Archive for April, 2012


Prehistoric Dreams

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April 28, 2012

(Submitted by reader Jeff Wagg)

Last summer, I surprised my girlfriend with a mystery trip to St. Louis. She agreed to get in the car without knowing our destination, and as I drove the five hours south, she watched the signs and tried to guess where we were going. By the time we hit Dwight, IL, she had it figured out.

My primary destination was an amazing place called simply “City Museum.” This rather mundane and non-descriptive title belies the wonders waiting inside.

Housed in a large old shoe factory, City Museum features airplanes suspended in mid-air, connected by human-sized habitrails. A school bus leans over the side of the building, and you’re invited to sit in the driver’s seat and open the door at the 150 foot drop. Inside is the world’s largest pencil, a ten story spiral slide, a circus, a carnival sideshow, an architectural museum, and a complex network of caves and tree houses all connected by tunnels, bridges and secret passages.

The things listed above account for about 5% of what this unique place offers.

Jen (my girlfriend) was very interested in the tunnels, but as I had badly twisted my ankle in a cave earlier in the day, I was taking it easy in a room filled with waterways and dinosaurs. As I’m wont to do, I checked Twitter to see what was going on in the world, and I saw a tweet that amazed me.  It was from Magician and magic designer Andrew Mayne, and though I don’t have a copy of the actual tweet, it went something like this:

“I just had a dream about a white pterodactyl. It was so real.”

This doesn’t seem like unusual dreamtime fare for a magician, but the amazing part was that directly above me, at the exact moment he tweeted  that short message was this:

@Andrewmayne umm, are you following me?

Andrew and I are friends, but we’re not super close friends and I doubt he even knew I was in St. Louis. I know of no webcams at City Museum, and even if he did know I was there, the place is large enough that his assumption that I’d be in the same room with, nevermind standing underneath, a life-sized pterodactyl of the unusual color ”white” would be amazing in itself.

My best explanation is that this truly was a coincidence, and while I could point out the fact that Andrew has hundreds and hundreds of Twitter followers, and that the chances of any one of them finding some connection to one of his tweets is quite likely, the specificity of this particular coincidence is such that I felt it worthy of inclusion here.

By the way, if you’d like a great opportunity to see the City Museum, some of us are putting on a first-year conference there, called the College of Curiosity. It’s on May 26th, and will last ALL DAY. I promise you’ll leave having experienced things you’ve never imagined.

That is, unless you’re a sleeping magician.

[EDITOR: First off, this place sounds FANTASTIC. If I had any chance of being in town for that event, I'd definitely be there. Sounds like something you could visit over and over again and never run out of new things to see. As for the actual story, well... this one's really hard to put clear thoughts behind. We can try to start listing out the number of people Jeff follows on Twitter, the average numbers of tweets across those people, and all sorts of other factors, but it falls apart when you start dealing with what people DREAM about. A pterodactyl? I can't imagine people don't regularly dream about the critters, but it's still likely a pretty small number of people each night. And a white one at that? Far more specific. The timing of it being the night before Jeff went is pretty interesting, but then you realize if the dream ever occurs it will ALWAYS be the night before probably hundreds or thousands of people visit this museum. So then we have to come around to the fact that someone who specifically follows Andrew was at the museum the next day. Slimmer margin, although he does have nearly 4,000 followers. And finally the fact that Jeff happened to look at Twitter at that moment. Would it have counted if he had looked at it five minutes later, though? Probably. Saw the pterodactyl five minutes later? Just as likely. Then we can start adjusting to any of the other odd attractions in the place and things people dreamed about. With tweaks and modifications you can find that a lot of variations would have garnered the exact same reaction, raising the odds that SOMETHING would have gotten this amazing coincidence from SOMEONE. That someone happened to be our friend Jeff. And to him it was crazy. And it is to us, too. - Jarrett

And we don't mind at all promoting The College of Curiosity - in fact, curiosity is our favorite educational resource! - Wendy]

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You Turn Me On, I’m A Radio…

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April 25, 2012

(Submitted by friend of the blog, Spencer Marks)

Just the other day, I stopped into a tool store to buy some things, and as I was checking out, I noticed the cashier was named “Brandy.” My mind immediately went to the song, “Brandi, you’re a fine girl” by Looking Glass, and was tempted to verbally say to this girl, “Brandy, you’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be…”

I chose not to, because I figured she had heard this 1,000 times in her life, so I just paid and left. I walked straight to my car, turned it on, and guess what was playing on the radio?!? If you guessed, ”Brandi, you’re a fine girl,” YOU’D BE RIGHT!

