In Research Of - SoundSage

View Details

⚠️ Heads up: this episode opens with combat footage from the Tet Offensive and includes graphic descriptions of battlefield injury, a child in medical crisis, and animal experimentation. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text at 988.⚠️

Jeb and Blake look at the birth of NDE research: a field of study with a significant footprint in the metro-Atlanta area. Rats are bothered. Soldiers are wounded. Canadian teens are frozen. ...and we're here to talk about all of it.

📺 Episode Summary Despite the title, this one isn't really about proving there's an afterlife - and that turns out to be the most interesting thing about it. In Search Of takes the near-death experience and, instead of building a case for Heaven, spends most of its runtime on a much stranger question: when, exactly, is a person dead? We get four threads. A grievously wounded Vietnam veteran who watched his own body being worked on and then went back to the battlefield to talk with the men he'd already put in bags. An Emory physiologist chilling rats into a state he calls clinically-but-not-biologically dead. A Manitoba teenager whose heart was stopped for well over two hours in a snowbank and who came back with nothing to report but darkness. And a woman recalling a 1952 polio vision full of white light, a dead grandmother, and a complete moral audit of her own life. Between those, the medical talking heads keep circling the same admission: nobody agrees where the line is. It's a surprisingly restrained ISO episode ... and there's a very large name conspicuously missing from it.

👔 Nimoy Fashion Alert (NFA fashion consultant, Pedro Mendes)

👥 Who's In This Episode Tommy Clack — Army captain, artillery forward observer with the 25th Infantry Division "Wolfhounds." Wounded 29 May 1969 near the Cambodian border, losing three limbs; 22 months at the Atlanta VA and 33 operations followed. He finished college as an honors graduate, spent a long career at the VA, and became one of the country's more relentless veterans' advocates. He talks about the out-of-body experience, but - as Jeb found - he almost never leads with it. As of our recording he's still out there supporting veterans.

Dr. Michael Sabom — Atlanta cardiologist. He's here to say that medicine can't pin down the moment of death. Two years later he publishes Recollections of Death, built on 116 interviews which form the closest thing the field had to a quantitative baseline. His later work takes a considerably more explicitly Christian turn.

Dr. Vojin "Voja" Popović — Yugoslav-born physiologist at Emory, and the episode's designated rat botherer. Central casting could not have done better. He chills rats into apparent death and brings them back, drawing his line between clinical and biological death at the two-to-three hour mark. His actual career is a wonder: hibernators, ground squirrels, tumor-bearing hamsters, cooled dogs, hamsters submerged in oxygen-rich fluorocarbon, and a rat experiment slated for a Spacelab flight that never happened. Frequently co-credited with his wife, Dr. Pava Popović.

Ted Milligan — Sixteen, and a student at St. John's Cathedral Boys' School near Selkirk, Manitoba, whose curriculum included a 27-mile snowshoe hike in temperatures around forty below. Found with no heartbeat, no breathing, and a core temperature below 25°C. By the time of filming he's a private in the Canadian Armed Forces. His account of the experience is the shortest in the episode and, for a materialist, the most instructive: darkness, then waking up.

Dr. Gerald "Gerry" Bristow — The episode calls him "James." He's not. Later Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a genuine world authority on hypothermia; he and Dr. Robert Smith declined to do the sensible thing and kept working on a boy every indicator said was gone. An eyewitness account from anesthesiologist Dr. Arnold Tweed fills in what the episode leaves out, including the documented duration of the cardiac arrest.

Dr. Fred Schoonmaker (d. 2005) — Denver cardiologist at St. Luke's, former fighter pilot, developer of a less invasive cardiac catheter, and a driving force behind Denver air ambulance service. He marks the difference between patients who know their visions weren't real and patients who insist theirs were.

Dr. Janette Rainwater — Introduced as "Janet." A significant figure in Gestalt therapy, Berkeley PhD (1964), author of You're in Charge!, and the veteran of several hundred workshops. Her polio experience is the most classic NDE in the episode - light, deceased relative, life review, a very symbolic climb. Jeb's research turns up a detail the reenactment gets badly wrong, and it changes how you hear the whole segment.

Rev. Loren Young (d. 2003) — Methodist minister and theologian out of Oak Hill, West Virginia; Duke, then a Bachelor of Divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory; Southeastern Director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He arrives at the very end to say something warm about a merciful God right before the episode itself goes into the light.

Dr. Raymond Moody — Not in this episode. Which is a puzzle. Moody was born in Porterdale, Georgia, earned his PhD at West Georgia College and his MD at the Medical College of Georgia in 1976, and in 1975 published Life After Life - the book that coined "near-death experience," sold in the millions, and made this a subject television wanted to cover at all. The episode borrows his title, his framework, and arguably his entire premise, films almost the whole thing in and around Atlanta, yet never mentions him.

🔍 Deep Cuts & Research Notes A partial list of what we get into, without spoiling the good parts: 🌡️ Why 98.6°F was never a real number, and what a 2020 Stanford study says it is now 🎞️ Jeb's video forensics on some footage that looked very familiar, and why "we already did this episode" keeps coming up ⛪ The Company of the Cross, muscular Christianity, Ted Byfield, and a school whose controversial history we found a bit jaw-dropping. 🐹 Fluorocarbon breathing, hamsters, and learning James Cameron didn't make that up for The Abyss ✍️ What happens to a story when a documentary gets someone's name — and age — wrong, and where that sits on the line between sloppy and deceptive 🍑 Blake's hypothesis for why Atlanta briefly became the center of American NDE research, and what it has to do with trauma centers, cardiac units, blue laws, and a media hub 📊 The selection problem sitting underneath all of this: we only ever hear from the people who came back 🧭 Where each of us actually stands on this, perhaps not quite where you'd guess

⭐ Ratings 🔮 Predictions Recap Skipped this week - Blake is pretty sure this is the last week we are missing the segment. He's found the recordings and I think we have it sorted out from here.

🌕 Next Episode We go in research of… Moon Madness.

📚 Related Books These are affiliate links — if you buy through them, the show gets a small cut at no extra cost to you. • Raymond Moody — Life After Life (1975) The book this episode is named after, by the man this episode never mentions. Coined the term "near-death experience" and set the template every account since has been measured against. • Michael B. Sabom — Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation (1982) Sabom's 116 interviews, published two years after he appears here. The attempt to put actual numbers on the phenomenon. • Michael Sabom — Light & Death (1998) The same researcher, eighteen years later, with the Atlanta Study and a much more openly Christian frame. Useful as a before-and-after. • Vojin Popović & Pava Popović — Hypothermia in Biology and in Medicine (1974) Our rat botherer's standard reference, and still cited in the modern therapeutic hypothermia literature. Expensive and hard to find, but it exists. • Janette Rainwater — You're in Charge! A Guide to Becoming Your Own Therapist (1979) Published the year before this episode aired. Reading it alongside her segment is the whole point. • James Raffan — Deep Waters: Courage, Character and the Lake Timiskaming Canoeing Tragedy The definitive account of what happened to the St. John's school system's outdoor program in 1978. Context for Ted Milligan's segment that the episode does not give you. • Susan Blackmore — Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences (1993) The materialist case, made carefully and without contempt. Anoxia, endorphins, temporal lobe activity, and the dying-brain model. • Bruce Greyson — After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond (2021) Four decades of research from the field's most careful living investigator. The best single answer to "what does this look like now?"

After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond

Life After Life: The Investigation of a Phenomenon-Survival of Bodily Death

Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation

View Details

Note: This episode briefly touches on the topic of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, please contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Blake and Jeb crash headlong into S05E04 of In Search Of... on the topic of Daredevil Death Wish.

Episode Summary This In Search Of episode asks a surprisingly straightforward question for this show: what drives daredevils to risk their lives? Rather than chasing aliens or cryptids, the episode plays it remarkably straight - functioning more as a documentary about stunt performers than the paranormal-adjacent fare we've come to expect. After a montage of vintage stock footage the episode profiles several working daredevils: Pat Jackson, a 42-year-old housewife who rides motorcycles through flaming boards; Roger Kober, a 22-year-old whose "slide for life" goes wrong on camera; Hank Wise and his "Iron Man" act (letting a truck drive over his body); and Chuck Strange, a demolition derby natural turned pickup-truck pilot whose Astrodome crash nearly killed him. The episode's most substantive segment features Kim Kahana's stunt school in California, where the veteran stuntman trains young performers in the difference between a daredevil ("a guy who just says, let's do it") and a professional who uses illusion and safety. Psychologist Dr. Samuel Z. Klausner provides the academic frame, describing stress-seeking as almost addictive - the euphoria of overcoming fear becomes a need that grows stronger with each attempt. Notably, the episode is produced by the same team behind That's Incredible!, yet takes a far more restrained, documentarian approach than that show's sensationalist style. The result is one of the most credible episodes of In Search Of we've encountered - and, consequently, one of the least weird.

EXTENSIVE NOTES AT PATREON

View Details

Jeb and Blake tackle In Search Of...'s S05E03 topic of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Episode Summary This In Search Of episode examines the assassination of President John F. Kennedy through the lens of (at the time this aired) newly discovered acoustic evidence and Cold War intrigue. Rather than accepting the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, the episode presents "new evidence" suggesting a conspiracy involving multiple gunmen, potential Soviet involvement, and even the extraordinary theory that the man killed by Jack Ruby may not have been the real Lee Harvey Oswald. The episode relies heavily on acoustic analysis of the Dallas police motorcycle tape (1978), testimony from KGB defector Yuri Nosenko, handwriting analysis of Oswald's Soviet diary, and the fringe theory of British investigator Michael Eddowes that a Soviet lookalike carried out the assassination.

Notably, this episode aired just three weeks before the election of Ronald Reagan, and sits chronologically between two major investigations: Dr. James Barger's acoustic analysis work (1978) and the National Academy of Sciences' debunking of that analysis (1982). EXTENSIVE Show Notes at our Patreon site - free for reading.

View Details

Blake and Jeb discuss ISO's coverage of FAITH HEALING. The episode goes to places new and old. Jeb gives us historical context. Blake gets angry. Nimoy wears a lab coat.

EXTENSIVE Show Notes on our free Patreon page

View Details

Weirdumentary has a forward by Stephen Bissette who wrote a book also likely to be of interest to listeners: Cryptid Cinema (affiliate link) (A follow-up to that book is under construction and will include research by your's truly about the "4-walling" tour of the PGF.)

I linked to Feral House's page for Weirdumentary above at the request of Gary. If you're curious about their catalog, we talked with their owner recently about monstrous food and they also produced Al Ridenour's new book about Carnival.

This is not a complete list of the films in the book - and it also covers a few TV series including In Search Of... and Arthur C. Clarke's _____ (he had three ITV series covering topics similar to ISO with each season getting a slightly different name).

1970: Chariots of the Gods, The Unexplained

1971: The Hellstrom Chronicles, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow

1972: Bigfoot Man or Beast, Monsters! Mysteries or Myths?, The Devil's Triangle, The Legend of Boggy Creek

1973: In Search of Ancient Astronauts

1974: Deadly Fathoms, In Search of Ancient Mysteries, In Search of Dracula, UFOs: Past, Present and Future

1975: Mysteries from Beyond Earth, The Force Beyond, The Legendary Curse of the Hope Diamond, The Man of Miracles, The Outer Space Connection

1976: Beyond Belief, In Search of Noah's Ark, Mysteries of the Gods, The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena, The Legend of Bigfoot, The Legend of Loch Ness, The Miracle Healers, The Mysterious Monsters, World Beyond Death

1977: Aliens from Spaceship Earth, Journey into the Beyond, Mysteries of the Great Pyramid, The Lincoln Conspiracy, The Underground Doctors, The Unknown Force

1978: Are We Alone in the Universe?, Beyond and Back, Curse of the Mayan Temple, Manbeast! Myth or Monster?, Mysteries from Beyond the Triangle, Mysteries of the Mind, Mystery of the Sacred Shroud, Secret of the Bermuda Triangle, The Amazing World of Ghosts, The Late Great Planet Earth, The Lost City of Atlantis, The UFO Journals, UFO - Exclusive! , UFO: Top Secret, Unknown Powers, World of the Unknown

1979: Attack from Outer Space, Charles Berlitz's The Bermuda Triangle, Death: The Ultimate Mystery, Encounter with Disaster, Hypnosis and Beyond, In Search of the Historic Jesus, The Doomsday Chronicles, The Prophecies of Nostradamus, UFOs Are Real, World of Mystery

1980: Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (TV), Land of Celtic Ghosts, Mysteries of the Mind, UFO Syndrome

1981: Search for the Titanic

View Details

Show less Jeb and Blake kick off Season 5 of In Search Of... by researching UFO COVERUPS!

Links:

UFO Crash at Roswell

Catalina UFO Footage and Reddit discussion of same

Twilight Zone - A Small Talent for War

Malmstrom UFO Incident

Obit for Col. Donald Burggrabe

Peter Gersten "the UFO Lawyer"

Raymond Fowler

Col. Robert Friend - and obit

Jesse Marcel Sr.

NASA Lifting Body

Northrop Flying Wing

Doak VZ-4 (not a saucer!)

Avrocar

Jupiter II (Lost in Space)

Nimoy Fashion Alert!

UFO Crash Sites in New Mexico:

There is a lot of Top Secret in this episode:

Col Donald Burggrabe

Raymond Fowler

Peter Gersten

Donald Ritter

Jesse Marcel Sr.

Col Robert Friend

And was the model UFO in this episode a guest star from Lost In Space?

View Details

Blake and Jeb go In Research Of PAST LIVES with Leonard Nimoy. Subjects include reincarnation claims, past-life regression therapy, and some truly baffling Nimoy wardrobe choices. Link to YouTube Episode (while it lasts) Topics we cover include:

Nimoy wandering a Los Angeles graveyard in a strange quasi-military sport coat, and Blake's detective work tying the filming location to Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights.
The famous Pollock twins case from Hexham, England, where two girls were said to be the reincarnations of their deceased sisters — and how later research complicates the story.
Dr. Lucia Capacchione's art-therapy / inner-child work and how the show uses regression narratives to explain modern psychological problems.
Playwright A.J. Stewart (Ada F. Kay), who became convinced she was James IV of Scotland and wrote Falcon: The Autobiography of His Grace James IV King of Scots as if from the king's own perspective.
Whether past-life regression therapy produces evidence of reincarnation or just vivid, therapist-shaped fantasy, and why skeptics are so wary of hypnosis-based "memories."

NFA (Nimoy Fashion Alert):

Cemetery Detective Work:

Using the 2nd NFA shot, I was able to decipher the tex on the dark tombstone. It is a lot darker in real life with a modern shot.

That "Find a Grave" entry includes the exact location where Nimoy was standing for this episode's cemetery shot.

Jeb asked for an animated gif of the woman in the castle with secret doors:

The cover of Robert and Loy Young's book about reincarnation:

The twins at the heart of the British (Hexham!) reincarnation story:

And I can't help but scream - DON'T GO NEAR THE EDGE!!! This episode is such a cliffhanger.

Deeper reading & sources mentioned: Pollock twins case write-up at the Society for Psychical Research's Psi Encyclopedia Psi Encyclopedia on famous past-life claims (including A.J. Stewart / Ada F. Kay): Ada F. Kay / A.J. Stewart biography (reincarnation claim & Falcon background) Evergreen Cemetery (Los Angeles) – history and the Japanese "Garden of the Pines" section Lucia Capacchione and inner-child / expressive-arts therapy Skeptical overview of past-life regression therapy (Harriet Hall, Science-Based Medicine): General background on past-life regression and why psychologists consider it pseudoscientific

View Details

Jeb and Blake ponder Atlantis and "healing holes" in the waters off the coast of Bimini. (Weirdly this is almost literally true as Blake ended up actually in Bimini just a week before this ep released. More on that soon.)

Links for Shownotes:

Roby Yonge on "The Beatles Paul is Dead"

Neptune Memorial Reef

"Psychic" Irene Hughes

Bimini Wall

Edgar Cayce

Beachrock

The Healing Hole

More on the crystal ball from 2010 (Cayce related)

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

Other interesting images from the episode:

Hemingway's Healing Hole:

Robey Yong and Irene Hughes re-enact their experiences.

Doc Raymond Brown and his crystal ball

Marcel Vogel and some crystals - he was also in S01E01 on talking plants.

View Details

Flashback to January 2018:In this episode of MonsterTalk, we return to discussion of the Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis (UTH) and what seems to be its growing influence in paranormal circles. It’s been used to explain UFOs, mothman, bigfoot, fairies, dogman, ghosts and many other phenomena which defy scientific demonstrability. Now it crops up again in a new film event titled Alien Intrusion which turned out to be a stealth evangelical creationist film which suggests that aliens and UFOs are actually demonic. We are joined by MonsterTalk alum Joe Laycock, Natasha Mikles and Jeb Card to discuss the UTH and Jeb’s Paranormal Unified Field Theory (PUFT) as it relates to this film and the work of John Keel and others. In Research Of… MonsterTalk Joe Laycock

Natasha Mikles Jeb Card Music Monstertalk Theme: Monster by Peach Stealing Monkeys

Spooky Archaeology: Myth and the Science of the Past

View Details

This is part 2 of our 2-part coverage of The Mothman Prophecies movie. If you haven't listened to Part-1, please turn over the record and start again.

Additional show notes available (for free) on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/posts/s4-bonus-mothman-129987183

View Details

This is part 1 of our 2-part coverage of The Mothman Prophecies movie. This is in lieu of S04E21 (see below) but we hope you enjoy the content and after part 2, we return to our regularly scheduled episodes list.

"So... Air Disasters Predictions, Jeb? What do you think we'll get?"

Well it turned out to be more than we expected. During our research for this episode we ran into a bit of a puzzle. It turns out that one of the key figures in the episode is still alive and has become an important figure in the world of conspiracy and out of an abundance of caution for our own sanity (as regards potential litigiousness) we've decided to shelve this one for a while. Will we come back and fill in the gap when we think the coast is clear? I don't know - but we didn't want to leave a hole in your listening so we decided to do something... more ambitious. So what we did instead was we recorded a 4+ hour deep dive into the 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies.

Extensive show notes available (for free) at our Patreon page. https://www.patreon.com/posts/s4-bonus-mothman-126932315

View Details

Jeb and Blake go in search of John the Baptist's resting place. Content Warning: Human remains on screen. Discussion of murder.

Beheading John the Baptist (wiki)

Salome (play)

In 2018 the murder of Bishop Epiphanius took place and rocked the religious community -- not important for this episode but it popped up a lot in my searching.

San Silvestro "head" shown in intro

Same - but wiki article

Nimoy Fashion Alert (NFA Wardrobe consulting by The Hogtown Rake, Pedro Mendes)

The "head" of John the Baptist at San Silvestro:

Art historian Michael Patroconni (Petroccione?)

I think Jeb and I found this to be the most fun part of the episode:

Gerald Larue obituary

Herod Antipas (the Herod that executed JTB)

Wadi El Natrun

The Cave of John the Baptist

View Details

Blake tries to talk Jeb off the ledge as we return to the classic theme of "ancient astronauts" in this throwback episode titled: Earth Visitors.

Some links relevant to our discussion:

Dejah Thoris (character)

MUFON/Harzan scandal

Roman Dodecahedrons (archaeology)

Frank Frazetta

Boris Vallejo

We mention Zecharia Sitchin.

Research suggests humans grow more neurons than did Neanderthals.

A bunch of this episode comes from the work of Maurice Chatelain, who we shall refer to as "Shadowlane." His book Our Cosmic Ancestors sports one of the more interesting book covers we've seen while researching this show.

He also wrote Our Ancestors Came from Outer Space. Maurice Chatelain's credentials appear to have been somewhat overstated in the episode.

We'll be talking about several "Out of Place Artifacts" or OOPAs in this episode. Let's start with the "Boot Print" aka The Meister Print. (pictured below) See also this article by Glenn Kuban.

Very compelling stuff. I guess. I mean it sort of looks like show print.

This interesting looking skull also sent us down some research holes.

The text of the episode seems to be talking about the Del Mar Skull but the image doesn't look like a close match.

A lot of "shapes on the earth" are discussed. The shapes require you to do a lot of work. We'll get into that in the episode. But one is the Maltese Cross that is absolutely stunning, so long as you ignore that some of the points are hundreds of miles from the alleged anchor points and that the temples allegedly at each point were centuries apart. Skeptical response via CSICOP.

Also - this is supposed to be a "pyramid" but seems to be more of what geometry wonks call a "triangle."

I'm trying to find the type of terminal behind our statistician. And - behind the scenes I've managed to contact him and he assures me that the episode required many takes and that his students reported they made him sound like he believes in the whole ancient astronauts thing... More on this if I hear back from a rather lengthy email I sent him today (12/13/24).

Read even more about the Monte Carlo Method!

Vintage ad for the The Outer Space Connection.

According to Scientific American, the idea that indigenous Americans were here for a very long time (from across the Bering sea) really kicked off in the 1930s.

More on Ray

And a BOOK he wrote

Casa Grande

Robert Hicks of University of Arizona

Hicks work with Mutter.

Casa Rinconada

Dr. Jonathan Reyman of Illinois State University:

Dr. Garman Harbottle

View Details

Jeb and Blake continue their look at the 1984 film Ghostbusters. The full version of this has an additional 90 mins of coverage and is available at our Patreon page for as little as $2/month.

View Details

Just in time for H̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶e̶e̶n̶ Thanksgiving, we bring you the first part of our 2-part coverage of the classic 1984 film Ghostbusters. This is one of our favorite movies and we wanted to get this special out to you before Halloween but life conspired against us meeting that deadline. But with the new sequel dropping in just about a week, we figure the movie still has some relevance. ;) We'll be back with Indian Astronomers very soon. In the meantime, grab your Proton Packs and PKE Meters and head for the fire pole!

Discussed in Part 1:

On the current version of the Columbia Pictures Logo

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Lovecraft and the Pineal Gland

The very awful Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater

The Bat-O-Matic with Dan Aykroyd

Casper vs Ghostbusters

The Ghostbusters Song

Zener Cards

J. B. Rhine

PKE Valances

The Crookes Tube

Trepanation

The Etheric Plane

The Cathedral of Learning vs The Continental Life building

View Details

eb and Blake hoist the Jolly Roger and set sail to the Caribbean to look for unsuspecting rich tourists in fancy 1970s yachts.

A lot of this episode is based on the writing of Carl Hiaasen - his newspaper work, not his many successful novels.

We see Carl here (RIGHT) with beer-drinking FLORIDA MAN (LEFT).

This episode deals, primarily, with a few key missing boat cases:

The Saba Bank (also, see the attached PDFs for contemporary coverage of missing ships in this episode)

The Pirate Lady (found in 1990s) - this was being searched for by the colorful owner Charlie Slater.

The Como No

Fiction/Pop-Culture Mentioned:

The Island

Licence to Kill

The Deep

Hitchhiking as Moral Panic

Some more images from the episode:

Remember folks, when doing a reenactment NEVER GO FULL GILLIGAN!

Our reenactment Villain for this episode takes the "Pirate" thing pretty seriously. You can tell from his shirt.

His cartoonish villainy reminds me of the "Red Ryder" home-defense sequence from A Christmas Story.

The "Map Scrolling" equipment the Coast Guard was using as an animated GIF:

And finally... our Nimoy Fashion Alert!

I'm on a boat!

(See this NSFW boat documentary)

View Details

I recently appeared on a podcast called The Plastic Plesiosaur Podcast. They asked me for a copy of the theme to this show and I realized I never made that available? So... here it is!

The music is by Greig Johnson and the singing is by Rachel Lackey.

The lyrics are by me, Blake Smith. And in case you have trouble following them for your sing-alongs, here they are:

"In Research of"
We talk and have some fun
They shared ideas
But not the only ones

We share the facts
That the show sometimes lacked
"I-R-O"
"In Research of!"

View Details

Jeb and Blake continue their coverage of the influential film Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Part two of this session is exclusive to our wonderful Patrons.

Full show notes includes additional images and material with background on the science and nonsense behind this movie.

Quftis: "men from the Upper Egyptian town of Qift who were trained and became skilled excavators and foremen who went on to work for other foreign missions in Egypt, as well as in Palestine"

From OxfordHandbook article on Egyptian Archaeology and the Museum.

Building the Ark today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGcdE5RllG0+

https://youtu.be/enbdsdKfhFo?t=2611 - featuring "scientist" John Hutchison of Canada. (Creator of "The Hutchison Effect" fiasco…)

Archaeoastronomy - how the sky is tied to ancient sites (Map Room)

The art of the Ark:

https://www.thepropgallery.com/raiders-of-the-lost-ark-ralph-mcquarrie-the-power-of-god

Jacques James Tissot's ark of the covenant

Errors Removed in Digital Versions?
According to this site the Cobra reflection was removed - which matches Jeb's recollection. But after famously negative responses to guns being replaced with mobile phones in digital releases of E.T., Spielberg claimed he wasn't going to be tinkering with his films. Well… people certainly change their minds.

Movies knocked off from Raiders:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-indy-ripoffs-2008-pg-photogallery.html

Video Games based on Indy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93ojbvhbqOI

The idea that the Templars worshipped the mummified head of Jesus? Source: The Head of Godby Keith Laidler.

The Dorade Box (Indy's hiding locale on freighter)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorade_box

Kiss Me Deadly (McGuffin style copied in Pulp Fiction)

Kiss Me Deadly (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

The Head of God: The Lost Treasure of the Templars

View Details

Jeb and Blake tackle the Ooky world of Monster Hunters.

Nimoy in the forest shadows...

Peter Byrne and Tim Dinsdale - two legendary monster hunters meet.

Monsters in the intro to this episode are from the TV film Manbeast! Myth or Monster

For reasons I can't explain, some of the images in this episode reminded me of 1970s album covers...

Arch Buckley 2007 Obituary

Warren Thompson 2013 Obituary

Al Berry 2013 Reminiscence

Ron Moorhead (Sierra Sounds)

We have more material on Doc Shiels but that will be a different post for Patrons.

Scientific American discussion on Bigfoot Language (by MonsterTalk co-host Dr. Karen Stollznow)

Some supportive analysis of the Sierra Sounds recordings that we discuss in the episode.

Another paper from Dr. Kirlin

Ook Ook in Sierra Sound paper

    The most annoying font ever at the  Oregon Regional Primate Research Center?

View Details

Jeb and Blake discovered that S03E08 - The Great Lakes Triangle - has disappeared into a temporal anomaly. But we dare not leave you adrift in Lake Eerie, so instead we usher you through a mysterious temple to a VHS tape on a stone pedestal... as we go in research of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

Discussed in this episode:

The story conception tapes of Raiders (Lucas, Spielberg, Kasden)

Same thing, but performed by actors

Secret of the Incas (Affiliate Link)
- Whole film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K02U0CVoutE
- Map Room https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZJaIc1SDbQ
- The big scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzl4_ytmxDs

The real Aztec Sun Stone

The "protection of antiquities" act wasn't real yet when the film is set.

