SGUTranscripts - User contributions [en]

5X5 Episode 78

2013-09-18T22:35:14Z

Droidberg: Transcript complete 9-18-13

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|Contents = Crop Circles
|episodeDate = 23rd September 2009
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|bob = y 
|jay = y 
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|downloadLink = http://media.libsyn.com/media/sgu5x5/SGU5x52009-09-23.mp3
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== Crop Circles ==
{{5x5intro}}

S: This is the SGU 5x5 and tonight we're talking about crop circles. Now crop circles are a phenomenon that has been going on, at least in the modern sense that we think of them, since the late 1970s. These are the formation of first simple circles but then more and more complex designs that occur in crop fields. Either wheat, corn or barley or whatever, but 90% of the time in England most of the other time in the English speaking world that there have been crop circles described throughout the world and they have been rather controversial in that there is a set of people who believe that crop circles are either due to some natural phenomenon others think that they are a either supernatural phenomenon or the result of alien activity although the scientific consensus seem to be that they are probably the result of human either artists or hoaxers but in any case that they are nothing more than a man made phenomenon.

E: Yeah, and even before the phenomenon really struck the attention of people all over the world in the late 20th century there were a couple of cases prior to that of crop circles either mentioned or suggested such as in 1678 there was an English woodcut pamphlet called the "Mowing Devil" with an image of a demon using a scythe mowing fields of oats in sort of this oval design. And there's actually an article published in Nature Magazine in 1880 in which they describe something like crop circles being formed as perhaps suggesting at some sort of weather phenomenon related some sort of natural phenomenon regarding weather. But like you said Steve it was late 20th century in the 1970s when Doug Bower and Dave Chorley made it a habit to sneak out of their homes at night and take a four foot plant of wood attached to a rope secure it through their hat they would wear and walk around and in about 15 minutes these guys were able to make a 40 foot circle out of the wheat that they would walk though and the phenomenon really took off from there.

S: Yeah, Evan you mentioned the historical cases now some of the believers in an alien or supernatural phenomenon cite those as evidence against a modern hoax but of course these could be unrelated phenomenon. There is a modern hoax and art form of making circles, whether or not there have been historical cases. But of note these historical cases generally speaking are simple circles not the complex designs that we see today. And those who have brought those cases together to try to argue for an older heritage of the crop circle phenomenon have not done a good job in terms of the scholarship. Often times these had more prosaic explanations such as you know animals walking in a circle in a field and a crop field with the hoof marks clearly described by the contemporary eye witnesses for example. Or they're just very poorly sourced. Essentially they're trying to bring in anything they can call a crop circle and present it as if it were part of the same phenomenon that we're seeing today, but there really is no reason to think that.

J: Skeptical investigators Joe Nickles and John Fisher really to me make a compelling argument that crop circles are hoaxes in a report they wrote a while back called "Circular Reasoning: The Mystery of Crop Circles and Their Orbs of Light". To make their point they discuss four key characteristics, very important characteristics of crop circles. One of them is the escalation in frequency. As Steve said earlier they were first reported in the mid to late 70s and from 81-87 they really started increasing every year, one year after another ratcheting up higher and higher. This increase correlated nicely with the media coverage that was happening around the crop circle phenomenon. The coverage even, the media coverage even seemed to cause even more hoaxes. The second point they make is to look at the distribution. It started in Southern England and seemed to slowly spread to other countries as more and more people became aware of them and it's important to note that these were first English speaking countries. Nickles even describes this as a describes the crop circle phenomenon as a media born virus. The third point is the increasing complexity as Steve mentioned that earlier as well. They stared as very simple swirled circles then as time progressed they became different things, much more complicated things like interlaced spirals, very pretty snowflake designs and even I've seen some amazing fractals such as a Mandelbrot set, an amazingly complex. And the final factor they discuss is the shyness factor. These things just for some reason which is very compatible with a hoax, nobody really saw these happen or filmed any of this happen which leads you to think I mean all four points lead to the same that it's highly highly likely that these are just hoaxes.

B: It's believed by people like dowsers that crop circles actually have an electromagnetic field around where in the area that the crop circle was created or more specifically where the grass was pushed down. And the other thing I found about crop circles like Evan mentioned before that there was natural phenomenon explanations for crop circles. And one of them was that actually ball lighting. There are some people who think that ball lightning make these complicated crop circles which I thought was ridiculous.

