0:03

Hello

0:09

and welcome to Oh No Ross and Carrie,

0:11

the show where we don't just report on

0:13

fringe science, spirituality, claims of the paranormal. No,

0:16

no, no, we take part ourselves. Yep, when

0:18

they make the claims, we show up so you don't have

0:20

to. I'm Carrie Poppy. And I'm Ross Blaucher. And

0:23

I know what you're expecting. It's the last episode of

0:25

2023. You're

0:27

ready for us to review the year and

0:29

all the previous predictions. But no.

0:33

No, no, we're, we're, we're upsetting

0:35

expectations. I was looking for some

0:37

good way to rationalize why we're

0:39

doing this. It's coming. It's

0:41

coming. Yeah, we'll review the year

0:43

and we'll look forward to the year ahead and

0:46

what the prognosticators have to say about it. I

0:48

had a migraine for two days. It screwed us

0:50

up. Sorry. But at a lot of

0:52

squirrely psychics. Yes. We're

0:54

trying to get our 2024 readings and we're

0:56

having a weird amount of trouble. Both

0:59

of us have been like rebuffed multiple times

1:01

and not because we're podcasters. Yeah, I

1:03

know. Well, that we know of. They

1:06

are psychic. But in the meantime,

1:08

we have this great interview that I've been

1:10

excited to share for a while. This

1:13

was recorded at SciCon 2023 with me

1:15

and Kenny Biddle. Yes,

1:19

Kenny Biddle. He's the chief investigator at the

1:21

committee for skeptical inquiry. And he's a fellow

1:24

at CSI. Yeah. And

1:26

as you'll see a top notch paranormal

1:28

investigator, really fun just to pick his

1:30

brain. Yeah, I'm stoked to hear this.

1:33

I love all the things that they do at CSI. It's

1:35

a great organization. They make

1:37

skeptical inquirer. Great magazine.

1:40

The magazine. Which you've written for.

1:42

Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah.

1:46

Yeah. Exciting stuff there. Hey, Steven,

1:48

what's up? What's up? I

1:50

can't believe I've never done that before. What's up? I

1:53

can't believe I've never done that before. That will be now

1:55

the official way to greet him. Yeah,

1:57

definitely. Here's the interview. Welcome

2:01

to the show Kenny Biddle. Oh

2:03

my goodness. I'm so excited. This

2:05

is like my bucket list. I'm

2:07

excited too. All right. So Kenny

2:10

Biddle, what is the official title?

2:12

You're a investigator. Chief Investigator. Chief

2:14

Investigator at Skeptical Enquirer at Center

2:16

for Inquiry. So the full official

2:19

title is Chief Investigator for CSI,

2:21

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Okay. And

2:24

that puts out Skeptical Enquirer magazine.

2:26

It used to be Psycop, which

2:28

was co-founded by Carl Sagan, Paul

2:31

Kurtz, and James Randi, Isaac

2:35

Asimov. So this goes back

2:37

a long time. This is later Ross,

2:39

just wanted to interrupt real quick to

2:42

put Kenny and myself out of our

2:44

misery because we were like trying to

2:46

come up with all of the names.

2:48

So I'm just going to summarize here.

2:51

So the initial group that Psycop

2:53

was based on was formed by

2:55

of course Paul Kurtz. Of course.

2:58

And Marcelo Truzzi. Okay.

3:00

Yeah, this is a new name to me,

3:02

I think. Yeah. He wasn't involved

3:04

with later iterations of the group.

3:06

Okay. But then you

3:09

had all these other folks that

3:11

we mentioned, James Randi, Isaac Asimov,

3:13

Carl Sagan, but also Martin Gardner.

3:15

I love Martin Gardner. Ray Hyman.

3:17

Great. B.F. Skinner. Your

3:19

old buddy. Long and

3:21

storied history. Philip Klass, noted UFO

3:24

skeptic. It was a really impressive

3:26

group. Nice. So there we go.

3:28

That'll save you and us a bit of work. Back

3:31

to the interview. Well, you tell

3:33

us a bit about the mission

3:35

of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

3:37

So they started in 1976 and

3:39

basically they started out going against

3:41

claims of the paranormal. So

3:43

psychics, psychic readings, horoscopes, all

3:45

kinds of weird stuff out

3:47

there. Healing, faith healing, especially

3:50

faith healing. Yeah. And

3:52

they gave them there. It really grew over the years

3:54

and they had more people involved and they spread

3:56

out. Right. And they got into

3:58

different kinds of sciences and just... giving

4:00

the public a lot more

4:02

information about science, diving into

4:04

politics, diving into religious aspects,

4:07

and just covering a lot from a more

4:09

skeptical and scientific point of view. And anything

4:11

that has a testable claim attached to it

4:13

falls within the purview. Exactly.

4:15

Exactly. We can test it. We

4:18

look into it. Well, and I feel

4:21

like Kerry and I are very closely

4:23

tied to CSI and also CFI, which

4:25

is the Center for Inquiry. I know.

4:27

It gets confusing. I mean, I... I

4:31

thought I was so ready for this. I am

4:33

advocating for going back to PSYCOM. Yeah.

4:35

That was a great name. I like

4:37

that name. Committee for Scientific Investigation of

4:40

Claims of the Paranormal. Yeah. Well, anyways,

4:42

we've often told our origin story, how Kerry

4:44

and I met, and it was at the

4:46

CFI in Los Angeles, at

4:48

both the lectures and the book club there.

4:51

And then for many years, I've been

4:53

part of the IIG, as it was

4:56

called then, the Independent Investigations Group. But

4:58

now it's very dependent on CFI. So

5:00

now it's the Center for Inquiry Investigations

5:02

Group. Yes. And we'll have more

5:04

to say about that later. Anyways, just kind of drawing the connection there.

5:07

And of course, the fact that you and

5:09

I are right now meeting together at PSYCON.

5:11

Yes. Yes, we are. You

5:13

got all the acronyms straight, everybody? Yeah. I

5:16

hope you're paying attention at home. All right. Well, that

5:18

was all very clinical, but now we know who we are. You should

5:20

put a scorecard. Yeah. Bingo. Yeah.

5:25

Well, why I'm excited to talk

5:27

to you is because I think you

5:29

are, I got to say, the

5:32

best out there when it comes to paranormal investigation.

5:34

Wow. Like, I would say, you

5:36

know, if you have a claim that needs investigating,

5:38

be it a ghost that showed up on camera,

5:40

or an angel appearing at the hospital, what have you,

5:42

I would call in Kenny Biddle. I would want to

5:44

get your backup on, you know, how do we analyze

5:46

this photo or this video? Because

5:49

you have this great mind for

5:51

not only the technical aspects of

5:53

how photography and videography work, you

5:55

chase down those, the original equipment,

5:58

but also I think you have a really good understanding of this. and

6:00

where people are coming from and what it is

6:02

that might draw them to see these images. That's

6:05

why I'm really excited to be talking to you. Oh

6:07

man, okay. Well, let's get into it. You're

6:10

making me blush. I almost feel so humble

6:12

here. Like, this is awesome. Well, I know

6:14

you have like a really interesting backstory.

6:16

You weren't always a skeptic. Tell

6:19

us a bit about the earlier Kenny Biddle

6:21

of how many years ago are we talking

6:23

about? We're talking like

6:25

around 1997. That's

6:28

when I got married. Really, everything

6:30

started really falling into place then. I've always had

6:32

a belief. I grew up in the time of

6:35

In Search of, On Self

6:37

Mysteries, Sightings. Yep, watching all those

6:39

X-Files. X-Files, loved it. I

6:41

still own. I own all the seasons. I

6:43

love it. On DVD? Yes. Excellent.

6:47

Love it. It was so fun to walk my son

6:49

through that series. I have VHS. And he got

6:51

into it. And DVDs. So, nerd. Oh

6:54

yeah, and I think he like I had a

6:56

big thing for Gillian Anderson, of course. All of

6:58

us did. I really think. She

7:01

was the awesome nerd. I mean, they were both nerds. I

7:04

don't know where we're going to get with this,

7:06

but I like the kind of role reversal. Yes.

7:08

Because you usually had shows like that.

7:10

The Woman is the Sensitive Time. And

7:13

the one that believes in psychic stuff.

7:15

And the man is usually like, this

7:17

is all bull crap. The hard-nosed rationalist.

7:20

Having those roles switched, I think, was

7:22

genius. And the casting,

7:24

genius. Well, and it's been shown since

7:26

that there was a real Scully effect,

7:28

which I think was working on me

7:30

as well, even though I was a

7:32

believer at that time. Even though they

7:34

were clearly in a world that was

7:36

fictional and had paranormal elements, her

7:39

pushback on the things that Mulder was saying, I

7:41

had a Scully effect as well, even though usually

7:43

when you talk about that, that's women getting into

7:46

STEM fields. Yeah. Anyways, you were saying, the

7:48

kind of stuff you were watching. Sorry, this

7:50

whole conversation is going to be like this. We're both

7:52

way too excited. This is how

7:54

it's all going to go. So

7:56

yeah, those kind of shows are what I was watching,

7:59

and I loved them. And I thought like this

8:01

is amazing. That's what I want

8:03

to see. I want to see these stories. These

8:05

stories are happening around the world. And I

8:07

want to be a part of that. I want to

8:09

get out there and see the Loch Ness Monster. I

8:12

want to see aliens laying down. Not

8:14

the anal probe part. I

8:16

just want to see the aliens laying down. I'll

8:18

see it. I'll watch that part. Okay. Well, I'll

8:20

let them know. If I

8:23

ever see them. I wanted to see a

8:25

ghost. I wanted to experience that. I wanted

8:27

to see like stuff flying around the room

8:29

for a poltergeist. And

8:31

I love that kind of stuff. And so as

8:33

I got older in 1997, that was

8:35

like the pivotal time here when I

8:38

went into ghost hunting. Because I got

8:40

married that year and as a gift

8:42

for ourselves, we bought our first computer.

8:45

This is dating the computer, but

8:47

it came with four megabytes of

8:49

memory. Four megabytes. This is

8:51

old school. Yeah. What are we talking about

8:53

there? This like compact? Oh, okay. So it

8:55

was like, yeah, let's not get off on

8:57

that rabbit trail. Let's not got Leonard Trammell

8:59

in the whole room or something. Yeah. I

9:02

know somewhere inside Con, he is like

9:04

looking up going, I hear my name.

9:07

I hear my name. Yeah. We got

9:09

our computer got online after some upgrades

9:11

because there this new thing called the World Wide Web.

9:14

You know, I wanted to get on it, start

9:16

reaching out. And one of the first things I

9:18

looked up was ghost hunting groups. Who

9:21

did it in my area? Because you saw it on

9:23

TV. You saw on the shows, they would bring in

9:26

like Hans Holzer or somebody else like that.

9:28

And I was like, these are people that

9:30

are actually doing this. I want to try it. So I

9:32

found a local group and I joined them and

9:35

we went to cemeteries. We went to historic places

9:37

like the Betsy Ross House because I grew up

9:39

in Philly. She designed

9:41

the flag allegedly. Yeah. There's more to

9:43

that story. There's a lot more to

9:45

that story. Okay. Anyway,

9:48

so we went to those places

9:50

and we went after hours because everything

9:52

happened in the dark. Right. Why

9:55

question that logic? And it also has

9:57

a look of like contemplation on it.

10:00

Why wouldn't the same things happen during the

10:02

daytime? Well, that's the funny thing our ghost

10:04

killer the witness stories that we were getting

10:07

From business owners and the homeowners most of

10:09

the stuff happened during the day. Okay, but

10:11

we're showing up at night Yeah, it's easier

10:14

to scare yourself at night. Right right and

10:16

you know, you turn the lights out You

10:18

can't see it makes it all spooky So

10:20

I went around with them for a while and

10:22

I learned I guess the

10:24

tribal knowledge kind of way because I

10:26

was there I was with them. I didn't know any

10:28

better This was before I was

10:31

any kind of skeptical. I grew up Catholic.

10:33

Okay, I was gonna get there was a

10:35

religious component Yes, so my mother's Catholic. My

10:38

father is not but I was raised Catholic

10:40

Okay, so I had that belief that there

10:42

was an afterlife But it was more

10:44

like heaven and hell and purgatory stuff

10:46

like that. Mm-hmm So I already had that

10:48

belief. It was already there ghosts were not

10:50

a next step It was just a side

10:53

step because they existed because you have ghosts

10:55

in the Bible Yeah, you have people claiming

10:57

that they have ghosts even my mother thought

10:59

that she had felt like her father after

11:01

he passed away Yeah, as a real Bible

11:04

literalist myself at the time. I remember

11:06

reading stories like the witch of Endor

11:08

Yeah, I mean like okay. What do

11:10

I do with that? That tells us

11:12

that somehow Spirits can

11:14

come back and give truthful information,

11:17

right? So I just started

11:19

ghost hunting with this group going out

11:21

and thinking that the pictures of these

11:23

little balls of light were ghosts That

11:26

these misty forms were ghosts and

11:28

taking EVP recording on cassette recorders

11:31

Yeah, we didn't have digital yet.

11:33

They came like soon as

11:35

I started getting into the hobby That's

11:37

when the first Panasonic digital IC

11:39

recorder came out Are

11:42

you looking for EVP? No, I'm sure you know

11:44

what? I'll ask later. Okay. Is anyone in the

11:47

room with us? You

11:49

saying that reminded me I should be doing a backup

11:51

recording Okay, we're

11:54

talking about it and there comes a recorder from his

11:56

pocket. I'm like wow, he's all ready to go. That's

11:59

great. But yeah Yeah, I remember

12:01

excitedly pulling up audio files and learning

12:03

that media player would let me play

12:05

them backwards. Yes,

12:07

because that was standard. I remember being

12:10

in Catholic school and a nun coming

12:12

into the classroom with a record

12:14

player with

12:16

ACDC or

12:19

Led Zeppelin and

12:21

purposely playing it backwards. And

12:24

now that I think about it, I

12:26

actually haven't thought about this until right

12:28

now. The way she picked out the

12:31

phrases that she claimed it was saying

12:33

was exactly how I see ghost hunters

12:35

do it today because they hear what they want

12:38

to hear. And

12:40

I'm listening going, I don't hear anything. Okay, but

12:42

then she primes you and says, did you hear

12:44

what he said? Exactly. She would play it first.

