Brian Dunning

Facts and Fiction of Polynesian Navigation, Part 2 - Skeptoid The actual wayfinding methods used by the ancient Polynesians to navigate between islands and settle the entire Pacific Ocean.

This week we completed our Polynesian Navigation series on Skeptoid with part 2: the "incredible, amazing, intricate, elegant, and wonderful skills" employed to navigate the world's largest ocean with no instruments and no system of writing: skep.us/1009

I don’t get that vibe.

A 140-year-old mystery from Death Valley Did one of the Chinese borax laborers become history's most infamous monster?

Here, in this desolate place, I found the most terrifying creature in my life:

Death Valley 2025 Skeptoid event on October 21, 2025

𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗧 𝗨𝗣𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘!!
We've had to include a critical update to the upcoming Skeptoid Adventure to Death Valley. Please see the WARNING on the event page: skeptoid.com/events/30309

What are you reading?
Me - Ghost Wars (Steve Coll, 2004)

All of those things.

Has the ignition source of Will-o'-the-wisps been solved? No. No, it hasn't. Because there's no reason to think they're a thing to begin with, and this paper was shite.

This week @science.org published an odd blurb promoting a new paper that claims — very dubiously — to have figured out what ignited the Will-o’-the-wisps of legend. It’s a terrible paper, IMHO. It’s an explanation in search of something to explain. Take a look and let me know what you think?

Facts and Fiction of Polynesian Navigation, Part 1 - Skeptoid Nearly as much mythology as science surrounds the techniques used by early Polynesians to navigate the South Pacific.

Some have claimed ancient Polynesians weren't capable of navigating the vast Pacific; others have spread falsehoods about how they did it. The real facts of ancient Polynesian wayfinding (Part 1) are on this week's Skeptoid: skeptoid.com/episodes/1008

Check out Malaga-Nice, your Skeptoid Adventure of a lifetime: skeptoid.org/adventures

The newly released secrets of the Amelia Earhart case Trump has promised to reveal all the secrets. What will they tell us?

What will Trump’s promised release of the Amelia Earhart files reveal? I tell you here exactly what it will reveal:

Just wait until the Congressional UFO Caucus learns about US Navy's "Undersea Area 51" Some of our elected leaders are unable to discriminate between reality and science fiction. Let's see how they deal with this.

Some in Congress believes UFOs have undersea bases here on Earth. Do you think those same Congresspeople are aware of America’s “Underwater Area 51”? It’s real, and here’s all you need to know about it:

Is it true that if you tried to fly into Area 51, you'd immediately be shot down? Those few people who have found out are the topic of this week's Skeptoid: skeptoid.com/episodes/1007

This is the new 2025 RFK Jr Edition® iron lung. One in every household!

Tomorrow is the Rapture! Take an old pair of shoes, put a piece of dry ice inside each. Have fun.

Time for IQ tests for US Congress The stream of consciousness from our elected officials is getting shockingly dumber and dumber

If true this would be a high bar indeed — but the 119th Congress HAS to be the dumbest one yet. Examples in my Substack today:

I worked hard all day, so I earned the right to cook myself a proper lumberjack dinner: steak, garlic mash, butter-sauteed mushrooms, and thick gravy.

Yea; and he did commence the weekend with a fresh batch of pimento cheese.

Time to knock off... What Star Trek TOS episode shall I watch while designing a LEGO torsen differential? (That's my version of a mating call)

What's a genetic fallacy?

Horse Hunting Hooey A magical journey through supernatural ways to find a lost horse

Here are some of the “interesting” supernatural ways to find our lost horse that we’ve been offered by well-wishers on social media.

I CANNOT STAND THIS BEARD ANOTHER MINUTE. It’s itchy, it irritates, and it has failed to produce throngs of women knocking my door down. Any arguments for or against, before I do the deed?

No.

Trend followers can be sold just about anything, especially when you put a wild price tag on it and throw in a bunch of sciencey-sounding language. How about water that is more like water than water is? Skeptoid takes on "structured water" this week: skep.us/1006

Krazy Eyes Ka$h has the correct level of qualification for everyone in this administration: not just unqualified, but actively disqualified.

Here's a way to memorialize 9/11... Thoughts? Nope. Prayers? Nope. How about simply being truthful.

However you choose to memorialize 9/11 (or not), the best start is to abandon all the false conspiracy theories — here’s why:

Super interesting talk this morning from Josh Studor — whose (totally unrelated 😉) day job is in the WA AG’s office — “How SCOTUS made Christians a privileged legal class”. Some scary stuff.

Just spent a couple hours in the *AMAZING* central branch of the Seattle Public Library, going through a massive 600-page tome, researching an episode. All for YOU! 😃

Makes sense to me — it’s a lot better than the planet not quite making it all the way around.

RIP to Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Bigfoot’s representative in academia. I spoke with him a couple of times, and found him to be friendly and happy to engage with a skeptic; worth pointing out because I’ve heard others say the opposite about him. I’ll miss having him around.

Sure, but on what grounds?