[EDITOR: I guessed "Magical Mystery Tour," but then again, I've never been very good at guessing games. - Jarrett]

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Skepticality Episode 181

Filed under: News, Skepticality by Jarrett Kaufman — Leave a comment
April 24, 2012

Hello Skepticality listeners!

If you’ve already enjoyed today’s episode of Skepticality, then you’ve heard our piece on Slow and Steady Stays at Home. If you haven’t, you should go do it now. We’ll wait.

Anyway, as we mentioned, a full breakdown of Barbara’s notes has been added to the bottom of the article, but as opposed to making you go through ALL the trouble of typing the name of the story into the search bar in the top corner (how many Ls are in “Steady” again?), we decided to just put an easy link on the front page right here. And here. There was also one earlier in the paragraph if you missed it. We’ll even toss one in here for good measure. Can you find the hidden one?

Anyway, don’t forget to post your comments, tell us what we didn’t think of, and add to the world’s knowledge. But even more importantly: don’t forget to submit your own stories! (that wasn’t the hidden link mentioned earlier) This site runs thanks to YOUR submissions, so we need more of them. The more you send the more regularly we can post them and the better the content for the podcast.

So thanks for listening, stopping by, and contributing. You’re the best. And we really mean that. Seriously. We’re not trying to flatter you or anything. Is that a new hairstyle? Looks good on you.

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Dancing With Dragons

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April 22, 2012

(Submitted by friend of the blog, Brian Hart)

I was at Atlanta’s annual Dragon*Con in 2011, waiting in a very long line with about two thousand fans to see a viewing of the latest Doctor Who episode, which had not yet been shown in the U.S.  Dragon*Con has an estimated 40-50 thousand people who attend for the Labor Day weekend.  For about an hour we waited as fans came walking past, dressed in various Science Fiction and Fantasy-based costumes.  Some of these costumes are very elaborate, and always in good fun.

I befriended the people I was standing next to; there were a few Amy Ponds, a Princess Leia, various incarnations of The Doctor, and a pretty woman in a belly dancer outfit.  The belly dancer turned out the be a real belly dance teacher, named Lisa, with a very interesting and memorable story of how she started dancing and teaching. The line finally went in and we all went our separate ways inside the theater.

Poster of Lisa, the Belly Dancer

Two days later, we were visiting Asheville, NC, and walking through the charming downtown area.  In the window of a store, I saw a poster for belly dance lessons.  The teacher?  The same woman I had met in line in Atlanta, 160 miles away, in a crowd of thousands.

[EDITOR: Pssh, wearing your work uniform as a costume is SO cheating. Reminds me of the time I auditioned for the role of a Blockbuster (remember those?) employee for an episode of Entourage. When I arrived it turned out to be what we call a cattle call (TONS of actors for one role), and several of them arrived in their ACTUAL Blockbuster uniforms. But the joke was on them in the end. - Jarrett]

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Silver Anniversary Achievement

Filed under: Stories by Reader Submission — 1 Comment
April 19, 2012

(Submitted by anonymous reader)

On November 2, 1963 I married my first husband. He turned out to be an abusive man and I finally divorced him in 1968. Having never been hit by my parents I never understood the abuse or how I fell into that type of relationship or why.

In 1988 I heard an ad on the local radio station seeking  volunteers to counsel abused women. They offered free training and I decided to give it a try.

As it turned out I taught more than I was taught,  having all the experience I had. After my training was completed they gave me my certificate of completion at one of our meetings. The date on the certificate was November 2, 1988, exactly 25 years from the day I had married this man.

I felt as if God was telling me, “Now you know why.” I spent years volunteering and helping other abused women to escape and to heal.

[EDITOR: If you haven't yet read George Hrab's thoughts on the subject of our site, I suggest you go do so. I think he perfectly sums up exactly this type of scenario. The vast majority of the coincidences we have on this site are just plain goofy. They don't teach a lesson, they don't send a message, they don't impart knowledge; they're people running into college buddies or squirrels falling on heads. And if so many meaningless coincidences happen to people every day, then occasionally one's going to line up just right to make you feel like there's more to it. I personally had this experience in Favorite Worlds Collide, leading me to feel like this amazing confluence of events meant something more. But at the end of the day the source of a life-changing event isn't necessarily what's important about it. It's what you do with it. It's hard to blame people for searching for and applying meaning to events, especially when they use that to foster a positive change in their life. We should all be so lucky as to pick out clues in the jungle of life around us and make something positive out of them. - Jarrett]

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Three Wiki Sixes

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April 16, 2012

(Submitted by friend of the blog, Susan Gerbic of  Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia)

I was preparing for an upcoming Wikipedia workshop.  I chose November 2011 at random to retrieve stats for pages.