12:54

And I just have to know what

12:56

it's like to hear you.

12:59

You can't believe

13:01

you did that. And all

13:03

of us wanted to hear you. Did

13:10

you hear that? Yeah, exactly.

13:13

Now that you say it, so you say it and then I

13:15

hear, oh my god, I guess that kind of, and then they

13:17

play it again and again. For

13:20

a younger generation, you might not know

13:22

what a big deal back masking was

13:24

at the time. This was a big

13:26

part of the satanic panic that you

13:28

and I grew up with. This idea

13:30

that secret messages were encoded in music

13:32

backwards. There's no underlying explanation for why

13:34

that would even work or why our

13:36

brains would pick up on that and

13:39

decode it. But that

13:41

was the belief. And you didn't even want to do it.

13:43

I mean, I went home. That's the first thing I did.

13:45

I went home, put all my records on the record player

13:47

and played them backwards. Like, wait in the year. And it

13:49

really depended on the speed because if

13:51

you slowed it down or you were

13:53

too fast, you didn't hear anything. It

13:55

was gone. But right speed, it was

13:57

there. So yeah, we had EVPs. We

14:00

had EMF meters and we had

14:02

the Dr. Gauss EMF meters. So

14:04

it had a one to 10 scale on

14:06

it for milligauss. I

14:10

think one to three was colored green,

14:12

because that was good. And then three

14:14

to seven was yellow. And

14:17

then seven to 10 was red. But

14:19

I was always told that if the meter

14:22

went into the yellow, that was a

14:24

ghost. Oh. And

14:26

green means? Green means it's probably

14:28

electrical. Red means probably

14:30

electrical. Okay. Yellow, which is in the middle.

14:32

Which is in the sweet spot. Okay. That's

14:35

it. Alright. As long

14:37

as you didn't walk any further to the

14:39

electrical source, you were fine. But that's one

14:41

of the first things that I picked up

14:43

on. And about how big was this group?

14:46

We're talking about six, seven people. And

14:48

how often were you getting together? Maybe

14:51

like every other week. Okay. And

14:53

just going out to different places. But

14:55

I picture the quintessential ghost hunter that

14:57

you see now on so many TV

14:59

shows, this proliferation of media of ghost

15:01

hunters. And I think that you kind

15:03

of match the mold at the time

15:05

of someone who has a day job,

15:08

but they have this big hobby that

15:10

involves a lot of fun equipment, cameras,

15:12

a lot of various sensors that beep

15:14

and make noises and flashlights. All of

15:17

which I had no idea how to

15:19

use. Sure. Yeah. You were learning

15:21

on the job, so to speak, from your

15:23

other friends. Yeah, I like how you say that,

15:25

so to speak. Because that's, I wasn't really learning.

15:28

I was learning a method, but

15:31

not the correct method. This is like

15:33

where people often say, practice doesn't make

15:35

perfect, practice makes permanent. You know, like,

15:37

you can enforce the wrong thing. Exactly.

15:40

And that's what it was. I mean,

15:42

that idea that if your EMF meter,

15:44

which can be set off by any

15:46

kind of electrical wiring, a light, a

15:49

two-way radio, whatever, if it went into

15:51

the yellow at any point, it

15:53

was a ghost. That's what I was

15:56

taught. That's what I believed, because I already had

15:58

that belief. So I was like, okay. Okay. Without

16:01

having to understand the underlying mechanism of

16:03

why that yellow range somehow is tied

16:05

to a ghostly presence. Right.

16:08

And the excuse or the explanation was

16:10

always, it always sounded made up. It's

16:12

because the ghosts have energy. And

16:15

their energy is what makes the meters go off.

16:17

All right. Yeah, those are words and

16:19

they can stand in the gap as long as you

16:21

need them to. That's it. That's

16:23

the gap. Because I never asked, at

16:26

the time, I didn't ask, what kind of

16:28

energy? I never asked that. I

16:30

was just like, oh, okay. It's some kind of energy. Yeah. You

16:33

sounded good to me. It's bioenergy. Oh, thanks. Okay.

16:37

I feel better now. Got it. Got it.

16:40

Okay. So after going with them for a while,

16:42

basically, I went for them for a long time and

16:44

then I formed my own group, my own ghost hunting

16:46

group. And we had fun. We did the same

16:48

thing. I was trying to be more methodical.

16:51

You know, I really had, I had

16:53

seven page form for interviews where I

16:55

asked all kinds of questions. And

16:57

then eventually we went to a conference

17:00

in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Okay. And

17:02

that's where my world changed. My world

17:04

literally changed. We were at a

17:07

conference, ghost hunting conference. How many score was that

17:09

ago? Oh, four score.

17:13

That was 2004? Oh,

17:15

so that was, oh, just one year

17:17

shy of a score. No. Okay.

17:20

All right. Well, it's Gettysburg. So

17:23

I'm at this conference and we're

17:26

having fun. We're with a bunch

17:28

of friends and it's one of those

17:30

feelings where you're with like-minded people. I

17:33

could speak freely about my beliefs and

17:35

everyone was like, oh cool. Everyone accepted

17:37

it. No one questioned at all, which

17:40

is kind of fun when you're ignorant

17:42

of anything else. But it's not going

17:44

to be an inciting incident. No.

17:47

So I listened to some of the stories. We talked to

17:49

some Rangers, found out that there was

17:51

a secret spot on the battlefield where

17:53

the Rangers didn't go. They didn't want

17:55

to go because it was so scary, so haunted. They

17:58

just avoided it. And I was like, all right. cool.

18:00

It's a little patch of woods. It's next

18:02

to an open field called the wheat field.

18:05

We can go in this little patch of woods. No

18:07

one would see us. It would be dark, quiet, awesome.

18:10

So one night after the conference, we went over

18:12

there. There's like six or seven of us and

18:16

we're chilling. Nothing's happening but

18:18

we're still waiting for something to happen and

18:21

I look out through the woods into the

18:23

open field and there's a road that

18:25

runs along it and here comes three cars.

18:28

Three cars pull over at the open field because

18:30

there was like a tourist spot there where

18:32

you could pull over and you play like an audio

18:34

tour. Because everyone's thinking about

18:36

the Confederate and Union soldiers that battled

18:39

here and their spirits that are

18:41

wondering about. Everyone's looking for the ghosts

18:43

of the soldiers. So I see

18:45

people get out of the cars and

18:48

they have flashlights, they have laser pointers

18:50

because that was when the thermal guns,

18:53

the temperature guns, infrared temperature guns came

18:55

out and they were very popular and

18:57

they all had the little laser with

18:59

it. So like any kid... Another

19:02

key tool in the belt of any paranormal

19:04

researcher, the little heat measuring gun. Yes, they

19:06

had those. I see lasers going all over.

19:09

I like these two rival paranormal gangs showing

19:11

up. I feel like there's gonna be a

19:13

rumble. The Jets and the Sharks. So I

19:15

see them get out. They go

19:18

up into the field

19:24

and I'm not really thinking much about it until

19:26

they turn, change direction, starts coming towards

19:28

us. And now I'm getting worried because

19:30

we're here, we're hidden, they don't know

19:32

we're here. So we need to break

19:34

this easy to them so we don't

19:36

startle them. Yeah, that

19:38

would probably have been better. That's

19:41

not the way I went. I

19:43

waited because I was hoping maybe they

19:45

would just stop, turn around, leave, whatever.

19:48

Never know you were there. They got

19:50

closer, they got louder and I got

19:52

angry because at the time ghost

19:55

hunters were very territorial. Some

19:58

still are. Okay. I was definitely,

20:00

this was my spot. I didn't want them coming

20:02

in here. So I didn't want

20:04

them finding us and saying, oh hey, we're ghost hunters

20:07

too, let's join you. No, I want

20:09

all the credit from ourselves if we find it. Yeah,

20:12

whatever happens. Publish, that's fine. We can

20:14

talk about that in a minute. So

20:17

I finally hit my breaking

20:20

point and I marched out of

20:22

the woods and started screaming at them. Like,

20:24

get out. And I don't remember what I

20:26

said. Basically, get the

20:28

fuck out. Get away,

20:30

you're spoiling it. This is our spot, go

20:32

away. They stopped, turned

20:34

around, ran back to the cars. Got

20:37

in the cars, drove away. OK, so hey, effective.

20:39

Yeah, mission accomplished. I'm done. Went back

20:42

in to my little patch of woods,

20:44

finished out the night, nothing happened. Went

20:46

home, went back to our hotel room.

20:48

Get up in the morning, go down to the hotel lobby,

20:51

and we start talking to everyone and

20:53

we find out somebody saw an apparition

20:56

last night. Oh, good tell. I know.

20:58

I was like, tell me about it.

21:01

Asking questions. Yeah. They were

21:03

like, hey, it was last night on the battlefield.

21:05

It was by the wheat field. Wait, that's where

21:07

I was. Exactly. Why did I miss this? It was

21:09

about 7 o'clock or so. That's

21:12

what time I was there. Then they

21:14

said this huge guy, this soldier, came

21:16

out of the woods, appeared out of

21:18

the woods. Sergeant Kenny Biddle. Yes. And

21:22

started yelling at them, but they could not

21:24

understand what was being said. Just go away.

21:27

That's when it clicked. I think this is me. So

21:30

I said that. Yeah, yeah. I am the

21:32

Scooby-Doo villain. You take off the. My

21:34

mask is coming off. I'm pulling it off myself.

21:37

And they said no. And

21:40

I said, well, you came up in three

21:42

cars. You got out. You had flashlight. Identifying

21:44

details. Yes. No. Wasn't

21:47

you. I said, I marched out of

21:49

the woods. And I described the

21:51

spot. There was a monument with

21:54

two cannons. We were right across from that.

21:56

Well, yeah, but that wasn't you. Wow.

21:59

OK. you could see

22:01

them wanting the story

22:03

to be preserved more than... I'm seeing...

22:05

I'm not even processing that yet. I'm

22:07

processing... I'm trying to process the idea

22:09

that I'm telling you the truth and

22:12

you're saying no and I

22:14

can't get past that. So I

22:16

kept pushing and I'm like, no, these are other

22:18

details. This is what you were holding. This is

22:21

what you were wearing. I remember you. You said

22:23

this. And finally one turns to

22:25

me and goes, stop trying to steal our

22:27

spotlight. Wow. And that was

22:29

it. I almost just...

22:32

it all dropped, staring

22:34

at them and they just wanted the attention

22:36

because people were all over them. Yeah, they

22:38

were already getting the accolades. They

22:40

were the center of... The spotlight was on them. They

22:43

didn't want any shade. So I

22:45

walked away from that experience thinking,

22:47

ironically, I wasn't mad at them.

22:50

My thought process was, I

22:52

told them the truth. It solved

22:55

that mystery. They

22:57

ignored it because they wanted attention. They wanted to

22:59

believe what they wanted to believe. How

23:01

many times have I done that? Okay.

23:03

You already realized, uh-oh, this might

23:05

be an indictment on me as

23:08

well. Right. Right. That big mirror

23:10

just popped in front of me and I'm

23:13

staring at myself going, how did I do

23:15

this? Yeah, and I miss... To your credit,

23:17

other lessons could have been taken from that

23:19

interaction, but that's great that you kind of

23:22

took that extra step back to sort of

23:24

see yourself in the frame. I don't know

23:26

how many people experience this, but when I

23:29

do something and screw up, it

23:31

really hits me hard. Like I get

23:34

down on myself and I'm just extremely

23:36

angry with myself for doing something wrong,

23:39

which I should have done better, which

23:41

I should have known better. And

23:43

that was the realization that I didn't

23:45

do better. I should have known

23:47

better, but I ignored it. I

23:50

had gone into people's houses, told

23:52

them that it was haunted. I told them

23:54

they had ghosts and then I packed up my equipment and I

23:56

went home. I slept in my own bed. I

23:58

left them with a fear of... Some weird

24:00

entity in their head. You're feeling the weight

24:03

of that. Yes. Mm-hmm. And it's yeah me

24:05

hard. Yeah, and That's

24:07

when I started getting into more of the

24:09

skeptical literature. I found skeptical inquirer

24:11

Okay magazines that's literally one of the

24:13

first ones I found which you're now

24:15

writing articles for I know right

24:18

I Found the

24:20

work of Ben Rafferty. Yeah, and Joe

24:22

nickel Yeah started reading their work because

24:24

they were doing this kind of investigation

24:26

and I realized how much I was doing

24:29

wrong I was not investigating anything. I was

24:31

fear mongering. Hmm. I was going in there

24:33

with a belief I was

24:35

looking only for things that supported that

24:38

belief nominally hunting with a yes foregone

24:40

conclusion Yes, and I had no idea

24:42

what I was doing So

24:44

all the equipment that we touched on and

24:47

more I was going in

24:49

doing exactly what I saw on TV Yeah,

24:51

if it beeped, it was a ghost if

24:54

it lit up. It was a ghost Yeah,

24:56

and that was it that was the extent

24:58

of my technical knowledge of ghost hunting gadgets

25:00

all of this existing in that low Information

25:03

zone right where if your brain can do

25:05

the interpretation and turn it into something Yes,

25:07

if you didn't have that metallic sound when

25:10

you over edit it your audio clips. Yeah.

25:12

Yeah ranked up the game Oh, yeah, played

25:15

it backwards and now I don't like tinty

25:17

now. It sounds like yeah, and you're like

25:19

that's get out exactly I

25:22

just Just mind fuck Basically,

25:24

and I don't want I'm trying not to drop

25:27

too many f-bombs. That's what it was. It really

25:29

hit me I was doing so

25:31

much wrong. I screwed up so many

25:33

people's lives How much anxiety did I

25:35

cause by telling people? Yeah, your house

25:37

is haunted and then I just left

25:39

them to deal with it themselves that

25:41

idea themselves Yeah, and now I see

25:43

what was happening because I came in

25:45

we had matching shirts ghost hunting teams

25:47

Love we have matching boys. Of course.

