 is the world’s most famous military base —precisely because people don’t know what actually happens there. Unfortunately, whenever humans encounter a blank space on the map, they fill it with whatever nonsense makes them feel clever. In this case: alien spacecraft, interdimensional portals, and, depending on which forum you land on, time-traveling lizard … Read more
It’s the oldest trick in the psychic playbook, and somehow people still fall for it. You walk into a palm reader’s tent, a tarot shop, a spirit boutique — whatever they’re calling the con today — and within five minutes, you’re informed that you have “a dark cloud” hanging over you. Bad energy. A generational … Read more
There are many glittering examples of mass delusion in human history, but few sparkle quite so tragically — or quite so stupidly — as the great Fairy Photograph Scandal of the early 20th century. In 1917, two young girls from Cottingley, England produced a series of photographs allegedly showing themselves frolicking with tiny, winged fairies. … Read more
There’s something especially magical about crop circles. Not in the way the believers think — no sacred geometry, no alien landing pads — but magical in the sense that a couple of dudes with planks and rope can absolutely devastate the critical thinking skills of an entire generation. Every summer, like clockwork, a field somewhere … Read more
There are places where the boundary between the living and the dead supposedly thins to a whisper. And then there’s the Grand Séance Society, where the only thing thinning is your will to live. Billed as “a one-of-a-kind immersive paranormal experience,” the Grand Séance Society operates out of an old theater that smelled like mildew, … Read more
There was a time when looking at the Great Pyramid of Giza could fill a person with proper awe — the kind of admiration you should feel when you realize that, five thousand years ago, without cranes, GPS, or a single MBA consultant, human beings dragged two-ton stones across a desert, stacked them with supernatural … Read more
If there’s one thing guaranteed to make me break out in a full-body rash of secondhand embarrassment, it’s the enduring, relentless, utterly unkillable myth of the Curse of King Tutankhamun’s Tomb. Ninety-nine years after Howard Carter cracked open a Pharaoh’s dusty front door, we are still being subjected to whispered campfire stories about vengeful ancient … Read more
Aura photography is the perfect scam: expensive, scientific-looking, and so devoid of actual science it might as well come bundled with a free tin-foil hat. The idea is simple — and by simple, I mean insultingly stupid. You sit for a portrait while a “special” camera captures the invisible cloud of energy allegedly radiating from … Read more
If you could bottle vague hope, blurry photos, and economic desperation, you’d have Nessie: the most famous aquatic nonentity in modern history. The legend is simple: somewhere in the dark, cold depths of a Scottish lake, an ancient dinosaur-thing lurks — cleverly avoiding all sonar, underwater cameras, and credible witnesses for the better part of … Read more