Shows / Skeptoid
Skeptoid
The true science behind our most popular urban legends. Historical mysteries, paranormal claims, popular science myths, aliens and UFO reports, conspiracy theories, and worthless alternative medicine schemes... Skeptoid has you covered. From the sublime to the startling, no topic is sacred. Weekly since 2006.
Episodes
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #248: The Exorcism of Anneliese
Exorcisms are a brutal torture ritual with no hope of actually helping a person who believes themselves possessed. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #247: The Miracle of Calanda
This famous story of God once healing an amputee falls apart under historical scrutiny. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #246: Corrections, Errata, Blunders, and Boo-Boos
Skeptoid revisits another batch of episodes with errors, and rights the wrongs. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #245: Finding the Lost Colony of Roanoke
Historians actually have a pretty complete picture of what happened to the "missing" Roanoke colonists. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #244: Nuclear War and Nuclear Winter
Atmospheric smoke from a nuclear war would not result in devastating global cooling. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #243: Student Questions: Orbo, EVPs, and Shakespeare
Skeptoid answers another round of questions sent in by students all around the world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #242: Scientology
The real facts behind the most notorious religion on Earth and its space opera backstory. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #241: The Alien Buried in Texas
Some believe a space alien is buried in a rural cemetery in Aurora, Texas. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #240: Mystery Spots
Various "gravitational anomalies" around the world have fascinating real science behind them. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #239: Gluten Free Diets
Gluten free diets provide no benefits at all for healthy people. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #238: More Hollywood Myths
Was John Wayne's cancer death caused by filming downwind of the Nevada Test Site? ...and other Hollywood rumors. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #237: Hollywood Myths
Skeptoid looks into some of the classic Hollywood legends that you've always believed are true. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #236: Whales and Sonar
Navy sonar is claimed to be lethal to whales, but the latest research tells a very different story. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #235: IQ Testing
IQ tests are fundamentally flawed, hopelessly inconsistent, and almost completely useless. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #234: The South Atlantic Anomaly
This mysterious region in the south Atlantic was not responsible for the crash of Air France flight 447. Learn about your ad choices…
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Skeptoid #233: Student Questions: Bird Gender and Bad Karma
Skeptoid answers questions sent in by students all around the world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #232: Listener Feedback Rides Again
A peek inside the Skeptoid inbox, ranging from the sane to the insane. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #231: The Mystery of STENDEC
We still don't know the significance of this mysterious final transmission of an airliner just before its crash. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #230: DDT: Secret Life of a Pesticide
DDT can be both a killer of birds and a savior against malaria. Rarely is a question as black and white as we'd like. Learn about your ad choices…
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Skeptoid #229: Speed Reading
Speed reading classes claim to be able to turbocharge your words per minute. Save your money; it doesn't work. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #228: My Favorite Things
A few of my favorite moments looking back on 228 Skeptoid episodes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #227: Boost Your Immune System (or Not)
Although a lot of products promise to boost your immune system, there is actually no such thing. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #226: The Brown Mountain Lights
A ghost light in North Carolina has people scratching their heads, but researchers solved it a century ago. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #225: Beware the Bilderberg Group!
The annual meeting of the Bilderberg Group is not to plan global domination. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #224: Alien Downpour: The Red Rain of India
News agencies have long promoted a 2001 red rainfall as alien, but a better explanation was already there. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #223: The Frog in the Stone
Stories of living frogs being found encased in solid rock have a more interesting (and reality-based) explanation. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #222: Toil and Trouble: The Curse of Macbeth
The Curse of Macbeth should make Shakespeare's play too dangerous to perform, but science tells us for sure. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #221: The Myers-Briggs Personality Test
A critical look at the world's most popular psychological metric, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #220: Yonaguni Monument: The Japanese Atlantis
A look at a massive stone structure off the coast of Japan, said to be a manmade pyramid. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #219: Stalin's Human-Ape Hybrids
Josef Stalin did not order the creation of an army of half-ape, half-human hybrids. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #218: The Astronauts and the Aliens
A close look at some of the stories of UFOs said to have been reported by NASA astronauts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #217: Some New Logical Fallacies
Skeptoid looks at some newer logical fallacies, often used in place of sound arguments. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #216: The Things We Eat...
A look at what's really in food reveals the foolishness of the idea of "good food" and "bad food". Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #215: Listener Feedback Resurrection
More vitriol from the Skeptoid inbox exposed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #214: Student Questions: Gold as an Investment and FEMA Coffins
Another round of answering questions sent in by students everywhere. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #213: Mozart and Salieri
Shockingly, Hollywood movies don't make us all history experts, and Salieri didn't murder Mozart. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #212: Things About Which I Have In Error Been
More additions to the corrections and errata files for Skeptoid. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #211: Attack on Pearl Harbor
The American government did not have advance knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, and did not allow it to happen. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #210: The North American Union
The United States, Canada, and Mexico are not planning to merge into a single huge police state. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #209: The Lost Ship of the Desert
The facts behind tall tales from the American southwest of ships found in the middle of the desert. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
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Skeptoid #208: The Westall '66 UFO
200 students watched a strange craft fly near their school in Australia in 1966 -- or so the story goes. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #207: Dinosaurs Among Us
All around the world, ancient art depicts creatures that some interpret as dinosaurs. Don't believe it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #206: Morgellons Disease
In this newly described condition, some patients report strange plastic fibers growing from their skin. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #205: Beyond Listener Feedback
Another trip to the Listener Feedback files, including my favorite yet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #204: Mengele's Boys from Brazil
A town in Brazil has an unusually high twin rate, but not because Josef Mengele survived and did experiments there. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #203: Therapeutic Touch
Therapeutic touch is a pseudoscientific healing method that is neither therapeutic nor involves touch. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #202: The Non-Mystery of Puma Punku
Though some claim the stone structures at Puma Punku were alien, archaeologists find no real mysteries there. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #201: The Virgin of Guadalupe
Mexico's Virgin of Guadalupe played an important role in the Catholic colonization of the Americas. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #200: Buy It!
Don't blindly turn to science when you need answers - instead, seek out those who want to sell you something. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #199: Cargo Cults
Some native religious groups in the South Pacific hope to recreate WWII's influx of material goods. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #198: The Georgia Guidestones
Dubbed "America's Stonehenge", this granite monument in Georgia appeals to all sorts of conspiracy theorists. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #197: Listener Feedback Strikes Back
Another perilous dive into the listener feedback files. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #196: Zeitgeist: The Movie, Myths, and Motivations
The Internet movie Zeitgeist uses dishonesty to make an ideological point that could have easily been made ethically. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #195: Student Questions: Mosquito Repellent and Einstein's Gestation
Skeptoid answers more questions sent in by students all around the world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #194: The Denver Airport Conspiracy
Is the Denver International Airport a headquarters for the New World Order? (Hint: no) Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #193: The Faces of Belmez
Faces appearing on the floor of a house in Spain were easily faked, yet many still consider them supernatural. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #192: Ball Lightning
Everyone believes in ball lightning, but when we stick to the science, there's probably nothing there. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #191: Did Jewish Slaves Build the Pyramids?
It's a popular story, but all the evidence tells us that no Jews were in Egypt at the time of the Pyramids. Learn about your ad choices…
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #190: The Bell Island Boom
This shattering boom in Newfoundland was more likely a natural phenomenon than a superweapon test. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
- Skeptoid
Skeptoid #189: Bullshido: Martial Arts Magic
Some call it Bullshido: Martial arts tricks like touchless attacks and the Touch of Death. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices