About

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and a Research Fellow with the non-profit educational organization the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He has written thousands of articles on a wide variety of topics, including urban legends, the paranormal, critical thinking, and media literacy.

He is author of twelve books: Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking (with sociologist Robert E. Bartholomew); Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us, examining the ways in which deception is used in various media to influence decisionmaking and public policy; Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures (with Joe Nickell), a scientific examination of lake monsters around the world; Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries; Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore and The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes (with Bob Bartholomew, 2011); Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment; Bad Clowns, Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits, and his novel The Merchant of Dust.

Radford graduated from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth with a masters degree in public health, and was inducted into the Delta Omega honor society. He also has a masters degree in education from the University of Buffalo and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelors degree in psychology from the University of New Mexico. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Folklore Society, and the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, among other organizations.

Radford has worked as columnist for LiveScience.com, Discovery News, Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and the Skeptical Briefs newsletter. Radford created Playing Gods: The Board Game of Divine Domination, the world’s first satirical board game of religious warfare. He has also made two short films: Clicker Clatter (2007), and Sirens (2009). In 2017 he launched Radford & Ward with Celestia Ward of Two Heads Studio in Las Vegas, Nevada, creating small-run folding folklore-themed puzzles and cards. Radford co-founded two podcasts: MonsterTalk (which he co-hosted until 2012), and Squaring the Strange (in 2017 with co-hosts Celestia Ward and Pascual Romero).

Radford is one of the world’s few science-based paranormal investigators, and has done first-hand research into mysterious phenomena in sixteen countries on four continents including psychics, ghosts and haunted houses; exorcisms, miracles, Bigfoot, stigmata, lake monsters, UFO sightings, reincarnation, and crop circles, and many other topics. He is perhaps best known for solving the mysteries of the Santa Fe Courthouse Ghost in 2007, the Hispanic vampire el chupacabra in 2010, and his book Bad Clowns, the first to fully examine the evil clown phenomenon.

Radford has appeared on Good Morning America, the Travel Channel (including Destination Unknown) the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the Learning Channel, CBC, BBC, CNN, and other networks with three letters. He also served as a consultant for the MTV series The Big Urban Myth Show and an episode of the CBS crime drama CSI. Radford has appeared in hundreds of publications including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time, Outside, Rolling Stone, and Ladies’ Home Journal.