New research findings show that attending a psychedelic retreat causes significant changes in a person's belief system. Psychadelic ritual attendees report increased confidence in the reality of a supernatural world, the distinction between mind and body, and the non-existence of free will. Is this because psychedelics give us access to hidden truths about the structure of reality or it is because they induce a permanent state of delusion ..read more

Dane advances the conversation about extraterrestrial visitation with a new argument that harkens back to an earlier age of space-alien enthusiasm. We've all heard the skeptical criticism that Earth is too far away from other stars for intelligent aliens to get here. But what if the call is coming from inside the house? It's time we revisited the 19th-century intuition that extraterrestrials are native to our own skies. If you are convinced that interstellar travel is implausible, then it's time to contemplate whether any aliens visiting Earth likely originated from a world located within one ..read more

In light of an uptick in witch-hunting vigilantism in Papua New Guinea, Dane takes a moderate stance on anti-witchcraft laws, arguing that while extra-judicial killings are always wrong, it is acceptable to prosecute certain kinds of witchcraft. He also discusses the strange case of the Belarussian anti-government activist, Roman Protasevich, who prophesized his own capture by government forces in a dream. The episode ends rebutting science guy, Neil deGrasse Tyson's latest attack on the hypothesis that UFOs are extraterrestrials, in an article that recently appeared on CNN.com ..read more

A copy of the upcoming Pentagon report on UFOs and their threat to U.S. national security has been leaked to the New York Times. Meanwhile, the conversation about the proximate origins of these mysterious craft has shifted towards the Earth's oceans. Dane reviews what we know about the Pentagon report and the rapidly changing nature of the UFO conversation ..read more

UFO mania is reaching a fever pitch in advance of a highly anticipated U.S. governmental report, due June 1st. The pending briefing on UFOs and their possible threat to U.S. national security has millions asking whether 2021 could be the year America's military discloses the reality of extraterrestrials to the public. In this episode, Dane argues that the very fact that Congress demanded this report from the military and intelligence communities heralds a monumental shift in U.S. policy on UFOs. After reviewing evidence that the U.S. military committed to UFO secrecy in the 1950s at the behest ..read more

We are told that civilization is in the late stages of transitioning from an era of superstition to one of rationality. According to this, the story of disenchantment, the U.S., Europe, and the larger post-industrialized world have passed through dark ages of widespread belief in magic, gods, demons, and spirits and into a glorious period of faith only in science and matter. But, in his 2017 book, "The Myth of Disenchantment," Dr. Jason Josephson Storm, Professor of Religion at Williams College, gives the lie to this fable. Storm argues this story is plainly false - belief in the supernatural ..read more

Dane starts the spring holiday weekend early, discussing Frazer's speculation that the Celts practiced human sacrifice; examining Harry Reid's claim that the Russians are behind the UFOs swarming America's navy; and calling for humans and Sasquatches to quit their feuding and fly together in peace ..read more

Irish fairy tales can be surprisingly dark and macabre. These stories hint at a complex and parallel world populated by beings who are more often hostile than sympathetic to human aims. But what are the creatures euphemistically denominated as the "Good People"? After sifting through layers of lore, Dane proposes that Irish fairy myths constitute a unified account of various empirical and social phenomena. Recalling philosopher Thomas Kuhn's notion of a scientific paradigm, Dane argues that the Good People need not exist to be real; as a central postulate in a unified worldview, the reality of ..read more

Putin's cryotherapy machine, Pentagon 'confirms' a pyramid-shaped UFO, the growing popularity of modern witchcraft, a lost book of the bible recovered? Dane reviews major stories related to news of the weird ..read more

Watch out, debunkers, weirdos are on the march to reclaim the banner of skepticism! In this session, Dane sits down with Dr. Everett Fulmer, a professor of philosophy and expert on the history and philosophy of skepticism, to discuss what it REALLY means to be a skeptic. As Dr. Fulmer explains, traditionally, skeptics were profound thinkers who discovered  compelling reasons for doubting the very possibility of humans ever acquiring certain knowledge. These free spirits developed razor-sharp arguments that challenge the Enlightenment view of rationality as the one true path to objective t ..read more