25:49

Yeah, of course We came in with

25:51

pelican cases full of equipment. We look

25:53

like we knew what we were doing dollars of

25:56

equipment We look like an authority. Yeah, and we

25:58

were not we were full to

26:00

be honest, and walked in as

26:02

an authority. They saw us as an authority.

26:04

We told them what we thought. They took

26:07

it as concrete. And I screwed up a

26:09

lot of people's lives, I think. And you're

26:11

realizing there's an emotional cost and impact to

26:13

what you were doing. Yeah. And

26:16

was the skeptical literature always kind of there

26:18

on the periphery, and you just finally decided

26:20

to take a closer look at it, or

26:22

had you had a different reaction to it

26:24

before? That's a good question. Because

26:27

being a ghost hunter at that time,

26:29

and this is my personal experience, the

26:32

people I knew in the ghost hunting community,

26:34

we all had that idea that skeptics were

26:36

evil. Skeptics were the bad

26:38

people only trying to keep us down.

26:41

We knew secret knowledge, and they were

26:43

trying to keep everyone else from finding

26:45

out about it. And it sounds so

26:47

conspiracy theory, doesn't it? Right. Chills with

26:50

an agenda. Yes, that was it. Scientists

26:52

couldn't figure it out. They were embarrassed because

26:54

they couldn't figure out what we were figuring

26:56

out, almost like that, not a snap of

26:58

a finger. It took several weeks, months for

27:01

me to realize what was going on. And Skeptical

27:03

Inquirer actually was recommended by a friend of

27:06

mine, two friends, Andy and

27:08

Tanya Kaiser, good friends of mine that

27:10

I've known for years. And

27:12

they told me about Ben Rafford and his work.

27:14

So I started reading it. I picked up a

27:16

copy. It was in the bookstore. I picked up

27:18

a copy, read it. And I was like, wow,

27:21

he solved it. Do you remember which book it was? I

27:24

don't. Okay, I know he has like a

27:26

manual on paranormal investigations, but he has many books. Well,

27:28

before the books. This was just in Skeptical Inquirer. Oh, right,

27:30

one of the articles. One of the articles. And I

27:32

don't remember which one it was, but it just hit me

27:34

like, wow, this is what I need to be doing.

27:36

The world makes a lot more sense now. Yes.

27:39

And then I started getting into photography

27:41

at the same time as

27:43

a side job. I started

27:45

doing like family portraits and

27:48

product photography and stuff like that. And

27:50

that was giving me more insight into

27:52

how light interacts with the camera. Yes.

27:54

And you're realizing, oh, these things that I'm

27:56

trying to get rid of or prevent in

27:59

my photos because... their errors or glitches

28:01

or reflections are things I

28:03

don't want. I know what I would have

28:05

thought of those before. So

28:07

your additional knowledge was

28:09

further reinforcing the assessment.

28:11

Yeah. And building

28:13

my knowledge base, and now I

28:16

was looking at photos going, oh

28:18

yeah, that's not a spirit orb.

28:20

That is a speck of dust.

28:22

And now I can tell why it's a speck of dust,

28:25

because I'm looking at certain characteristics, and I can see

28:27

it, and I can match it up with this one.

28:30

It's in multiple pictures in the same spot.

28:32

It's on the lens. Oh, it's moved. So

28:34

it was somewhere in the environment. Exactly. Exactly.

28:37

These kinds of analysis. And even something as

28:40

strange as frosty breath, you

28:42

think it would just look like regular

28:44

mist, but when your film missed, that's

28:46

at a distance. Out of focus. Yes,

28:48

that's exactly it. You get

28:50

that fuzziness that comes with the out

28:52

of focus, because it's right up at

28:54

the lens, instead of focused on something

28:56

like 10 feet away. Darn, it's not

28:58

ectoplasm. You know what,

29:01

that's something that actually came as

29:03

I started to learn more about

29:05

photography and realized about these ecto

29:07

myths that we were getting, and

29:09

that ectoplasm was actually something completely

29:11

different. And

29:13

when you had the Victorian seances, which

29:15

I actually have some of that ectoplasm

29:18

in the Center

29:20

for Inquiry. Like the cheesecloth variety. I

29:22

made some. Nice. And then

29:24

the stone, it looks great. Fantastic. I

29:26

love how from a certain era, you

29:29

had so many like ghost trails that

29:31

were camera straps, but now people

29:34

take photos without those little camera straps

29:36

that were on all the tiny point

29:38

and shoot cameras. So you just don't

29:40

get that kind of image anymore. You

29:42

don't get them anymore. The only time

29:44

you see them anymore is then when

29:47

like a television show says, oh, they

29:49

started getting pictures back in the eighties

29:51

and the nineties and they'll show the

29:53

portrait and the telltale sign is because

29:56

people usually turn the camera to the portrait

29:58

way. Not landscape. where

30:00

it's longer left or right. Now you've got this dangling

30:02

thing on the move. And they never put it around

30:04

their wrist. Or even when they did, depending

30:06

on how long it was, it fell

30:08

right in front of the lens. It's so dependent

30:11

on the technology, where there were

30:13

also a bunch of effects that were unique to

30:15

the Polaroid. Or the ability to

30:17

go in right after you'd snapped the picture,

30:19

or actually before, and maybe use a cotton

30:21

swab and write a message or something. I

30:23

remember having a personal friend who was really

30:26

swayed by these photos with words in English

30:28

that showed up imposed over the image. And

30:30

I was trying to tell him, like, you

30:32

can do that on a Polaroid. You want me to

30:34

show you? No. You could

30:36

even double expose on a Polaroid camera. Oh, really?

30:39

There was a way to do it where you

30:41

had the front door, the loading door. It

30:43

was open. You would keep it open. But

30:45

press it closed a little bit. And as soon as you

30:47

hit the shutter button, you'd open it. So

30:50

it wouldn't eject the slide. Oh my goodness.

30:52

And then you would take another picture with

30:54

it. And you'd have

30:56

a double exposure. And in fact,

30:58

oh, crazy. My CFI's outreach coordinator,

31:00

Eric Shaver, he works in the

31:03

office next to me. He purchased a

31:05

Polaroid camera and put

31:07

film in it and found out that it takes

31:10

double exposures by itself. Because it only

31:12

spits out a picture every other time

31:14

he hits the shutter. So it's

31:16

an internal mechanism. It's not

31:18

supposed to do that. It was broken. But

31:20

a perfect tool for the ghost. Yeah, he

31:22

sent me pictures. Hunters. Because we go back

31:24

and forth. We buy vintage cameras. Oh, yeah.

31:26

You've got such a collection. It's amazing. I

31:28

love it. I love it. Yeah. But he

31:30

sent me pictures from one weekend. He's like,

31:32

hey, I picked up this camera, this Polaroid.

31:34

Is this supposed to happen? And

31:37

he took pictures of the Polaroid images that

31:39

came in. Amazing. Because going farther back to

31:41

plate photography, you had this long tradition in

31:43

the late 1800s and early 1900s of

31:47

spirit photography, where people would sit for

31:49

a photo. And then the photographer would

31:51

later on then plunk down a doll

31:54

or another child or something and

31:56

add this ghostly figure that would show up in the

31:58

image. And a lot of them. The photographer,

32:01

especially if you had like William

32:03

Mumler, he was the first one

32:05

that really publicized it. And it's

32:07

speculated that he would visit people's

32:09

homes and then he would pre-shoot

32:12

the plate. So you

32:14

have the image of the family member already

32:16

on the plate, knowing where it was. So

32:19

he could load the plate. Then compose the

32:21

rest of the photograph accordingly. Right. I

32:23

mean he did a good job because he fooled

32:25

a lot of people. And then we're talking about

32:27

two different phenomena here, the knowing fraud and just

32:30

accidents that show up. Yeah.

32:33

Where were we? Well, you

32:36

were talking about gaining this photography

32:38

experience. And I think this is

32:40

key because it's so easy to say, oops, I

32:43

was wrong about that. Let's move on and do

32:45

something completely different. Yeah. I wanted

32:47

to know more about, I wanted to know how

32:49

these anomalies were captured. So

32:52

I would practice and over and over

32:54

again. What makes orbs? What makes mists?

32:56

What makes the camera stop thing? How

32:58

to make a good double exposure? By reproducing

33:01

it. Right. Yeah. By

33:03

reproducing it. And the reason I started

33:05

collecting all these vintage cameras that I have is

33:07

because people were using different cameras and saying, well,

33:10

you're using that camera. It's probably easier with that

33:12

one. But I have this one over here and

33:14

I would go buy that camera. Okay. And

33:17

do it. Yeah. Say here, I

33:19

just did it with your camera. And I make a habit of that with

33:21

anything. When I test a new ghost

33:23

gadget and they're using a certain EMF meter,

33:25

even though most of them do the same

33:28

exact thing, I will order that meter that

33:30

I see. Now, you have the coolest

33:33

office of anyone I've seen because it's

33:35

just covered, every shelf all around

33:38

you is covered in nerd memorabilia,

33:40

but also like all these cameras and equipment

33:42

and ghost meters and stuff. Do you have

33:45

a rough estimate of how many cameras are

33:47

in your possession? I have

33:49

probably about 300 some cameras

33:52

ranging from 1904. That's the

33:54

earliest one that I have all the way

33:56

up to modern cameras. Okay. I

33:59

have a large collection. of Polaroids and

34:01

not talking just the rainbow camera which is

34:03

one of my favorite that's the one I

34:05

grew up with. I have all the versions

34:08

of the rainbow camera which is like there's

34:10

a black face one there's a gray face

34:12

one one called the button all kinds of

34:14

different colors and then I have the older

34:16

cameras the older Polaroids which were the accordion

34:19

style. Oh wow. Yeah

34:21

I love them. I even have

34:23

two of the SX-70 original folding

34:25

cameras which were that was

34:28

a big deal that was your first time when

34:30

you actually used the cartridge to go in and

34:32

it spit it out. So Polaroid used to have

34:35

film where you loaded the cartridge in the

34:37

back and it was more of a process

34:39

you took the picture you had to rip

34:41

out this piece of film you

34:43

had to wait like a minute or so depending

34:45

on the temperature there was a graph on the

34:47

back that told you like the ambient temperature and

34:49

then how long you had to wait oh wow

34:52

you peeled it apart and then you got an

34:54

image and that was it no negative you just

34:56

got the image okay and then when the SX-70

34:58

was released don't

35:00

quote me on this but I think it's 1971 or so

35:02

I forget the date. Like any Betel

35:06

says it was 1971 oh wait

35:08

I was not supposed to question I'm sorry

35:10

oh that's great but

35:12

when the yeah the SX-70 was released it

35:14

was the first time you had the

35:17

front-loading cassette okay and that's your that's

35:20

the noise to shake it like a Polaroid picture

35:23

but yeah never never never shake it yes never

35:25

shake a baby never shake a Polaroid that's right

35:27

but you had it sorry I read 3000 it

35:29

was a funky looking

35:31

like triangular shape how fascinating but it

35:33

folded down into what looked like a

35:35

small pocketbook okay and it was it

35:37

was a pocket camera you actually put

35:39

it in your suit coat okay and

35:41

then you pulled the viewfinder you

35:43

pulled it up and it was like a transformer yeah

35:45

you had a camera and it was like really cool

35:47

but that's so great because like you were saying you

35:49

know from experience in your

35:51

collection and from trying all these

35:53

things which cameras produced which effects

35:55

yes and the SX-70 I got

35:58

that because that was used for

36:00

the Doris Beidher case, the

36:02

entity case. Oh, okay. So there was

36:04

a film called The Entity based on

36:06

a book called The Entity, and then

36:09

that was based on a real life,

36:11

quote unquote, poltergeist that happened. And

36:14

it's very involved, but... It's

36:16

always fascinating to learn details

36:18

about the original cases that

36:20

these extrapolated grandiose stories are

36:22

based on, the ones that

36:24

all of society knows about,

36:27

like the Amityville Horror and

36:29

the Annabelle doll being a raggedy

36:31

end. I remember learning that guy, what? That

36:33

is so less dramatic than what I had

36:35

in my mind. An interesting fact of the...

36:37

Yeah. So the Annabelle doll

36:40

is kept in a ridiculous enclosure. It's

36:42

a wooden and glass enclosure that's supposed to

36:44

house this doll that everyone thinks is possessed

36:47

by some kind of demon or something like

36:49

that. And it just boggles my mind first

36:51

that this tiny flimsy

36:53

case is holding this demonic

36:56

doll in place. That's

36:58

just silly. Sure. But when you

37:00

go back and read the book by Ed

37:02

and Lorraine Warren, and I really don't like

37:04

bringing them up because I don't like them,

37:06

but when you read the book... Why were

37:08

they troublemakers? That they published and they published

37:11

that story the first time. Ed

37:13

writes in there that the doll is not

37:15

possessed. It never was. Oh,

37:17

wow. That dolls don't get possessed. It was just

37:19

used as a prop to get attention. That's

37:22

it. Of nothing demonic or anything

37:25

about that from the guy's mouth.

37:28

Wild. From himself. But

37:30

yet it still has this... Until it landed

37:32

in the popular consciousness. Yeah. Then

37:34

it becomes all scary. Yep. Just

37:36

a frickin' doll. Amazing. So you

37:39

spent time just as an avid

37:41

photographer. Were you active in any

37:43

way in trying to either join

37:45

a skeptical group or be an

37:47

activist of some sort or did that come much later?

