Exposing PseudoAstronomy
175 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 6 years ago - ★★★★★ - 186 ratingsListen to learn the real state of science behind astronomy-, physics-, and geology-related creationist claims, hoaxes, conspiracy theories, misconceptions, and bad or incomplete media reporting.
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Episodes
Episode 73: Image Analysis for Skeptics: From Faces to Pyramids (Live Talk)
May 01, 2013 12:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MBThe first public, and abridged, version of a TAM 2013 workshop on image processing and analysis for skeptics. This was a live talk presented at the Denver 2013 Skepticamp in front of a live studio audience. Besides background information, this talk used basic skills to analyze the infamous Face on Mars and a lesser known lunar step pyramid.
Episode 72: Solar System Mysteries "Solved" by PseudoScience, Part 1 - Iapetus
April 24, 2013 12:00 - 30 minutes - 26.1 MBIn this first edition of Solar System Mystery Science Theater, we learn about Iapetus, a weird moon of Saturn that has features unlike any other object in the solar system. Some have explained those with exploding planets and spaceships. Others look for something that makes sense.
Episode 71: The Fake Story of Planet X, Part 6 - Andy Lloyd's "Dark Star"
April 16, 2013 12:00 - 37 minutes - 31.2 MBAndy Lloyd has a chemistry background and has had an interest in astronomy his whole life. He also likes Zecharia Sitchin's idea of Nibiru and the Annunaki. In his book, "The Dark Star," Andy tries to reconcile what he knows about astronomy with Sitchin's model to create a "neo-Sitchin" proposal that just might be plausible, so long as his changes don't introduce their own new problems.
Episode 70: The Ringmakers of Saturn
April 08, 2013 12:00 - 30 minutes - 26 MBThe Ringmakers of Saturn by Norman R. Berbrun makes a premise, claimed to be consistent with all other research on Saturn's rings, that the rings are created by the exhaust of gigantic space vehicles. He determined this through analyzing blow-ups of photographs returned to Earth by the Voyager spacecraft.
Episode 69: The Solar Neutrino "Problem"
April 01, 2013 12:00 - 32 minutes - 25.3 MBA problem for particle physics and solar physics sparked a somewhat technical argument by young-Earth creationists that our Sun is a young star, only a few thousand years old. Unfortunately for them, the problem was solved in 2001, but I'm getting ahead of my story ...
Episode 68: Expat in Hoaglandia: A Fantasia of NASA Conspiracies
March 16, 2013 12:00 - 59 minutes - 50 MBMy first returning guest - and my first guest ever - is the pseudononymous "Expat" who produced numerous programs for the BBC about the Apollo-era space program. He has spent his semi-retirement battling pseudoscience espoused by Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara, and in this podcast we discuss several of the more conspiratorial NASA-related claims of Richard Hoagland and his followers.
Episode 67: Russian Meteor Conspiracies
March 01, 2013 12:00 - 25 minutes - 21.5 MBThe Chelyabinsk meteor is the largest known to pass through Earth's atmosphere since the Tunguska event in 1908. Given the technology today, it's also the best studied and so we know a lot about it. However, many different conspiracies and related ideas have cropped up in just the past two weeks since the explosion, and this episode covers some of the major ones.
Episode 66: The Schumann Resonance
February 24, 2013 12:00 - 23 minutes - 19.8 MBMany proponents of "new-age" thought reference the Schumann Resonance, claiming that it's increasing as we approach something, or that it's being drown out by electromagnetic pollution from modern society. In reality, it's a phenomenon that's well understood, is basic to how Earth and the atmosphere interact, and is very constant.
Episode 65: José Escamilla's Movie "Celestial"
February 16, 2013 12:00 - 24 minutes - 24 MBThe movie "Celestial" is an hour-long fantasia of misunderstanding images and parediolia. In this episode, I talk more about the basics of image processing and delve into more detail about color compositing than I have in previous episodes.
Episode 64: Quantum Nonsense
February 08, 2013 12:00 - 33 minutes - 33.6 MBThis episode is a mostly informational one about quantum mechanics -- what are its primary concepts and some popular thought experiments. In the middle of the episode, I bring in some clips demonstrating misuse of these terms and concepts, and then the episode ends with answering the question of whether classical mechanics is dead now that we have quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Episode 63: Clip Show #1
February 01, 2013 12:00 - 31 minutes - 30.6 MBIt was bound to happen at some point: The clip show, characterized by several miscellaneous claims that are too small to be their own show. This clip show deals with pendulums, Earth's moon, magnetic fields, habitability, and exoplanets.