The Amityville Horror Wikipedia page had 66,633 views that month.

No way could someone have messed with the numbers because you can’t see how many hits a page receives until 36 hours after the fact.

[EDITOR: Numbers and how we perceive them always make for an interesting subject because they're a perfect example of of searching with uncertain goals in mind. In the case above, the number was significant because it contained "666," which some consider the number of the beast reference in a well-known holy text. Combining this with the Amityville Horror, which is a story of a supposedly real haunted house, is what makes the number's appearance spooky. But it's not as though this combination is uncommon.

In the example given, the number has 5 digits in total. 666 could have appeared in three possible places (66,6xx, x6,66x, or xx,666) and still caught someone's eye. Presumably an especially observant person might have caught it spread out, as well (6x,6x6). And that's sticking ONLY with 666. There are other numbers with classic occult meaning behind them, including 3 (although that does add to the spook factor of the above number ending with 33), 7, 9 (999 being the flip of 666), 11, and of course 13 (reference link).

So presumably any of those sets of numbers showing up in the hits could also grab the attention of someone predisposed to think of them. Some even pay attention to multiples or divisions of those numbers (although that does cover the 33 and 999 already discussed).

And that speaks only to occult numbers. People find significance in all sorts of other numbers, whether they be birthdays, anniversaries, favorite/lucky numbers, or all sorts of unusual examples. Had the number above been any different SOMEONE who looked at it was virtually guaranteed to find a number string that was, to them, meaningful. And small strings of combinations of only 10 digits are ripe for common reuse throughout everything we see. So unlike many of the stories we run on this site, numerical coincidences are probably the easiest to find on a regular basis. And yet... having said that, sometimes they still manage to surprise the heck out of you. And if you happen to be superstitious, I imagine some can be downright scary. But they're still just coincidences. - Jarrett]

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The Ring Comes Home

Filed under: Stories by Jarrett Kaufman — 1 Comment
April 13, 2012

I’m shockingly realizing right now that an entire decade ago the film The Ring came out in theaters. For anyone who was around at the time and had movie-going friends, this was a phenomenon. It was impossible to avoid hyperbole about what a brilliant, shocking, terrifying horror film it was, and it simply, truly, positively could NOT be missed. I’m not a horror fan, but my then-wife was and I did my job and took her to the theater to see it.

Personally, I wasn’t impressed. I felt like most of the “terror” was cheap startles of either something jumping out or a quick cut to something gruesome. Maybe I missed something, or maybe I really did expect more from what had been sold as one of the greatest horror films ever, but it left me cold.

Now I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying the main concept in the film is that a person views this video that contains a series of weird, creepy, and oddly sickening images. After the video is done, the phone rings. When the person answers the phone they hear a girl’s voice tell them that they have seven days left to live. If they don’t get someone else to watch the video before then (transferring the curse to them), they’re dead. Predictably (to me, anyway), the film ends with that very video being shown full-screen to the theater audience, in theory to terrify them by transferring the curse to them. I’m sure that was exceptionally scary for anyone who enjoyed the film better. It did nothing for me. At least not at the theater…

When we arrived home afterwards I walked into the house to hear the sound of a ringing phone. Except the house phone wasn’t ringing. The ringing was coming from my computer in the bedroom. It was the ring it makes when the main line rings so I can hit a pop-up to allow it to receive a fax, except again, the main line wasn’t ringing. I checked the screen and there were no programs running in the taskbar that could have triggered it and the fax pop-up wasn’t visible. The phone continued to ring. I checked the notification area and found no fax application or anything else that appeared related to the sound. The computer kept ringing. I opened up the task manager and started closing process after process, working my way down to core applications. THE COMPUTER KEPT RINGING. Finally I initiated a system restart at which point the ringing stopped during shutdown and didn’t return after I started the system back up.

So while the film itself didn’t do much for me directly, one of the strangest bugs I’d ever experienced on my computer happened to occur perfectly timed against the plot of the film, and managed to do exactly what the movie failed to do: scare the crap out of me. And to this day I have no idea what happened.

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Skepticality and The Odds Must Be Crazy

Filed under: Editorials, Staff by Jarrett Kaufman — 1 Comment
April 11, 2012

Based on the massive increase in hits today (by 9:30 Pacific we had surpassed our previous record for an entire DAY), most of you are probably now well aware that we were on this week’s episode of Skepticality, talking up our work and revealing our big news.