The Nazis and the occult stuff alluded to the Ahnenerbe. Discussed on MonsterTalk before.

Turkdean Barrows mentioned in the film were not a real place but during and after the filming, two barrows in similar area were excavated. Retcon doesn't work in real life guys.

The Pan American sea plane

LucasFilm & Trademarking the word "Nazi."

Also mentioned: OG style gaming in the Raiders mileu: Raiders of the Lost ArtifactOG style D&D game

View Details

Jeb and Blake consider the possibility that the Tunguska Event was caused by an extraterrestrial atomic craft. An old friend returns. A SciFi icon cameos. Atoms are split.

Mr. Leonard Nimoy!

Charles Cole

Ronald Oriti

And Dr. Isaac Asimov

News about Golden Globes scandals

Asteroid Monitoring (NASA)

Tunguska in Pop Culture (Wiki)

Basic coverage of Tunguska and theories (Wiki)

Leonid Kulik

Thomas R. Atkins (A Fire Came By) Amz Author's Page (Affiliate Link)

The Jomon Period (Japan) and some amazing Jomon Masks (3D Print)

Henry Gris ("Psychic" author and early member of Hollywood Foreign Press Association)

Alexey Zolotov

Permafrost Links:

https://spookygeology.com/the-hellmouth-batagaika-crater/
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/siberia-s-gateway-underworld-grows-record-heat-wave-thaws-permafrost
https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/blessing-curse-melting-permafrost-russian-arctic/

Finally - and I'm definitely not recommending this video to you - but am sharing it because it might be the disturbing thing you're looking for.

Rabies in a Human Patient (1960) - Warning, Disturbing Imagery

View Details

AIPT Comics - is putting on a free online convention Sunday July 18th.

The online convention starts at 10 am and I'll be participating in a couple of ways if you're interested. At noon, I've got a special interview with Stephen R. Bissette. You might know him as a key artist on Alan Moore's run of Swamp Thing in the 80s - but if you've been subscribing to BIG FOOTAGE the Patreon bonus cast, you'll know him as the author of CRYPTID CINEMA.

I'll also be on at 3:30 pm with Jeb Card to discuss conspiracies and comics.

Other guests include paleontologist Jim Lehane, psychologist Craig Foster, paranormal investigator Kenny Biddle, artist Celestia World, archaeologist David Anderson, and Matt Brady. author of THE SCIENCE OF RICK AND MORTY.

A link to Cryptid Cinemais here: http://bit.ly/CryptidCinema

The convention details are here:

https://aiptcomics.com/2021/06/28/aipt-sciphi-fest-science-skepticism/

The direct ZOOM link is here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86109451697

I hope you can catch the show tomorrow but if you can't, I know that many of the interviews will end up on YouTube and I'm happy to report that Steve Bissette and I talked quite a while longer and the full version of that discussion will be up on YouTube AND will drop as a regular episode because it's all right up your alley, dear audience. Fun and informative stuff indeed - and chock full of monsters.

Also chock full of monsters is also my favorite imaginary coffee.

View Details

Jeb and Blake head into cold as we look at the episode titled "Cryogenics." Yes, there is a lot of legitimate discussion of the science of freezing - but there's also a lot of optimistic coverage of "Cryonics," the much more questionable idea of freezing people for a later thawing and restoration.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains images of dead people, frozen semen, animal harm, terrible puns, and some naughty curse words.

(You're welcome.)

Discussed in this episode:

Cryogenics is NOT Cryonics

Difficult early history of Cryonics (via Alcor website)

The first US successful use of insanity plea (Sickles)

The Artists Statement video that Jeb talked about

The Cryonics Institute (in Michigan)

Robert Ettinger - father of Cryonics

Alcor Life Extension (Arizona)

American Cryonics Society (formerly Bay Area Cryonics Society)

Frozen Bovine Semen (History of)

The history of alleged "eating ancient mammoth" stories

This animal was revived using ratsuscitation.

Dr. Paul Segall makes a return visit to In Search Of...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you method acting:

Who can forget this famous scene from The gRATe Escape?"

UCLA's Dr. Josiah Brown (obituary 1985)

Here's that mouse embryo gif I promised you.

Mr. Leonard Nimoy!

View Details

Jeb and Blake crawl through the cobbled streets of 1978 television to find out what was going on when IN SEARCH OF went looking for Jack the Ripper.

A lot of this episode is about "The Royal Conspiracy" - the idea that Prince Albert Victor (aka "Prince Eddy") was secretly Jack the Ripper.

This was largely derived from a book called Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, an ironic title since it turned out to be neither final nor the solution. This was written by Stephen Knight, who appears in the episode. Shortly after this he will develop brain cancer and pass away.

The story also involves Prince Albert Victor's surgeon, Dr. William Gull.

We discuss the "modern plague" of Gin in London at the time. (That link is to the Pub Map.)

Alert listener Dr. David Cockcroft sent us a link to the 1886 London Poverty Maps of Charles Booth. It's a treasure trove of information contemporary to the time of this case (and the upcoming Sherlock Holmes episode as well).

Nimoy Fashion Alert!

Did you notice that big book lying flat behind Nimoy's head? That's a book about Vincent Van Gogh. We'll hear more about him in Season 4.

In our bonus episode about pop-culture of JTR we talked about a weird 6-part BBC crime series which pitted two fictional modern TV police detectives against the case. Wendy Sturgess was one of the writers.

We discuss some of the appalling poverty of the area of London where the murders took place. This included discussion of Jack London's book about London. "The People of the Abyss" - that was the name of a work by American fiction writer Jack London. It's available online.

A young Donald Rumbalow makes an appearance.

We briefly discuss the "wizard money" of England at the time.

The Police News vintage paper is shown several times in the episode. You can search these old papers on the British Newspaper Archive!

I elected not to do dramatic readings of the JTR letters, but some of the most famous ones you can read about here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Boss_letter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saucy_Jacky_postcard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_letter

Dr. J. M. Cameron - chief pathologist of home office (1930 - 2003) makes an appearance.

We're not done with the "foggy streets of London" either because we'll be looking into the real identity of Sherlock Holmes in just a few episodes, with return guest Dr. Kenny Feder.

View Details

Jeb & Blake discuss the ways that Jack the Ripper has been adapted in fiction and documentary over the years. The strange convergence of Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde merge into a weird mix of fact and fantasy through the decades. A variety of media are discussed. And you can be sure that in the foggy gas-lit, cobbled streets of London there lurk some puns as well.

A few references we'll hit in the show (with affiliate links):

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch

YouTube (Thriller! adaptation)

Time After Time

Jack the Ripper (1959)

6-Part BBC Jack the Ripper series (Amazon UK - Region 2)
Read about it here

The Lodger (1944)

Gotham by Gaslight (Batman)

From Hell (comic)

Letters from Whitechapel mystery board game

Bridge Across Time aka Terror at London Bridge - featuring The Hoff

Wolf in the Fold - Star Trek S2

Michael Caine in Jack the Ripper (1988)

Murder by Decree (1979) Sherlock Holmes vs JTR

Jeb has some Ripper-related photos which I will add later.

Robert Bloch's Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper - The Complete Series BBC [DVD]

View Details

Grab your sticks and join Jeb and Blake as they go looking for water flowing underground. Same as it ever was? Not hardly.
Special content in this episode courtesy Sharon Hill. Be sure and check out her article on dowsing for water at Spooky Geology.

The "earth, air, fire, and water" idea comes from Empedocles.

Early in the episode Francis Hitching holds up a stack of paperbacks. I looked them all up (affiliate link to Amazon).
The stack of books he puts down includes:
Dowsing: One Man's Way by J. Scott Elliot
Dowsing, Water Witches, and Divining Rods for the Millions by Howard V. Chambers
Modern Dowsing: The Dowser's Handbook by Raymond Willey
Practical Dowsing by A. H. Bell
Pendulum Power (1977 edition shown) by Greg Nielsen and Joseph Polansky
And finally:
Dowsing: The PSI Connection by Christopher Hitching

Tom Graves
Author of "The Diviner's Handbook: A guide to the timeless art of Dowsing" (1986)
- Book online https://leanpub.com/needlesofstone/read
- He's still alive, still writing, and has a Twitter account.
  When he's not writing fiction and new age - he's an IT and Business consultant of 30 years.
Inner London Educational Authority
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_London_Education_Authority

The dry well belongs to John Mitchell.

He calls in Dr. Arthur Bailey.

Former president of British Society of Dowsers
An article by Dr. Bailey
Dr Arthur Bailey was a senior lecturer in Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Bradford. At some point he got very interested in botanical healing and founded Bailey Flower Essences - which sold plant essences and was closely affiliated with homeopathy.

This episode really inspired me to some show-notes silliness.

The episode had some stunning visuals in it. This looked like an album cover to me.

We don't know who THIS guy is, but he probably was trying to hide from all the Muggles.

Pat Lucas was the only professional British female dowser.

The "biofeedback" device from the episode:

And then there's THIS machine - the one used by Harry Lovegrove.

New Scientist (New Scientist Feb 16, 1978) article discussing Lovegrove using child's dowsing kit for "amazing results" at "laying down dowsing lines." Whatever that means.

The SPR has a lengthy article about dowsing that includes believer and skeptical content.

Stan Shepherd - the dowser and well driller. We're of mixed opinions. I think it looks like he's having a heart attack, Jeb prefers the idea that he's having a fart attack. And Stan was just going with the flow.

We also mentioned Martin Gardner and his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.

Dowsing: The psi connection by Francis Hitching (1978-01-01)

Dowsing, Water Witches and Divining Rods for the Millions

Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science)

Pendulum Power: A Mystery You Can See, a Power You Can Feel by Nielsen, Greg, Polansky, Joseph New Edition (1997)

The Diviner's Handbook: A Guide to the Timeless Art of Dowsing

View Details

We'll be taking a look at ISO's coverage of cloning in this episode.

Content warning (for ISO watchers) there is animal experimentation and surgery video in this TV episode.

Jeb asked me to include a gif of the "groovy" 1970s video effects from this episode:

In the 1970s the idea of "test tube babies" was still quite controversial, as evidenced by this opinion piece in the Berkeley Gazette (1978).

The Weibe Twins (Josephine and Rozzalyn) appear prominently in this episode. Their shop (Twin's Armoire Boutique) shut down last year during the pandemic.

Their outfits threw some serious Boohbah vibes my way.

Nimoy fashion alert!

We meet the Beernink Twins - brother gynecologists. They both passed away but former patients posted heartfelt remembrances of them.

This look at twin gynecologists brought up the memorable film Dead Ringers and the strange, sad tale of the Marcus twins that inspired it.

Learn to pronounce axolotl! (sounds like ash-sho-lote)

You can learn more about these endangered and adorable amphibians here.

You can't talk about eugenics without KHAN!

We meet Dr. Clem Markert of Yale.

He worked to make a chimera-mouse with genes from multiple mice.

Not quite 20 years after this episode was filmed, we got Dolly the cloned sheep.

View Details

Get to your shelters and turn on your weather radios as Jeb and Blake watch IN SEARCH OF...'s episode on Tornadoes.

Discussed in this episode:
NOAA

Dr. Ernest Agee

National Severe Storms Lab (NSSL)

Twister (1996) - Amazon Affiliate Link

John Weaver

Bob Davies-Jones

Kelvin Droegemeir

Edwin Kessler

Poorly lit Nimoy Fashion:

View Details

Jeb and Blake have a close encounter of the In Search Of... kind. We look at two UFO abduction cases that you may not have heard of - and that definitely have more details to them than ISO covers.

Flying Saucers and the Three Men (Amazon Affiliate Link)

Communion (AAL)

King Kong 76 animatronics

Above Top Secret - Isaac Koi (UFO Barrister)

Catalina UFO Case on YouTube

APRO

CUFOS

NICAP

MUFON

They're not in the episode but if you'd like to learn about Betty & Barney Hill, Blake highly recommends checking out the podcast Strange Arrivals.

We also talk a bit about the Travis Walton case.

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

Our weird "alien abductor" in this episode:

View Details

Sorry! It's very easy to accidentally post to the wrong feed when you run multiple podcasts. I was trying to get out the door to take care of a family situation and didn't realize I'd posted the newest MonsterTalk episode to the IRO feed.

But don't worry! New IRO content is on the way. Jeb and I already have several episodes of Season 3 in the can and I'm hard at work to get them out the door to you.

Thanks for all the new Patreon subscribers and for the new reviews! I hope you enjoy Season 3 as much as we seem to be having recording it.

Cheers!

-Blake

View Details

Season 2 of IRO is over and we take a few hours to talk about the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

There's three more hours of discussion beyond what's in this preview and you can get access to that as well as our other Patreon exclusives by subscribing here.

View Details

If you want to skip the back story - just click here: http://bit.ly/monstertalkbooks

Listeners have been asking for us to compile all the books we've talked about into a single page for years now. I hadn't had the time before now, but thanks to my current "non-employment" situation, I decided to try and do it right.

I've designed the page to plug in Google spreadsheet and display via a Data Table. This means as we add more content, it will automatically update without having to do a lot of Wordpress or HTML work.

This also means the list is sortable! I'm about 20% through the back catalog and it may take a few weeks to get all the work done, but it's working well enough that I wanted to share it!

You can always reach the page by going to http://monstertalk.org and clicking the Library link at the top of the page.