R: Although ball lighting hasn't really been proved to exist isn't that right?

E: Yeah I do find it interesting though that in both these cases they're taking something that is not proven to be scientific and use these non-scientific methods of explaining something else that isn't scientific. So you're just compounding the psuedoscientifc aspect of all this.

S: Yeah using something that's unproved to prove something else that is unproved.

R: Well you know there is one other natural way to explain crop circles that doesn't even include humans. This past summer it was discovered that wallabies that were eating plants in opium fields were getting high and then hopping around in circles, creating what look to be UFOesque crop circle. And of course other livestock were as well like sheep and deer but it's funnier when the wallabies do it because it's just a funny word

S: Yeah so there could be some natural phenomenon thrown in there into this crop circle phenomenon creating essentially simple circles but on top of that there's no question there's a man made crop circle hoax or art form going on. The evidence going on is overwhelming and so far no one has produced any evidence of the suggestion that there is anything else going on. Proponents sometimes called cereologists will put forward lots of features of circles that they claim make marks them as legitimate. But what they're just doing is anomaly hunting. They're saying "oh look at the way the stalks are bent" or sometimes foreign substances are found on the stalks but they're just looking for anything anomalous or unusual and then declaring that a feature of a genuine circle. But there is no gold standard for "genuine" crop circle or anything that we would think should be a marker of for example alien activity. So this anomaly hunting approach that they take is a key feature of pseudoscience and what wer'e still left with today is that the simplest and best explanation is that crop circle are simply man made.

{{5x5outro}}

{{5X5 Navigation}}

5X5 Episode 69

2013-09-18T06:59:19Z

Droidberg:

5X5 Episode 76

2013-09-18T06:37:09Z

Droidberg:

5X5 Episode 60

2013-09-17T21:31:47Z

Droidberg:

5X5 Episode 60

2013-09-17T21:31:12Z

Droidberg: /* Cryptozoology */

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|Contents = Cryptozoology
|episodeDate = 5th March 2009
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== Cryptozoology ==
{{5x5intro}}

S: This is the SGU 5x5 and tonight we're talking about cryptozoology. The study of mysterious creatures.

R: Like unicorns.

S: Like unicorns and leprechauns and Eskimos

R: Aww my favorite creatures.

(Laughter multiple)

S: So cryptozoologists believe that there are creatures living in the world that we have not yet discovered. Now there's nothing amazing about that, there are of course about 10 million known species. However there are many unknown species and every time scientists go into a new corner of the jungle or to a new trench in the deep ocean that we haven't been to before we find a plethora of new species. But cryptozoologists believe in species of animals that are unusual, that defy the ordinary methods of exploration and investigation. For example Sasquatch or Bigfoot. A large primate living in North America, the pacific northwest, some believe in Canada or even in the east coast such as Pennsylvania. They believe that a Bigfoot may have unusual properties that allows him to evade capture or detection.

R: Perhaps an invisibility cloak of some sort.

S: it gets truly bizarre at the paranormal fringe. That he can teleport, that they're psychic, that they can turn themselves invisible, that they can travel extra dimensionally. But even if you put aside the paranormal stuff, the cryptozoologists go through elaborate special pleading in order to explain away all of the lack of evidence that one would expect to have if such a large mammal were in fact living in North America.

B: And that would include things like very large breeding population, that would be absolutely required for these beasts to exist unless of course you posit that there are only a few remaining. Which is just another form of special pleading and then typically people will say "oh you'd think somebody would come across a corpse lying around every once and a while, someone would hit one with a car or that you would find one that had died naturally" none of that has ever been found.

J: There's not that many scientists that would even doubt that there are thousands and thousands of unknown animals out there they particularly would say there are a lot of invertebrates out there that we haven't discovered yet. But we're talking about insects and things like that. They go for the big showy creatures like the Loch Ness monster and as Steve mentioned Bigfoot.

B: Yeah and not only are they big Jay but they're also in areas that people have been living in, going through for many many generations so it's not the undiscovered trench or valley in a remote area of Indonesia, it's in the mid-west of the United States. It's kind of silly.