Episode 62: Interview with Bill Hudson About 2012hoax.org
January 24, 2013 12:00 - 27 minutes - 18.8 MBBill Hudson is an amateur astronomer out of California (USA) who, for four years, operated the 2012hoax.org website. In this interview, we discuss his motivation for starting it, some of the stats on how the site was visited, Bill's favorite back-peddling now that we're into 2013, and his new endeavor: cosmophobia.org.
Episode 61: Is Invoking Giant Impacts Special Pleading?
January 16, 2013 12:00 - 26 minutes - 18.2 MBGiant asteroid strikes have been used to explain a host of weird things about the solar system. The question is, is doing so a form of special pleading, or is there a good reason to blame these impact events?
Episode 60: The Face on Mars, Part 2
January 08, 2013 12:00 - 33 minutes - 22.5 MBIn the second of two parts, I review why the Face on Mars is best explained by pareidolia. Then I discuss Mark Carlotto's image analysis, other faces found by various people on Mars, and finally the conspiracy angle.
Episode 59: The Face on Mars, Part 1
January 01, 2013 12:00 - 44 minutes - 30.4 MBIn the first of two parts, the history and some of the claims surrounding the famous "Face on Mars" are discussed in detail, including several follow-up images. Pareidolia and image analysis are discussed at length, as well.
Episode 58 (BONUS): Post-December 21, 2012 Solstice - We're Still Here
December 21, 2012 11:12 - 2 minutes - 2.15 MBThe solstice of December 21, 2012, has now come and gone. Guess what? We're still here.
Episode 57: Doom from the Sun on December 21, 2012
December 16, 2012 12:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBFor the final 2012-related episode, the one major science claim not yet covered is something from the sun doing something bad to us on December 21, 2012. With protective eyewear recommended, this episode peers into the basic claim, the physics involved, the unknown - and the known - about what could happen from the sun that could cause us grief on Earth.
Episode 56: Photography Claims of the Apollo Moon Hoax, Part 3
December 01, 2012 12:00 - 31 minutes - 21.3 MBThe third of three episodes regarding photographic claims related to the Apollo Moon Hoax conspiracy. This contains a slew of miscellaneous claims, ranging from why we can't image the landers from Earth to why there are no stars in the photos to the infamous "C" rock.
Episode 55: Interview on Extraterrestrial Life with Dr. Brian Hynek
November 16, 2012 12:00 - 1 hour - 34.5 MBDr. Brian Hynek (no relation to J. Allen Hynek) is a professor in the geological sciences department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Over the past decade, he has built a multi-faceted research program to explore different ways of getting at the basic question: Is there life on other planets in our solar system? In this interview, we talk about the different ways to address this question and some of the ways not to address it.
Episode 54: The Fake Story of Planet X, Part 5 (IRAS Discovery in 1983)
November 01, 2012 12:00 - 27 minutes - 15.6 MBIn yet another episode on the Fake Story of Planet X, this episode explores the claim that NASA's IRAS survey actually found Planet X in 1983, and it was even reported in news papers. Since then, it's all been covered up. At least, that's what they claim.
Episode 53: Lunar Formation and Origins
October 16, 2012 12:00 - 25 minutes - 14.9 MBA run-down of the various models of how the moon formed. This episode doesn't have much pseudoscience to go with it, but it's a good example of the scientific process at work.
Episode 52: The Mystery of Phobos 2
October 01, 2012 12:00 - 34 minutes - 19.7 MBDid the Soviet Phobos 2 mission encounter an alien mothership just before it was lost, or was this something created two years after the fact by UFO enthusiasts who played fast and loose with the facts to create a fanciful tale based on image artifacts and conspiracy?
Episode 51: The Fake Story of Planet X, Part 4 (Nancy Lieder)
September 16, 2012 12:00 - 35 minutes - 20.6 MBUp through mid-2003, Nancy Lieder claimed Planet X would come close to Earth and cause major catastrophes. It didn't happen. She's still active, claimes Planet X is still there, and while many don't take her seriously, we can learn a lot about the 2012 phenomenon from what happened with her in 2003 and the subsequent years.
Episode 50: Lunatic Earthquakes: Do Tides Cause Quakes?
September 01, 2012 12:00 - 50 minutes - 29.3 MBIt would seem that if lunar tides cause or trigger earthquakes that everyone would know about it and beware of doom during the supermoon, but according to a few people, a vast conspiracy by Some has kept this free and easy-to-use earthquake predictor out of the general knowledge. Find out what the statistics actually show.