I also made an easy to remember bitly link:

http://bit.ly/monstertalkbooks

That's bit dot ly / monster talk books - but mashed up as one word.

Thanks! I hope you find this a useful resource.

View Details

Jeb and Blake stare at spreadsheet graphs - and what could be better? Fashion Forensics. A look at season 3. Tease of our next Bonus Episode. And more!

Note: The fashion forensics segment needs visuals. Those are in the attached PDF but if I can make time I will knock together a little video to make it better. If I manage it, you'll know first.

View Details

Jeb and Blake go looking for The Garden of Eden and bring along professor Nathan French of the Miami University, Ohio to shed some extra insight during the journey.

Nathan is the author of And God Knows the Martyrs (affiliate link) and is Associate Professor of Comparative Religion at Miami. Meanwhile back in Eden...

Nimoy walks in the Garden with a bible and his wholly white vestments.

The Tomb of Eve

Jedha in Star Wars

Ashurban-appalling?

Bahrain: Independent since 1971. UK Protectorate in 1892, with decades of playing Ottomans, Persians, and British off each other.

Archaeologist P. B. (Peter Bruce) Cornwall

“The first excavation at the site was carried out by a Danish archaeological expedition led by Geoffrey Bibby between 1954 and 1972, and later by a French expedition from 1977”

Archaeological Excavations -- Bahrain

Bahrain & WWII

Bahrain experience of WWII

US in Bahrain Post-WWII

Maybe one of YOU good people can make sense of this?

Technical Consultant was Gerald A LaRue of USC. Scholar of Religion & Gerontologist. (Apparently, LaRue would pass the ashes of a dead colleague around in class, with the dead colleague’s permission, as a memento mori)

Writer of this episode, Jim Kouf.

"Patricia Gibbs, an English woman who runs Bahrain Explored, has done much to make the island accessible to the tourist She began four years ago, when a friend at British Airways asked her to show VIP guests on the inaugural Concorde flight around Bahrain. Now she has seven knowledgeable guides with cars and a minibus. Her stop-over package includes a sight-seeing tour of the spring-fed, relatively green northern coast of Bahrain, as well as some inland villages. You will see Arab dhows being built, by hand, with twisted mangrove limbs from India, before visiting the main archaeological sites dating to 2700 BC ."

And God Knows the Martyrs: Martyrdom and Violence in Jihadi-Salafism

View Details

Hey there listener! I hope you're enjoying the show. Jeb and I have several in the can and have started recording on Season 3. It would be a big help if you could take a few minutes and give us a positive review on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. We'd really appreciate it.

If you hate the show - we care about that too, but would prefer you send us a detailed post card with all your complaints. ;)

Hope 2021 turns out to be a good year for all of us. Be safe, and stay tuned for more!

-Blake

View Details

Jeb and Blake are joined by climate scientist Dr. John Cook to discuss this infamous episode of In Search Of...

You may have noticed that since the 1970s we did not descend into a frozen ice age. In fact - quite the opposite. Dr. Cook was kind enough to join us to talk about both the history of the science discussed in this episode, and the many challenges of dealing with science denialism. It's a treat of a discussion.

In addition to his work teaching at George Mason University, Cook is also the author of the delightful science book CRANKY UNCLE VS CLIMATE CHANGE. (Amazon affiliate link)

If you like John's work like this or his science advocacy, you can support him here financially. He's worked to provide a tremendous amount of clear and accessible science advocacy in this field and it is expensive and only funded through donations.

Now let's get to the episode goodies:

The episode may be available at YouTube but Discovery is working to take them all down and the few examples we've seen for this episode have all been posted by climate-change denialists and we don't want to support their channels. Blake suspects that the new streaming channel DISCOVERY+ may be considering making the original ISO series available through its streaming service at some point. That would be a good reason why they may be cleaning up all the YouTube instances - but it might just be copyright policing of the "due diligence" kind. Hard to say.

The Blizzard of '77

Baffin Island's Surviving Trees

Article about the 1970s idea of a coming ice age

Dr. Gifford Miller

Ernie Sieber (1926 - 2011)

George Washington Bridge - NIMOY STOOD HERE

Rotate that street-view for a surprise cameo from our old pal, the Trinity Church Cemetery in NYC.

Discussion of Toba Catastrophe Theory.

Dr. Chester C Langway his lost ice cores were found in 2018!

Research Ship Vema (1953 - 1981)

Dr. James D. Hays

Dr. Stephen Schneider (1945 - 2010)

Bio from Stanford.

Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change: How to Understand and Respond to Climate Science Deniers

View Details

Jeb and Blake discuss ants and the "deadly" fire ant invasion of the southern United States. Jeb struggles with ANTipathy towards the topic despite being an ANThropologist. (If you're looking for more wordplay like this in the episode, you'll find it ANTiclimactic.)

It probably won't last but you can currently catch this episode of ISO on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXpM23ikcx0

Nimoy, outstanding in his field.

The episode has some really nice photography, and I especially liked this shot of the ant battlefield at dawn.

Show Topic Links:

Footage of Azteca Ants in a Cecropia Tree

YouTube of people moving a cecropia tree and the ant results.

Smithsonian article talking about the similarities b/w ant war and human war.

Huffpost article about documentary deception

A map projecting what researchers think the likely spread of these ants could be in the US.

AntWiki article on E. Burchellii - the Army Ant of South America

The Ants by Holldobler and Wilson

NYT Bugpocalypse Article

Ed Yong response to Bugpocalypse Article

Termites are a social cockroach

Ants are related to Bees and Wasps

Jeb would probably appreciate this video of molten aluminum being poured into a fire ant nest to cast the structure.

Pop Culture Links/Resources:

Henry David Thoreau famously wrote about a battle between red and black ants in Walden (1854).

THEM! (1954) Amazon

Escape! Adaptation of Leiningen vs The Ants YouTube

The Naked Jungle (1954) Amazon

The Secret of the Incas (1955) YouTube

Empire of the Ants (1977) Amazon

Phase IV (1974) Amazon

View Details

You can catch this episode of ISO on YouTube (for the moment).

Warning: This episode contains major spoilers for the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Let's be honest - this episode of ISO wouldn't exist if it weren't for the classic film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. - certainly ended up with a bitter attitude towards them and accused them of all manner of shenanigans.

Butch doesn't favor Paul Newman much, but it's good acting in the film. Here's Butch's mug shot:

And here's Sundance and his girl Etta Place:

History of Raindrops Keep Falling on My Headand its role in BC&TSK.

We joke but you can actually get Manos Hands of Fate in HD streaming now on Amazon!?

And you can catch the MST3K version (with all hilarity included) on YouTube.

We talk a bit about the Pinkerton's and James McParland. There is a very, very mixed history around this company with some viewing them as heroes and others as despicable villains. The agent who hunted Butch & Sundance - Charlie Siringo - certainly ended up with a bitter attitude towards them and accused them of all manner of sheenanigans.

Q-Ships of WWII.

The amazing history of the Bandana.

Average heights around the early 1900s.

Ward Hill Lamon - Lincoln's bodyguard and biographer

Female Pinkerton detective Kate Warne

The Baltimore Plot - the first attempt to kill Lincoln?

The Hole in the Wall

Some of the "action" takes place in Baggs, Wyoming.

Go drive around Baggs on Google's maps if you like.

William Alfred Brassell (1897 - 1979) - we joke about him a bit because he reminded us of Torgo... but Brassell and his wife had 8 kids - some of whom may still be alive. His son Ray just passed away in 2017.

From his photo on Ancestry.com - I assume he let his sideburns go after his wife passed in 1963. (Assuming they got their photo correctly associated with his file.) The Internet is a funny place - you can't meet Alfred but you can see his grave.

Butch's sister Lula Parker Betenson (1884 - 1980)

According to her obituary she:
"...was active in politics and served as Piute County Democratic chairwoman for 28 years. In 1962 she was appointed by Gov. George Dewey Clyde to fill an unexpired term as state senator from Piute County.
In earlier years, she worked with a traveling theatrical company and spent several years as drama director in local Mormon church auxiliaries.
Born April 5, 1884, in Spry, she married Joseph A. Betenson Jan. 1, 1907. She had been a widow since 1949."

Don't worry - here's a shot of the real star of the episode (below) and a beautiful example of the Model-T Ford (above).

Okay - the big claim in the episode is (Per Larry Pointer) that Butch Cassidy looks a lot like William T. Phillips. Let's see them side-by-side. Cassidy (Left) and Phillips (Right):

Now - in the 2012 book (also by Larry Pointer) the claim is that perhaps Cassidy's old fellow inmate William T. Wilcox was really the author of the Cassidy book The Bandit Invincible and later took on the name of Phillips. Let's see them side by side:

The mouth shape, ears and chin are good matches. I'm not going to go full "Anastasia" arrow-crazy, but these two have more in common.

There is a lot of heated criticism of Pointer's book - but you can read about that on your own.

View Details

Jeb and Blake watch In Search Of's take on the world of traditional medicine through the lens of "Witch Doctors." We were pleasantly surprised at what we found.

YouTube continues to crackdown on "In Search Of" episodes. You can get the DVDs (just like Jeb and I use to make the show!) on Amazon. (Affiliate Link - a small % of sales from using this link goes to support my crippling coffee habit.)

We're slapping an explicit tag on this one because we have potty mouths.

If you'd like to look around a museum with lots of relevant materials, Jeb recommends the Pitt-Rivers 3D virtual tour. (It's amazing.)

This episode has more guinea pig magic than any ISO episode so far.

Nimoy is in a museum, safari as we can tell.

We identified the town at the beginning of the episode as Oxkutzcab.

The Yucatec Maya language is used frequently in this episode.

The Badianus medicinal text - America's earliest medical text

A lot of history on Aztec medicine

Plants have long been the source of medicines. Aspirin, Digitalis, Ipecac, Quinine... it's a lengthy and fascinating topic and the object of intense ongoing research.

We discussed the psychological (spiritual?) condition of Susto.

See why Jeb was surprised that Xipe Totec is invoked.

A contemporaneous look at the research of Ignacio Aguilar.

The episode had Zapotec Urns.

You know who else liked Zapotec urns?

Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't make any "beating around the bush" jokes in this episode.

In Search Of,With Leonard Nimoy//The Complete Collection

View Details

Jeb and Blake tackle the history of Heinrich Schliemann's legendary search for the ancient city of Troy.

Content Warning - this episode of In Search Of contains footage that may be objectionable to some viewers.

Viewers should be aware that A&E is pulling episodes of In Search Of... down off YouTube quite frequently.
At the time of posting, you can see Part 1 of the episode here. Part 2 is here.

Getting the DVD set is the best, legal, highest-quality route to watching these episodes.
(That's an affiliate link to Amazon and in theory we get a small % of sales if you use this link.)

Discussed in this episode:

The Iliad

The Odyssey

The Aeneid

Virgil

Troy

Hisarlik

Heinrich Schliemann

Sophie Schliemann

Sample problems with the In Search Of special effects. A few flying ships is all. And some small issues with the sunbeams.

Nothing weird to see here. I'm sure this is perfectly normal for ships left on the beach too long.

Heinrich's Naruto Run...

Schliemann did at least sometimes wear a pith helmet.

The Wooden Horse used in the episode still exists today. (Built in 1975)

Nimoy Fashion Alert

The story of Jungle Hunt (aka Jungle King) and how "Tazan" got replaced with Random Explorer Dude.

In case you missed it - I did put the footage of Schliemann running to the tune of Yakety Sax: https://vimeo.com/478182806

View Details

Warning: This episode does discuss suicide. If you're feeling any kind of despair or hopelessness, help is available. Call 1-800-273-8255 and talk to someone. You can't listen to our fine show if you're dead - so we don't want that!

SOLVED - the mystery of the unknown cemetery has been solved. It's the Trinity Church Cemetery in the Washington Heights neighborhood of NYC. Thanks to patron Donald Mundis for helping figure that out!

Yes - this episode is being released out of sequence because everyone involved loves Halloween way too much and honestly it seemed off-brand to wait when it would be so easy to just give the people what they need. So... turn out the lights, get under your blanket, and listen to Jeb, Blake and return guest Alex French talk you through the super-creepy extravaganza that is Haunted Castles!

Remember - we're on the lookout for more information about this cemetery shooting location. Let us know if you find anything. Post in the comments, or send an email to Blake@monstertalk.org. (Note - we've pretty conclusively removed Los Angeles as a possibility so are focusing on San Francisco and New York for now.)

The creepy ghost reminds us of a creepy villain. When you care enough about the role to put on makeup - but not quite enough to shave...

Parts of the episode reminded Jeb of Darby O'Gill.

A big part of the research on the ISO episode was contributed by Francis Hitching, who appears in the final segment. (Wikipedia)

The Halifax precursor to the Guillotine.

A look at Wolfeton House (home of Captain Nigel Thimbleby). Thimbleby's current struggle against local home builders involved the creator of Downton Abbey.

Most of this episode takes place in Dorset.

We really tried to find the farmhouse with the murderous ghost - but so far, no luck.

Emma Leavesley - who told the family story - gave us a real Zoey Deschanel vibe.

So - obviously if this segment became a movie...

Robin Wordsworth owns Baglake House

The older written version of the dead horseman and servant is much darker. (1883)

1910 research into the Screaming Skull

MonsterTalk's recent coverage of Screaming Skull lore.

Long article about research into the history of the Pinney family & Bettiscombe.

(NSFW) Red Meat comic w/ Skull character.

The strange history of Oliver Cromwell's skull.

Bill Grundy - BBC filmmaker, and pint drinker.