37:50

I think I was trying to do my own

37:52

way. I

37:54

knew about Skeptical Enquirer. I

37:56

didn't realize CFI was there or

37:58

Psycop was there. It was just like,

38:00

this is a magazine, it does that thing, that's

38:03

cool. But I didn't really

38:05

go beyond that. Well, I remember for

38:07

years I was involved with the Skeptic

38:09

Society in Pasadena, and that's where I

38:11

learned about skepticism and eventually left my

38:13

faith. But I remember listening to Point

38:15

of Inquiry four years before I noticed

38:17

they mentioned CFI Los Angeles at

38:19

the time, now CFI West. And I went, wait,

38:22

what? There's one in town? So that became my

38:24

new home because they had so much going on

38:26

there. They really came down and, I got

38:29

to give credit to Ben Rapford again, which I don't

38:31

want to. Yeah, yeah, I love you Ben.

38:33

I'm very hesitant there. But damn. A friend

38:35

of mine, I wrote a book, a self-happest

38:37

book. And it was called Orbs

38:39

of Dust. And it was about

38:41

photographic anomalies. And basically,

38:43

oh crap, I'm going to bring up the

38:45

Warrens again. I

38:47

watched a video from their

38:50

Connecticut case. And

38:52

it's a video that Ed shot. He went

38:54

back into the home, apparently by himself, because

38:56

he wanted to, quote unquote, confront

38:58

the demon. So he

39:01

has a video camera set up on the kitchen

39:03

table and chairs. And he's calling

39:05

out like, in the name of Jesus Christ, tell me

39:07

your name. Show me a sign that you're

39:09

here. And the chairs move. Oh,

39:11

God. The chairs move towards him. Okay. And

39:14

he's the only one. He's the only one there. Again, we're taking his word for

39:16

it, but okay. Yeah. He says

39:18

it again, table and chairs move, again, towards

39:21

him. And I'm watching this.

39:23

He does it a third time, comes towards him. And

39:26

the chairs and the table. Where are the

39:28

ropes? Any rotation is always as

39:30

if you pull something. Okay. And

39:33

I'm like, he's right there. It's coming

39:35

right towards him. But not

39:37

like, how do I say this?

39:40

Like the chairs aren't just going one

39:42

direction. They are converging. Yes. Where

39:44

he is. There's a focal point. Yes.

39:48

Okay. Yep. And

39:51

it infuriated me. So in one

39:53

weekend, I wrote out that- At this

39:55

point, we are well past just happenstance,

39:57

accident. This is pre-planned. Right. term

40:00

buck loosely because I just wrote everything that was

40:02

coming out of my head. And

40:04

I literally printed out pages. My wife, myself,

40:06

and two friends of ours, we printed out

40:08

all the pages, folded them, stapled them, cut

40:11

them so all the pages were even, and

40:13

we sold them in conferences. And

40:15

it was fun, but it

40:18

went into all these photographic anomalies and

40:20

explained them. And the friends I mentioned

40:22

earlier, Andy and Tanya Kaiser, they

40:24

sent one of those to Ben Raffert. And he

40:27

read it, contacted me and said,

40:29

hey, I can't write a review because it's

40:31

not an actually published book. Okay. It's just

40:33

something that I put together and put

40:36

out there. But he's like, I can ask you

40:38

to write something from the newsletter that we do,

40:41

which was skeptical briefs. Yeah, yeah. Okay,

40:43

you know, that's cool. That was a

40:45

learning process, because I

40:47

had never written for a skeptical

40:49

organization. This was new. This was

40:52

new, because as a ghost

40:54

hunter, and you write on your

40:56

own website, you can write whatever the hell you

40:58

want. Right. You don't have to support it. You've

41:01

got editors. Yeah, no editors. Fact checking. So my

41:03

grammar was horrible. No

41:05

fact checking, no citations, no

41:07

references, nothing. I

41:09

sent him something about a case I worked

41:11

on, and he sent it back saying, you

41:14

need a lot more. And it was a

41:16

good learning process. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate it

41:18

now. It was a struggle my first time.

41:21

But I appreciate it now the process because

41:23

I learned so much about how to write,

41:25

what to write, what I needed to

41:27

do in order to say some of the stuff that I

41:29

was saying. And it was just it took a

41:32

few months. But eventually, he published my

41:34

first article. And I was like, beyond

41:36

the moon. Yeah, like, Oh, my god,

41:38

there's my name. I got a newsletter

41:40

in the mail. And right there, that's

41:42

me. So cool. So I did a

41:44

few more for him. And then I

41:46

just started like, all right, this is

41:48

something I really want to do. So

41:50

so I started writing more articles for

41:53

not just skeptical inquirer, but just on

41:55

a blog, getting it out there, making

41:57

videos, and my early videos on YouTube.

41:59

Mm hmm. I mean as I think

42:01

anyone that made a podcast knows your first 10

42:03

20 whatever shows I'm

42:06

sure if I knew anybody who had made a

42:08

podcast they would probably agree with that. They're horrible.

42:10

They're horrible I think of somebody yeah, they're horrible

42:15

So eventually I did better I

42:17

realized you know like I don't have to

42:19

be so in your face more information be

42:21

professional I have met some smart people who

42:24

have made a few episodes and then just

42:26

like redone them or deleted them That is

42:28

a smart way to go. Yes, I didn't

42:30

I was not that smart. I've done that

42:32

Yeah, like I'd look at it and within

42:34

a minute like I can't believe I made

42:36

this forget No, I don't want anyone to

42:38

see this ever again. So burn with fire,

42:41

but then 2016

42:43

I was all into the skeptical movement.

42:45

I knew a lot of people I knew

42:48

about James Randy. I had followed his work

42:50

I knew several people that are associated with

42:52

it and one of my goals was to

42:54

meet Randy Yeah, he had just had a

42:56

stroke. He was scheduled to be at Cycon.

42:59

You know like 2016 how many chances all

43:01

I get? That's what I was worried about

43:03

like how much longer I gotta go So

43:06

my wife and I like we planned a

43:08

year in advance Soon as

43:10

the announcement came in saved up our money flew

43:12

out here here being Vegas here being Vegas. Yes

43:14

I'm sorry. We're sitting in Vegas right now and

43:17

in the glamour of staff

43:20

dining room that's empty and

43:23

I came up the escalators got into the lobby

43:25

The first thing I see Randy

43:28

and I starstruck. Yeah, I walked up

43:30

to him like the feeling fanboy I

43:32

was yep, I was like,

43:34

huh, mr. Randy amazing Randy

43:39

And he's looking at me and he's you know,

43:41

he was stooped over looking up like you're holding

43:43

the imaginary. Let's go Yeah But

43:46

yeah, he loved the interaction you loved it And I

43:48

said hey I saw that you made an announcement that

43:50

if somebody wanted to come up and give you a

43:52

hug you would hug them Can I can I give

43:54

you hugging? Would you hug me? Yeah, and I get

43:56

real nervous when I when I of course, you know

43:58

I'm like, oh my god. This is the guy I

44:00

like I've been looking up to him and he's like, oh, yeah,

44:02

come here gives me a hug and I was like Yeah,

44:06

it was so nice then I started meeting

44:08

everyone Yeah, I met Barry Carr. Mm-hmm, which

44:10

I learned was the second time because I

44:12

had met him a couple years earlier Oh

44:15

really? Okay didn't realize who he was who

44:17

you were talking to because I had met

44:19

Ben Rafferty did a talk in DC Mm-hmm,

44:21

and I attended it. So I actually met

44:24

Barry Carr Jim under down. Yep there We're

44:26

all talking about members of the CFI family.

44:28

Yes, Ben Rafferty, of course Jim under down.

44:31

I've known for many years He runs Center

44:33

for inquiry West and runs the CFI IG.

44:35

She'll talk more about in just a bit

44:37

Yeah, it's good folks to know it was

44:39

great. That's the first time I met Susan

44:41

Gerbick. Yes Oh, she was I was just

44:43

telling a friend today like really she outpaces

44:45

all of us in her does She does

44:47

the Wikipedia even then and we've had her

44:50

on the show, but she was great and

44:52

everyone was friendly Everyone was great. I met

44:54

Mark Edward. Um, he actually

44:56

taught me some things about

44:58

pre-show work Yeah, mentalism which

45:00

I was Wow These

45:02

people are really like it was a very knowledge.

45:04

Yes Yeah He was so amazing and basically taking

45:07

me under his wing because I was so interested

45:09

in what he was doing Yeah, so I learned

45:11

a lot. That's the cool thing about coming here

45:13

is, you know, I've seen all of those people

45:15

You just mentioned this year. Yeah, I came back

45:18

the next year as a guest because they wanted

45:20

me to do a workshop And I was like,

45:22

wow, I remember that that was like I think

45:24

I went to that one photographic anomaly Yeah, and

45:27

you were co-leading with Jim. Was it that one

45:29

that wasn't that one? Oh, okay So

45:31

I thought one earlier one about just

45:33

photography and at one point

45:35

I did the pepper's ghost effect Nice and

45:37

I had little pieces of plexiglass for everyone

45:40

to get the reflection so you can have

45:42

a superimposed image But one exposure I had

45:44

them because everyone was seated in rows So

45:46

I had them put it up right to

45:48

their face and put it on angle Kenny's

45:51

holding a plate of his hand So in

45:53

his eyes, you know, he's rotated it like

45:55

45 degrees. Mm-hmm so that you were looking

45:58

through the glass at the screen but

46:00

you were also seeing the reflection on the screen of the

46:02

person next to you. That was 90 degrees

46:05

to your side. So we did that

46:07

and everyone was like, wow, this is

46:09

awesome. And it was so good. I

46:11

was so happy that I was able

46:13

to teach these people that I thought

46:15

were much smarter than I was. And

46:18

it was just overwhelming. And I've been

46:20

back ever since. Yeah. Been working here,

46:22

did more stuff for them, writing articles

46:24

for Skeptical Inquiry magazine. And

46:26

meanwhile, you were also putting out YouTube videos

46:29

where you would take claims like

46:31

a baby cam catching a ghost in

46:33

the background. You did an excellent analysis

46:35

of that and figuring out exactly A,

46:38

which camera it was, B, its

46:40

capabilities and where it would like, you know,

46:43

crunch values in its processing, and

46:45

then C, exactly who and what it was in the

46:47

background that was being mistaken as the ghost. And it

46:49

was a member of the family, if I remember. Yeah,

46:52

it was the father. But yeah, that's kind of stuff.

46:54

I guess learning from everyone, and

46:56

this is where it becomes a team effort

46:58

because I appreciate what you

47:01

said in the beginning, like how much you love

47:03

my work. And I totally appreciate that. And it

47:05

was awesome. But it's not just me. Learning

47:08

from all these people, again, Ben Rafford,

47:10

Joe Nickel, they're the ones that really

47:13

inspired me. Then learning from Randy. Then

47:15

meeting everyone here and listening to you.

47:18

Listening to your investigations helped me all the

47:20

time because I listened to – because you

47:22

have a different perspective than I do. We

47:24

share a lot, but you still have a

47:26

slightly different one. And I learn from you

47:28

when you tell your stories and your experiences

47:30

and what you did. Same for Susan

47:32

Gerbick. I learn a lot from her, Mark

47:34

Edwards. Everyone that I meet here, it's just

47:37

amazing. So it's a total team effort whenever

47:39

I put out an article or a video

47:41

because the detail that I put into it,

47:43

I've learned from everyone. Sorry,

47:46

guys. Hate to interrupt. But Ross, with 2024

47:49

coming up, do you

47:51

have any resolutions related

47:53

to fitness, nutrition, exercise,

47:56

websites, self-improve – oh, websites.

48:00

I've got self improvement to do to

48:02

multiple website them and I you know

48:04

it in my resolutions. very sometimes it's

48:06

nineteen Twenty by Ten Eighty seven I

48:08

dislike us. Vertical format on my phone

48:11

is now I have so many resolutions

48:13

hands on their website I were you

48:15

I set up here yes obsess about

48:17

why? why did you have in mind.

48:20

I was just thinking that maybe

48:22

and twenty twenty four you wanted

48:24

to make a resolution meaning resolved

48:26

to do something over have ah

48:29

to like make a new website.

48:31

Yes oh man. Well if I was

48:33

gonna do that, it's so hard. Where

48:35

did you start your ad service? Square

48:37

space. Ah Ross, Yeah, What? Are you

48:40

do you Run month? Saw how smartest

48:42

Us or square space is so that

48:44

it is the all in one platform

48:46

for building your brand's growing your business

48:49

online. I mean that sounds great. I'd

48:51

love to stand out with beautiful website, engage

48:53

with my audience and sell anything. My products

48:55

content I create, even my time exactly. Every

48:58

square space, website and online store

49:00

comes with a sweet as integrated

49:03

features and useful guide and they

49:05

help maximize prominence among search. Results

49:07

of that sweet is so sweet.

49:09

It also includes square space extensions

49:12

so you can connect to vetted

49:14

third party tools to extend the

49:16

functionality of your website. It also

49:18

includes fluid ends and say the

49:20

next and website design system from

49:22

Square Space. It's. Never been easier

49:25

for anyone. And I mean.

49:27

Anyone to unlock Unbreakable and I

49:29

mean unbreakable creativity. Start with a

49:32

best in class and I mean

49:34

best single as website said plate

49:37

and customize every design details with

49:39

reimagine and I I mean we

49:41

imagined drag and drop technology for

49:44

desktop. or mobile i know you're excited

49:46

you've probably already pulled up square space.com

49:48

look at what it offers both you

49:50

know as let's go back to the

49:52

you are a bar you're gonna had

49:54

to square space.com/oh no to get your

49:56

free trial and when you think you're

49:58

ready to launch Then you use the

50:01

offer code, oh no, and what happens Carrie?

50:03

You will save 10% off

50:06

your first purchase of a website or domain.

50:09

Squarespace, make a website, it's gonna

50:11

be awesome. But also Ross, while

50:13

I have you here, we have a

50:15

Jumbotron. A Jumbotron, yay. It's where someone's

50:18

message goes up on the big

50:20

screen right behind us, everyone can see

50:22

us right now. This big podcast screen. But

50:25

we'll read it just in case you can't see it. Yes, exactly,

50:27

in case your eyes are turned away, this

50:30

message is for Paulina Czelek.