Episode 49: Billy Meier, Michael Horn, and Asteroid Apophis
August 24, 2012 12:00 - 28 minutes - 16.2 MBA look into the timeline of the alleged prediction by Billy Meier that a "red meteor," later linked to asteroid Apophis, will strike Earth in 2036. The conclusion is that the evidence is most consistent with a retrodiction.
Episode 48: Image Processing and Anomalies, Part 2
August 16, 2012 12:00 - 46 minutes - 26.8 MBSo many pseudoscientific claims rely on photographic evidence, and astronomy is no exception. In this Part 2 episode, I build on the basics from Part 1 and talk about dynamic range, noise, rotation, resizing, and adjusting the range of colors displayed. In almost every case, the computer is estimating the final result based on the original image, and anomalies can easily form.
Episode 47: Image Processing and Anomalies, Part 1
August 08, 2012 12:00 - 52 minutes - 30.6 MBSo many pseudoscientific claims rely on photographic evidence, and astronomy is no exception. In this Part 1 episode, I go through the basics of how an image gets from photons to pixels, the corrections we make to the image to try to get it to best represent the original, and some anomalies that can result.
Episode 46: Immanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision"
August 01, 2012 12:00 - 34 minutes - 19.9 MBImmanuel Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" laid forth the idea that Venus was a comet ejected from Jupiter just a few thousand years ago, and much crises happened as a result. Many today still use his ideas. What they were and whether they stand up to scrutiny is the subject of this episode.
Special Video 1: Richard C. Hoagland and the Ziggurat on the Moon
July 25, 2012 06:00 - 5 minutes - 65.8 MB VideoRichard C. Hoagland is at it again; this time, I take you on a short journey exploring Hoagland's claim that there is a ziggurat on the Moon. In this video exposé, I graphically show why this is a hoax, how this is a hoax, and conclude that Hoagland is an incompetent investigator (or lying that he did any investigation).
Episode 45: The Moon's Changing Recession Rate
July 24, 2012 12:00 - 28 minutes - 16.6 MBA young-Earth creationist claim is that the Earth-Moon system can be no more than 1.4 billion years old because, at that time, the Moon would have been touching Earth. Find out if this dooms "evolutionary theory," or if the YECs are wrong.
Episode 44: Independent Evidence the Apollo Moon Landings Were Real
July 16, 2012 12:00 - 20 minutes - 12.4 MBHere I talk about and explain four of the most convincing arguments that the Apollo moon landings were real: Ultraviolet photos, lunar rocks, lunar laser ranging, and actual spacecraft photos of the sites from orbit.
Episode 43: The Fake Story of Planet X, Part 3
July 08, 2012 12:00 - 22 minutes - 13.4 MBIn this edition of the ongoing Planet X (fake story) saga, I address the conspiracy theory that Planet X is approaching from the South Pole, which is why we can't see it, but governments have secretly built a telescope at the south pole so they can observe it.
Episode 42: Our Solar System Is Not of This Galaxy!
July 01, 2012 12:00 - 33 minutes - 19.5 MBIn 2003, scientists released a detailed map of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy that's being ripped to shreds by the Milky Way Galaxy. In 2007, a few news outlets took this and used it to say that our solar system is not native to the Milky Way. Find out what the evidence shows in a, "Who's yo' mamma?" episode of intrigue.
Episode 41: Crater Age Dating and Young-Earth Creationism, Part 2
June 24, 2012 12:00 - 29 minutes - 17.4 MBA detailed look at a few different methods that young-Earth creationists use to try to show that craters really do indicate that the Earth-Moon system (and universe as a whole) is only 6000 years old.
Episode 40: Crater Age Dating Explained, Part 1
June 16, 2012 12:00 - 40 minutes - 23.7 MBAn overview discussion of craters and how they are used to date surfaces in the solar system as well as some of the caveats, complications, and limitations that go with the method.
Episode 39: Radiometric Dating and Young-Earth Creationism, Part 2
June 08, 2012 12:00 - 30 minutes - 17.6 MBAfter going over the basics of radiometric dating in Episode 38, here I discuss some of the main young-Earth creationist complaints about the technique, and their arguments to try to invalidate it.
Episode 38: Radiometric Dating Explained, Part 1
June 01, 2012 12:00 - 52 minutes - 30.6 MBOverview episode of radiometric dating via an interview with geologist Rachael Acks. We discuss the history, the how, and the why of radiometric dating as well as some of the caveats of issues with the method and cases where it can not work.