E: There are always stories and accounts of these creatures and that's all we have go to by. There's no scientific evidence, there's no physical evidence left behind. All there is are the stories that people tell and the occasional blurry photo or shaky old film of something such as the famous Patterson film of Bigfoot all those years ago. But there's never actually any evidence and that's why it is and always will be pseudoscience, not real science

S: Although to clarify there are those who claim that there is physical evidence for many of these creatures however what you mean is that there is no compelling or verifiable physical evidence. So yeah sure there are people who claim there are hair samples of Bigfoot but on close inspection they always turn out to be either not hair at all or the hair of another animal like a bison for example. Or they claim that there are footprints and they've taken molding of these footprints but there's nothing about them, the footprints, that could not have been hoaxed. For example so in and of itself it is not definitive evidence that these creatures exist, it does not require the existence of this creature. But what cryptozoologists never come up with is the creature itself and that is the actual gold standard within biology. If you are going to propose to the world that there is a new species of creature in existence then you need some specimen and without a specimen it doesn't exist.

B: Alive or dead.

E: That's right, rubber suits don't count.

R: Yeah and course whenever a specimen of some creature thought to be extinct or gone or to have never existed, whenever such a creature is found it's always by actual working scientist. Not the amateur cryptozoologist who are brushing around digging through their back yards looking for Bigfoot.

J: And one last thought. Where other biologists would have given up, crypotzoologists never give up.

{{5x5outro}}

{{5X5 Navigation}}

5X5 Episode 51

2013-09-17T15:39:54Z

Droidberg:

5X5 Episode 59

2013-09-17T15:38:57Z

Droidberg:

5X5 Episode 59

2013-09-17T15:32:47Z

Droidberg: /* Sprites and other atmospheric phenomena mistaken for UFOs */

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== Sprites and other atmospheric phenomena mistaken for UFOs ==
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S: This is the SGU 5x5 this night we're talking about sprites in the atmosphere. Or how natural phenomenon are often confused with UFOs

B: In 1989 scientists discovered classes of electrical discharges high in the atmosphere that were previously unknown. One of these types is called sprite which is an electrical discharge that can take place 35-80 miles above the ground well above conventional lightning bolts which occur 7-10 miles above the ground. And they're quite extraordinary looking and at some point after they're created they can actually travel at I think 10% of the speed of light. And this professor, Professor Collin Price at Tel Aviv University claims that these sprites may in face be the cause for a certain percentage of UFO sightings.

J: And also Bob there's a lot of a lot of phenomenon that happens in the atmosphere that are mistaken for UFOs. One of the examples that we've discussed on the show, actually a couple examples that we've discussed on the show would be umm one of the planets that's in a closer orbit to earth, another example could be umm actually the moon which I was very very surprised a couple of years ago to learn that is often mistaken for some type of space craft

R: I believe you learned that on this very show.

J: I think I did.

R: Yeah people can be really surprised at how things that they assume they would never be fooled by you know when you look at through certain atmospheric conditions or just maybe you're a bit tired, it's late at night. It's amazing exactly how easy it is to fool us with natural phenomenon.

E: that's right and we had President Jimmy Carter on the show two years ago, to discuss his sighting that he had back in 1969 and he, to this very day is convinced that it was not a natural phenomenon that he saw something. Didn't say it was an extraterrestrial or anything like that but... all the indications were that it was the planet Venus. Judging by the time of day and the position of the bright object in the sky. So even someone like an ex-President can be fooled by naturally occurring phenomenon in the sky.

S: But of course if you look at some of the very interesting like these sprite phenomenon which are very cool by the way. I've seen images taken either from satellite or the shuttle at the electric discharges, essentially in the upper atmosphere they're very beautiful, but if you see something like that and you say that's a UFO, it's unknown and start to speculate about alien spacecraft you're going to miss the fact that this actually may be a very fascinating natural phenomenon. Sometimes even though something is natural like electrical discharge in the atmosphere that can also be an extremely fascinating scientific phenomenon. but you may miss that if you're distracted by the pop explanation of UFOs

B: In fact sprites are actually just a piece of the puzzle here there's other atmospheric discharges that were unknown until relatively recently that they all kind of dance across the sky in this unusual way which could be part of the reason why people see these moving light and interpret it as UFOs and they've gave them usual names like elves, goblins and trolls as well and its like Steve said it's an interesting new phenomenon we've only known about it for a couple of decades so it can't hurt to look a little deeper and try to find a natural, naturalistic explanation rather than jumping to you know the "cool" UFO conclusion

s: Of course there's an atmospheric, or alleged atmospheric phenomenon, called ball lightning which is still somewhat controversial and this would be rather than a lighting strike a ball or luminous glowing sphere that can you know be of various reported sizes but it really hasn't been documented that it definitely exists so far but this...