Haunted Pubs of London (just London, mind you)

The George - the pub in this episode which still stands!

Stone Tape Theory - explained by Sharon Hill

The Stone Tape - the amazing TV movie by Nigel Kneale

View Details

Update: Listener Donald Mundis found this was the Trinity Church Cemetery in Washington Heights, NYC. Thanks to everyone for looking into this mystery. ---------------- As you good listeners have probably figured out, I get obsessed with trying to solve mysteries. Currently one of the most haunting to me is the question of where did In Search Of... film these cemetery shots? We know that the crew commonly shot Nimoy's footage in Los Angeles, and also in San Francisco. Occasionally they shot in New York.

I've asked my Los Angeles friends to have a look and they generally all agree that this cemetery is far too lush and green to be in the L. A. area.

Do you live in the bay area? Does this cemetery look familiar? Here are some things I've noticed:

It's got a hill in it. So if the cemetery is flat - that rules it out.
It's got what appear to be "into the hill" burial vaults, and some of the plots are set off with a metal bar in stone or concrete pillars. In the background on this shot you can see the vaults, one has red stone, another has what may be a rock and mortar edifice. Some celtic cross burial stones and an obelisk are in the background. None of this stuff is unique - but together might be good clues for verification.

I think this entrance gate is going to be a key identifier. I've seen a few gates like this but in my effort to drive around cemeteries in the bay area on Google Street View I've had no luck. Some of the cemeteries don't have a street view available.

So - does this gate or any of these shots look familiar? Can you provide any confirmation that you've found our mysterious graveyard shooting location? Let us know!

Post your clues or findings on Patreon or shoot me an email: Blake at monstertalk dot org.

View Details

Link to the ISO episode (YouTube)

Jeb, Blake and return guest Alex French are getting sleepy... sleepy... as we fall under the spell of Leonard Nimoy discussing HYPNOSIS.

Nimoy Fashion Alert: Mentioned in this episode: Trilby (novel) - the source of Svengali

Dr. William Kroger (and his amazing red chair)

Dr. Joseph Barber

Franz Mesmer (of "mesmerism" fame) - the print is titled Le magnétisme dévoilé. I found references to it in the French national library. It's also reprinted in the book Science in the age of Sentimentality by Jessica Riskin.

Dr. Ron Katz (obit)

Van Pelt's mysterious "chair-camouflage"

Ed Ray - hero bus driver. (obit)

The Chowchilla Bus Hijacking story

Let's learn French with hypnosis! Or should that be hypnose?

The Clonus Horror (the MST3K version)

Science in the Age of Sensibility: The Sentimental Empiricists of the French Enlightenment

View Details

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube.

Jeb and Blake figuratively return to the bayou to look for the mysterious legendary monster of Honey Island Swamp.

Discussed in this episode:

CB Radio and TV Bleedover

It's not a perfect match, but this is the closest we've (so far) come to finding a Sears entry for Nimoy's clothing. He was probably shopping at a higher-end shop but the style was out there.

How to see the MK Davis narrated documentary with the footprint making tool described in the episode:

1 - download the realplayer file from this site.

2 - take it to a RealPlayer to MP4 conversion site like convertio.

Note: The resulting MP4 will look terrible, but stick with it (and don't try to watch it on some giant screen). About 6 mins in it gets really interesting.

Comparing Harlan Ford to Tennessee Ernie Ford

The Abita Mystery House

(Archived) MK Davis on feline aspects of the monster.

MK Davis says he found shoe for making track.

Ranger Gavin Storter - RHOF

Thesis paper by Frances Leary we talk about in the show - The Honey Island Swamp Monster: The development and maintenance of a folk and commodified belief tradition.

View Details

Watch the ISO ep on YouTube

Jeb and Blake take a look at research into life extension including the therapeutic value of eating live embryos and having younger life forms surgically attached to one's body to leech off of their vigor.

The running boom of the 70s
Jim Fixx
Fitness Culture
Serge Voronoff
John Romulus Brinkley
Documentary NUTS by director Penny Lane
Adventure of the Creeping Man
1971 article about Youth Doctor
Lambs to revitalize humans
Dr. Ivan Poplov
People Mag - 1975 article
Dr. Paul Segall
Dr. Roy Wolford
Parabiosis
Dr. Leonard Hayflick
Cryonics
History of mistakes in Cryonics

Nimoy Fashion Alert - we'll be seeing this again very soon.

Stay Young : a Doctor's Total Program for Youthful Health and Vigor

View Details

Watch this episode on YouTube

[Update: Thanks to @ClaytonFlesher for being the first to point out the weird audio issue on some of the post-mid-point audio inserts. An edit on one track nudged the audio a fraction of a second out-of-synch and caused the two tracks to make a weird echo through the rest of the episode. That's fixed in this 9/21/2020 3:15 pm modification.]

Jeb and Blake are joined by Dr. Jennifer Raff (@JenniferRaff) who brings a heaping helping of DNA expertise to this life-changing episode! (Well, to this episode about the building blocks of life and how to change it.)

Dr. Raff's blog - Violent Metaphors

Her posts at Forbes

37.2 trillion cells in human body

Genetics Explainer from NatGeo (if you need a video to better understand)

The great RedWhiteBlue frozen treat wars.

Mr. DNA bit from Jurassic Park

Mr. Nimoy with DNA:

Space Seed from Star Trek

Jeb's "peekaboo" rodent:

Howard Goodman (probable Unix user)

View Details

Watch the In Search Of... episode on YouTube.

Jeb, Blake and special guest Alexandria "Alex" French discuss the In Search Of about they mystery whether a woman called Anna Anderson was really the long lost Russian Czarina Anastasia. (Narrator: She wasn't.)

Highly recommended long-read about the lives of "Anna" and Jack Manahan.

Russian royals not that cash-wealthy.

Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and German Emperor Wilhelm II were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom.

Summers & Mangold book File on the Czar - holy crap make sure you buy it used if you get it!

Nokolai Sokolov's investigation into the death of royals (Warning - VERY graphic descriptions)

Wiki page on list of known Romanov royalty impostors.

Ingrid Bergman Anastasia movie

Animated Bluth Anastasia musical cartoon

Grand Duke Vladimir bio

1977 WAPO article about Anderson/Anastasia

Nimoy Fashion Alert - the professor will see you now!

Biometrics Montage

Eating 1 Battery or 5 Batteries? (source Dr. Strongbad)

The File on the Czar by Anthony Summers (1977-12-01)

View Details

(Watch this In Search Of... episode on YouTube.)

This episode has so much content warning. Fish heads, shark assassination, pig sacrifice, child nudity, adult nudity, and Hawaiian shirts! You've been warned.

Jeb and Blake have to fin for themselves as they mako lotta discussion about one of the odder episodes of In Search Of... we've watched so far.

Annual shark attacks on humans ranked by species.

History of the Solomon Islands.

The island of Laulasi.

The Solomon Islands.

Langa Langa Lagoon

Jersey Shore shark attacks

Screenshot from Savage Shadows:

History of Savage Shadows

Henri Bource bio

Facts on the sinking of the USS Indianapolis

Shark Repellant

The so-called shark "threat-response."

Likely source of the silent-footage in this episode:

News article about this voyage.

Shark god Dakuwaqa

Nimoy Fashion Alert!

Shell Money

Terry Hannigan

View Details

Have we already done this episode before? Have you already heard it? Jeb and Blake tackle Reincarnation featuring the surprise reappearance of "Doctor" Hans Holzer!

Shirley Krepp says she spent past life as a witch, and her tale is quite a cliff-hanger.

Today's topic is Reincarnation. (Wiki)

Dr. Helen Wambach is behind a lot of the topic in this episode. She's the hypnotist who...

...will later perform group regression sessions.

Some discussion on W.E.I.R.D. and samples in psych testing in Uni.

Nimoy Fashion Alert - Nimoy is in "The Graveyard" - a setting we've seen before, and will see again!

That shirt he's wearing isn't just blue - it's blue with pinstripes!

The Old Chestnut Inn - was going to be a rehab center.

Ruth McGuire who was variously involved in an Indian uprising and a Pilgrim voyage.

Finally, we meet Dr. William Yaney - who Holzer wrote about in Fate.

Special thanks to Maiken King for her assistance with the translation of Bob's hypnotic hieroglyphs.

View Details

Jeb and Blake discuss the two-millennia old archaeological treasure known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

(Watch this ISO episode on YouTube)

The Dead Sea is not strictly dead. It has bacteria and freshwater vents in the bottom act similarly to how volcanic vents promote life in the deep sea.

Jeb mentioned "the Aral sea" before & after shots - 1989 compared to 2014.

A list of the saltiest bodies of water on Earth.

Wikipedia entry on the Essenes includes this:

Josephus later gave a detailed account of the Essenes in The Jewish War (c. 75 CE), with a shorter description in Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94 CE) and The Life of Flavius Josephus (c. 97 CE). Claiming firsthand knowledge, he lists the Essenoi as one of the three sects of Jewish philosophy[7] alongside the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He relates the same information concerning piety, celibacy, the absence of personal property and of money, the belief in communality, and commitment to a strict observance of Sabbath. He further adds that the Essenes ritually immersed in water every morning, ate together after prayer, devoted themselves to charity and benevolence, forbade the expression of anger, studied the books of the elders, preserved secrets, and were very mindful of the names of the angels kept in their sacred writings.

Jerusalem

The Six-Day War

Temple Mount

Al-Aqsa Intifada

Spring at Ein Feshka

Before we get to Nimoy Fashion Alert - we first find Nimoy high above some large body of water, but we are extremely skeptical (even with the flag) that this is Israel.

The First Jewish-Roman War

TV Mini-Series MASADA.

The ruins of Qumran

The initial discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls

The MUSEUM OF THE BIBLE scrolls were fake.

Copper treasure scrolls mentioned

The Shrine of the Book now houses most of the known authentic scroll content.

There is a discussion of the "Greater Israel" idea in our coverage.

Check out the attachments for some contemporaneous DSS coverage from the news.

View Details

(Watch this ISO episode on YouTube)

Jeb and Blake are surprised to find no aliens and almost no magic as we pursue PYRAMID SECRETS.

Shabti (aka Ushabti) servant "robots"

3D Models of Shabti (Sketchfab)

3D Model - Great Pyramid of Khufu (aka Cheops) (Sketchfab)

Frit - fused "glass batch"

Faience - Egyptian ceramic like Frit

Flood cycle of the Nile

Three seasons of Akhet (Inundation), Peret (Growth), and Shemu (Harvest)

Transamerica Pyramid

Stanford Research Institute (SRI)

Harold Puthoff (SRI)

Jason Colavito on Puthoff & "flying saucer material"

John B. Alexander (SRI)

Doug Englebart and the "Mother of All Demos"

Dolphin Lab at SRI

Dolphin on Egypt

More on the physics of Firewalking

2 Kings 17, v 16-17 (Bible verse discussed)

And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

The symbolism filled story of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego

Sydney Walter - hypnotist

The Spanish fire walking of San Pedro Manrique

I did notice (on rewatching) that not all couples crossing were heterogeneous, nor were they all young.

The magician Chung Ling Soo, mentioned by Jeb, who died on stage with a botched bullet catch.

Nimoy reminds us of The Police video for Wrapped Around Your Finger as he plays with candle fire.

The Balinese shaman may be invoking the spirit of the Bali Pony, the local breed.

Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers (Firewalking)

 1973\_newswire\_story\_about\_firewalking\_in\_Sri\_Lanka\_\_Ceylon\_\_.pdf Firewalkers\_TV\_Listing\_04\_JUN\_1978.pdf

View Details

To prepare for S02E04, we present a quick overview of Maya culture we're calling Maya 101. Listen in awe as Jeb distills 3000 years of Maya culture down into 90 mins!

An influential book mentioned by Jeb: A Forest of Kings

Notes:
Preclassic 1500 BC – 250 AD

Early 1500-900
Middle 900-300
Late 300 BC – 250 AD

Classic Period 250-1000 AD

Early 250-600 AD
Late 600-1000 AD

Postclassic 900-1520 AD

Early 900-1200
Late 1200-1520 AD

The stunning pyramid complex of El Mirador

Example of Olmec Heads mentioned (Wikimedia)

Link to image of the stunning scale of El Mirador. (drawing by T.L. Rutledge)

Yuri Valentinovich researcher

Bishop Diego de Landa the priest who demanded Maya language be written for him

(If David Anderson has his Star Wars story written down or recorded anywhere and I find it, I'll link to it here.)

A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya

View Details

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube

[explicit] Jeb and Blake discuss the In Search Of... episode about the mysterious character known as The Count of St. Germain.

We talk a little about the I AM movement and Mt. Shasta lore, but if you want a real deep dive, check out our 2-part Shaver Mystery coverage from MonsterTalk:

Shaver pt 1
Shaver pt 2

Okay - you may have wondered about that insert about William Blake? That comes from Noel Fielding's TV series and you'll just have to watch it. It's very surreal and requires a bit of knowledge about WB's famous painting of the ghost of a flea.

There was a 1975 TV movie titled "The Man Who Would Not Die" but it appears to be unrelated to the ISO episode.

Mentioned in the episode:Jaguar Jungle

Voltaire and the Great Rap Battles of history

Madame de Pompadour

The Doctor Who episode Blake mentioned (The Girl in the Fireplace)

Elizabeth Clare Prophet

Dr. Peter Reill

Jeb's favorite scene of the imperiled lamp.

