I got a review copy of a new book from MIT Press and noticed that I'm quoted in it! 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!
Research
Was the Nightjar an Early Chupacabra?
Following up on my book Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore, I have occasionally written about varied speculativepseudohistories of the chupacabra, and indeed the subject is ripe for conjecture. In a blog titled "The Secret...
A Teacher’s Feedback on Dowsing
Nice note from a teacher friend of mine, glad to see an article I wrote several years ago is still being read and steering people toward skepticism... You can find more on me and my work with a search for "Benjamin Radford" (not "Ben Radford") on Vimeo,...
Checking ‘Safety Check’
How useful is the Facebook 'Safety Check' function during terrorism and disaster? A closer look in my CFI blog... When the attacks in London happened, many people used Facebook's "Safety Check" functions to alert friends and family that they were safe. When launching...
My Popobawa Research Sighted!
I recently stumbled across this photo on Twitter depicting an African Cultural Studies professor referencing my investigation into the skeptic-raping monster popobawa-- and my "Fortean Times" cover article on the topic... You can find more on me and my work...
From the Archives: An Article I Wrote on Crop Circles
A mysterious 310-foot-diameter crop circle that appeared in a farmer's barley field in Chualar, Calif., as 2013 ended puzzled the public for more than a week. Echoing the sentiments of many, the field's owner told CNN, "To be that intricate in design, it kind of...
‘Bad Clowns’ in the ‘London Review of Books’
I'm pleased to report that my book "Bad Clowns" was--however briefly--mentioned in a review in the "London Review of Books." Very nice!
Reading Romance Novels in Jamaica
August 8, 2014: The Shoppes at Rose Hall, Montego Bay, Jamaica I was done. I’d arrived at the gated tourist mini-mall about half an hour earlier, and couldn’t take any more of the servile shopkeepers shilling shelf after shelf of schlocky tchotchke of unrivalled...
The True Story of ‘The Bye Bye Man’
A new horror film titled The Bye Bye Man scared up $16 million in box office sales over the past week. The film is based on the chapter “The Bridge to Body Island” in Robert Damon Schneck’s nonfiction book The President’s Vampire (reissued last year as The Bye Bye...
Errors in AP News Reports on Clown Scares: Correcting the Record
Reporter Mike Balsamo has an error in his Associated Press story about clowns: Aurora Colo. theater shooter James Holmes did not in fact dress up as the Joker during his attack (as I explain in my "Bad Clowns" book, pp. 115-119 and also in this CFI blog). There...