50:32

From Christian Aparta. And

50:34

it says, happy birthday cousin, may your

50:37

path be un-bumpy as you make it

50:39

through the next lidocaine variant trial.

50:41

And lots of crafts, D&D, and

50:43

fun times with Bombell. Bombell

50:46

is apparently an enormous

50:48

dog. Okay. Hello, Bombell.

50:50

A cute, enormous dog. But I guess

50:52

as far as Carrie is concerned, I

50:54

repeat myself. Too shy, meh,

50:57

it's categorical. Well, happy

50:59

birthday, Paulina, and most

51:01

importantly, Bombell, whenever you are birthday, maybe.

51:04

Oh, wait, but the screen is coughing

51:06

to life again. Yeah, new

51:08

message. It looks like this one is

51:10

for Lisa. Yes. From

51:12

Eric. Eric? Boy, these are

51:14

unusual names, but yes, I think that's

51:17

right. It says, happy 15th anniversary to

51:19

Lisa from Eric. I hope we have another 50 more

51:22

to share, our quirky interests with each

51:24

other, argue over trifles, and feel safe

51:26

in each other's company. That's really

51:28

sweet. And their anniversary will be

51:30

on January 2nd, 2024. So

51:33

everybody on January 2nd, think of Lisa

51:36

and Eric. Happy 15th. And

51:39

listen to this Maximum Fun Show. Hey, this

51:41

is Andrew Reich, the host of Dead Pilot

51:43

Society, the show that takes comedy pilots that

51:45

were sold and developed at networks and streamers

51:47

but never produced. It gives them the table

51:49

reads they never got a chance to have.

51:52

If you've never checked out Dead Pilot Society,

51:54

this month's episode might be the place to

51:56

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51:58

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52:00

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52:02

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52:05

very own Hal Lublin. So go

52:07

to maximumfun.org or your favorite pod

52:09

catcher and check out this incredible

52:11

cast on the latest episode of

52:13

Dead Pilots Society. And

52:16

this is where I want to like get

52:18

into some of your actual like investigations, because

52:21

you've done so many. This is such a

52:23

big can of worms that we

52:25

could be doing that for, you know, four plus hours

52:27

and we're not going to obviously. We could

52:29

party tonight. Neither of us had dinner, right? And

52:32

I don't know, like maybe if you

52:34

could share just a couple highlights. So there was

52:36

a recent one that I did. It

52:39

was a psychic that came

52:41

across my social media feed. She claimed

52:43

to be psychic and also a Reiki

52:45

master and a doctor.

52:48

Okay. When I hear those things

52:50

together, that's a red flag. Yeah.

52:53

Like, okay, let me look into this. The claim that

52:55

she was making was that she helped find a

52:57

missing teenager in Oklahoma. Okay. So

53:00

missing person case. A teenager ran

53:02

away from home. Nobody could find her.

53:05

Somebody reached out to her, I guess, and she

53:07

drove to Oklahoma to help find this girl. And

53:10

by the time, this is her words, by

53:12

the time she left, she had the entire

53:14

police department believing that she was psychic. Oh

53:16

wow. Because she had helped them find the

53:18

girl. Or at least in her telling. Yes, that's

53:20

key. Now I have

53:23

to, okay, which police department was it? Okay, what's

53:25

their number? Okay, yeah, who are

53:27

you working with? Who's an officer I could talk

53:29

to? That's funny, because I asked questions. I saw

53:31

the post and I did that. I said, hey,

53:34

can you tell me what the police department if

53:36

this was? Because I'd like to call and verify.

53:39

And the response was, what business is

53:41

it of yours? Which,

53:43

because I was working here for

53:45

CSI, I was able to

53:47

respond, it is my job. Yeah. Literally,

53:50

to look into this. Yeah. So

53:53

I'd like to confirm this. So this is a

53:55

fun fact about you, is that you are part

53:57

of a very small group of full-time paid investigators.

54:00

of the paranormal. How many of those are there?

54:03

As far as I know right now, zero.

54:06

One. Me. Talking

54:08

to them. I keep forgetting

54:10

myself. But yeah, so

54:12

I do this full time. This is what I do for a

54:14

living. They didn't want to answer any of my questions. They

54:17

got very upset with me that I was questioning this.

54:20

So that only made me want to look

54:22

into it more. Because yeah, you're hiding something.

54:24

Let me look. So the first

54:27

thing I did was look up newspaper articles.

54:29

I was able to find the case through

54:31

little clues that they had given me. Found

54:34

the detective that was on the case. Called

54:36

the detective. Spoke the detective.

54:38

So you had to completely on your own

54:40

without her help narrow in on what we were talking about.

54:43

Okay, so now you're called. You're on the horn.

54:45

Left the message. He called me back the next

54:48

morning. I spoke to him and I quote it

54:50

right from her social media post. Yeah,

54:52

do you feel this is an accurate representation of

54:54

how things went down? He said no. Okay.

54:57

And I was like, okay, good. And one of the great

54:59

things, and I'm sure you're going to love this. One

55:02

of the things that she had said was

55:04

that the teenager was by water. Classic.

55:06

This is if you're going to make

55:09

the SNL version or that Michelin web

55:11

version, you're going to have the psychic say

55:13

they're near water. Yes. That's about

55:15

as cliche as you can get. So I brought

55:17

that quote up and he left. And

55:21

said, son, we're a Lake town. Everything's

55:24

by water. There's water all around.

55:27

There's swamp. There's water everywhere. So

55:29

you can't walk anywhere without water.

55:32

I told him some of the other things that were

55:34

said and he's like, no, that's not accurate. She did

55:36

not give us any information that we did not already

55:38

know. Okay. So I wrote an article

55:41

about it, put in all the information, the quotes, everything.

55:44

About two weeks later, I get an email from

55:46

not the psychic, but her business

55:49

partner in the form

55:51

of a cease and desist letter, which

55:54

was not an official one, demanding

55:56

that I take down the article. Just hoping you'll

55:58

be able to see it. be somehow

56:01

concerned about this and threatening which sometimes

56:03

works the sue me she was going

56:05

to she was going to file a

56:07

ball suit against me and that she

56:09

was going to inform my company and

56:11

they're gonna sue them too like I'm

56:14

sitting at home watching Star Wars because

56:16

that's what I do and I read

56:18

it and I laughed like ha

56:20

ha ha put the phone down and my

56:22

wife's like what's up like it's like he's trying to

56:24

sue me she's like oh all right

56:27

and goes back to watch the me like we

56:29

didn't think anything of it I called Nick Little

56:31

was our legal counsel yeah he's like yeah we've

56:33

had him on the show too yeah yeah don't

56:35

worry I'll take care of this came

56:37

in the work the next morning talk

56:39

to Barry he's like ha ha ha

56:41

okay whatever yeah yeah within one email

56:43

Nick had nixed it he wrote back

56:46

saying what specifically did he say that

56:48

wasn't true that you think you can

56:50

sue for this and that like really

56:52

good heart yeah I loved it lady

56:54

responded once with no information okay

56:56

that I made fun of them that

56:59

I mocked them which I didn't mm-hmm

57:01

just pointed out some facts yeah Nick

57:03

responded what specifically and

57:06

that was it we didn't hear from them again

57:08

yeah I added that story to my presentation that

57:10

I do here when I started

57:12

doing the presentation I went back to her

57:14

website to check up on you know let's

57:16

see if there's any changes and there were

57:19

every reference to her missing person case was

57:21

gone so you've already either screen grabbed it

57:23

or found it in the Internet of Archive

57:25

way back machine yo yeah it's all

57:27

there that's that's like something such

57:29

a great tool yes for people

57:31

wanting to catch psychics and others

57:34

changing their their phrasing their approach

57:36

their advertising absolutely and I mean

57:38

there was other information about her

57:40

like for for seven years

57:43

she used the doctor title because of

57:45

the Universal Life Church doctor of divinity

57:47

okay I had wow she eventually did

57:49

get a an actual doctorate oh I'm

57:51

a diploma 22 from

57:54

Capella University not so

57:56

it's an online University but it is an legit

57:58

okay legit I did Which is

58:00

fine sure but for seven years She

58:03

was using that title using that time only and

58:05

I think her main beef with me was that

58:07

I called it a fake title Oh

58:09

diploma mill side home then yeah I mean

58:11

you pay 20 bucks and I enter a

58:14

picture of me and Eric Shaver my co-worker

58:16

doctor it yeah Like

58:18

we got it too We're not doctors.

58:20

So that was one case that I worked on

58:23

What else what else there's so many there

58:26

are so many there was oh, there's interesting

58:28

one that I Did it was the

58:30

1900 photograph? So it

58:32

was a photograph taken in 1900 and it

58:35

was of a bunch of ladies that

58:37

were together They were mill workers. I

58:40

forget exactly what they were doing But they got

58:42

together and it's when you search for ghost photos.

58:44

It's one of the more famous that shows up

58:46

Okay, because you're looking at it and it's probably

58:48

about 15

58:51

17 women and in three levels you

58:53

look at the middle row and on the side There's

58:55

the woman on the end She's standing

58:58

there looks normal and then you notice that

59:00

on her right shoulder. There is a hand

59:03

Oh, but there is no body next to her Interesting.

59:05

Yeah, that's fun So I looked into it

59:07

a little bit and the closer I got

59:09

to it because I got a high resolution

59:12

Copy of it. Yeah, I could not

59:14

figure out who actually owned it Okay

59:16

I wasn't able to find a like

59:18

one of those photo like

59:21

a photo website where they keep high resolution images

59:23

They own the rights to it. Yeah, but it

59:25

wouldn't tell me who Photos. Yeah,

59:27

something like that one of those but it was a very high

59:29

resolution. I was able to get that and Look

59:32

closer at it and the more I looked at the

59:34

side of the woman with the hand on her shoulder

59:37

The more I realized there was a

59:39

different look to it. It was darker

59:41

in some areas. Some just didn't look

59:43

natural Okay, then it was reminded me

59:46

of something called a crayon drawing or

59:48

a crayon portrait Which is a

59:50

it looks like a real photograph Okay,

59:53

and it's a it's a larger portrait

59:55

But what it is is you take

59:57

a small like two by three image

59:59

that was taken and you put

1:00:01

it in something called a sun enlarger. It

1:00:03

uses the light of the sun to make

1:00:05

a larger image of that, and it projects

1:00:07

it onto a wall. But you put canvas

1:00:09

there, so it projects the

1:00:11

image onto a canvas, and an artist

1:00:13

comes in with charcoal or pencil and

1:00:15

traces it. So part of it,

1:00:17

I know it's probably difficult. I don't

1:00:20

know if I'm explaining it right, but part of it. Podcasts

1:00:22

are great for talking about images, but we're doing it. Okay,

1:00:24

we're doing it. So like the side of her dress, the

1:00:26

side of her head, of this woman

1:00:28

that had the hand on her shoulder. So

1:00:30

it's a real photograph, but that part, that

1:00:33

side of her, opposite the hand. So

1:00:35

when you're looking at the photo, it would be her

1:00:37

right side. When I looked at it, it looked drawn

1:00:39

in. And the closer

1:00:41

I got, because then I put it under

1:00:43

a microscope to look at it closer, and

1:00:46

it was drawn in. And that led me

1:00:48

to understand that there was not

1:00:50

only her side, but the dress of

1:00:52

the girl behind her, which could be

1:00:54

seen, was all drawn in. So

1:00:57

I'm pretty sure, I can't prove it 100% because

1:00:59

I don't have the original, but I think there was

1:01:02

another woman there, and they took her out.

1:01:04

Okay. Because there is something,

1:01:07

they would edit photos back then. You would

1:01:09

use something called a retouching desk. And this

1:01:11

is really getting the vinches done. I love

1:01:13

it. But it was a vintage desk. It

1:01:16

was a little desk, it unfolded, so you

1:01:18

had almost like a Z, if you're looking

1:01:20

at it from the side. The

1:01:22

bottom would be a metallic plate

1:01:24

that was reflective. And

1:01:27

the middle part, which you would work on, was opaque

1:01:29

glass. So the light from

1:01:31

the reflector would come through that. Kind

1:01:33

of analogous to the animation process for many

1:01:36

years. Yes, exactly. And then the top cover

1:01:38

was just a cover to block out the

1:01:40

sunlight that was coming through the window. And

1:01:43

you would literally go through with a pen

1:01:45

knife and scrape away the emulsion. And you

1:01:47

could retouch photos, you could remove, like

1:01:49

there's examples that I have in the article

1:01:52

that I wrote, of someone that had

1:01:54

a neck tumor, like huge. It looks like

1:01:56

a softball. And it was painted out? They

1:01:58

removed it completely. You can

1:02:01

barely tell. Interesting, because you hear about

1:02:03

airbrushing maybe a later process and artists

1:02:05

who would do like very exact knife

1:02:08

cutouts of images and stitching together. Before you

1:02:10

had Photoshop, there were a lot of different

1:02:12

ways, but I wasn't familiar with this crayon

1:02:14

process. That's really cool. This is

1:02:16

amazing. I mean, I didn't know about it either until I

1:02:19

started looking into it. That was another

1:02:21

time that Joe Nickel helped me. He's

1:02:23

well versed in this. So I had

1:02:25

him come into the office and like, hey, I have this

1:02:27

idea. I think this is what it is. And he's like,

1:02:30

yeah, that's it. You got it. Yeah,

1:02:32

I got approval. Amazing. You

1:02:35

helped me out with another article because I

1:02:37

remember when we were talking about the gentleman

1:02:39

psychic, he had been interviewed on a show

1:02:41

and shoot, it's one of the popular ones

1:02:44

and the name's escaping me at the moment,

1:02:46

but they were using this device and they

1:02:48

kept picking up these background elements that would

1:02:50

turn into like a little skeleton, like a

1:02:53

wire frame skeleton of a human being. The

1:02:55

Kinect. Yes. And

1:02:57

it was a article that helped me figure

1:02:59

out, oh, they were using this Kinect sensor,

1:03:02

Microsoft, Xbox Kinect, and then they were

1:03:04

using that and when it was just pointed

1:03:06

at an empty area, it would get some

1:03:08

false positives and think it saw a human

1:03:10

being and create this and they were interpreting

1:03:12

that as being spirits in the room. That's

1:03:14

a fun gadget to play with because at

1:03:16

first I didn't know what it was. Then

1:03:19

I started playing with it. I got one. You

1:03:21

can hook the Kinect to a laptop and

1:03:23

you can download directly from Microsoft all the

1:03:25

software for it. Most people didn't

1:03:27

realize. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if there was a

1:03:29

legal issue with that or not because certain ghost hunters,

1:03:32

they were selling the Kinect with a tablet

1:03:34

with the software on it, which was open

1:03:36

source. As a ghost tool. I'm charging like

1:03:38

three or four hundred dollars for it. And

1:03:40

I was like, you can download the software

1:03:42

for free. I don't know if they're supposed

1:03:44

to be doing that. I'm

1:03:47

not the legal guy, so I don't know. Send Nick

1:03:49

after them. So

1:03:51

yeah, people were using this and one

1:03:54

of the first rules from Microsoft is

1:03:56

put it on a stationary surface and

1:03:58

leave it. Don't touch it. because

1:04:00

when you turn it on, the Kinect actually

1:04:02

goes up and down it. It's motorized, it

1:04:04

goes up and down, looks at the environment,

1:04:07

and says, all right, I know what's here.