Jeb's list of people in the age of "average life expectancy of 35:"

Voltaire, 83 years
Ben Franklin, 84 years
Maria Theresa, 63 years
Catherine the Great, 67 years
George Washington, 67 years
Thomas Jefferson, 83 years
John Locke, 72 years
Rousseau, 66 years
Immanuel Kant, 80 years
Louis XV, 64 years
George III, 82 years
William Blake, 70 years

Episode written by Nicholas Webster - who also directed the cult classic Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) which introduced the world to Pia Zadora.

If you want to dive in on St. Germain legends, plus hear a surprising cameo by a famous actor/comedian, Astonishing Legends did a 3-part series on The Count.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Nimoy Fashion Alert - Nimoy is almost upstaged by his setting, but not quite.

My only complaint about his fashion is that the lighting on this set makes his skin look pale and yellow. But that Asssssssscot.

View Details

Watch this episode of In Search Of... on YouTube.

Jeb and Blake go prospecting for the facts behind The Lost Dutchman Mine episode of In Search Of... beginning season 2 of IRO.

Yes, there was a typo in the TV listing. "Professor" should have been "Prospector" but it was funnier (for me) to read it as written.

An NPR story about how the Red Tailed Hawk became the voice of the "eagle."

Reenactment at the beginning based on the story of Jacob Waltz.

Much of the episode revolves around the geologic structure called Weaver's Needle.

The hunt for GOLD!

Some ghost-town details on Bodie, CA

3-Part series on the Dutchman Mine:
https://arizonareport.com/lost-dutchman-gold-mine-legend/ (part 1)
https://arizonareport.com/lost-dutchman-gold-mine-adolph-ruth-julia-thomas/ (part 2)
https://arizonareport.com/lost-dutchman-gold-mine-glenn-magill/ (part 3)

The Killer Mountains, by Curt Gentry

Scooby Doo - Mine Your Own Business featuring "The Miner 49er"

The Brady Bunch meet a crazy "prospector"

Legislation mentioned in the episode to limit treasure hunting.

7 Cities of Gold (wiki) video game. Programmed by the amazing Dani Bunten of Ozark Softscape.

You can play it at this Abandonware site. There is an updated version available at "Good Old Games" but I haven't played it, though it looks quite nice.

Nimoy Fashion Alert!

Author Robert Blair (Tales of the Superstitions) rocking the Elvis shades.

TV Listing for Lust for Gold, a 1949 movie about the search for the Dutchman mine.

  PDF news stories related to the episode:   1956\_Phoenix\_story\_about\_secret\_history\_of\_mine.pdf Adolph\_Ruth\_body\_found\_09JAN1932.pdf

Tales of the Superstitions: The Origins of the Lost Dutchman Legend

View Details

Jeb and I are still chipping away at Season 2 of In reSearch Of... but we covered this amazing 1980 movie from the people who brought you The Search for Noah's Ark and The Man Who Saw Tomorrow. Hangar 18 (aka Invasion Force) stars Darren McGavin, Gary Collins, and Robert Vaughn. If this seems like a weird thing for us to cover, I think you'll see why it fits our theme when you give it a listen.

Yes, you can watch Hangar 18 in full on YouTube.

See you next week with Season 2 - Episode 1 of IRO: The Lost Dutchman Mine!

Some attachments for your reading pleasure are included.

 false\_advertising.pdf Hangar\_18\_texas\_coverage\_during\_prod.pdf Hangar\_18\_movie\_review.pdf

View Details

Well, I don't know about you - but for me and Jeb, Season 1 of In reSearch Of flew by. We're hard at work on Season 2 and hope you enjoy it! Those should start dropping in two weeks.
Check the show notes for the attached PDF of our "Fashion Forensics" work.

This is a project I'm not done with so I may drop some Patreon bonus research in the future as time allows, but we'll definitely be diving further into Nimoy's fashion and the secrets it reveals about the behind the scenes world of In Search Of...

Thanks so much for sticking with us as we revisit this show and its impact on weirds#!t culture.

I can't drop tables into the show notes, so I'm pasting some data work that Jeb did in as image files. We cover this data in the audio, but in case you wanted a view of it later you'll have it.

Our breakdown of ISO topics for the first season:

Top 5 eps for Entertainment:

Worst 5 eps for Entertainment:

Mentioned in the episode, Hackers by Steven Levy.

The season 1 Fashion Forensics PDF should be attached, but here is a link in case it's missing.

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

View Details

Hey folks, we hope you enjoyed season 1 of In ReSearch Of. We've got a special oversized season wrap-up episode coming but I'm going to have to push it out a week. I just need a breather. Lots of stuff going on - but hey, the whole world's got problems right? Hang in there!

Jeb's book Spooky Archaeology is on sale through April. Use code "16SPRING20" when you checkout. 25% off plus free shipping when you order through UNM Press.

Want to read a story about a terrible prank I pulled back in the 90s? I finally wrote it down so you don't have to get me two cocktails in to hear it.

We'll be back next week with our Season 1 finale and Fashion Forensics.

View Details

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube

Jeb and Blake discuss the real archaeology of Stonehenge in the final episode of Season One of In Search Of...

Alexander Thom and Gerald Hawkins argue for Stonehenge as a "computer" or "observatory" but it doesn't really hold up. (We discuss in episode.)

Check out these SketchFab projects for the Newgrange tomb. (Interactive 3D models.)

Druids! Druids! Druids!

Nimoy Fashion Alert

The Battle of the Beanfield - Counterculture vs The Police

Video about the battle.

Some history of the meaning of the "Sarsen" stones.

The Blue Stones come from the Preseli Hills in Wales. This stone is being quarried and turned into a variety of art, alt-med, and meditative purposes.

The work of Francis Hitching is discussed.

Some sites mentioned:

Litany of sites

Devil’s Heel is the Heel Stone at Stonehenge

Nine Maidens

Tingle Stone

Long Barrow in the Cotswolds

Stanton Drew

Durrington Walls

Ley Lines? (great overview by Sharon Hill)

Alfred Watkins

Alexander Thom

Ley Lines in Question

View Details

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube.

The In Search Of... camera crew follows an expedition to find a lost Inca city. Jeb and Blake discover that ISO isn't quite as entertaining without the weirdness.

There is a Gold Museum in Lima, Peru.

However, there is some concern about some of the museum's exhibits.

Saksaywaman is a temple, not a fortress

Jeb mentioned the Chile Chinchorro Mummies.

Inca leaders Atahualpa and Huascar (discussion of civil war)

Tupac Amaru II - the namesake of Tupac Shakur

Explorer Hiram Bingham found Machu Picchu

Peruvian historian Edmundo Guillen documented the resistance and Vilcabamba.

Valley of the Rio Pampacona

Expedition to Vilcabamba

Gene Savoy, explorer.

And while researching I found this dubious newspaper photo of a 129-year-old man from Vilcabamba:

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

View Details

In Search Of… Voodoo (YouTube)

Jeb and Blake follow the In Search Of team to Haiti to learn about the mysterious religion of Voodoo. No zombies were harmed in the making of this episode.

Body Ritual among the Nacarima

Wikipedia on Hatian Vodou.

The 1864 voodoo panic via Smithsonian, by friend of the show Mike Dash.

The 1915 US Occupation of Haiti

The Haitian Revolution - a deep and complicated history

The New Orleans funeral scene from Live and Let Die

7-Up commercial featuring iconic actor Geoffry Holder

Sugar Hill (1974) voodoo blaxploitation horror

Marjoe - documentary about charismatic evangelical fraud

Serpent Handling religion can be fatal

Papa Legba song by Talking Heads

Zora Hurston - precursor to Wade Davis's Serpent and the Rainbow ethnographic work.

Serpent and the Rainbow horror movie

Baby Doc Duvalier

Papa Doc Duvalier

Veve Designs

Baron Samedi

Loa Spirits

Rada Loas - part of what the episode calls "White Voodoo"

Petro Loas - part of what the episode calls "Red Voodoo"

Ghede Loas - not included in the show

Other books mentioned:

Uncommon Ground (early African American archaeology)

Crossroads and Cosmologies (how African Americans preserved their African religious identity)

Terms:

Syncretism - the merger/combining of different beliefs

Ethnogenesis - formation/origin of an ethnic group

Nimoy Fashion Alert

The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic

Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800

Crossroads and Cosmologies: Diasporas and Ethnogenesis in the New World (Cultural Heritage Studies)

View Details

Jeb and Blake discuss the Season 1 episode of In Search Of... on the topic of UFOs.

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Kenneth Arnold and the first "Flying Saucers"

Mellen, Wisconsin case - covered by NICAP report.

Reported by Phillip Baker (and family). This is the artist sketch of what they reported:

(And this is the Legion of Doom headquarters from the animated Super Friends.)

You never know what kind of data you'll uncover when researching ISO eps:

Please see attached PDFs for related news stories from contemporary papers.

Ted Phillips doing serious amateur science while wearing the best outfit of Season 1 (IMHO -Blake). Ted's Physical Trace Catalogue is online.

Obit for Edward Zeller (1925 - 1996) the scientist analyzing samples in the episode.

Janet and Helen Kay's case comes from Medford, Minnesota. The artist sketch of their sighting follows.

The title card for this episode shows the dead grass associated with this case, but it doesn't seem like compelling evidence of a landing to Jeb and me.

We briefly discuss the difference between ground damage from alleged landings and the geometric shapes that become known as "crop circles."

The Critchfield sighting from Big Chimney, West Virginia.

According to NICAP reports for 1975:

June 12, 1975; Big Chimney, WV
Shortly before 10:00 p.m. A diamond shaped object landed on a gravel road in a mountainous area. It was witnessed by four members of the Crichfield family. Four landing gear imprints were found at the site. (Sources: Center for UFO Studies case files, letter dated August 3, 1975; Larry Hatch, U computer database, citing Alan Landsburg, In Search of Extraterrestrials, p. 8)

Nimoy quotes a 1973 Gallup Poll about UFO beliefs. A contemporary write-up of those findings is attached below.

Jeb was familiar with the thermoluminescence research done in this episode, but we also reached out to Dr. Chris Cogswell of the "Mad Scientist Podcast" to talk about the process and I thought his explanation might further illuminate the matter. I quote here from November 16, 2019 correspondence:

Solid materials in their normal state have imperfections in their crystal lattice. Think about the grain of a piece of wood. The wood is solid, however the grain is not continuous necessarily throughout the wood sample. This is also true of solid materials. At the atomic scale these grain boundaries and other similar imperfections in the lattice of a crystal create areas where electrons cannot easily transport. Note that this isn’t true of metallic solids, where electrons have enough “space” to move freely throughout.

The essential principle of thermoluminescence is that when a solid crystal lattice is exposed to radiation some of the electrons will become trapped in an excited state, and the amount of electrons trapped in this way will correspond to the intensity of the radiation dose the sample is exposed too. Normally after excitation an electron will de-excite and release a photon after a short period of time. However, due to the defects in ceramic crystal structures some of those electrons cannot de-excite normally, leaving behind electrons trapped in the excited state as well as holes where electrons would normally sit. To fix this, we can re-heat a sample of the solid and all of those trapped electrons will de-excite, releasing photons in the process.

The test being performed in the episode is a process where a solid sample is heated in a chamber to de-excite those trapped photons. The goal is to collect the trapped photons and use those to determine the relative intensity of radiation the sample was exposed too. The relative number of photons released correspond to the intensity of some past radiation exposure, and so in this way they can tell if the soil was exposed to a high dose of some kind of radiation by comparison to other soil samples in a similar non-affected area. In archeology they can use this method and knowledge of the natural decay of trapped electrons in materials to estimate the date of the radiation exposure.

Some caveats here though. The radiation a sample is exposed to could be the kind that creates giant hulking monsters (or not…), however it could also be extreme heat. In fact it looks like it is the date of the firing of a clay pottery sample that archeologists determine using this test. Current testing looks to suggest that the type of radiation will change the “glow curve” as it's known, however at the time I don’t know if they were doing those sorts of tests.

Based on all of that, the testing can tell them if the ground was exposed to some kind of intense heat or radiation of some kind. However, there is no way to tell from the curve they showed if the data is remarkable, since we would need background curves to normalize against sunlight, heat, environmental effects, etc.

Nimoy Fashion Alert: UFO Edition

  PDF Attachments:   ISO\_UFOs\_Fergus\_Falls\_\_MI\_20\_MAR\_1975.pdf ISO\_UFOs\_Racine\_\_WI\_20\_MAR\_1975.pdf ISO\_UFOs\_Kenosha\_\_WI\_24\_Mar\_1975.pdf ISO\_UFOs\_Waukesha\_Daily\_Freeman\_25\_MAR\_1975\_researcher\_Eugene\_Lunderholm.pdf UFO\_Gallup\_Poll\_1973.pdf

View Details

Jeb and Blake are joined by Daniel Loxton, co-author (with Donald Prothero) of Abominable Science!, and the regular author of the Junior Skeptic portion of Skeptic magazine. It's a deep dive into Loch Ness to look for the creature(s) said to inhabit the lake.

Watch this episode of ISO episode on YouTube.

Discussed:

Robert Rines, Inventor & Lawyer

Robert Rines - Appreciation from MIT

Academy of Applied Science

The Rines Photos critiqued by Darren Naish (the Tetzoo blog & podcast)

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

The "real" Dinsdale footage

The Water Bailiff (Alex Campbell) is the first journalist who covered this story.

Loch Ness A. Shine video for Google Maps

Ness Toyota commercial with Shine

Jeb's own video of wake ness monster

Nimoy Fashion:

Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids

View Details

Jeb and Blake discuss Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) and the In Search Of episode titled "Life After Death."