R: Although you can make a similar thing using your microwave but yeah it's never really been observed in nature

(Laughter Steve)

R: I'm serious you can do it in your microwave. Google it. Don't. Don't. Ask your parents first kids.

S: (Laughs) so there we have a genuine scientific controversy masquerading as a sort of scientific pop controversy. The take home message here is if you see something unusual in the sky, natural phenomenon need to be explored thoroughly and there's a lot of interesting stuff happening up there so don't jump past that explanation and leap to the UFO assumption

J: And don't try to simulate things in your microwave.

{{5x5outro}}

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5X5 Episode 51

2013-09-17T15:15:25Z

Droidberg: /* Skepticism 101 - Channeling */

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== Skepticism 101 - Channeling ==
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J: (unintelligible chanting) Okay. My name is Ramdaj, you may ask me any question.

R: Mmkay what is channeling?

J: I am channeling right now, the ancient spirit of Ramdaj he has come from far away.

E: How far?

J: Mmmm. Two thousand years. Namaste

R: That's funny because you're speaking English.

J: Yes I know but that is the way it works, sorry.

(Laughter Multiple)

S: This is the SGU 5x5 and the topic for tonight is channeling. Which is the modern manifestation of the old spiritualism and seance. It involves the claim of an individual who is the conduit for, or the channel for, a spirit. So it's channeling a spirit from the spirit world so they can use your body to speak to the living.

J: Steve you're right it is very closely related to spiritualism or maybe spiritualism is related to channeling. The only real distinction is that the channeling allows many different beings to join the party. This includes ancient humans from thousands of years ago, aliens from other worlds, and even beings that were never even corporeal in the first place. The advantage is obvious, the channeler doesn't have to answer those nasty questions about relevance or people that were recently alive that would be easy to disprove. So I mean who could doubt the word of an alien or somebody who lived two thousand years ago, it's a little, it's harder.

S: But the real advantage and this is the reason for the form of channeling that exists now is that the seances of 100 years ago were more, were involved a lot of physical tricks, you know having noises or voices or making a trumpet sound or a tambourine shake so the con artists who were pulling off the seance and pretending that that their mark was talking to the spirit of their dead loved one convinced them with these physical manifestations they were using escape artist tricks. The problem was that people like Harry Houdini exposed it. They exposed the industry of spiritualism by showing that these tricks can all be duplicated with a little bit of stage magic. So when this practice had its resurgence they essentially just eliminated all of the physical manifestations of a seance and just left the core of "there's a spirit in my body speaking with my voice" therefore the channeling occurs 100% in the mind of the channeler and there is nothing physical to debunk or to catch them up on. It's just either you believe them or you don't

E: And they come up with all kinds of excuses i mean you start asking some specific questions about the being that they are channeling and the channeler just has a way of just dancing around it. I mean for instance if somebody such as J.Z. Knight who claims to channel a 35,000 year old cromagnon warrior called Ramtha I mean what questions are you going to ask of that and try to get some validity as to see to see if it is really true or not there's really nothing much you can say or do like you said Steve you either believe it or you don't. And it it's an act. It's a cheesy stage magicians act it's all that it really is.

S: And of course for convenience the spirits always speak English or the language of the channeler

E: (Laughs) That's right.

S: And when pushed on this they do give an answer that just about amounts to "that's just the way it happen to work" and yet they speak English like, if you remember Evan, we investigated a local channeler who alleged to channel the spirit known as...

E: Dahartma.

S: Dahartma, yeah Dahartma. An ancient like 700 year old Nepalese uh spirit who spoke English because the channeler spoke English but yet spoke English with a vaguely Nepalese accent

R: Goofy accent

S: Yeah so why the accent if you're getting the language from the channeler why are you still retaining your own accent in a language you could never could speak when you were alive. It makes absolutely no internal sense but that's what creates the act. Right? so i'm just going to take on a different persona, speak in a funny accent, often you know with some shenanigans like with their eyes closed or some other kind of theatrical elements and that's it. It's just a complete act.

J: That's how I plan on retiring

R: By starting a channeling business?

J: Absolutely

R: I hate to break this to you Jay, but you're going to have to get a lot better.

(Laughter multiple)

J: You know what Rebecca, I've seen some channelers and no I don't.

R: (Laughs)

S: Yeah the low rent ones, I mean the local sort B or C channelers are terrible

R: Alright, you're a C channeler

J: Thank you.