1:04:09

But it expects that you're leaving it in

1:04:11

a stationary position. Yes, so any stationary object

1:04:13

will be stationary. If an

1:04:15

object moves into the scene, it knows that's

1:04:17

a player and assigns

1:04:19

a skeleton to it. Yeah, that stick

1:04:22

figure. Very sophisticated computing going on. Yes,

1:04:24

however, if it's mounted to

1:04:26

a handle and you're walking around

1:04:28

an allegedly haunted place, everything

1:04:31

is now in motion. Nothing

1:04:33

is stable. And just like our

1:04:35

brains are programmed to recognize faces, it's

1:04:37

programmed to recognize bodies. Yes, all

1:04:40

types of bodies. So it has similar

1:04:42

kind of, I guess you might say,

1:04:44

hallucinations like AI does, or pareidolia that

1:04:46

it falls for because it sees random

1:04:49

patterns and says, okay, how can I

1:04:51

interpret this as a skeletal figure? Here

1:04:53

you go. And it's using a speckle

1:04:55

pattern. The first version uses a speckle

1:04:57

pattern. So if you watch the Paranormal

1:04:59

Activity movie where they use the Xbox,

1:05:02

that's what they see. It's on thousands and

1:05:04

thousands of dots and it's all in specific

1:05:06

pattern and it's repeated. I think

1:05:08

there's actually like six sections where

1:05:11

it repeats. So it knows

1:05:13

where every dot is. So when it

1:05:15

reads that, it can see either the

1:05:17

dot is closer to the camera, farther

1:05:19

away, or if the dot

1:05:21

is elongated, it's going around a curve.

1:05:24

So it knows that's how it maps it out. But

1:05:26

it's doing this so many times per second,

1:05:29

you know, 60, 120, something like that,

1:05:31

so that it can track people's movements

1:05:34

for games and give real-time feedback. So

1:05:36

it's good, it's good at this. Yeah.

1:05:39

It still makes mistakes though, yes. It still can

1:05:41

be fooled. Especially when it's not being used the

1:05:43

way it's supposed to be. But it also would

1:05:45

pick up like houseplants if

1:05:47

you had a chair in the way. It had

1:05:49

a problem with people sitting down and that was

1:05:52

right from Microsoft. They said like, if you're sitting

1:05:54

down and trying to play, It

1:05:56

has a problem because it doesn't see your thigh. Yeah, it doesn't

1:05:58

know how to deal with that foreshortening. Yeah and it's

1:06:00

like were what were the other segment and

1:06:03

up on your point right? and so it

1:06:05

was making mistakes and it was also seem

1:06:07

like a said plants and other things as

1:06:10

six figures motorcades we pop up but yet

1:06:12

again we're dealing in the low information zone.

1:06:14

How long we kind of break this and

1:06:16

create anomalies that we can then accentuate and

1:06:19

for example stories about and that's that's what

1:06:21

happened. Ghost hunters scooped up yeah they sit

1:06:23

all we can use his luck were getting

1:06:25

goes everywhere and we can interact with it

1:06:28

because they would get into the scene. And

1:06:30

you would see them go close to the

1:06:32

stick figure in which could it didn't have

1:06:34

to be like on a plate or something.

1:06:36

it could be on a wall fixed but

1:06:38

it right you don't get that deaths you

1:06:41

don't know that it's own the war ten

1:06:43

feet away from the the camera mint just

1:06:45

looks like it's in space so if you

1:06:47

got close to be stick figure know I

1:06:49

mean let me make that clear when you

1:06:51

came into seen. You. Gotta stick

1:06:53

figure. yep as you're a player right

1:06:55

if you're stick figure got near the

1:06:58

other stick figure they didn't wanna touch

1:07:00

and that's program from microsoft because you're

1:07:02

supposed to separate gamers and as his

1:07:05

so they would purposely six figures would

1:07:07

try to avoid touching each other. yeah

1:07:09

so you had goes on are going

1:07:11

into the scene and reaching out to

1:07:14

the hand quote unquote the now and

1:07:16

moving around him avoid them the hands

1:07:18

coming back. Or. It jumps

1:07:20

out the tries to connect the form one

1:07:22

big stick figure. A has lots of flaws,

1:07:25

lots of force with that and people exploited

1:07:27

that by. all of this is anomalies they

1:07:29

asked him build on. I've always thought it

1:07:31

would be fun to create a parody show

1:07:33

of these go shows and just call anomaly

1:07:36

Hunters. Sounds really way I look at what

1:07:38

are your forehead exactly ways to tell stories

1:07:40

that would be good. Show up to. Assess

1:07:43

assess our teacher collaborates his have more. Send

1:07:45

us a guy. Thanks for running through some

1:07:47

of those, but if someone say we're. to

1:07:50

want to find more of these

1:07:52

stories and you're very detailed breakdown

1:07:54

where my they go they can

1:07:56

go to skeptical inquirer.org most my

1:07:58

stuff as on their yeah there's

1:08:00

a lot of really good breakdowns, like the

1:08:02

ones we're talking about with the actual photos.

1:08:04

Yeah. So if you're having a hard time visualizing

1:08:06

some of this, and you're like, wait a second, I need to see it. That's

1:08:08

where it is. And yeah, the Xbox

1:08:10

Kinect, I actually had two videos on

1:08:12

that page because I did

1:08:15

one with the original version, and then

1:08:17

they released the second generation, which

1:08:19

I wasn't going to do, but

1:08:21

somebody gave me a challenge because I

1:08:23

had said something about how the stick

1:08:25

figures are anchored, the Phantom

1:08:27

ones, the Ghost ones. And then I know

1:08:30

with version two, they're like, ah, contraire. Yeah,

1:08:32

somebody was like, hey, actually two people, the

1:08:34

same day sent me emails saying, there's a

1:08:37

YouTube channel where a guy's using this, and

1:08:39

the stick figures are walking around like people.

1:08:42

So I was like, all right, that can't happen

1:08:44

with the first generation, so let me look. And

1:08:46

I looked, and I was like, oh shit, they

1:08:48

are. They're moving around. Let's update this. So

1:08:50

I did another video, started that video not

1:08:53

knowing how to do it. Okay. I

1:08:55

think I say it in the beginning, like, I don't know how this

1:08:57

is done, you're going to learn with me. We're going to figure this

1:08:59

out together. Nice. And I was

1:09:01

able to make a stick figure walk

1:09:03

into a scene and knock a doll

1:09:05

off the shelf. Okay. By

1:09:08

itself. So you had a non-physical stick

1:09:11

figure knocking off a physical

1:09:13

object on camera with the camera

1:09:15

never moving. And I was like,

1:09:17

wow, this is amazing. Once

1:09:19

I figured it out, which is in the video, I

1:09:21

tell you exactly how I do it. Okay. Once

1:09:24

you figure it out, it's easy to do

1:09:26

any of these things. You could have multiple

1:09:28

stick figures in the scene. Microsoft goes 2.0.

1:09:31

It was fun. Standard plus edition.

1:09:33

Yes. So you

1:09:36

have a couple other amazing projects. I

1:09:38

love that you will watch TikTok videos

1:09:40

and reply to them. So you'll find

1:09:42

people who have posted some kind of

1:09:45

clever jump cut or just their take

1:09:47

on something that they've seen. And you'll

1:09:49

just give a quick reply to it.

1:09:51

This is what I think about that.

1:09:54

I suspect this. You'll just kind of walk us

1:09:56

through your thought process, which I find super helpful.

1:09:58

It's fun. I mean, it's. It's a distraction

1:10:00

because TikTok is the fastest

1:10:03

growing platform, the social media

1:10:05

platform. Everyone that I

1:10:07

know uses it in some fashion and you

1:10:09

can do 30 second videos, you can do

1:10:11

10 minute videos and you can put a lot of

1:10:14

content out there all day long. Going

1:10:17

through it, it's an easy platform for paranormal

1:10:19

things to be put up. There's so many

1:10:21

channels where like, oh, my house is haunted.

1:10:23

Look at this poltergeist activity. So

1:10:25

I scroll through stuff like that. Like, you know what? I think

1:10:28

I can do that. I think I can

1:10:30

recreate that. I wonder if I can, let me try it.

1:10:32

And I have the whole CFI office

1:10:34

to try it, which is great.

1:10:36

I got stairways, I got hallways, I got

1:10:39

open areas, I got all kinds of things.

1:10:41

Yeah, whatever kind of environment. Well, yeah, we

1:10:43

can recreate that. And I have co-workers that

1:10:45

are more than willing to participate. Nice.

1:10:49

Sometimes I ask Eric all the time, hey, I need

1:10:51

a ghost. He's like, yep, what do

1:10:53

you need? What do I have to do? And he's been

1:10:55

a ghost in a lot of my videos. Fantastic. And

1:10:57

he's either like sticking his hand out to try to grab

1:10:59

me, and then all of a sudden he's gone. You go

1:11:02

around the corner, there's no one there, to

1:11:04

being like a transparent thing. I've had all

1:11:06

to reproduce these videos that people are

1:11:08

posting. One of our editors for Free

1:11:11

Inquiry, and sometimes skeptical inquire, Nicole Scott.

1:11:13

She's been like a, almost

1:11:15

like a, what's that, the ring. Oh, yeah.

1:11:18

The ring, the girl with the hair. She's been

1:11:20

that for me, where like I'm in the library

1:11:22

of CFI, and she's on a cart with

1:11:24

her hair down, and I'm looking at her, and

1:11:26

I'm filming it, and she's like slowly rising up,

1:11:29

and I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, and

1:11:31

I flick the light on, and she's gone. She disappears

1:11:34

completely. And that was such a fun video

1:11:36

to make. But everyone's so enthusiastic because

1:11:38

they're like, oh yeah, we can do this. They've

1:11:41

dropped stuff on me. Well, and this

1:11:43

is fun stuff, like when you get

1:11:45

to be participatory and make something. Yes.

1:11:48

Especially when there's this element of analysis

1:11:50

and reproduction. That's really fun. To be

1:11:53

like, oh, let's reverse engineer this. And

1:11:55

you're always going to get volunteers. That's

1:11:57

great. We try to do, when

1:11:59

we film. that kind of stuff, we always have

1:12:01

that second camera that's filming all of us.

1:12:04

Because yeah, you don't want that to go viral

1:12:06

for people to say like, uh oh, we have

1:12:08

proof of ghosts. You can then say, well, here's

1:12:10

the setup. Here's the setup. And you can see

1:12:13

exactly how he did it, where the jump cuts

1:12:15

were. And I mean, I love

1:12:17

that. I love when the jump cuts happen.

1:12:19

And the scene entirely changes, but you don't

1:12:21

see it because the camera's moving so fast.

1:12:24

And it's so much fun to do, to recreate.

1:12:26

But yeah, I love showing you. Like

1:12:28

I'll show the quick clip of someone

1:12:31

doing their experience, showing their poltergeist.

1:12:34

And then usually I'm like, yeah, we can do

1:12:36

that. Let's go. And we get

1:12:38

to work. And I'll show you the setup. And

1:12:40

then I'll show you the finished product. And

1:12:42

it's great. I've done anything

1:12:45

from disappearing people to portals

1:12:47

opening up over my head and dropping something

1:12:50

on me out of nowhere where you see

1:12:52

the whole scene. And all of a sudden,

1:12:54

boom, something's there. To a teleporting

1:12:56

teddy bear that got stuck halfway through the

1:12:58

portal. Oh, I got to see that one.

1:13:00

Okay. So much fun. So

1:13:03

much fun. Yeah. How do people find

1:13:05

you on TikTok? My name on TikTok is Kenny

1:13:07

Biddle CSI. Okay. So if you

1:13:09

look that up, you'll find me. And all the

1:13:11

videos are there. Yeah. It's great

1:13:13

responses. Another project you have is the skeptical help

1:13:16

bar that you open up every Friday and bring

1:13:19

on guests such as yours truly and Susan

1:13:21

Gerbick and Brian Dunning and others to just

1:13:23

talk openly. And if any of you have

1:13:25

any questions along these lines or you see

1:13:27

something online that you want to talk about,

1:13:29

that's how you can hit up Kenny Biddle

1:13:31

in real time. Yeah. It's

1:13:33

every Friday night. It started when the

1:13:35

lockdown pandemic hit. You've kept it going. Nothing

1:13:37

to do. You know, we were stuck

1:13:39

in and I was like, you know what? It

1:13:41

started, it actually started as a skeptic. That's

1:13:44

how I just put it up there. Just went live

1:13:46

and waited for people to show up and I did

1:13:48

other stuff. You know, I was working.