Watch this episode of ISO on YouTube.

Dr. Charles Garfield: (Still involved with palliative care)
https://charlesgarfield.com/about-charles-garfield.html

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-garfield-compassion-20171024-story.html

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/seven_keys_to_good_death

Mentioned:

Sam Parnia's AWARE study.

Hypoxia and NDE link.

NDEs and Skepticism

Nimoy Fashion:

View Details

Jeb and Blake look into an alleged haunting in Port Clyde, Maine as we go in research of Ghosts!

The episode opens with Hans Holzer looking to possible haunting at Sunnyside, the home of Washington Irving. Holzer was a prolific author and media figure around paranormal and fringe topics.

Mentioned: The terrible, stupid "alien interview" video posted on YouTube as a "Blue Book interview." (this is not real)

Sally Landsburg (producer's ex-wife) obituary (August 18, 1933 - March 11, 2019)

Hans' daughter Alexandra now has her own paranormal TV (The Holzer Files) show along with Dave Shrader, formerly of Darkness Radio (now Beyond the Darkness podcast).

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

From This House is Haunted (Holzer) - on the Ingrid Beckman problems that led to the dissolution of their partnership.

Excerpt from Bear's Guide to Earning College Degrees Non Traditionally regarding the school Holzer got his "PhD" from.

  Holzer\_15\_mins\_pt1.pdf Holzer\_15\_mins\_pt3.pdf Holzer\_15\_mins\_pt2.pdf Excerpt\_on\_Ghost\_episode\_from\_ISO\_Promotional\_press\_release\_Dec\_1976.pdf Holzer\_\_\_pity\_the\_poor\_ghost.pdf

View Details

Watch the ISO episode on YouTube.

Jeb and Blake are joined by Dr. Carl P. Lipo to talk about "The Easter Island Massacre" episode of In Search Of.

Our guest, Dr. Carl P. Lipo, is the author (along with Terry Hunt) of The Statues that Walked and conducted research that demonstrated a very plausible method for how the statues of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were moved from their stone quarry. (See some of the history around testing various methods at this link.)

NatGeo video of The Statues that Walk presentation with Lipo and Hunt.

Jump to the "good stuff" and see a Moai walk

NOVA special on Easter Island (via Amazon Prime)

Dr. Edmundo Edwards is profiled in the episode.

Nimoy seems to be wearing a very similar outfit to the Dracula episode, and we'll be looking back at this data in our Season 1 wrap-up feature in a few weeks.

And - achievement unlocked - we've hit another image from the show's title sequence. Curiously, of the images in the title sequence (Earhart, a Galaxy, Moai, Castle Urqhart, Druids, and Crystal Skulls) I think only the Crystal Skulls fail to get their own coverage this season. I need to double-check that, but I think we cover the galaxy in the SETI episode, we'll get to Nessie and Druids too, and we've already covered Earhart. So... we'll see what's up (if anything) with the crystal skulls.

Some of the Moai are truly massive - but calling people "flyspecks" by comparison is a bit of a poetic stretch. There are some really great photos at the Thor Heyerdahl page on the Kon-Tiki website. The sheer mass of these things is quite stunning.

Expand your vocabulary!

The orographic effect is a change in atmospheric conditions caused by a change in elevation, primarily due to mountains.

What are the Moai? (from Wikipedia)

Moai are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all moai have overly large heads three-eighths the size of the whole statue. The moai are chiefly the living faces (aringa ora) of deified ancestors (aringa ora ata tepuna). The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands when Europeans first visited the island in 1722, but all of them had fallen by the latter part of the 19th century.

Pukao - the "hats" on the top of some Moai

Rongorongo - the still undeciphered language remnants found in the Pacific islands.

Counting coup was mentioned - this is explained here but it was a way to demonstrate bravery by daring feats.

Tiki Sidebar:

Don's Beachcomber (the original chain) is gone (closed 1985) and as of 2018, the sites that had taken up the torch of keeping the brand alive were struggling.

Donn Beach obituary

Trader Vic's Vic Bergeron obituary

1947 coverage of Kontiki Expedition

Check out http://TikiRoom.com for some fascinating photos and memorabilia from peak Tiki.

Begs The Question: A couple of times in the episode the phrase "begs the question" is used. Since this is a show that caters to some degree of pedantry, it's worth mentioning that we are aware that the fallacy of "begging the question" is not the same as the colloquial usage which means "raise the question." Raising a question has little to do with rhetorical usage. However, leaning into the prescriptive interpretation of the phrase must be done by disregarding the vast popular tendency to use the phrase to mean "raise the question." "Begging the question" rhetorically is a kind of circular argument wherein one's premise is unsupported within the argument save through conversational assertions. You can read all about it over at Merriam Webster. One can be adamant about the proper usage of the phrase but would do so at the risk of being obliterated by the power of the general public to mutate the meaning of words and phrases. It would be awfully egregious to ignore the changes that are happening to language all the time, and I'm unlikely to call for militant adherence to the Aristotelian version of this phrase. Want to try and change my mind? Go for it.

The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island

View Details

Listener Justin Mullis hipped us to some groovy 1970s additional context behind the Season 1 episode In Search Of: Dracula. Much of it is based on an unmentioned book, In Search of Dracula by Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu. We also correct a mistake about the source of the idea that the fictional vampire Dracula might have been Vlad Dracula (aka Vlad Tepes).

Mentioned in this addendum:

Emily Gerard's 1885 article Transylvanian Superstitions and 1888 book The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from Transylvania.

According to researcher Jim Steinmeyer, Stoker never read about Vlad from Gerard..

Stoker got his Vlad references (and mistaken ideas about the meaning of "dracula") from William Wilkinson's 1820 book An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Relating to Them.

Scholar Hans Corneel de Roos thinks Stoker is offering contradictory background info on Dracula to give him historical context but not tie him historically to any particular person.

McNally and Florescu's theory was challenged by Elizabeth Miller which led to a consensus that Dracula is not Vlad Dracula. But the idea is embedded in popular culture now.

1975 documentary (with Christopher Lee) based on In Search of Dracula by Florescu and McNally.

Dan Curtis & Richard Matheson teamed up to make a version of Dracula with Jack Palance. The Jack Palance version of Dracula inspired the look of Marvel Comics' Morbius.

Who Was Dracula?: Bram Stoker's Trail of Blood

In Search Of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires

View Details

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube

Was Dracula, the Bram Stoker novel, based on a real person in the form of Vlad Dracula? Jeb and Blake discuss.

Discussed in this episode:

Update 1/28/2020: Listener Justin Mullis spotted an error which has led to a correction in this audio and will lead to some additional material in another IRO content drop shortly. -B

Bram Stoker's Dracula the novel

John William Polidori's The Vampyre

Varney the Vampire, a penny dreadful

Carmilla by Joseph Le Fanu

Dan Simmons Children of the Night vampire book

Todd Browning's Dracula & Freaks

Copola's movie Bram Stoker's Dracula

Hammer's The Horror of Dracula (1958)

Hellsing, vampire anime

Shadow of the Vampire (2000) fictionalized story of the making of Nosferatu (sort of)

Remastered Nosferatu (English, Scored, and free via YouTube)

Dracula (in the novel) goes to The Scholomance to become a vampire.

What's a Lich?

Why did Hammer set most of its Dracula movies in Germany? It seems likely to be budget related, perhaps having sets ready? You'd have to ask script writer Jimmy Sangster to be sure, but I did uncover this passage in a book titled "Dracula Goes to the Movies," by Lyndon Joslin:

"Due to the budget constraints of this version, Dracula doesn't take a sea voyage to London, not even via footage pirated from another film. Instead, he takes a hearse to the town of Karlstadt, wherever that may be. There is a Karlstadt in Germany, but in order to get there from Klausenburg in central Transylvania, Dracula would have to travel across modern-day Hungary and Austria. The movie depicts the trip as a mere overnighter, so Karlstadt is evidently a fictional town somewhere in Transylvania. There's a border crossing guard in the story, so Karlstadt must be in a neighboring 'state,' province or district. (The border crossing, we're told, is in 'Ingstadt,' itself apparently a fictional town and therefore not much help here.) Karlstadt here compares with the 'Carlsbruck' seen in the same year (1958) in Hammer's The Revenge of Frankenstein, and with the Karlstaad seen in 1964's The Evil of Frankenstein. The creation of a generic German archetypal town is what goes on here, comparable to Universal's having set part of its Frankenstein series in the never-land town of Visaria.

It's ironic that in this, the first British adaptation of Dracula, the Count doesn't go to London, or even to England. In Hammer's series, he doesn't turn up in England until Taste the Blood of Dracula in 1970. Still, Horror of Dracula is so very British that articles have been written about it by reviewers who didn't notice that it isn't London Dracula invades. Seems the undertaker's address in the movie - on 'Friederickstrasse' - would've provided a clue." (Joslin, 2017)

Castle Ambras - home of weird paintings and "cabinet of curiosities"

Lot's Wife geological formations

Stoker was going to create his character, and then ran into a history discussing Dracula, and used that as the backstory. Also added the vampire bat aspects.
- Much of this may come from Emily Gerard’s The Land Beyond the Forest. He basically lifts a number of ideas and text from her.
  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Gerard

She was a travel writer and novelist.

Radu Florescu (obituary) co-author In Search of Dracula

Vampire lore around the world varies in what the vampires do, and how they are created.

The Order of the Dragon

Ceahlău Massif

The story of Budu

http://www.ceah
laupark.ro/en/legends/ The show calls it a megalith, but it is actually two rock outcrops, one for Budu, one for Ana

Bran Castle

The Hardy Boys (and Nancy Drew) meet Dracula (part 1 and part 2) takes place in "Dracula's Castle" which I'm pretty sure features exterior shots of Bran Castle. This episode features Lorne Greene (Battlestar Galactica and Bonanza) and also singer/songwriter/actor Paul Williams (The Phantom of the Paradise, Rainbow Connection)

The story about what was found in the church seems to be completely wrong.
From Wiki on Vlad Dracula:

"According to popular tradition (which was first recorded in the late 19th century), Vlad was buried in the Monastery of Snagov. However, the excavations carried out by Dinu V. Rosetti in 1933 found no tomb below the supposed "unmarked tombstone" of Vlad in the monastery church. Rosetti reported: "Under the tombstone attributed to Vlad there was no tomb. Only many bones and jaws of horses."

I think I solved this one. (-B):

In October 1974, the AP released a news story about Dracula's grave and the island. The story tells that Rosetti investigated then immediately follows with the legends around the remains of Vlad. I'm betting this is the source because it closely matches the episode narrative and would have been easy to find or perhaps remember when this episode was made.
"The grave, said to be Dracula's, was discovered by Romania's eminent archaeologist Dinu Rosetti in 1931 after he followed up a folklore story known only to neighboring villagers across the lake." (see attached PDF for full article)

The famous woodcut of Vlad dining in front of impaled victims.

Nimoy Fashion Alert

Transylvania - The Land Beyond the Forest

Carmilla: A Critical Edition (Irish Studies)

Count Dracula Goes to the Movies: Stoker's Novel Adapted, 3d ed.

View Details

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube

Jeb and Blake fail to find Amelia Earhart. So they've got that in common with the folks profiled in this week's episode.

Discussed in this Episode:

Amelia Earhart, pioneering woman pilot

Husband and publisher George Putnam

Navigator Fred Noonan

AutoGyros/GyroCopters and how they are different from helicopters.

Propaganda film Flight for Freedom (DVD) which fictionalizes the story of Earhart as spy.

The Lockheed Electra Model 10

The Searchers:

Joseph Gervais, the obsessive guy who believed an innocent New Jersey housewife was secretly Amelia. I'm not linking to his stupid book or to the woman he stalked and harassed, though she did pass in 1982. Even when she died, he tried to get to see the body. No. No, no, no, no.

Elgen Long - aviator and author of Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved

Fred Goerner, author of The Search for Amelia Earhart

Nimoy Fashion!

View Details

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube

Blake, Jeb, and guest Ken Hite talk about the search for Nazi Plunder - lost treasure and art following WWII.

Thanks to Ken Hite for joining us on this episode. You can find a huge archive of Ken's excellent podcast (with Robin Laws) titled Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff. Highly recommended!
Ken's also a prolific author and game designer and if you like this episode and weird war history, you might especially enjoy his Osprey (fiction) book on Nazi Occultism. Also, if you enjoy vampires and Jason Bourne-style spy action, you should check out Night's Black Agents.

Discussed in this Episode:

About this rocket Jeb was asking about: It appears to say ПО РEЙXCTAГУ

"Po Ree-stah-gu"

Also, it appears to be a BM-XY launch system (not sure what values go in X or Y). Apparently, like the Brits called the V weapons "buzz bombs" because of their peculiar sounds, the Germans called this Russian rig "Stalin's Organ" because of its sounds.

Per Ken, it translates into either "On to the Reichstag!" or possibly "to the Reichstag" like a package address."

Walter Horn - a "monuments man"

Martin Bohrman - a Nazi. Hitler's secretary and confidant.

Jeb, haunted by WORLD AT WAR series intro.

Austria's Lake Toplitz (pronounced To-Plitz-Say) was a treasure dump - found in 1957

In Florence - Rudolpho Siviero continues the hunt... Rodolfo Siviero ( 1911 - 1983 )

Nimoy Fashion Alert

Austrian fire-men (and treasure hunters) search a lake.

Pelgrane Press PELGN01 Night's Black Agents RPG - Core Book

View Details

Wherein Jeb and Blake discuss the 13th episode of In Search Of... and fail to learn any ESP.

