Medical Quackery

How MAS Didn’t Come to TAM
Once upon a time, or maybe twice, a skeptic named Zep who used to post on the JREF forum was instead taking the skeptical word to where it was needed most by posting on a Pakistani homeopathy forum. This landed a known homeopath in a lot of trouble...

Religion

The Devil Within - Exorcism in the United States
With renewed energy and fervor, the world has plunged again into a paranormal realm. Interest in psychic phenomena, communicating with the dead, and healing with the power of the mind have become, in this age of science, a gateway to the mysterious and escape from the mundane. Religion has also turned back to a more fantastical realm: Exorcisms. Once forgotten, casting out the devil is back in vogue.

Myths & Mysteries

Hunting for Mokele Mbembe
In 1981, three Americans travelled to the jungles of Congo - or rather, to a huge swamp area, where Mokele Mbembe is said to live. Mokele Mbembe? It's a real, live dinosaur, extinct 60 million years ago. Except, perhaps, in Congo.

New Age

Indigo blues
After examining the Indigo Child movement, and specifically the activities of co-writer/producer James Twyman, there are potential consequences for the community - and for children.

Lighter Side of Darkness

Homeopathic functional food
How eating cakes can make you lose weight.

Myths & Mysteries

The Pufedorf Hoax
An unsolved double-murder, clandestine missions, secret organizations, four Presidents, nuclear warheads for Nazi rockets, Queen Elizabeth II, guerilla tactics, executions, fake executions, Yassir Arafat, the Congressional Medal of Honor, a German retirement home, an Argentinian travel agent, anagrams, a sunken ship, shady figures from the Underworld, fraud, lies, hoaxes, humbug - and two very strange people.

Myths & Mysteries

Firewalking - physics or mysticism?
Two skeptics take a walk on the hot side of life.

Medical Quackery

Mind Games - A look at phrenology in the 1830s
Phrenology was a hot topic in 1830s America, the relatively new "offspring of inquiring and revolutionary age," as the Quarterly Christian Spectator called it in 1834. It was hailed by some as a science that could unlock the secrets of the human brain by measuring the skull. It was denounced by others as sheer hucksterism - the work of con-men using the dubious notion of "cranial bumps" to make money off the gullibility of others.

Pseudohistory

New World Order, City Hall Square, Copenhagen
Undoubtedly, the most popular myth today deals with the attack on September 11, 2001. The movement behind this conspiracy theory is called the "Truth"-movement, and its followers "Truthers". Read about their celebration of the 8th anniversary of the attack.

Predictions

But the news said psychics are real!
An investigation of psychic Nancy Myer's claim to have "helped" the police in the Kimberly Forbes case.

Myths & Mysteries

The Roots of Nazism
Some have claimed that the so-called Germanenorder and its cover organization Thule-Gesellschaft were the cradle of Nazism. This article explores the beginnings of the Nazi movement.

Psychic Powers

California's "Haunted" Highway
Reality has a way of biting psychics' asses, and Sylvia Browne is no exception. This time, her claims about a California highway being so littered with ghosts are debunked by a trucker who knows the area intimately. Read about speed limits, driving in fog and the hanging of Joaquin Murrieta and Three Fingered Jack.

UFOs

The Hill Abduction
Betty and Barney Hill's abduction by aliens in the early hours of 20 September, 1961, is the most convincing case of its kind. That is to say, not convincing at all.

New Age

A quantum of common sense
It seems these days there is no shortage of "quantum" machines, or "quantum" explanations that will cure all known ills, generate unlimited "free" energy, communicate with the dead, explain personal "reverse causality" or perform any other highly improbable thing you can think of. One might be tempted to be skeptical, except that it's just "science" isn't it? Doesn't quantum mechanics prove all these things to be true? Decide for yourself...

New Age

A bottomless can of worms
An attempt to show that, not only is there now no hard evidence for life after death, but there can be no such evidence. Contrary to what mediums, ghost hunters, and NDE researchers would have us to believe, it is not possible to prove the "survival" hypothesis, even in principle.