1:13:50

I look up, oh, someone commented. All right, here. We'll

1:13:52

talk about that for a little bit. And

1:13:55

then it really developed into we have

1:13:57

a core following and it's nice. It's

1:13:59

nice. one shows up on a Friday

1:14:01

night. I mean that's pretty cool after you're

1:14:03

allowed out your work week and

1:14:06

everything. So yeah we promote it as like

1:14:08

it's a bar so it's basically

1:14:10

you go to your local bar you

1:14:12

see your buddies you have a couple

1:14:14

beers you drink obviously you drink but

1:14:17

you talk about different topics and you're

1:14:19

honest about your opinion and we add

1:14:21

on that it's a learning show so

1:14:23

it's live we make mistakes we keep

1:14:25

going through them if we make a mistake or

1:14:27

screw up we make fun of it yeah but

1:14:29

it's a learning show so we look up things

1:14:31

if you ask me a question and I don't

1:14:33

know the answer I tell you and then we

1:14:35

pull up Google share the screen and we start

1:14:38

learning together yeah I figure it out because there's

1:14:40

been plenty of times somebody has asked me a

1:14:42

question and they're like I don't know I don't

1:14:44

know what that is I have no idea what

1:14:46

that is let me look it up and we

1:14:48

do that so it's real fun and

1:14:50

my wife helps me a lot she takes care

1:14:52

of the comment section yeah we keep referring to

1:14:55

your wife the wonderful Donna yes and

1:14:57

the unsung here well let's sing sing

1:14:59

the heroism of Donna she is my

1:15:02

problem was that I was doing a Q&A

1:15:04

show because this is before I started having

1:15:06

guests on I would get way behind with

1:15:08

the questions like 20 minutes behind oh wow

1:15:11

so I would see questions pop up and

1:15:13

I would try to answer them and I

1:15:15

tend to talk a lot I don't know

1:15:17

if you noticed but I talk alive so

1:15:19

by the time I got to the next

1:15:21

question it was 20 minutes after they posted

1:15:24

it okay so my wife was like

1:15:26

you're behind and she kept reminding me my

1:15:28

little helper I love that she would love

1:15:30

to tell me like you're 20

1:15:32

minutes behind hurry up so

1:15:34

finally she offered to help me out

1:15:37

that route that would be there live

1:15:39

and keep things so she sits right

1:15:41

off camera and she'll give me a question

1:15:43

now if I'm going over like she'll sit there

1:15:45

and you know cut off yeah

1:15:47

he's doing the universal symbol for yes

1:15:50

yes let's move on or like rolling

1:15:52

the fingers like let's move on let

1:15:54

go yeah and in real-time editing oh

1:15:56

my it's so much helpful and I

1:15:59

stay on track What I love about

1:16:01

both of those projects we just mentioned is that

1:16:03

they I think they come out of your restless

1:16:05

energy You're just so excited about all of this

1:16:07

that you want to be constantly engaging with it

1:16:09

because I don't think either of those were On

1:16:12

your job description when you signed

1:16:14

up at CFI It's just you know Like

1:16:16

you found a good way to get the

1:16:18

message out there and encourage people to take

1:16:20

that second look How might one do this

1:16:23

if one were trying to do this right

1:16:25

which usually seems to be kind of the

1:16:27

underlying? Motivation and we have guests on now.

1:16:30

Yeah, like you mentioned like Brian Dunning. We

1:16:32

have Susan Gerber and Ben Rafferd We had

1:16:34

you and carry on it's always

1:16:36

nice talking to you guys and and all these are

1:16:38

on YouTube, too So you can go back and find

1:16:40

we're all there and in various people We've had a

1:16:43

my friend a a Ron I call

1:16:45

Aaron who's a police officer in Maryland He

1:16:48

came on and we talked about evidence like

1:16:50

what evidence means to him versus

1:16:52

what it means to me And it was

1:16:54

a great conversation Daniel Reed who is

1:16:56

another SI author He came

1:16:59

on and talked about different topics about

1:17:01

like the Mothman Because he had

1:17:03

a different idea about what the Mothman might have

1:17:05

been yeah, we talked about that which is really

1:17:07

cool We just recently went to the Mothman festival

1:17:09

Yeah Is there a quick takeaway of like a

1:17:11

new theory about what the Mothman might have been

1:17:14

I think Joe nickel came down on the owls

1:17:16

Yeah, it's still bird. Okay, it's still bird

1:17:19

just a different way There was a special

1:17:21

type of bird right kind of like a

1:17:23

heron type birds. Yeah blue heron. Okay, not

1:17:25

blue heron Yeah, very cool. I mean, it's

1:17:28

so fun The stories are fun and we

1:17:30

still love the mythos of ghosts of cryptids

1:17:32

of all of these things But I think

1:17:34

debunking is totally the wrong word to the

1:17:37

the investigation process is fun Yeah, it's really

1:17:39

fun to figure out. How did we get

1:17:41

this story to the point where it is

1:17:43

now? I always try to just say that

1:17:45

debunking is a result of an investigation. It's

1:17:47

not what I set out to do Mm-hmm.

1:17:50

I don't try to debunk things. I try

1:17:52

to solve the mystery. Yeah, that's what it

1:17:54

is. It's a mystery We don't know what

1:17:56

caused something or someone whoever contacts me has

1:17:58

an experience They don't know

1:18:01

what happened. So they call me and that's what

1:18:03

I do I try to go in there and

1:18:05

see if there's enough information first That's important because

1:18:07

if it happened like 60 years

1:18:09

ago, and the only thing we have

1:18:11

is one person's memory That's

1:18:14

not enough Yeah at that point

1:18:16

you always say oh, well, that's a really cool

1:18:18

story. I wish I was there Yes, wish there

1:18:20

was some way we could reproduce that but but

1:18:22

if there's enough information then we get into it

1:18:24

Yeah And my goal is to solve it to

1:18:26

figure out what happened and then

1:18:29

honestly report that So if I

1:18:31

can do that no matter what the answer

1:18:33

is Yeah If one day it turns

1:18:35

out to be a ghost right and how

1:18:37

will we find that out by people? Asking

1:18:40

the questions and doing that kind of research

1:18:42

exactly eventually. Yeah, if there is the what

1:18:44

is it the white crow it like

1:18:47

that well If eventually

1:18:49

there is the real deal, that's how

1:18:51

they'll be discovered right and verified speaking

1:18:53

of which That's a good segue you

1:18:56

and I both participated in

1:18:58

a live demonstration today of

1:19:00

the CF IIG $500,000

1:19:03

paranormal challenge. Yes So

1:19:05

this is the largest active prize

1:19:08

you've all heard of the James

1:19:10

Randy Million-dollar prize right now CF

1:19:12

IIG is the largest one in

1:19:15

operation and we had an

1:19:17

applicant during this conference today Yeah As

1:19:19

we were talking who had the claim

1:19:21

that she could move clouds under her

1:19:24

will Yes And then also it seemed

1:19:26

like she could maybe make them disappear

1:19:28

But it seemed like the primary claim

1:19:30

was moving clouds on command in a

1:19:32

drastic way that would be noticeable Yes,

1:19:35

yeah And all credit to Stan West

1:19:37

from the group who was in communication

1:19:39

with her Jim Underdown Who is the

1:19:41

head of the CF IIG they got

1:19:43

this set up at the conference But

1:19:45

a bunch of us went out we

1:19:48

were supposed to be down at a

1:19:50

little meeting spot and there were no

1:19:52

clouds visible Right at all. So we

1:19:54

moved all together and got on top

1:19:56

of the parking garage by the flamingo

1:19:59

in Las Vegas Yes, where the conference

1:20:01

is being held the things that happen in

1:20:03

Vegas But

1:20:05

we found some clouds low-lying and yeah

1:20:07

off in the distance Yep, and and

1:20:10

could sort of identify them and point

1:20:12

to individual cloud clusters like okay It's

1:20:14

right above the Westin hotel or yeah,

1:20:16

you know, let's focus on all the

1:20:19

clouds to the left Whole

1:20:21

of the pole. Yeah, it was fun to kind of

1:20:23

watch that back and forth communication just to clarify Okay,

1:20:26

what clouds are we affecting? Okay, where are we gonna

1:20:28

make them move and I'd love

1:20:30

to get kind of your take on this and I

1:20:33

this is the first time I participated in One

1:20:36

of these tests. All right with you guys

1:20:38

Yeah so it was fun to watch and

1:20:41

see how everyone was so professional and I

1:20:43

don't want to stress that because It's

1:20:46

not like a bunch of skeptics got

1:20:48

together and was like ha ha we're

1:20:50

gonna prove you wrong No, everyone was

1:20:52

so polite so professional and it just

1:20:55

showed the Professionalism

1:20:57

I'm of the group. I'm glad to hear that and

1:20:59

you know often we do have the matching shirts We

1:21:01

didn't this time but yeah, you know, like that is

1:21:03

something we do think about a lot because we don't

1:21:05

want to Intimidate the person

1:21:07

and have too many hangers on or

1:21:10

people in their face You

1:21:12

and I were both taking video of the whole process

1:21:14

and you know, I think both of us I could

1:21:16

see it in your actions as well. We're trying not

1:21:18

to get between her and the clouds not to be

1:21:20

right in her face She was probably aware

1:21:22

of us But you know, we didn't want to be

1:21:24

distracting her and another thing that we

1:21:27

do before a test is we want to make

1:21:29

sure that The person feels confident like are these

1:21:31

the conditions and what were some of her conditions?

1:21:34

So from what I heard she had

1:21:36

started out by saying she couldn't move the

1:21:39

clouds. She could force them to move Independently

1:21:42

of any environmental conditions,

1:21:44

which okay, that would be awesome. I

1:21:47

mean that would actually be world-changing Oh,

1:21:50

no kidding. Yeah. Yeah talk about like weather control.

1:21:52

Yeah Oh, I didn't even think about at the

1:21:54

time but she'd be like storm from the X-Men.

1:21:56

Yes, that'd be cool. Yeah totally

1:21:59

I'm turning out now. Yeah. And

1:22:02

somebody, I feel the energy, we both want it to be

1:22:04

real. Yeah, like please, please do it. I want to see

1:22:06

that. Which is another weird conflict of

1:22:09

attitude is you do want them to

1:22:11

succeed on some level. And

1:22:14

then on the other level, you want it to

1:22:16

be real before you give away that half a

1:22:18

million dollars. So yeah, so she,

1:22:20

that was the first test. She

1:22:22

tried to move a specific

1:22:24

cloud and then it didn't go

1:22:27

well. So it was supposed

1:22:29

to, as we were looking at it floating

1:22:31

just above the Weston Hotel to the left,

1:22:33

it was supposed to go dramatically to the

1:22:35

left, originally to like the Ferris Wheel. It's

1:22:38

not a Ferris Wheel, but the link, it's this giant

1:22:40

spinning thing that looks like a Ferris Wheel on steroids.

1:22:44

And then we were a little more accommodating and

1:22:46

said, okay, just get it over to that new

1:22:48

giant dome that they built in Las Vegas. Right,

1:22:50

right. It was glowing, I was going to call

1:22:52

it monstrosity. It's an amazing thing to behold at

1:22:54

night. But still, yeah, the cloud

1:22:57

was actually kind of going the opposite direction.

1:22:59

Yeah, I noticed that the wind was blowing

1:23:01

in the opposite direction, which is good. That's,

1:23:03

as soon as I heard about the test, that's

1:23:05

the first thing that came to mind, like make

1:23:07

sure we know the wind direction and ask to

1:23:09

go to the opposite direction. Right. And

1:23:12

all of you at home or wherever you're

1:23:14

listening are thinking clouds do all kinds of

1:23:16

things on their own. They disappear, they show

1:23:18

up, it's fluids and

1:23:20

another fluid. And that's

1:23:22

all the kind of stuff we were trying to anticipate too. Let's

1:23:25

make sure it's not something that can

1:23:27

happen naturally. And kept repeating to her,

1:23:29

this needs to be noticeable. Yes, significant,

1:23:32

extraordinary, out of the ordinary. I want

1:23:34

to look up and go, holy shit,

1:23:37

but nothing happened. We would give

1:23:39

her five minutes to accomplish the agreed

1:23:41

upon task. Yes. And we

1:23:43

did this three times in a row and just

1:23:45

wasn't happening. There were two attempts at moving

1:23:47

things and then one attempt at like just

1:23:49

clearing out the clouds, like you said, on

1:23:51

the left hand side. Right. And

1:23:54

afterwards she was saying, well, okay, but I'd

1:23:56

kind of like to try. And she wasn't

1:23:58

really saying that it didn't work. Or

1:24:00

that her powers were somehow compromised, but now she

1:24:03

started talking more about how well You know I'd

1:24:05

prefer the clouds be on the side of the

1:24:07

Sun because whenever it's really successful They're

1:24:09

between me and the Sun like okay. Well.

1:24:11

That's a different claim Might

1:24:14

be helpful to know beforehand to me

1:24:16

it was changing she changed the

1:24:18

rules that she tried to go close Yeah, she

1:24:20

tried to change what she could do With

1:24:23

each test because it didn't work first She

1:24:25

wanted to move one of the

1:24:27

clouds that we picked and that wasn't good enough

1:24:30

She didn't like that her energy wasn't in

1:24:32

that cloud like that was her

1:24:34

words, right? It was only clouds in the back

1:24:37

So we changed it to that one and said

1:24:39

move it over and we gave it a shorter

1:24:41

distance Too and it's hard like when we're trying

1:24:43

to do distances or describe

1:24:45

the distance Yeah, it was gonna be

1:24:47

a significant distance especially close to clouds.

