As my awesome podcast Squaring the Strange (co-hosted by Pascual Romero and Celestia Ward) comes upon its one year anniversary, I will be posting episode summaries from the past year to remind people some of the diverse topics we’ve covered on the show, ranging from ghosts to folklore to mysteries and topical skepticism. If you haven’t heard it, please give a listen!

Ben looks closely at intuition and how it can be categorized as a type of confirmation bias. Pulling from news stories, we see many unfortunate things that intuition, if it existed, should have prevented; yet intuition is commonly credited as a force in stories where disaster is averted. Further, our intuitive instincts are often wrong, and people like pilots or other professionals receive specialized training to overcome these drives. Then Pascual looks at BBC’s Watchdog, which reported on ice machines containing fecal bacteria—the same bacteria that has been found in beards. Despite the disgusted alarm that the scary words “fecal coliform” bacteria can create, it’s actually quite common everywhere in human habitat, making that report a non-story. For their main topic, Ben and Pascual look back at the celebrated crop circle that allegedly appeared in broad daylight at 8:00 a.m. on July 7, 1996 in a field near Stonehenge. This crop circle had a number of factors that made it a “best case” to investigate: it was far too complex to have been created by natural means, it seemed to appear in a well-traveled area, and (according to witnesses) it showed up suddenly rather than manifesting overnight. Ben goes through his research and investigation process and lists how each factor fell away with applied scrutiny. After making a timeline and culling through everything each eye witness said, Ben found good reasons why each could be mistaken in what they remembered. Further examination of the site photos and topography also show how impossible it would have been to see the site from the road, as was reported.

You can hear the show HERE! 

You can find more on me and my work with a search for “Benjamin Radford” (not “Ben Radford”) on Vimeo, and please check out my podcast Squaring the Strange!