56 episodes
Tales From The Rabbit Hole Mick West
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- Society & Culture
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4.5 • 82 Ratings
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Tales from the Rabbit Hole is an interview-style podcast focusing on people whose lives have been affected by the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Guests will include both former and current believers in a variety of conspiracy theories, as well as debunkers, skeptics, and the investigators of those theories. I’m Mick West, a debunker. I wrote the book Escaping the Rabbit Hole – How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories using Facts, Logic, and Respect. This book came from my experiences running Metabunk – a debunking forum. Over the years I realized simply presenting corrections to people is not enough. We need effective communication, and we can’t do that if we don’t listen to and talk with each other. I’m hoping this podcast will help bridge that gap.
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Episode 56: Robert Bartholomew – Havana Syndrome and Mass Psychogenic Illness
Robert Bartholomew has a PhD in Medical Sociology, and is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He’s an expert in Mass Psychogenic Illness and the co-author with Rober Baloh of the book “Havana Syndrome: Mass Psychogenic Illness and the Real Story Behind the Embassy Mystery and Hysteria”
Havana syndrome is a loose set of fairly generic symptoms that are being blamed on some kind of attack. It started with personnel at the US embassy in Havana, but has since spread around the world. Dr Bartholomew thinks it’s an example of Mass Psychogenic Illness – people are being asked to look for odd health events and strange sounds, and so of course they find them. But there really no good evidence of any kind of attack. Bartholomew thinks the intelligence community is largely aware of this, but an unbiased examination is being avoided for political reason.
Dr Bartholomew’s website – https://rebartholomew.com/ -
Episode 55 – Professor Avi Loeb: The Galileo Project
What is a University professor doing investigating UFOs? Professor Avi Loeb of Harvard University heads the Galileo Project, which seeks (in part) to identify the nature of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena by establishing a network of telescopes and instruments with the goal of obtaining the first unambiguous clear photos of UFOs.
We talk about the demarcation between science and pseudoscience, the rationale for the project, the challenges it will face, and how it all fits into Professor Loeb’s personal philosophy.
The Galileo Project: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo
Transcript https://otter.ai/u/abtJtNRU8RbBdUeUu50j9pb7m7Q
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Episode 54 – Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko: Pastels and Pedophiles
Mia Bloom is Professor of Communication at Georgia State University with a PhD in political science from Columbia University. Sophia Moskalenko is a research fellow at Georgia State University and a researcher at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Together they wrote the book Pastels and Pedophiles – Inside the Mind of QAnon.
We discuss how the book came about, the historic roots of the QAnon conspiracy theory, how QAnon has changed with the “Save the Children” narrative to attract more women, and what tangible steps can be taken to help individuals and to help improve the overall situation. -
Episode 53 – Jason Colavito – UFOs and the Invisible College, How Did We Get Here?
Jason Colavito is an author and journalist with a focus on “alternative archeology” and, more recently, the UFO cultural phenomenon. In May 2021, he wrote the article: “How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers” in the New Republic, describing how “a collection of well-funded UFO obsessives are using their Capitol Hill connections to launder some outré, and potentially dangerous, ideas.”
Jason’s historical research into the underpinnings of the current UFO/UAP flap is a vital component in understanding what is going on, and how we find ourselves in this situation. Going back to the 1960s and 70s, he traces a path from Jacque Vallée’s extradimensional hypothesis and Hal Puthoff’s paranormal research, through Robert Bigelow’s wide-ranging involvement via Harry Reid, to the current efforts of Luis Elizondo and Chris Mellon.
How Washington Got Hooked on Flying Saucers – https://newrepublic.com/article/162457/government-embrace-ufos-bad-science
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Episode 52 – Luis Elizondo – UFOs, UAPs, AATIP, and TTSA
Luis Elizondo is a former senior intelligence official, a disclosure advocate, a national security expert, and the former director of the Pentagon’s UFO/UAP Program (AATIP). We talk about his work in those capacities and also discuss the history and analysis of the three US Navy “UAP” videos.
Interview conducted on March 11, 2021
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Episode 51 – Michael: Post Inauguration QAnon Catchup
Michael is a “follower” of Q, in what is commonly known as the QAnon conspiracy theory. I first talked to him one year ago, February 2020. We met on Twitter discussing UFOs, but had a long discussion about QAnon. Michael thought for sure that Trump would win the election, and was quite hopeful about the prospects of a massive wave of arrests of the supposed child-abducting elites.
Since he made some predictions, we agreed to meet again, which we did on Feb 22, 2021. We discussed what did an did not happen, and Micahel good-naturedly tried to convince me (at some length) that there was actually something to Q. We also very briefly discuss UFOs.
Youtube version here
Customer Reviews
Hi
Love the one with Jason Colavito
What is a “professional debunker”?
Thrasymachus was an excellent debunker, as was Therisites. Thucydides and EH Carr— Their effectiveness was rooted in their capacity to draw fire power from an array of critical thinking tools, directing that power to their debunking work. I appreciate the importance of “debunking” Qanon, however one can do so, but West’s participation in the UAP debate strikes me as quite unconvincing. I would love to hear someone effectively debunk this stuff, because it freaks me out!! The fact that West’s contributions are so shallow, along with his tendency to cherry pick in ways that are glaringly obvious — well, this kind of freaks me out. If this is the only real debunker we have, then I have no choice but to assume this phenomenon is bigger than I once thought. That is how I happened on West— looking for someone who could tell me this was all hooey, and not finding it… folks, our whole legal system is premised on the idea that multiple corroborated testimonies actually mean something — videos, they just aren’t the only form of evidence — if they were, we would be in big trouble, given the growing sophistication of deep fakes…
Disrespectful
Mick is so disrespectful and rude. His skews on data and personal bias keep him and listeners from the truth. He should receive a gold medal for the mental gymnastics he undertakes to explain away anything that doesn’t fit his narrative. There’s not a zero star option or he would get it.