1:24:50

We're not moving. Yes like nothing nothing

1:24:52

was moving Yeah, yeah, and then by

1:24:54

the third attempt She had

1:24:56

changed it to where she said she could

1:24:58

take this whole Section of clouds

1:25:01

that we saw in the distance and make

1:25:03

them disappear It didn't happen

1:25:05

and one of the things she said that really

1:25:07

stood out to me was that when

1:25:09

she looked at it She's like oh, I knew

1:25:11

I saw these returning like dark gray So I

1:25:13

knew they were gonna fade and when

1:25:15

she said that I was like well, so you

1:25:18

were expecting them to fade Yeah

1:25:20

Naturally, but you seem to be

1:25:22

trying to take credit for that

1:25:24

like you were going to try to

1:25:26

take credit Yeah in the within that

1:25:29

five minutes if they dissolved Yeah, you

1:25:31

were gonna take credit right when you

1:25:33

already knew it was going to happen

1:25:35

Yeah, and I feel like that kind

1:25:37

of response is a predictable But yeah

1:25:39

indicative of how the storytelling normally happens

1:25:41

when they're doing this on their own

1:25:44

Where they can just kind of retell the

1:25:46

story a little bit more a little bit

1:25:48

more each time to give themselves more credit

1:25:50

for Things that just would have happened regardless

1:25:52

right in this case the clouds but in

1:25:54

other situations other phenomena Yeah, I mean it

1:25:56

was going to happen anyway, and I think

1:25:58

that's pretty much what we were hearing

1:26:00

anyway. As she described what she

1:26:02

could do and how she had

1:26:05

done it before, it just sounded like she

1:26:07

was looking up the sky, natural phenomenon, and

1:26:09

I don't know if she was

1:26:11

purposely taking credit for it. I think things

1:26:13

happened with the right timing, and

1:26:16

it maybe convinced her that maybe she had something

1:26:18

to do with it. Okay, yeah. So I don't

1:26:20

think she was outright lying to us. I

1:26:23

don't think she was trying to deceive us.

1:26:25

That's, I think, a really important point. She really

1:26:27

does believe that she has this ability, and

1:26:29

we did not disabuse her of that in

1:26:32

this test. And she had a whole process

1:26:34

that looked very interesting. She wasn't just staring

1:26:36

at the clouds. She was moving her hands.

1:26:38

She was looking through her phone camera, doing

1:26:40

these very dramatic kind of like waving of

1:26:42

the hand and twitching of the fingers. But

1:26:45

at the point where she had done these

1:26:47

three trials, five minutes each, and

1:26:49

nothing had happened, we told her, well, officially it was supposed

1:26:52

to be three out of five. That's

1:26:54

no longer possible. I think the hardest

1:26:56

part of all of these tests that

1:26:58

the CFIIG does is the after discussion,

1:27:00

where you have to, first of all,

1:27:02

communicate to them that they did not

1:27:05

pass. But then kind of

1:27:07

recommend that if they want to reapply

1:27:09

again in a year, that they need

1:27:11

to test this out on themselves, try

1:27:13

it again. And hopefully this

1:27:16

time, be aware of what we're looking for.

1:27:18

And so we're trying to teach them a

1:27:20

little bit of the scientific method. Call it

1:27:22

in advance. Write down what it is that

1:27:24

you intend to do. And then

1:27:26

after it happens, was it exactly what

1:27:28

you said or did you kind of

1:27:30

change your expectations as it happened? And

1:27:32

that was part of the professionalism that

1:27:34

I saw. You guys really

1:27:37

handled it nice. I mean, so

1:27:39

nice. It wasn't, again, it was

1:27:41

not a point your finger and go, aha.

1:27:44

Yeah, yeah. We don't want them to leave

1:27:46

with their head down feeling like

1:27:48

they've been defeated or lost or

1:27:50

something like that. Because there's probably already an

1:27:52

embarrassment. Of course. Because they did

1:27:54

this. And I mean, her hand

1:27:56

movements, I was like, this is like

1:27:59

Dr. Strange. This is the force.

1:28:01

We're doing all this stuff the way she

1:28:03

was doing it and nothing's happening. And

1:28:05

to be honest, I felt bad for her. I

1:28:08

really did because she really looks like she

1:28:10

was into it. Nothing was happening. And

1:28:13

here she is in front of all these people.

1:28:16

You got to know. Like if I was

1:28:18

her, I'd be like, they're talking about me. I

1:28:20

know they're talking about me. But when she left,

1:28:22

by the time she left, everyone

1:28:25

like Jim and Stan, they gave her

1:28:27

advice. They said, hey, if you really

1:28:30

believe this, if you know you can

1:28:32

do this, then we suggest you practice.

1:28:35

You do know what we expect now. We want

1:28:37

to see a dramatic movement. Break

1:28:39

those clouds away from everything else and fly

1:28:42

around. Because frankly, that is what she said

1:28:44

she could do, too. So practice. You know

1:28:46

where we're going to test you. We're going

1:28:48

to be here next year. Take a video.

1:28:50

Send us a video. It shows your progress.

1:28:52

Show us. Yeah, show us what's going on.

1:28:55

Next year, when you come back, if you come back,

1:28:58

you should have practiced. You should have mastered

1:29:00

it. And we can

1:29:02

view it again. We'll test it again. And

1:29:04

I'll gladly come out. I had a lot

1:29:06

of fun doing it. And yeah, I feel

1:29:09

like she was well-intentioned. And there was a

1:29:11

good conversation afterward. And hopefully she does start

1:29:13

to kind of catch on sort of like

1:29:15

you did in your story. Just

1:29:17

sort of being aware of the underlying factors and

1:29:19

kind of how she was telling the story to

1:29:22

herself. Or she

1:29:24

gets those clouds moving. And we see it and

1:29:26

give her half a million dollars. Awesome. That's even

1:29:28

better. Yeah. Somebody gets a

1:29:30

Nobel Prize. Yeah, just like you. I enjoyed

1:29:32

it. I enjoyed it not because she

1:29:35

failed. I want to make that clear.

1:29:37

I enjoyed it because it was a good test. It was a

1:29:39

very meticulous process. I got to

1:29:41

see the entire process, followed it

1:29:43

through to the end. And it

1:29:45

was nice to see all that

1:29:47

and the attitudes of everyone involved.

1:29:50

She did not leave angry. She did

1:29:53

not leave hurt or crying or just

1:29:55

hating us. Right. We

1:29:57

laughed peacefully, smiling. Everyone was...

1:30:00

It's usually the case. Though sometimes, you

1:30:02

know, the next day you hear a different level of, because

1:30:04

they've had time to think about it and reflect and then

1:30:06

they come back with a different, I'm trying

1:30:08

not to say excuses, but... They are. Rationalizations,

1:30:11

yeah. But we'll see tomorrow.

1:30:13

Well, related note, one

1:30:16

other thing I'd like to ask you about is you've

1:30:19

given a really great presentation

1:30:21

on just interacting with other

1:30:23

people in the paranormal community,

1:30:26

and some of these other belief communities that

1:30:28

you were once part of, and that I

1:30:30

think you have a certain sympathy with, because

1:30:32

you remember being in those shoes,

1:30:35

I remember being in those shoes, and

1:30:37

you talk about a Patrick Swayze rule, and I was

1:30:39

wondering if you could just share that, because I think

1:30:41

it's a really good encapsulation of what I hope Carrie

1:30:43

and I are doing with our show, but I think

1:30:46

that's really important for everyone to remember. So

1:30:48

the Patrick Swayze rule is basically be nice

1:30:50

until it's time not to be nice. And

1:30:52

it's from Roadhouse. One

1:30:54

of my favorite movies, even though acting

1:30:57

is... I love it. A

1:30:59

great message. Yes, it is, because

1:31:02

being nice is the best path

1:31:04

to getting along, working together, and

1:31:07

moving ahead. Skeptics, believers,

1:31:10

they're always like butting heads. We are on

1:31:12

two sides of the fence, and

1:31:15

we work against each other. We

1:31:17

try to inject critical thinking and logic

1:31:19

and reason, and sometimes we're

1:31:21

a-holes about it. Yeah. We

1:31:25

can all point to times when we ourselves

1:31:27

have done that, and when our friends and

1:31:29

fellow travelers have done that as well. Yes.

1:31:32

And then you have people on the

1:31:34

believers side, which I'm totally stereotyping the

1:31:37

two sides, but the believers side where

1:31:39

they have these beliefs since birth, and

1:31:41

it's very difficult to give up those

1:31:44

beliefs. Very difficult. And

1:31:46

when someone challenges them, and you

1:31:48

don't have the supporting data or

1:31:50

knowledge to back up your belief,

1:31:53

you get into defensive mode. You

1:31:55

get combative. And both sides

1:31:57

do it. But I see believers tend to do it more.

1:34:00

Dakota of the Patrick Swayze

1:34:02

line is important to remember because

1:34:04

you do want most of the interactions to

1:34:06

be nice, but there are parameters, there are

1:34:09

boundaries. Well, we could literally go on for

1:34:11

hours and I hope we get to talk

1:34:13

some more sometime because you have so many

1:34:15

really excellent investigations that you've done. And

1:34:17

that's why I do think of you in my mind

1:34:20

as like the preeminent person to go to if you've

1:34:22

got something that needs to be analyzed because

1:34:24

you have both the knowledge and just

1:34:26

the enthusiasm to go after

1:34:29

it. So it's inspiring to me and

1:34:31

it's always fun to see you here

1:34:33

at Psychon. Likewise, babe. Whoo,

1:34:35

what an interview. I

1:34:38

endorse everything that was said. Kerry hasn't listened

1:34:41

to all of it yet, but I assume you

1:34:43

will if not. I will. By

1:34:45

all means, come on the podcast later

1:34:47

and decry anything that we got horribly

1:34:49

wrong. No, I love the work that

1:34:51

they do out there and Kenny's great.

1:34:53

We've been on his show before. Yeah. Just

1:34:56

in the trenches always looking for fun

1:34:58

investigations. So we'll link in the show

1:35:00

notes and on the Facebooks, the links

1:35:02

to some of the articles that we

1:35:04

mentioned here. But yeah, check out his

1:35:06

stuff, his writing for Skeptical Inquirer. It's

1:35:08

awesome. Hooray. And speaking of

1:35:10

interviews and following up on a recent

1:35:13

one, Brian Dunning's documentary,

1:35:15

the UFO movie, They Don't

1:35:17

Want You to See. Oh

1:35:19

no. Is now on YouTube. You

1:35:21

say. Just popped up there. You

1:35:23

know, the Kevin Trudeau shadow government

1:35:26

people. They don't

1:35:28

want you to see it. Yeah, it's supposed

1:35:30

to be a bit of an enticement like,

1:35:32

uh-huh. Right, right, right. But in this case,

1:35:34

they is probably a lot of. Oh

1:35:37

right. It's about a, it's like the

1:35:39

UFO. Proponents of UFOs. Right, right.

1:35:41

The one Linda Moulton-Hell perhaps doesn't

1:35:43

want you to see it. Tom

1:35:45

Delong from Blink-182. They don't

1:35:47

want you to see it. Jimmy Church. He's one

1:35:50

of they that doesn't want you to see it.

1:35:52

George Norrie. They don't want you to

1:35:54

see it. They don't want you to see it. They don't want

1:35:56

you to see it. They. But you can see it on YouTube.

1:35:58

So somebody wants you to see it. And yeah,

1:36:00

I think that's it for 2023. Oh

1:36:03

my gosh. So we will come back to review 2023.

1:36:07

I mean, not the year, but like what Psychics said about

1:36:09

2023. How many stars would you give 2023? Oh

1:36:12

my God. No joke, this was the worst

1:36:14

year of my adult life. Wow. Yeah. And

1:36:16

that's including all these, the heat

1:36:18

of the pandemic years. Well, I

1:36:20

shouldn't say worst. Actually, that's not true.

1:36:22

It's been sort of a growing time. It's

1:36:25

been the most stressful. Yeah. Most stressful

1:36:27

year of my life. Yep. So here's looking

1:36:29

forward to a 2024 for you, for our

1:36:31

listeners. Hopefully

1:36:33

a lot of positive development. Yeah. Has

1:36:35

it been a good year for you? Yeah. Busy

1:36:38

year, but yeah. Kenny has a

1:36:40

bit of a good year for you. Overall thumbs up. Kenny.

1:36:42

Kenny. Uh, oh, gotta

1:36:44

go. We've

1:36:46

got an and remember from him. That will be him carrying on

1:36:48

the spirit of 2024. Oh,

1:36:51

and by the way, our theme music is

1:36:53

by Brian Keith Dalton. This episode was edited

1:36:55

by Ross Blaucher, our administrative managers in Cremer.

1:36:58

You can support this and

1:37:00

all our interviews and investigations

1:37:02

by going to maximumfun.org/join. Yes.

1:37:04

Thank you so much to everybody who supports

1:37:06

us and what we do. It makes it

1:37:08

possible. We do have social media. I'd

1:37:11

say right now, Facebook is the most active of

1:37:13

them. You can usually find like some pictures from

1:37:15

a recent episode or if you

1:37:17

ping me there and say like, Hey, where's

1:37:19

the picture that you mentioned? Yeah.

1:37:22

If you tweet at me and ask for like a

1:37:24

very specific photo, I'll find it on my phone for you. I

1:37:27

extended my social media. I'll do it.

1:37:29

I did post supermodel Jesus there asking

1:37:31

if people were team carry or team Ross.

1:37:33

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's been very spirited.

1:37:35

Okay. I would say most people are

1:37:37

team carry. Okay. Like more just like

1:37:39

the fine. Yeah. Even people are like,

1:37:41

Oh, he seems like the kind of

1:37:43

guy who would do, you know, insert

1:37:45

obnoxious behavior here. Okay. It was somehow,

1:37:48

uh, intrinsically unattractive.

1:37:50

So those people, right? Right. But others

1:37:52

are like, Oh, dreamy. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

1:37:54

you know, our mutual friend, Steven Bradford

1:37:56

long whose show we've both been on,

1:37:59

uh, he all. also find supermodel

1:38:01

pieces very attractive. Very apparently.

1:38:04

Yeah, I don't want to get too into it

1:38:06

because they'll have to upgrade the rating of this podcast

1:38:08

if I sell them out. He takes it to a level

1:38:10

I found, but that's cool. Everybody

1:38:13

has their own... Not that

1:38:15