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube.

Notes:

Edgar Mitchell (Wikipedia)

Mitchell's Institute of Noetic Science

Phenomena by Annie Jacobson (history of Gov't research into Psi)

Zener Cards

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

One possible explanation of JJ's "psychic" powers is that he may have seen the images from the lens reflection.

Joseph (JB) Rhine mentioned as creator of the experimenter. I know this is just a TV demo but a big problem w/ these tests is controlling for stuff like that might give away the card selection.

Duke article on Rhine, including how he got involved in the Exorcist case and missing persons.

SPR article on Rhine.

Discussion of Rhine's motivations as being religious in style, but scientific in content.

David Ossman (Firesign Theater) on Spoonbending from Lawrence Kennedy, an excerpt from Dr. Firesign's Follies.

Robert Monroe of the "Monroe Institute" - home of the waterbed farm lab.

The American Society for Psychical Research.

UC Davis' Dr. Charles Tart

David Zink (from the Tiwanaku finale of the episode)

Night Gallery Commentary:

Percy Rodriguez (samples of his voice power) - wikipedia entry

An article discussing Rod Serling & Jack Laird on Night Gallery

The Sixth Sense TV show that was inserted into Night Gallery feed on syndication

Also Mentioned:

Jason King - the character (and TV Show) that inspired Austin Power's fashion sense. His show was a spin-off from the series that first featured him, Department S.

Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis

View Details

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube

The In Search Of show profiles the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Jeb is not impressed. Blake & Jeb both relate Roswell/Black-Helicopter experiences near the VLA.

Unmarked Helicopters (song by Soul Coughing)

Green Bank West Virginia (radio free zone)

William Proxmire (senator who killed funding of SETI)

The novel Contact was written by Carl Sagan, but the novel was based on a screenplay by Sagan and Ann Druyan.

Nimoy Fashion - what the heck color is his blazer?

No, seriously! What color is this?

View Details

Jeb and Blake join Leonard Nimoy and a group of St. Louis clairvoyants as we go in research of psychic detectives.

Watch this episode of ISO on YouTube.

A quick thanks to Shane Gower for his helpful blog post from 2015 about this episode.

1970s Famous psychic Peter Hurkos is featured during the introduction.
Hurkos was vouched for by Andrija Puharich, after being challenged by James Randi. Puharich was a major figure in Ancient Aliens, Remote Viewing, and New Age culture in the US.
"Psychic Detective" has changed meaning over the 20th century from detectives who investigated the paranormal into detectives who were themselves paranormal.
IMDB and Wikipedia say that Sylvia Browne is in this episode. Jeb and I could find zero evidence to support that assertion. She appeared neither on-screen, nor in the credits. Furthermore, the episode took place in St. Louis and involved local psychic investigators but Browne had left Missouri for California in 1964 according to her obituary:

"She eventually began giving readings to others and, 10 years after moving to California in 1964, she formed the Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research."

Irene Hughes makes an appearance, already a media figure when this was shot
Phyllis Deggendorf is said to attend George Washington University which is in Washington D.C. - but actually it is Washington University in St. Louis.
Articles about the Sally Lucas murder case discussed in the episode:
Body of Sally Lucas Found (Sep 1971)
Details on Sally Lucas' Murderer's trial (Anthony Damico)
Damico found Guilty
St. Louis Magazine article on Bevy Jaegers
Details on the Criminal Trial of Anthony Damico (no mention of Psychics)

Nimoy Fashion Alert: First Sweater Sighting!

View Details

Sharon Hill (Scientifical Americans) joins Jeb and Blake to talk about the Atlantis episode of In Search Of... Watch original In Search Of episode on YouTube. This is a kind of a disjointed mess of an ISO episode, so our notes are kind of all over the place as well. But here's a bunch of highlights and additional reading from our own prep notes for the show: * We'll be covering Easter Island in a terrific upcoming episode, but it has nothing to do with Atlantis. * Olmec heads don't weigh anything like what is claimed. * The Tiwankau text about "long before the Pyramids" stuff comes from nazi-sympathizer Arthur Posnansky whose "15,000 years ago" dating has been picked up by many alt-archaeology researchers. * Thera/Santorini is a beautiful place that suffered a devastating disaster ( 1642–1540 BCE ). When not being called "Atlantis" it spends a lot of time as photographs in Greek restaurants. * Antikythera Mechanism is from within 200 - 50 BCE. Plato wrote the Atlantis story more than 100 - 200 years before the device was even made. It has nothing to do with Atlantis. * Dr. Maxine Asher is a controversial choice for "subject matter expert." Her views may not have been known by the ISO producers? Weird ramblings about Catholics, Jews, 12 Noahs, Psychic Powers, and academic fraud are just some of her career highlights. * The Piri Reis map appears again. It does not show Antarctica. Nor Atlantis. * The Edgar Cayce people make an appearance. Their group is called the Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE). * The Bimini "Wall" or "Road" is discussed. It looks manmade but was created by natural processes. Other geological features that look manmade include The Giant's Causeway. * We talk a bit about Peter Tompkins and mentioned: The Secret Life of Plants Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle * Oldest reference I found saying that Peter Tompkins might have been the voice in that weird call was from this 2003 post by "Gian." This comports closely to words written on The Quester Files site - by Gian Quasar, whom I presume is the same author. (Note: Blake and Jeb are both highly skeptical that Tompkins is the voice.) * The Mochica artifacts (and the troubling assertion that their art represents proof of a post-Atlantis diaspora) are presented. There is no evidence that this is true, and Jeb is suspicious that some of those artifacts shown are forgeries.

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

Scientifical Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers

View Details

[Note: Sadly, one side of the recording was lost due to massive Skype issues and some portions of this episode had to be reconstructed. This is why there are places where the audio sounds quite different. This appears to be the only episode of the season where this happened, but my apologies for the audio sounding inconsistent. -Blake]

Jeb and Blake discuss "Martians" - wherein the In Search Of team examines the possibility that the planet Mars once had (or still contains) life on its harsh surface. The Viking missions as well as many Mars-related pop-culture topics are discussed.

Watch the ISO episode on YouTube.

A lot of the material in this episode dealt with the Viking program.

The surprisingly lengthy introduction to our solar system embedded in the 1953 film War of the Worlds.

A Trip to the Moon (1902) - colorized, restored, 720p

Space 1889 - The early "Steam Punk" roleplaying game

William Graves Hoyt's book Lowell and Mars

Missing from this episode (but expected) Italian astronomer: Giovanni Schiaparelli

The Difference Engine - by Gibson & Sterling (What if Babbage's Difference Engine had worked?)

Fantastic Planet - French Animated Film

The Silurian Hypothesis - Jeb mentions as an aside, lots to read there.

Face on Mars & Cydonia (1976)

Pyramids of Mars Doctor Who (1975)

Pareidolia phenomena (Face on Mars is literally part of the article)

Tonight Tonight Smashing Pumpkins

Panspermia (directed and accidental)

(I couldn't help but think about the Errol Otis' view of the Myconoids in D&D when looking at A Trip To The Moon. -B)

Dr. Gerald A. Soffen (February 7, 1926 – November 22, 2000) was a Viking project scientist and Mars geologist.

Harold P. Klein (April 1, 1921 - July 15, 2001) was a chemist and microbiologist.

Leslie Orgel (January 12, 1927 - October 27, 2007) was a chemist interested in life origins.

View Details

Jeb and Blake discuss the ISO episode The Mummy's Curse, and the strange and interesting facts behind the legend of "King Tut's Curse."

Watch this ISO Episode on YouTube

Reference Books: The Mummy's Curse Spooky Archaeology TV Listing Feb 11, 1977:

Photo mentioned by Jeb of Evelyn Beauchamp with Carter.
(Left to Right)

Arthur Mace (Metropolitan Museum)
Richard Bethell (Carter's secretary)
Arthur Callender
Lady Evelyn Leonora Almina Beauchamp née Herbert
Howard Carter
George Herbert (5th Earl of Carnarvon)
Alfred Lucas (chemist for Egyptian government)
Harry Burton (photographer) See several of his photos colorized here.

Dan Aykroyd used ASPR for Ghost Busters research

Carter's "Saqqara Incident" described in The National:

"Such was Carter’s ascendancy in Egypt, where he soon cut his teeth as an archaeologist under the guidance of Sir William Flinders Petrie, that he was appointed chief inspector of antiquities for Upper Egypt in 1899. Carter was a surprising choice for the role given his limited archaeological experience and lack of formal qualifications, but he resigned six years later after French tourists clashed with Egyptian monument guards at the sacred site of Saqqara. “Loyal to his men and forever obstinate, Carter defended their actions and refused to apologise,” Archaeology Magazine said of the incident in a story printed in 2005. Carter had accused the tourists of behaving rowdily and sided with the Egyptian workers. Ultimately, the incident prompted the Englishman to step down and spend time in self-imposed exile."

MonsterTalk episode on the curse: The Call of Tuthulhu

The "Dramatization" text we discussed (which appears to be added in later during syndication):

I think it is safe to deduce from the palm tree that this graveyard is not in England.

Nimoy's fashion is a light blue turtleneck and (probably) blue blazer.

Most of the curse victims are indeed tied to the curse. (22 deaths "associated" with the curse at time of this show) The suicide was a real thing, Lovecraft commented on a newspaper article about it. However, there is a longitudinal study showing people lived longer if they went into the tomb.

Unlucky Mummy - 1889, Bertram Fletcher Robinson, 1904.

We briefly discuss the films of Kenneth Anger. (To be clear, these are experimental movies he was making. I'm not recommending his work, but the "play" scenes in this episode definitely reminded me of some of his work.) The actual history of the music for the film Lucifer Rising is quite convoluted but involves Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, and convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil,

According to Time, Tut's penis is detached but not missing.

Steve Martin's song about King Tut.

Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film 1920-1970 (DVD/Blu-ray Combo)

The Mummy's Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy

View Details

Jeb Card and Blake Smith are joined by "spooky geologist" Sharon Hill to talk about this classic season one episode of In Search Of... that considers various methods to predict earthquakes, and what we might expect if a large quake hits the San Francisco area.

Watch this episode of In Search Of... on YouTube.

Nimoy Fashion - once again speaking to us from a Los Angeles rooftop.

Around the 9 min mark, we mistakenly say the Bay of Fundy is in Newfoundland. Nope - it's between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. (Does everything in Canada have to have "new" in its name??)
Thanks to Stephanie J. Lahey for this correction!

1964 Alaska Earthquake (Wikipedia)

2011 Earthquake/Tsunami (Disturbing Footage)

1936 Hollywood Movie about San Francisco Earthquake

Tallest tsunami ever recorded.

VLBI - Very Long Baseline Interferometry

Quasars for VLBI type research (NY Times)

1989 Double-Decker Collapse (Wikipedia)

Clips from 2015 San Andreas starring The Rock

Listener Darren Bennett advises us that the 1982 "Syzygy" disaster referenced in the show as The Jupiter Effect. It was written by John Gribbin, a science writer who has apparently subsequently regretted it. (He's still alive and still writing science books - but tried to distance himself from his own book in a July 1980 issue of New Scientist.)

View Details

Jeb Card and Blake Smith discuss the In Search Of episode: KILLER BEES. Will aggressive Africanized honey bees destroy the world? Is every problem a metaphor for colonialism? Tune in and find out!

Watch episode on YouTube

I've attached some relevant articles from the time, one on bees and one on ISO. Also, I've set the episode to "Explicit" because of all the sexy, sexy bee talk.

Radioactive Wasps (Correction: Location was at HANFORD not HANSON site - corrected here, but I'm not cutting out my joke about Hanson. -B)

Jeb mentioned Japanese Giant Wasps - those are described here. (They're wasps, only giant - and from Japan. That's good marketing in the name.)

Jeb was right to bring this beastie up in conjunction with bees. From the Wikipedia article:

In Japan, beekeepers often prefer European honey bees because they are more productive than the endemic Japanese honey bees.[citation needed] However, it can be difficult to maintain a captive hive of European honey bees, as the giant hornets are devastating to the bee hives.[citation needed] Once a Japanese giant hornet has located a hive of European honey bees, it leaves pheromone markers around it that quickly attract nest-mates to converge on the hive. An individual hornet can kill forty European honey bees per minute, while a group of 30 hornets can destroy an entire hive containing 30,000 bees in less than four hours.[4] The hornets kill and dismember the bees, returning to their nest with the bee thoraxes, which they feed to their larvae, leaving heads and limbs behind. The honey and bee larvae are also taken to feed the hornet larvae.

Another correction - I think I called them "hornet killers" or something similarly stupid, but I was talking about the very large American "Cicada Killer" wasps. But that's not what Jeb was talking about (see above). The Cicada Killer is big enough to - you guessed it - kill a cicada. They're not as insanely beefy as the Japanese hornets, but they're big beefy units.

Frequently on-screen expert Dr. Norman Gary is a Bee Wrangler for Hollywood, working on Candyman, X-Files, etc.

Dr. Gary playing clarinet covered in bees.

View Details

Lots of discussion as Jeb and Blake tackle a favorite topic of theirs... Bigfoot. Does a mysterious creature, part-ape, and part-man, lurk in the Pacific Northwest?

Watch the Episode on YouTube

The episode opens with the Ape Canyon re-enactment. If you'd like to read Beck's extended narrative, it is available online. His extended comments include a lot of descriptions of the spiritual aspect of these creatures and sound quite a lot like John Keel's ultraterrestrials. (IMHO -Blake)

In Research Of: Recent Episodes

William Blake Smith