Episode 37: Space Law and Extraterrestrial Property Rights, Interview with Nigel and Lady Saint Whitehall
May 24, 2012 12:00 - 49 minutes - 28.3 MBI interview Lord and Lady Saint Whitehall, two lawyers with pseudonyms, as a follow-up to Episode 27 (Stellar Scams). We discuss the Outer Space Treaty, legal precedents in the relevant areas, and extrapolate to what may need to happen legal-framework-wise in the future as private companies start to exploit extraterrestrial resources.
Episode 36 (BONUS): GAPs Young-Earth Creationists Must Believe or Ignore (Geology, Astronomy, and Physics) Live Talk
May 19, 2012 12:00 - 32 minutes - 17.9 MBStuart gave a live, half-hour talk about geology, astronomy, and physics that young-Earth creationists have to believe or ignore in order to be young-Earth creationists. This was given at the Denver, Colorado Skepticamp in May 2012. This is a live recording.
Episode 36 (BONUS): GAPs Young-Earth Creationists Must Believe or Ignore (Geology, Astronomy, and Physics) Live Talk
May 19, 2012 12:00 - 32 minutes - 17.9 MBStuart gave a live, half-hour talk about geology, astronomy, and physics that young-Earth creationists have to believe or ignore in order to be young-Earth creationists. This was given at the Denver, Colorado Skepticamp in May 2012. This is a live recording.
Episode 35: Photography Claims of the Apollo Moon Hoax, Part 2
May 16, 2012 12:00 - 31 minutes - 18.7 MBIn this Part 2 of a two+ -part series, I go over four alleged anomalies related to crosshairs and shadows made by Apollo Moon Hoax proponents. I also introduce a new segment, "New News" related to previous episodes.
Episode 34: The Giza Pyramid / Orion Correlation
May 08, 2012 12:00 - 19 minutes - 11.6 MBRobert Bauval originated "The Orion Correlation Theory" in the late 1980s that claims the three main stars in the belt of the Orion constellation align with the three main Giza necropolis pyramids. This has been criticized by some, praised by others -- what's the real story?
Episode 33: Flat Earth
May 01, 2012 12:00 - 27 minutes - 15.8 MBIt might be a parody these days, but there are websites out there that claim Earth is flat. Learn some "do-it-yourself" ways to figure out that it's round.
Episode 32: Interview About the Billy Meier UFO Case with Derek Bartholomaus
April 24, 2012 12:00 - 1 hour - 46.7 MBDerek Bartholomaus explains the basics of the Billy Meier claimed ongoing UFO contact case. From the beginnings to photographs, to videos, to metal, sound, and prophecies, we touch on several of the major components of the scenario and discuss how they can either be easily explained by Earthly means or are misquotes, misrepresentations, or mistakes.
Episode 31: Photography Claims of the Apollo Moon Hoax, Part 1
April 16, 2012 12:00 - 26 minutes - 15.4 MBIn this Part 1 of a two-part series (to be continued in a month or so), I go over the basic claims made for why the astronauts could not have taken the photographs. Part 2 will focus on what's actually in the photographs.
Episode 30: Was the Asteroid Belt a Planet? Part 2
April 08, 2012 12:00 - 32 minutes - 19 MBLast episode was on mainstream evidence - or lack thereof - for the asteroid belt having been a planet. This episode gets to one of the pseudoscientific ideas, from Tom Van Flandern, of Mars being a moon of one of the planets that supposedly exploded to make the asteroid belt.
Episode 29: Was the Asteroid Belt a Planet? Part 1
April 01, 2012 12:00 - 29 minutes - 17.3 MBA discussion on the history of the asteroid belt's discovery and four solid ways of showing that the asteroid belt could not have been a single planet that broke up or exploded. Stay tuned for next episode on the "Exploded Planet Hypothesis."
Episode 28: The Fake Story of Planet X, Part 2 (Gilbert Eriksen's Wormwood)
March 24, 2012 12:00 - 22 minutes - 13 MBIn the second of at least four episodes on different ideas about Planet X, this time we go into Gilbert Eriksen's ideas about the rusty-red star/planet that is presently causing earthquakes and tsunamis, the likes of which we have never before seen.
Episode 27: Stellar Scams
March 16, 2012 12:00 - 32 minutes - 18.7 MBTeachers tell students to "reach for the stars," but some companies out there offer to sell them and land on other planets to you. I give a recap of some of the legal issues involved and what's really going on.
Episode 26: Richard C. Hoagland, Part 1 - 19.5°
March 08, 2012 12:00 - 33 minutes - 19.5 MBOne aspect of Richard Hoagland's view of the universe has to do with a hyperdimensional number, 19.5° where everything energetic on all objects in the solar system is supposed to manifest. Hogland points to many features on many planets that do. This is an in-depth look at them and this claim.