Going forward we’ll now be a regular feature of each episode of Skepticality, highlighting some of our favorite stories and, more excitingly, debuting some of our stories directly on the podcast.

So what does this mean for the site, itself? Well not a lot will be changing here beyond the expansion of some our content, and hopefully an increase in story submissions and comments afforded to us by having a wider audience tracking our posts. You can still expect several new stories per week and regular editorials, with the new addition of highlighting the posts that we share on the podcast and expanding the editorial content underneath them to include more in-depth analysis of the elements at play. So for those of you who ONLY read the web site, you’ll miss NOTHING. For those of you who listen to the podcast as soon as it’s released, you’ll most likely get to hear the story first as we’ll be posting it to the site the same day.

And for our new Skepticality readers: Welcome! We’re excited to have you here, and we hope you get involved. We have a couple of favors to ask of you as you delve into the site. One is the regular request to please submit your own stories! It’s your content that drives our site, so help us out. Secondly, please comment. We love your comments, even if they’re critical (although PLEASE keep them friendly and respectful). Did we miss something? Get a fact wrong? Get our stats wrong? Have crumbs in our beards? Tell us. Comment underneath and start a dialog and get the conversation flowing. This is a community site where we want to have fun and learn and expand our knowledge, so help out with that goal. Lastly, please share. Use those Like, +1, Tweet, etc. buttons, or share the stories in more old-fashioned forms, but pass along your favorites and help us spread to a wider audience.

Finally, just plain thank you to everyone who’s supported us so far in getting where we are. We’re extremely excited about the future of this site as we expand our audience, and we’re only here because of you. You’re awesome.

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A Reversal of Graphics

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April 10, 2012

(Submitted by reader Bob Carroll, of The Skeptic’s Dictionary)

A few years ago I was working on an article for The Skeptic’s Dictionary about a guy who worked as a teen counselor in Australia named David John Oates. He’d accidentally dropped his tape recorder in the toilet and when he repaired it, the thing ran backwards. He started hearing all kinds of messages in his tapes, which led him on a quest to understand all kinds of backwards communication. Oates developed a hypothesis about the unconscious mind sending out backwards messages to the conscious mind so that, for example, if you wanted to know what Bill Clinton really meant when he said “I try to articulate my position as clearly as possible” then you have to play his speech backwards. His unconscious mind, which cannot lie, spoke in backwards speech to his conscious mind and said “She’s a fun girl to kiss.”  Anyway, this is the kind of pseudoscientific gibberish that readers of The Skeptic’s Dictionary have come to expect me to cover.

I was using Microsoft’s FrontPage for my HTML editing in those days and was using a template that had a graphic in the upper left-hand corner that just said “The Skeptic’s Dictionary.” While typing fairly rapidly I hit some sort of key combination that reversed the graphic so that it was backwards. At the time, I didn’t realize either that there was such a key command in FrontPage or that I had accidentally typed it. For a few seconds I was completely taken aback. What’s going on? I’m working on an article about backwards messages and suddenly my logo is reversed? Were there gremlins in my computer? How could this happen?

Once I figured out what had probably occurred, I liked the idea of the backwards graphic so much that I left it in and added another one. I use a different template now but you can see the reversed graphic at http://www.skepdic.com/oldreversespeech.html

[EDITOR: People love to focus on the fact that there are great mysteries in the universe, and forces at work that we don't understand. And this is quite often true, even when those mysteries are why Microsoft hid their features behind such deep menu structures, and the forces at play are our cat walking across the keyboard. Reality's frequently just as startling as anything we can dream up.]

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Message in the Muzak

Filed under: Stories by Reader Submission — 1 Comment
April 7, 2012

(Submitted by reader Donald Chesebro)

I went into a Walgreen’s tonight to get some aspirin, and while I was in the Pain Relief section looking for the large store brand bottle (that they apparently were out of), I realized that the song playing on their sound system was “I Wanna Be Sedated” by the Ramones.  Apart from the quirk that it was playing while I was standing in the aisle that stocked pain relief and sleep aid products, I had to wonder whether some research firm recommended that particular song to boost sedative sales.  What next? “Love Is The Drug” by Roxy Music to push Viagra?

[EDITOR: There's a lot to be said for businesses manipulating their customer base with scents, sounds, and images to get them to stay, leave, or buy. A lot of it's been disproven as myth and paranoia, while some remains. While many view coincidences as nothing but, others believe there's a higher power in control. The truth is sometimes surprisingly in the latter section, even if that power goes no higher than corporate. Although I'd say in the case referenced above this was nothing but the former.]

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