S: Only the cream of the crop make it up to like the J.Z. Knight where they're bilking millions from people.

J: J.Z.!

{{5x5outro}}

{{5X5 Navigation}}

5X5 Episode 51

2013-09-17T08:10:11Z

Droidberg: /* Skepticism 101 - Channeling */

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|Contents = Skepticism 101 - Channeling
|episodeDate = 29th December 2008
|rebecca = y 
|bob = y 
|jay = y 
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|forumLink = http://sguforums.com/index.php/topic,16893
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== Skepticism 101 - Channeling ==
{{5x5intro}}

J: "unintelligible chanting" Okay. My name is Ramdaj, you may ask me any question.

R: Mmkay what is channeling?

J: I am channeling right now, the ancient spirit of Ramdaj he has come from far away.

E: How far?

J: Mmmm. Two thousand years. Namaste

R: That's funny because you're speaking English.

J: Yes I know but that is the way it works, sorry.

"Laughter" "Multiple"

S: This is the SGU 5x5 and the topic for tonight is channeling. Which is the modern manifestation of the old spiritualism and seance. It involves the claim of an individual who is the conduit for, or the channel for, a spirit. So it's channeling a spirit from the spirit world so they can use your body to speak to the living.

J: Steve you're right it is very closely related to spiritualism or maybe spiritualism is related to channeling. The only real distinction is that the channeling allows many different beings to join the party. This includes ancient humans from thousands of years ago, aliens from other worlds, and even beings that were never even corporeal in the first place. The advantage is obvious, the channeler doesn't have to answer those nasty questions about relevance or people that were recently alive that would be easy to disprove. So I mean who could doubt the word of an alien or somebody who lived two thousand years ago, it's a little, it's harder.

S: But the real advantage and this is the reason for the form of channeling that exists now is that the seances of 100 years ago were more, were involved a lot of physical tricks, you know having noises or voices or making a trumpet sound or a tambourine shake so the con artists who were pulling off the seance and pretending that that their mark was talking to the spirit of their dead loved one convinced them with these physical manifestations they were using escape artist tricks. The problem was that people like Harry Houdini exposed it. They exposed the industry of spiritualism by showing that these tricks can all be duplicated with a little bit of stage magic. So when this practice had its resurgence they essentially just eliminated all of the physical manifestations of a seance and just left the core of "there's a spirit in my body speaking with my voice" therefore the channeling occurs 100% in the mind of the channeler and there is nothing physical to debunk or to catch them up on. It's just either you believe them or you don't

E: And they come up with all kinds of excuses i mean you start asking some specific questions about the being that they are channeling and the channeler just has a way of just dancing around it. I mean for instance if somebody such as J.Z. Knight who claims to channel a 35,000 year old cromagnon warrior called Ramtha I mean what questions are you going to ask of that and try to get some validity as to see to see if it is really true or not there's really nothing much you can say or do like you said Steve you either believe it or you don't. And it it's an act. It's a cheesy stage magicians act it's all that it really is.

S: And of course for convenience the spirits always speak English or the language of the channeler

E: "laughs" That's right.

S: And when pushed on this they do give an answer that just about amounts to "that's just the way it happen to work" and yet they speak English like, if you remember Evan, we investigated a local channeler who alleged to channel the spirit known as...

E: Dahartma.

S: Dahartma, yeah Dahartma. An ancient like 700 year old Nepalese uh spirit who spoke English because the channeler spoke English but yet spoke English with a vaguely Nepalese accent

R: Goofy accent

S: Yeah so why the accent if you're getting the language from the channeler why are you still retaining your own accent in a language you could never could speak when you were alive. It makes absolutely no internal sense but that's what creates the act. Right? so i'm just going to take on a different persona, speak in a funny accent, often you know with some shenanigans like with their eyes closed or some other kind of theatrical elements and that's it. It's just a complete act.

J: That's how I plan on retiring

R: By starting a channeling business?

J: Absolutely

R: I hate to break this to you Jay, but you're going to have to get a lot better.

"laughter" "multiple people"

J: You know what Rebecca, I've seen some channelers and no I don't.

R: "Laughter"

S: Yeah the low rent ones, I mean the local sort B or C channelers are terrible

R: Alright, you're a C channeler

J: Thank you.

S: Only the cream of the crop make it up to like the J.Z. Knight where they're bilking millions from people.

J: J.Z.!

{{5x5outro}}

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